30 Days Of NaBloPoMo -OVER!

For anyone who wasn't paying attention, I just posted for 30 days in a row during the entire month of April! I'd hoped to stick to the letters theme for the entire month but I wasn't able to find enough "postable" letters to complete my goal. Plus it wasn't a requirement for NaBloPoMo. The letters theme was a suggestion, but the requirement was to post at least once a day for 30 days, (whether the post was about letters or something else.)

For the sake of completion, I may finish going through my box of letters at some point, to see if there are more I can post, but honestly, those were getting difficult to find. I'd read for an hour or two and not find one! Many were too personal, many were thank you letters (which would feel strange to post) and many wouldn't seem interesting or meaningful unless you knew the people who wrote them. I think, in the beginning, I naturally gravitated towards the people and letters I knew would be funny. Then I was left with the stacks that I knew would be more serious. I'll finish reading through my box in the months to come. We'll see what I find. -There have to be a few more in there!

April's NaBloPoMo challenge was easier for me than last November's (my very first!) If you've never done one of these, I highly suggest it, particularly if you're just starting out. The first time I did NaBloPoMo it was crucial to getting me into the routine of posting on a regular basis. This time... not so much! What can I say? I was already posting most days so the impact wasn't as great. But I'll probably do NaBloPoMo again in November.

Congratulations to the participants who made it all the way through and posted for 30 days straight! To those who didn't, there's always next month :)

D Is For...

1. D is for Donuts which, believe it or not, I don't like. I'm not sure why. Everybody likes donuts. I like the idea of donuts. They look pretty, I want to like them, but they make me queasy. I think it might be the grease they're fried in. I don't like those fried dough things with powdered sugar that you can get at fairs either. Same queasiness.
2. D is for Doodle. I got kicked out of 2nd grade for doodling. Someday I'll tell that story. And yes I was let back in! (I should start keeping a list of the stories I say I'm going to tell you guys "someday.")
3. D is for "Don't play that" as in "Homey don't..."
4. D is for Discover. A great word in any situation.
5. D is for Delivery. Sometimes a surprise, sometimes a convenience, usually a good thing in my book.
6. D is for Dracula. I'm not into Dracula or vampires, but I once had a hotel room in Italy with huge windows directly across from my bed that looked exactly like the windows Dracula always few through. I checked and there was no way someone could climb up to them, but I was kind of wondering if someone might swoop in one night. Staring across the foot of my bed at those windows was a bit creepy, but also kind of cool -in a very creepy sort of way.
7. D is for Drink. I drink 8-12 cups of water a day. I really do. I have a container that holds 4 cups of water and I generally go through that 2-3 times a day. I'd never be able to keep track of or remember if I'd had 8 or 12 separate cups of water, but with the larger container, I can remember and keep track of 3!
   
8. D is for Double. My mom is a twin. There's TWO of her! Twins supposedly skip a generation. Every time my sister got pregnant I told her "It could be twins!" My friend's sister in law gave birth to twins (a boy and a girl) and the next time she got pregnant they figured that they'd be covered whether they had a boy or a girl because they had clothing for both sexes left over from the twins. Know what she had? ANOTHER set of twins! Boy and girl again. -They're not getting pregnant anymore! (And no fertility drugs. Just a natural twin factory!)
9. D is for Dreams. Another area I should talk about more. I've always had a pretty active dream life.
10. D is for Done. I like being done with things. And now I'm also done with this list! :)
    

The Letter "P"

There's one week left to NaBloPoMo, and I have had NO TIME to read through more letters! This isn't to say that I didn't read through lots already. I did! I've almost read through them all, but not everything is "suitable for posting" and I haven't had a chance to read through the remaining ones to see what's left.

So let's change tactics for tonight. Tonight, let's celebrate the Letter "P".

• "P" as in "Part Of Everything."
• "P" as in what my friend is doing in her jug this weekend.
  
• "P" as in I think I may need to order a pizza.
• "P" as in pretty soon, I'm going to bed! ... so maybe that pizza's not such a good idea.
• "P" as in plans to: finish reading the rest of those letters, catch up on my blog reading, do laundry, go to the post office, shop for groceries, fix two computers, meet a friend for dinner, get a haircut, stop global warming and... Drat! The elevator's being repaired tomorrow. Well that cuts out laundry!

Smaller NaBloPoMo Badges

I wanted a small badge to add to the end of my NaBloPoMo posts, and found this at Growing Happiness. She has other colors there too!

NaBloPoMo "Letters" Badges

NaBloPoMo's theme for April is "Letters."

Look! I made badges! Want one? Grab it!

I know what some of you are thinking... You're thinking "What's the difference between some of these? They look exactly the same!" The ones on the right side have a thin border. The ones the left do not. (And the very first one is a tiny bit lighter than the two next to it.) For some of these I couldn't decide which looked better, so I gave up trying to figure it out. YOU pick! :)

You're not required to link back to here if you use one of my badges, but if you do use one, please leave a comment and say hi! :)

* Need help adding a badge to your Blogger sidebar?

EDIT: If you're looking for a smaller badge like this:



I got mine at Growing Happiness.

NaBloPoMo's Theme For April Is "Letters"

NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month) is officially in November. During NaBloPoMo insane bloggers take up the challenge to post every single day for an entire month. Recently, NaBloPoMo has become a year-round challenge. That's not to say that the challenge is to post for 365 days (though there are other groups for that.) The challenge is still to post daily for a month, but now you can do it for the month(s) of your choice! To motivate people, NaBloPoMo is creating themes for each month. April's theme is "Letters."

To quote Eden:

"This is not the same as Blog365 (http://blog365.ning.com). Those nuts are blogging every day FOR A YEAR.

No, the new monthly NaBloPoMo is just meant for people who want to try setting the habit of blogging by doing it thirty (etc.) days in a row starting any time of the year."

"...the daily blogging theme for April is going to be LETTERS.

For writers, this can mean letters to the editor, love letters, fan letters, ransom notes -- I'm not encouraging illegal activity, but the list is endless.

For typography lovers, it's a month full of fonts!

For photographers, it's license to go out and shoot things both manmade and natural that resemble a member of our beloved alphabet.

If you can think of more ways to apply this theme, feel free to start a new topic in the forums!"

Initially I thought there was no way I could come up with 30 days worth of posts related to letters, but then I started thinking about the box of letters I have in my closet; some dating back to childhood. And then there's email. Email counts as letters! Between those two sources I should be able to come up with 30 days worth of letter posts.

Unlike "regular" NaBloPoMo, I'm a bit uncertain about whether or not I'll be able to do all 30 days of this one. I'm not sure how comfortable I'll be reading through all those old letters. It might put me into memory overload! BUT... I'm going to give it a try! If I can find the right balance and not get too overwhelmed by memories I think this could be neat! Let's see how long I last :) Wish me luck and stay tuned for a letter a day for the entire month of April -or until my brain goes phfzzzzt!

* If this sounds like fun and you'd like to try it too, you might want to get your head examined head over to NaBloPoMo's website!

Edit: I've added badges for April's NaBloPoMo here.

Code For Adding NaBloPoMo Badges To Blogger Sidebars

I've been getting questions about how to add a NaBloPoMo badge to a blogger sidebar, so I'm posting some code below. If you already know html, just skip this! If you use one of my badges, you do not need to credit or link back to me, but please leave a comment here and say "Hi!" -Thanks!

Right click on the image you'd like to use and save it to your computer. If you're using Blogger, create a new post, place the image in your post using the "add image" button (it looks like a little photo.) and save the post as a draft. Next click on the "Edit Html" tab and find the code that looks something like

http://bp0.blogger.com/lotsofnumbersandstuff.jpg

That's what you'll need to paste below where it says "INSERT URL HERE BETWEEN THE QUOTES"

Are you with me so far? Good! Moving right along...

To insert a badge into a blogger sidebar, copy and paste the following code into an html/javascript widget:

<div align="center">
<a href="http://nablopomo.ning.com/" target="_blank">
<img style="border:0px;" src="INSERT URL HERE BETWEEN THE QUOTES" />
</a>
<span style="font-size:85%;">
NaBloPoMo badge from
<br/>
<a href="http://partofeverything.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Part Of Everything</a>
</span>
</div>


Your end result should look like this (with whatever badge you chose in place of Mary Tyler Moore):

NaBloPoMo badge from
Part Of Everything

If you'd prefer leave out the link to Part Of Everything, delete this part of the code:

<span style="font-size:85%;">NaBloPoMo badge from<br/><a href="http://partofeverything.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Part Of Everything</a></span>

Questions? Let me know!

More NaBloPoMo Badges!

As per a suggestion by The Surrendered Scribe.

Feel free to grab this one as well.
And leave a comment if you do!
(Code for the MTM badge is here.)

There's also this one by Sara which I think is hilarious!

More badges can be found here and here.

I Am Thankful That This Is The Last Day Of NaBloPoMo!

Don't get me wrong. I am thankful for NaBloPoMo! NaBloPoMo kick-started my blog and got me to start writing and posting my entries (instead of just saving them to my hard drive!) so I am grateful that Eden had the insane idea to create a month like this, and also that I was able to find out about it, join up, and actually post every single day for the month of November. Not to mention also fulfilling my quota of posts for 30 Days Of Thanks.

But now that this is all over, I'm looking forward to blogging at a more leisurely pace. And yes, I do think that I will continue blogging in some form or another. At the very least you know I'll be posting tomorrow because I already told you I would! :)

PS: Feel free to grab the badge! And leave a comment and say "hi!" if you do! (Code for the badge is here.)

I Am Thankful I Can Rhyme

I am thankful I can rhyme,
I used to do it all the time,
for songs and poems, jingles too,
I could rhyme "glue" with "shoe" and you!

I'm thankful I don't do this now,
but if I must, I still know how.
What good's a skill like this you say?
Well, it fulfilled my post today :)

I Am Thankful For NaBloPoMo

...because lemme tell ya, having officially reached the "halfway point" today, I can absolutely guarantee you that without NaBloPoMo there is no freaking way I would have been posting EVERY SINGLE DAY for the past 2 weeks!

Seriously though, this was the right way to start doing this blog. Wish me luck for the 2nd half! (And good luck to all of you too!)

My Wild Self

Last night, as I trolled through looked through profile pictures on NaBloPoMo to try to get some inspiration for mine, I came across this one by andi and thought "Hey! I want one like that!"

So I visited her blog and saw that she made it at buildyourwildself.com

I had a little fun there...



   

So did my friend Cammy
(I love this!)

The scary thing is, these really look like us! Lol!

Here's MP!
(Added 12/13/07)



What about you? Show me your wild self!

I Am Thankful For Hillary!

-Because Hillary wrote my very first comment on this blog AND she "friended" me on NaBloPoMo so I no longer have to see "You have no friends" on my profile page! She's also freakishly happy and functional and a lot of fun to read about on her blog. (Unless you don't like freakishly happy and functional people... in which case her blog would be a real drag!)

Hillary playing with her new camera features

I Am Thankful For...

I decided that during NaBloPoMo, in addition to regular blogging, I was going to try to blog about one thing I was grateful for every day. This is easy for me because I take nothing and no one for granted. I am extremely lucky and have a lot to be thankful for. This isn't to say that I don't have bad days or that crappy things never happen to me! But that doesn't change how truly fortunate I am in other areas. I never lose sight of that.

Of course because this is the Internet and there really is a group for everything out there, I discovered that there's a Group of bloggers who plan to write about something they're thankful for every day during NaBloPoMo. So I joined! :)

#3560

It's official. I've signed up and I am now NaBloPoMo member number #3560.

(And according to my profile page I have "no friends!")

NaBloPoMo

Ok, so here's the thing... I've been writing plenty. But what I haven't been doing is posting! Part of that is because I haven't finished the blog layout, part of that is because I rarely, if ever, share anything personal on the Internet and it's an awkward step for me to take. So I figured I'd jump in with both feet and give this a try for real during NaBloPoMo.

Qu'est-ce Que C'est NaBloPoMo?

NaBloPoMo is short for National Blog Posting Month. In order to participate in NaBloPoMo you need to have a blog, sign up, and then pledge to post every single day in November. I'm taking the plunge (and at the end of the month I'll see if this whole "blog thing" is really for me!)

Oh, and by the way, if I'm going to post something EVERY single day in November, I expect you folks to comment gosh darn it!

Here we go!