Barking Mad

Sunday Surfing

One of these Sunday's I'm actually going to have the post scheduled ahead of time, to hit the blog Sunday morning, rather than scrambling to edit and finish it up, early Sunday afternoon, like I have been doing.

This past week has been a roller coaster; that's the only way I can think of to describe it.  At least it's been a short one.   Between coming back from a long weekend in Maine where we worked and then played pretty hard, to Meg's accident and then a weekend spent trying to convince Gaby that letting her clean up her own messes would indeed teach her something valuable (she's still not swayed!), and lastly, realizing that both our FURminators are lost...forever; well, I'm glad it's Sunday!  

By the way, how do two FURminators just up and disappear?  If I didn't know better, I'd say the cats were complicit in this somehow.  Lord knows, they hate being FURMinated.   Oh well, they're ALL getting lion cuts soon enough, so I suppose we'll just live with the furry-tumbleweeds until then.

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East Side Patch

Back when I wrote this post, I needed an image of a rabbit hole and that's how I stumbled upon East Side Patch.  

From his "About the ESP and My Camera" page:

"The East Side Patch documents the development of a garden from a flat plane of Bermuda grass to absolutely no Bermuda grass at all. It tracks the journey of the garden and the gardener as new insights are gleamed, new insects are spotted and new bottles of sea-weed emulsions are administered."

What first caught my eye was his photography.  WOW!  AMAZING!  INCREDIBLE!  And then I was further drawn in by his amazing green thumb and his lovely descriptions of this and that around the East Side Patch. Then I noticed a certain cadence to his words that had me wondering if he was indeed from the same part of the world that my very own hubby hails from.  Indeed!  The man behind ESP is an Englishman who was raised in Scotland, who has lived over here in the states for the last fifteen years.

I think one of the reasons I enjoy his blog so much is because of his way with plants.  He has quite the green-thumb and there is a peaceful beauty to the wildness that is the East Side Patch.  I'll never possess the skills necessary to maintain anything even remotely resembling his garden, so I'll admire from afar and live vicariously through his efforts.

I'm particularly fond of how he mixes modern pop culture references in with his posts!  Some of my favorite posts from ESP include:

Spitting Seeds

Looks Like - this isn't so much a post, as a continual catalog of photos he's taken (I think some might be borrowed) and he compares them with things they look like.  For instance comparing how a moth and a jet fighter plane look a like, or even how similar a cactus bloom and Side Show Bob are!

Men in Blackfoot Daisies silliness and awesomeness all in one post! And I think this post has turned me into a fan of Mexican feather grass, too.  I wonder if this stuff will grow in Maine?  One of these days when we go back, if it will grown, I'm going to cover my yard in the stuff! 

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Noble Pig

I've been reading Cathy's beautiful labor of love, Noble Pig, for a long time now.   At first glance you might think that she's simply a food and wine blog, but after a more than casual perusal of her archives you'll come to realize there is much more to the story of how Noble Pig is more than just a food and wine blog.  Along with several weekly recipes and gorgeous food photography, it's the story of how Cathy came to realize her dream of starting a vineyard, from the ground up, in the Willamette Valley of Oregon.  Thus, Noble Pig Wine was born.

Cathy is "also a contributing writer for the Los Angeles based magazine, "One for the Table as well as a food writer and food-photographer for Davis Life Magazine."  Her work "has also appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times and the Huffington Post."

Some of my favorites from Noble Pig:

Gratineed Pineapple - this is every bit as tasty as it is gorgeous!

Cooking With Alcohol - Can I Leave it Out?

Dream to Reality

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Head on out to East Side Patch and Noble Pig and be sure to tell them I sent you!

Here's to a great  week, which hopefully includes no auto accidents or plugged toilets!

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!