Thirteen Blogs I ALWAYS Read

1. First off, I have 4 friends that I read pretty much religiously - every time that I get one of their posts in my feed reader I immediately go to their website, and I often comment. These friends are:

Bug - An Indian Summer
Mouse - My Bitch Files
Brittany - Bitter Amalgamations
Amy - Perches in the Soul

2. Lisa @ justagirlintheworld.com - she’s the mastermind behind E. Webscapes and Blogs-About Hosting, and she’s also super nice and funny. She doesn’t post a ton, but I always read when she does. And, to top it off, she’s famous! She’s currently writing Wordpress for Dummies!

3. And two of my favorite “mommy bloggers” - Shannon at Rocks in My Dryer and Anne from PalmTree Pundit! These ladies always have great parenting anecdotes, links to great articles and sites, and an uncanny knowledge for what’s going on in the blogosphere!

4. And of course, Leanne at Intricate Art. Her beautiful art always lifts my day!

5. To get my OCD fix, I always turn to the organization queen at I’m an organization junkie! - she’s the best. She has great organization tips all the time, as well as neat and creative uses for bins, baskets, and more. Plus, she hosted that great Organization Challenge last year that forced me to get my closet into shape!

6. Stephanie over at Back in skinny jeans knows all about what’s going on with our self-image issues. She uses all the senseless reporting on celebrities to showcase our culture’s obsession with thinness - and she’s not taking it anymore. It’s refreshing to see someone with a healthy world view so prominent in the blogosphere.

7. Mama over at mamaVISION is an ex-model who lived through the horrors and is here to share all the nitty-gritty with us. Her real life experience in the fashion industry shows us how women are literally killing themselves to be beautiful and skinny. It’s disgusting, but it’s all true, and my heart aches. I’m glad that she lived through it and is now strong enough to share with the world.

8. I could not live without Lifehacker. It is an AMAZING site. Updated constantly, this site shows the latest downloads and techniques for making technology work for us instead of the other way around. From backing up your computer to managing your finances to figuring out the most efficient way to grocery shop, this site is on top of things.

9. As the proud owner of a Palm Treo, I have to post my favorite resource for programs and products for my Treo - Treonauts. This site is a wonderful resource for any questions you may have about Treos.

10. And my two favorite gadget sites - CrunchGear and Engadget. They are on top of the latest in technology news, constantly updating with reviews and announcements, with a healthy dose of commentary. Invaluable for any technophile!

11. For interesting religious commentary on current issues, I turn to ThinkChristian. The slant is a little more intellectual and theological, but still down to earth enough that I don’t feel like I’m reading a text book!

12. For quick headlines that are of interest, SmartChristian.com is the way to go. The posts don’t really say much, but I’m always directed to interesting material!

13. And to round things up, my two favorite green sites - TreeHugger and WorldChanging. These sites update constantly to show the latest in the news, renewable resources, sustainable design, and basic green living. If you want to learn anything at all to help our planet, these sites are a GREAT starting point. Not too much political agenda, they’re designed as resources to help us figure out the smartest and greenest way to live.

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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!

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Thirteen Things about LINDSEY

1. It’s been a few weeks since I participated - I am a bad hostess, LOL! Things have been really busy with the holidays and all the changes in my life. My brain hasn’t been up to much real posting, but I think that things are finally starting to get a little more calm.

2. Today is FlyLady’s 7th anniversary! Congratulations to her - she’s made so many changes to so many people’s lives! From the email sent to her list today:

It is hard to believe that this little list that FlyLady started in 1999 has become such a blessing to so many. I am so proud to be a part of something that helps so many of you and I know FlyLady and all of the Fly Crew feels the same way. You have opened up your hearts, minds and homes to us and we love you all.

One of the questions that was asked of me was “Who is the Fly Lady?”

FlyLady is a system developed to help people gain control over their homes, their clutter, and their lives. It is absolutely amazing! I heard about it for a while before I actually decided to give it a try, and once I did decide to try it I was sure that it wouldn’t work for me - it all seemed a little contrived and silly. Imagine my surprise when it began to slowly change my life. It’s caused me to finally learn how to clean my apartment (I’ve just graduated from college, so I’m just now starting to live away from my parents’ home and a dorm), it’s caused me to start exercising (a feat, I assure you - I’ve been trying to get that one going for years), I’m beginning to cook and quit buying convenience food, and I feel generally happier, more at peace.

It’s kind of hard to explain how it works without really getting into depth, so I’ll just direct you to FlyLady’s site - there are great explanations there! And don’t worry too much about being overwhelmed. The entire system is based on the principle of babysteps, so you are slowly eased into the process!

Thanks for the great question SussieQ - I’m more than happy to go on about my experiences with FlyLady if anyone wants to know more!

3. Matt asks where babies come from.

Matt also asks if I am left brained or right brained. I have taken several assessments, and it always surprises me how in the middle I always am. The one that I have found to show the most bias is this one:

However, I feel like there are many characteristic traits for right brained people that I identify with, so I have no idea which I am, haha. Probably left brained with right brain tendencies.

4. Mouse asks, “What is your opinion on divorce? Do you feel that too many people are using divorce as a escape route (lazy way out) instead of sticking by their vows and remaining with their man/woman and trying to work out their troubles?”

Yes, I agree with that completely. I think that as divorce has become more accepted in our society people began to see it as an escape clause to their marriages. There wasn’t as much though put into picking a mate because you could always get divorced if things didn’t work out. As a result, people are not marrying the right people because they aren’t taking the marriage vows seriously (they’re marrying the “right now” people), and when things do get tough, everyone is tossing in the towel instead of actually taking some time to work out issues. Passionate love, while necessary for a relationship, is not the only part of a relationship. The best friend aspect of marriage becomes vital when the passion begins to fade, and it is the mutual respect that holds together marriage. I think that people need to be very careful when they consider their future spouse, and there needs to be a verbal agreement between both people before they are married that they will take the “to death do us part” seriously. I am more than happy to continue this discussion should anyone else be curious! Thanks for the great question!

5. Pete wants to know “Why are girls stupid?”

Pete, to that I ask you - why are boys stupid?

You know I love you.

6. Brittany asks, “Evolution/creationism/intelligent design debates – where do you stand with this stuff?”

I was actually discussing this with my mother yesterday :-). I believe that God created the earth and humans. I believe that He created it in 7 days. However, I am not set on the literal understanding of these things. I am not opposed to the idea of evolution. However, through that evolution, I believe that when it came time for the actual man to be developed, God created him. The exact details of this aren’t really that important to me - my faith in God allows me to be OK with not understanding it 100%. Humans have finite minds and a finite understanding of this world, and since God and time are infinite, how could I ever expect to understand it? As for the 7 days, I do believe the world was created in 7 days. However, I think that each day was not a calendar day as we know it - more than likely day 1 was billions of years, day 2 was millions of years, day 3 was hundreds of thousands of years, etc. There is evidence that days are getting shorter, so who is to say that each of those days was not a God day instead of a 2006 human day?

That’s just my understanding. For some people, exact scientific proof is going to be the only thing that allows them to believe something. I guess that’s where faith comes in :-D!! Great question!

7. If you’ve got a question for me, I’d LOVE to answer it! Please, ask me ANYTHING!!! Thanks for the great questions guys!

8. There’s a really awesome new forum over at the Thursday Thirteen hub! Make sure you check it out!!!

9. A little 101 in 1001 update: on Tuesday I took all my change to the church for a fundraiser the youth are doing - they actually WANT everyone’s pocket change! I’m sure they were surprised with the $165.52 I brought in! Mark off #59 on my list :-).

10. Another big thing happened this week on my list - I marked off #64 . . . but it’s going to get its own post ;-)!

11. You may have noticed my site was down for a while at the beginning of the week . . . that’s because I’ve changed hosts! Be sure to check out Blogs-About Hosting!

12. Has anyone seen The Nativity Story? My mom and I are intending to see it, and I was curious to know what others thought about it . . .

13. Interested in getting rid of all that junk mail AND helping the environment? How about with just a few clicks of the mouse? Enter greendimes!!! This seems positively fantastic! Thoughts? Any other good green tips?

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!

As a follow-up to the post about my new disclosure policy, I thought I’d let everyone know about how good PayPerPost has been to me. Now, keep in mind, I don’t post as often as most people do, but look at what I’ve gotten from them:

Have ALREADY been paid: $52
Pending payment: $20

It’s ridiculous. I get that money for advertising on my blog by word of mouth marketing, and you probably wouldn’t recognize the majority of my PayPerPost posts as such because they are topics that I would blog about anyways. I’ve got lovely money for things like hosting . . . and Christmas presents!!! And I don’t even have to compromise my opinions or blog . . . Why WOULDN’T you want to do this?!

So, we’ve got about 2 and a half months to do good on our New Year’s resolutions. How are you doing? Did you work on yours for a little while, then slowly dwindle off? Are you making good on your resolution? Or did you flop in the beginning?

I posted my New Year’s Resolution here. The long and short of it? I resolved to make a dent in my 101 in 1001 (and I’m at almost 30% complete thus far, I think that’s pretty good!) and I wanted to get my mother’s bead business online. I’ve just come from a weekend at home discussing that very issue, and while I’m not 100% sure it will be up and active within the year, I know that it will be very close to that. And that’s worst case scenario - most likely, it will be up!!

So I feel like I’ve done pretty good this year! How about you? Make sure that you submit your progress report to the Blogging Chicks carnival, which I am hosting this weekend! Please turn in your submissions by Saturday night - my email is listed to the right!