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My Fab Four

Over the last several months, I’ve finally started to discover a group of bloggers I really love.  The voice, the tone, the humor, along with a healthy dose of admiration keeps me coming back day after day.  If I were to put together a super group of humor bloggers who revel in discussing childhood memories, good and bad, this would be my Fab Four:

Childhood Relived

It all began with Freshly Pressed.  Thanks to Freshly Pressed, Angie Z. of Childhood Relived is responsible for my “discovery” of several of the blogs below.  Childhood Relived serves up a humorous look back at childhood way back in the 1980s.  She covers all the essentials, including 80s fashion, Cabbage Patch Kid dolls, Teddy Ruxpin, ShowBiz Pizza, as well as Poltergeist.  I can’t get enough.  Her humor is wonderful.  If you long for the days of jelly shoes and bracelets, you owe it to yourself to check it out.  Her latest piece is a priceless look at Richard Simmons.  Enjoy!

What the . . . Richard Simmons? « Childhood Relived

Once A Little Girl

Once A Little Girl is the only one of the Fab Four I didn’t come across thanks to Angie Z.  Nope; it was fate instead.  I just happened to be browsing WordPress when I happened across Adela’s Once A Little Girl.  It was love at first sight, but more on that in a minute.  Adela not only grew up in Michigan, she also happens to be the aunt of a childhood classmate.

Now on to why I love Once A Little Girl so much.  First and foremost, Adela’s voice throughout the blog is pitch-perfect.  At times it is easy to forget her pieces are written from the perspective of an adult chronicling her childhood memories.  The voice that comes across in each post is that of a wide-eyed child who happens to have the distance and knowledge to realize just how meaningful childhood memories can be.  It is unique.  I can only hope to do half as well.  Once A Little Girl is sweet, not saccharine.  Do yourself a favor and check out some of her reoccurring features.  I’m honored to have guest-posted.

Once a Little Girl Friends « Once A Little Girl

Little Girls: Then and When « Once A Little Girl

The Middlest Sister | There are 5 sisters. She’s the middlest.

The Middlest Sister is the most unique blog I’ve ever come across.  It is part comic strip, part blog, and all painfully true.  My love of The Middlest Sister led to a few unexpected surprises along the way.  Back in February, as my Mom and I continued work on her series of children’s books, I introduced my Mom to The Middlest Sister.  As the middle sister in a family of five girls, I knew my Mom could relate.  Thanks to the The Middlest Sister, my Mom now has a basic appreciation for blogs, even though she does not yet fully understand the concept of someone working so hard on a project without compensation.

So, what is all the fuss about?  Frankly, there just isn’t anything out there today similar to The Middlest Sister.  Nicole spends each week crafting each new comic strip and/or post.  You have to see for yourself.  On top of the uncanny crafting of each post, the scenario depicted each week will leave an empathetic smile on your face if you have any siblings at all.  The trial and tribulations depicted in each new comic are timeless experiences of childhood.  They ring true whether you are 60 or 6.  The Middlest Sister rightfully gained some recognition recently.  See the link below for more details:

About | The Middlest Sister

All Copyrights belong to The Middlest Sister ~ 2012
Nicole’s interpretation of yours truly. I love it!

Go Guilty Pleasures!

The newest kid on the block in my universe, Jules of Go Guilty Pleasures! shamelessly brings back the side pony (or as my family called it, the side tail) and slap bracelet.  How could I not help but include her here, especially after learning of her affection for chipmunks and enjoying every minute of her feature on Childhood Relived?  Check it out here and/or here.  The entire premise of Go Guilty Pleasures! is something I can support.  Why not indulge in what makes us happy, as long as it is legal and doesn’t hurt anyone?

Honorable Mentions:

Below is a list of blogs I visit regularly and love.  I didn’t include them above simply because they do not focus on childhood antics and/or nostalgia.

My Pajama Days

A great family blog by a fellow Michigander, I love Emily’s candor when discussing her own challenges, as well as experiences as a Mom of a teenager.  She may not know it, but My Pajama Days helped set me in the right direction when I looked to grow Ramblings of a Misguided Blonde earlier in the spring.  I simply began looking into some of the blogging communities featured at the bottom of her blog.  A few seemed a perfect fit and set me on my way.  Emily, thank you.

Becoming Madame

If I am ever an expat living in Spain or South America, one of the first things I’d do is set up a blog chronicling all of my experiences living abroad.  Of course, I’d have to model the blog after Becoming Madame.  If you’ve ever dreamed of living in France, Becoming Madame is a wonderful resource for all things Parisian.

Robin Coyle

Robin Coyle happened to be my biggest cheerleader throughout 2012 A to Z Blogging Challenge: Beatles Edition.  She is as almost as big of fan of the Beatles, Paul McCartney in particular, as I am.  Most importantly, her blog is a fantastic resource for writers.  I will be sharing and commenting on some of her posts in the near future.  If you are a writer or even think that you may one day want to write, you need to check out Robin Coyle.

free penny press

free penny press is probably the blog most similar to Ramblings of a Misguided Blonde in that Lynne features whatever catches her fancy on free penny press.  Her blog is gorgeous, well-done, and always interesting.  Her latest post brings wonderful news:  Her brother is coming home from Afghanistan!  Check it out.  He’s coming home « free penny press

Little Girl Feet

Little Girl Feet (Photo credit: mtsofan)

Twitter, Facebook, And WordPress ~ Oh My!

Well, I’m delving into Twitter once again.  If you are so inclined to follow me, you may do so via the button in right hand column of this page.  You may also friend Ramblings of a Misguided Blonde on Facebook.  That “like” button is located directly above my twitter feed.  I’m looking to make this blog more interactive.  I come across so much great material it is hard to keep up at times.

As for all of my new followers, whether Facebook, Twitter, or WordPress, welcome!  Please take the time to look around.  I’m always looking for feedback.

Copyright 2008-2012 Mark Blehm

Freshly Pressed Love

Snyder-Phillips Hall was built in 1947. The bu...

Image via Wikipedia

I believe I forgot to mention just how much I love Freshly Pressed and WordPress.  This beautiful Saturday morning I discovered the post below on Freshly Pressed.  It is exactly what I need to hear today.

Stop Sabotaging Your Own Success: A Manifesto « When I Have Time by Sara Rosso

I had an earlier version of this post which I lost when Word decided to crash on me.  Unfortunately the recovery version didn’t include the latest paragraph, and I accidently dumped the entire thing.  In the end, it isn’t a bad thing.  I started to discuss precisely why I need to hear the message in the above post today.  It turned out to be incredibly lengthy and much more well-suited for my About Me page.  I may just have to do that in the future.  The gist of the message is this:  I can’t understand why I am now so risk adverse in my career today when I was the EXACT opposite in my academic career at Michigan State University.  I consider my years at MSU extremely successful.  Unfortunately, I have yet to really do much of anything with my “career.”  I’m merely getting by.

But back to the topic at hand:  I just find Freshly Pressed amazing.  You can find Childhood Relived’s Angie Z.’s take on Freshly Pressed here:   I Got Your “Freshly Pressed” Right Here « Childhood Relived.  As a direct result of Freshly Pressed, I’ve discovered some wonderful bloggers.  Those listed below are just a sample.

Childhood Relived
My Pajama Days

The Middlest Sister | There are 5 sisters. She’s the middlest.

I’m just thankful I left Blogger when I did.  Below Dr. Helen discusses her recent move away from Blogger.

Dr. Helen: New Blog at PJ Media

Her new blog is here:  Dr. Helen

WordPress

Image representing Blogger as depicted in Crun...

Image via CrunchBase

2011 In Review

Interesting stuff!  I hope this becomes a tradition.

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,800 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 47 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Yet Another Ramblings of a Misguided Blonde

Many of you may well be aware of some of the issues with Blogger. As I grew in my blogging efforts, I’ve run right into them. Thus far, I’ve come up with a solution. I’ve created a shadow-blog on WordPress. Essentially, I’m just importing posts from here to the WordPress version. Within the next couple of days, I’m going to be adding several static pages on WordPress. They will then appear as links here. This is the reason why I created the WordPress version. I tried creating separate pages using my main blog on Blogger as a template. It just didn’t work. This was much easier to set up. There is no need to change links or anything. Just be aware that the other blog is there. I just did it to have the functionality of creating static pages.

Ramblings of a Misguided Blonde

Lindsey

500th Post! Where Do I Go From Here?

This marks the 500th post on Ramblings of a Misguided Blonde. Soon, I will have officially been blogging for three years (May 1st). It is a time that I upgrade a little bit and better organize all of my content. This is where I need help.

There are several things that I’m considering here. First off, I’m wondering if there is a way to create stand-alone pages within Blogger. With WordPress, bloggers have the option to create a new post or a new stand-alone page. There are several things that I’d like to relegate to separate pages. Is anyone aware of a way to do this using Blogger? I’ve thought about moving to WordPress; however, that requires a lot of work considering the few features I want to utilize (I’d also like to be able to hide parts of longer posts behind cuts as is common in LiveJournal). Thus far, I’ve created a WordPress shadow blog (essentially I just uploaded all of the posts here to a WordPress blog). I’d love to get some feedback. My understanding is that I’m dealing with one issue here. If I can create stand-alone pages, I’ll be able to hide items behind cuts.

Please help!

Thanks in advance,

Lindsey

P.S. – I love Blogger and really would like to stay here!