Barking Mad

Sunday Surfing

What an incredible week!

The blog makeover is complete!  FINALLY!  So, what do you think?  I could not have done this - well wait, I did not do any of this.  I don't possess the mental facilities to do what was done.  The lovely and very generous Debbie from Bird on a Wire and the brains behind Lagniappe Marketing was the genuis who helped me with the new layout.

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I found out that in a lot of places the issue of Woman's Day magazine that my piece is being featured in, is already on the shelves!  I was told by the editorial staff at WD that it wouldn't hit retail shelves until 8/31, so imagine my surprise to start getting emails, facebook messages and tweets about people having picked it up while they were out shopping!

I thought it would be apropos for this edition of Sunday Surfing to highlight the other two women, who also have blogs, who were featured in the October issue as well.

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Cammy from Tippy Toe Diet - from her "About" page:

"After years of the diet cycle–trying, failing, trying, failing, trying failing (you get the picture)–I finally discovered a successful path to losing 100 pounds, a path that required slow, gradual changes."

Cammy looks wonderful and I'm enjoying getting to know her via her blog!

 

Hollie from Hollie's Weight Loss Blog :  From this post:

"I do not want to be on a diet.

I am done.

Diet failure is doing more damage to my weight loss efforts than NOT being on a diet."

I think there are a lot of people out there, who can identify with what Hollie says above.   I know that for me personally, every time I have lost weight and regained it, it's always returned with more weight and I've ended up feeling even worse about myself afterward.

Hollie has stopped the horrid dieting cycle and is now working towards permanent weight loss through living a healthy lifestyle and making permanent changes that support that life.

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I know this edition of Sunday Surfing was short and sweet.   We've been gone most of the weekend and the laundry has once again reached epic proportions.  Need I say more?

Sunday Surfing

I woke up today to the giddy joy that I would have the house all to myself!   No husband or child underfoot (Gareth took Gaby to an air-show over in western MA), no repeated warnings to said child to stop trying to dress up the cats in baby doll clothing and then telling her at least 147 times to take all of the baby doll clothing and put it back on the naked babies that were so carefully lined up on her bed once she'd stripped them bare!  Of course, I still have three cats to contend with and seeing as how it's an absolute deluge outside with occasional rumbles of thunder and a silvery-white flash of lightning, they are underfoot.

To be precise, as I sit and type these words, Geronimo is licking my left foot.  I hate when he does this.  Don't get me wrong, my feet need to be ex-foliated in the worst way, but I prefer to have that done by something that doesn't lick it's own butt and then my foot!

Now that I've left you with a lovely mental image how 'bout we get on with some lovely linkage?  I'm going to fire these off with a little less wordiness than usual because I'm pretty sure I shouldn't be on a computer during what's turning out to be quite the mid-summer thunderstorm!

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Bern This

You might recognize Jessica Bern from several places...she's been in over three dozen highly visible television commercials and was "spokeperson for companies such as Wendys, Amana and ACS Wireless."  In addition to that she "spent many years performing stand up comedy and appeared on such networks as NBC, FOX, A&E and MTV."   And yes, yes that was Jessica who appeared in a famous Wendy's commercial with William Shatner!

Over the past couple of years she's channeled much of that talent into an awesome blog, Bern This.  She's not only one of the most popular humor bloggers out there, she's a coveted panelist and speaker at social media conferences such as BlogHer, Casual Bloggers Conference, and Bloggy Boot Camp.   When she's not jetting here or there, she's the brilliant mind and face of the popular Bern This Web Series.

A few of my favorite posts...

Let's See, How Do I Put This?

Jewpons -  by the way Jessica, I'm going to be redeeming mine, SOON!

I'm Going In People! Dog owners everywhere will relate, well unless you let your vet or groomer take care of this!

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A Beach Cottage

One look at this blog and I think that most of my readers will immediately know why I love this blog.  Sarah lives on the beach.  In Australia.   It's gorgeous.  And did I mention that the ocean is at her front door?  Yeah.  It is.

Sarah and her family are actually transplants to the land down under, from Great Britian.  You can read more about her family's leap of faith when it came to deciding they wanted to exchange the gray, wet winters of the U.K for salt-air sunny days along the coast of Australia, here.

The glimpses into her life and the transformation of what was a ramshackle, run-down cottage on the beach, are truly amazing, as is the fact that she thrifts a lot of what has gone into the renovation of their home.  Saying that she is "gifted" when it comes to "design on a dime" is a bit of an understatement - something you'll discover once you dig into her archived and have a look around the Beach Cottage.  Sarah's photography of the transformation of their home is not only beautiful but at times, breathtaking.  She is as talented behind the lens as she is behind a paint brush.

A few of my favorite posts...

Bambora!  The Ducks Guts in Beach Cottage Land

Two For One ANTHRO and Down the Beach in Winter

Before/After Tour - this page in an awesome look at all the work they've put into the beach cottage. I love to just sit here and dream of my own little beach cottage along the downeast coast in Maine that will be mine one day!

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Alrighty then m'luvlies, that's all for today.  All three cats are becoming increasingly agitated and as the raging storm outside continues to worsen and the skies grow an even more violent shade or purple'ish/blue, I'm pretty sure this is a sign that I need to unplug...literally!

Sunday Surfing ...is Back!

It's been almost two years since I last posted a "Sunday Surfing" post and back then it was more of a silly little thing, complete with simple little badges I created and gave to the bloggers I featured.    I'm still going to feature great bloggers/writers, but I'm doing away with the pretentious badges.   I want this to have more of a "pay it forward" type of vibe and less of a "cheesy blogger who fawns all over other bloggers" vibe.  I'm mean, hell, if you still want me to come and fawn all over you, sure, I can manage that.  I just won't be so cheesy about it.   Genuine admiration for something that has impacted me, made me think, made me smile, or changed the way I perceive the world;  is what this is all about.

Without further ado, how 'bout we get on with the show?

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Miss Britt

I'm not sure when I first started reading Britt...a couple of years ago maybe?  I don't even recall how I found her.  I didn't read her very regulaly and I commented even less (to be honest, I don't comment very often any more on anyone's blogs because a.) no time b.) I can't think of something to say without sounding trite or redundant!), but I appreciated what I read.  It wasn't until I read this post, The Ocean Doesn't Care, a few months ago that I started to read her more regularly and became a real admirer of Britt's.

Britt is the first person I have ever come across that gets it...she really gets it when it comes to the ocean and the way she feels about the ocean down in Florida is exactly the way I feel about my beloved Maine coastline; it centers me.  She understands that it's this autonomous living, breathing thing, powerful and goes on and on regardless of what happens around it.  And Britt gets it.

You have no idea how wonderful it was to finally find someone who knows what it's like to stand at the edge of the seemingly endless indigo depths of the ocean and feel centered and at peace.  The ocean doesn't care that I see myself as an abject screw-up, that others see me as less than because I am more than what's considered ideal or perfect, it doesn't care that I've been divorced twice and married three times,  and it doesn't give a crap that I am constantly taking three steps forward and then slipping one or two backward (Coke, they name is EVIL!)...it simply doesn't care.  It's always there, singing it's song to the  cerulean sky above and  sandy shore at it's side and holding me firmly to the place where I feel my best.

Britt is genuine, funny, fearless and someone I think you'd like to get to know.

A Blog of Great Ingenuity

OK so truth be told, I have just discovered this blog but I spent no less than two hours the other night out there, laughing loud enough to wake up Gareth and get one of "those looks" from him.  You know the ones I'm talking about!  That right there told me that I absolutely had to share this hidden gem with you guys.

I'm not sure how to describe Josh so I'll cut and paste from his "Yours Truly" page because honestly, the line about the tampon gun sent me over the edge.

"Hi there, I’m Josh. Some of you might know me as kaost, or the guy who once climbed a clock tower and started shooting mommy bloggers with a semi-automatic-air-powered-tampon-gun, or maybe you remember me as the guy who once towel snapped your ass three times with a shamwow. That would be me, unless, of course, you’re like 7 ft tall now and still pissed off about it. Then dude, that totally wasn’t me.

I’m kind of a big deal you know. I have about 3 twitter followers, I’m probably facebooks most hidden friend and stupid Google doesn’t even acknowledge my existence."

He's funny and his photos of his adorable boys are darling and if he doesn't make you laugh, then you probably have an incurable disease of the medulla oblongata and if that's the case, I feel terribly sorry for you.  I think we're going to be seeing a lot more of Josh around the blogosphere...and hey Josh, you might wanna keep that tampon gun close at all times - sometimes us mommy-bloggers could use a shot to the head to help deflate the egos!

A few of my favorite posts of his so far are, "Twilight is Ruining My Marriage",  "Another Unusual Day at the Park", and "Hurry Up and Smell It Before Mom Comes Home!"

That's all I have time for today!  Too much surfing makes a mommy cross-eyed and leaves her family wondering just where the heck dinner is!

Take some time to go and visit Britt and Josh and be sure and tell them I sent you!

Hang ten!

Sunday Surfing Will Be Back Next Week!

A couple of things have all conspired to make me nearly lose my mind lately. 

Remember the power outage from our wicked storm a few days back?  Well, I was in the middle of working on the Word doc where I store all the links for Sunday Surfing when the power went out.  It caused horrible problems with the computer, one of those being the auto-recovery feature with Word was wiped out.  Fun times.  So I lost the entire document which pisses me off to no end.  Thankfully I have a lot of the sites bookmarked, but unfortunately I don't have specific posts bookmarked nor is my running commentary saved in the bookmarks.  Uhg!  So I am slowly but surely rebuilding my cache of great blogs I've been storing up to feature.  Again, if you have any blogs you think are worthy of a mention, and in particular, posts, then by all means, shoot me an email and let me know about them.

The other thing that's driving me absolutely apeshit is this freaking kitchen remodel.  OMG it's gone from merely being a thorn in my side to a full blown pain in my ass! 

We ended up having to buy a power sander to get that God-awful wall border off and whilst it's the most brilliant power tool ever (well OK, so my experience with power tools is limited to the kind you cook with, so who am I to really judge?), it creates the biggest mess.  There is wall border/glue/sealant/yuck dust EVERYWHERE!  And I mean EVERYWHERE!   I have been taking pictures of everything and when I post again a bit later in the day I'll show off some of why this is so frustrating - THE MESS!

Anyhow, it's going to put ALL of the painting at least a week behind.  Grrrrrr.  Now we have to re-wash the walls and cabinets to get that dust off.  There isn't anything in the kitchen/eating area and then the formal living room that isn't covered with that dust.  One of the cats got up on the coffee table and we have kitty cat paw prints all over it, and then on the rug underneath.  It would almost be funny if it weren't so damned irritating.

The final straw that's broken the camel's back this morning?  I am itching everywhere!  There isn't a space on my body that does not itch.  We're pretty sure it's the dust from sanding, but I am literally at the point where I'm going to drown myself in Benedryl and have the hubby take the power sander to my entire body (OMG what a chore that would be!  -- Sorry for the horrible mental image that left anyone with!) in order to get rid of the hellacious itching.  Showering has not helped.  The minute I leave the confines of the study (where the dust hasn't managed to settle) I'm in fits of itching and scratching and rolling around on the floor trying to itch my back.  If it weren't so damned cold outside I'd go run outside topless and rub myself all over the trees like a bear in the woods.  Woops!  Sorry for yet another scary mental image.

Here's something to help replace it!

Sunday Surfing

It's the "40th-Birthday-Weekend" (and aside from an epic panic attack yesterday coupled with the tiniest hangover, it's been a pretty good weekend!) edition of Sunday Surfing!

OK peeps, grab your surfboards and wet suits and hang ten!  That was kinda cheesy wasn't it?  Well, I'm too lazy to backspace. 

Debbie Does Drivel

I discovered this fellow Maine mama through HumorBloggers.com and have been hanging around her place ever since. I'm pretty sure she wishes I'd remember to take my shoes off before I walk all over her nice clean floors!  Sorry Debbie.   I've actually gotten to know her a little too, and she's not only amusing, but "gets" my non-Maine humour at times, being a transplant to lobstah-land as well.

The Fun House

Even though her header banner has a clown (and we all know why I hate clowns so much!), I've made a huge exception for Jennifer over at The Fun House.  Jennifer is a totally hip mom to five gorgeous kiddos who also happens to own a huge ass- 6' clown painting.  But despite her clown-love, I adore her and her blog!  She's the kind of person I'd love to have as a next door neighbour.  Head out to her site and say hello! Oh and be sure to check out THIS post!  It was the one that pretty much sealed the deal for me.

Happy Meals and Happy Hour

Sue is funny...plain and simple.  OK, that was a bit of a monumental understatement.  She's freaking hilarious!  If you are one of the few who haven't already discovered the hilarity that is Happy Hour Sue, grab your beverage of choice and head on over and get your funny on.  One of the reasons I love her so much (in a totally bloggy platonic way of course.) is that she's really helpful (who knew there were so many uses for dryer lint?), creative in a way that Martha could never be, and cares deeply about her fellow bloggers, who along with her might have been nominated for Hottest Blogger, but didn't quite make the cut!

Gourmet Mom on the Go!

This is a recent find of mine, and I've already bookmarked about 25 of her recipes, including this one, which we're making today.   Mandy's (mom to three) recipes are usually quick, and for the most part simple, fun, and kids love them...especially mine -- which is NO EASY TASK!  I'm really looking forward to what she comes up with for the holidays.  

Thrifty Decor Chick

Being that we are in the middle of trying to remodel our home on a shoe-string budget, I'm always looking for inexpensive ideas.  I hit the mother-load when I stumbled upon Thifty Decor Chick.  Sarah, who says she's always enjoyed decorating, has recently turned her hobby into a career.  Way to go! Take a look at her loo, for instance.  It reminds me of some of the powder rooms I've seen in Maine Home Design recently.  You wouldn't think you could achieve this kind of look, inexpensively.  But you can and Sarah tells you how she did it.  She's no stranger to taking the old (and she really finds some amazing bargains!) and making them look new! I'm truly in awe of talent like this and Sarah is one of my daily stops on my blog rounds. 

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Alrighty kiddos, that wraps up another morning of surfing.  Hope you'll take the time to check out today's featured surfers.  As always, if you know someone who has an amazing blog, and you'd like to see them featured on Sunday Surfing, shoot me an email and let me know all about it.

For those featured, you can grab the code for the badge over there ---> on the Sunday Surfing page to display on your blog.  It links back to the Sunday Surfing archive page.  I do have another badge in the works that Deb from Bird on a Wire was nice enough to put together for me and I'll have it up as soon as I get it coded!