A Plan and Some Questions for Y’all!!!

1. After my sad post the other day, I did some hardcore searching for state blogging groups/rings/sites.

2. My results? There’s not much. At all. As in, I found groups for only a handful of states, none of which are in the South!

3. So what should I do? Take Bug’s suggestion - start something myself.

4. However, I decided that just starting a ring for Florida or North Carolina wasn’t going to be enough. There’s obviously a lack of Southern blog groups out there - and there were a couple I found that were just Southern in general, but they were definitely aimed at women (which, while I obviously have no problem with that, it does kind of leave half the species out of the running).

5. So I’m working on a new project. It will be a place for Southern bloggers to find both state and regional representation. Contests, spotlights, possibly memes . . . all the good stuff ;-)!

6. However, while I am totally prepared to take over the majority of the work, I am going to need to coordinate some with a representative blogger from each state. Which brings me to my questions . . .

7. Are you a blogger? Do you live in one of these states?

-North Carolina
-South Carolina
-Mississippi
-Florida
-Alabama
-Georgia
-Louisiana
-Texas
-Virginia
-Tennessee

If so, please email me or tell me this in the comments. Even if you have zero interest in helping out with this, I’d love to get an idea of where people are from!

8. Do you consider your state Southern, and it wasn’t mentioned above? Let me know!

9. Are you from all over the South? For example, I was born and raised in Georgia, I’ve technically lived in Florida for about 10 years, but I’ve been up here in North Carolina for the past four and a half years because of college. If I had to pick just one state to join, I’m not sure which one I’d pick!

10. Are you a Southerner, but you live somewhere else now? I’ve got ideas for you too - let me know who you are!

11. And now, a few non Southern-centric questions. In a blogging group, what are the most important things you look for? Contests? Awards? Memes?

12. If there was one thing that you absolutely cannot stand in a blogging group, what would it be?

13. If you think that this is really cool, and you KNOW you want to help out, please let me know!

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

Leave me a comment and I’ll give you a shout out!

Thirteen Things about LINDSEY

1. As you can see, I am back and ready to go! There was a bug in DirectAdmin, the software that the server uses, and it allowed hackers to manipulate anything running on PHP, especially WordPress. However, my host ROCKS, and in less than a week she had physically replaced the hard drive on the server, re-set up EVERYONE’S accounts, restored all the databases (in mint condition), and all websites were back up and running! She’s my favorite :-)!

2. As much as I hated the site being down, and as much as I missed blogging (I was gone less than a week, how pathetic am I?), it was probably good that I couldn’t blog. Last week we did an intense business simulation that absolutely consumed my week. I literally had time for NOTHING else. And that was supposed to be the easy week between sessions! I don’t know what they were thinking!

3. Speaking of . . . school is killing me. The further I get into this program, the harder and more intense it gets. I have NEVER had this much work for school. And it’s not easy work. Some of it makes sense . . . a lot doesn’t. I’m working hard to grasp the concepts, but there are SO MANY new ones that I feel like I’m lost. The schedule is crazy, the work is hard (and in high volume), and my brain doesn’t like to work this way.

4. One nice thing is I FINALLY have a roommate ;-)! Ben finally moved up here this past weekend, and it’s been really nice having him around. He’ll sit around and talk about artsy things with me, which apparently my brain is craving. It’s amazing how an intellectual conversation about something artistic makes my constant headache GO AWAY! Plus, Ben gives me hugs, which I was quite deficient on after a summer of living alone!

5. This sounds so trivial, but one of the things that has made school be so exhausting has been waking up MUCH earlier than I have been the past 4 years. I have to be up around 6AM and be sitting in the classroom ready to go for class at 8AM.

6. One of the things that has gotten me through those hard mornings is coffee! Yup, I was able to cross off #93 on my list of 101 in 1001 - I’ve switched from Diet Coke to black coffee in the mornings!

7. Another thing that gets me through the mornings - breakfast! When I was waking up at 11AM every day, it as easy to skip it, but now I eat it every day! Mark #18 off the list!

8. This past weekend (I didn’t have much homework) I was able to finish watching all the DVDs that I own. I had a couple of TV shows to go, but now I’m good! Cross #82 off!

9. As I posted in my post about backing up, I am now backing up both my websites and my hard drive regularly, knocking off #67 and #68 on my list!

10. Tomorrow my parents, brother, and cousin are all coming up here. And on Friday Bo (my brother) will be moving onto campus at Elon University, 45 minutes from my apartment. He’s growing up so fast, I can’t believe he’s starting college!

11. Along with all my family, the puppies are coming to visit! And since they’re all gonna be busy moving Bo in (and my parents will be staying in a hotel), the puppies get to live with me for the weekend! Woo hoo!!!! I’m so excited, they’re so adorable, and I miss them so much! They are Cavalier King Charles Spaniels - the black one (Tricolor) is Olive, and the tan one (Blenheim) is Ella :)!

12. After browsing around blogs yesterday, I found a post about FlyLady - and decided to join. We’ll see how it goes!

13. Before the crash I did a lot of blogroll checks for Thursday Thirteen, and now that I’m back, I’m gonna pick up where I left off! It was actually a lot of fun because I visited a lot of sites that were newer to the blogroll, so I hadn’t seen them before. But goodness, we’ve got a lot of participants now, LOL!

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!
View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

Leave me a comment and I’ll give you a shout out!

This week’s theme for the Blogging Chicks Carnival is “What I love about blogging!” It’s open to ALL women, not just members of Blogging Chicks, so join on in!

I think my absolute favorite thing about blogging is learning about all the different technological things that people are interested in. I’m a subscriber to the RSS feeds of LOTS of technology blogs. I love the fact that I can hear all about the latest tricks with my computer, the newest Treo rumor, and all the shortcuts that can happen with adopting small technological advances.

However, my favorite thing about my personal blog and the blogging that I PERSONALLY do is the relationships that I have found. There are so many interesting people out there who are all blogging, and I have learned so much from them! Lots of these people can be found on my blogroll to the side, but don’t let that fool you - I have about 100 feeds that I receive in my feedreader, and I read them ALL. I know people often link to sites they don’t read, but I am not one of those people. I love keeping track of what people are doing. There are so many times when I’m down and someone will comment on my blog and it will completely change my mood 100%

Thank you so much to all those people out there who keep blogging, despite what is going on in their lives. There is so much that we can learn from each other, and blogging has changed my life. (Man, that sounded way cheesier than I had intended it . . . you get my drift).

So come on! What do you love about blogging?

I have joined the lovely group Blogging Chicks! You can get to their Metablog by clicking on the above image. It’s got a blogroll full of great blogs, and there is also a carnival every week! I’ve never done a blog carnival, so I’m excited about this! So stop by and see what everyone is saying!