New Community for Military Spouse Bloggers!

I know that I've talked about it a little before but I love reading blogs. I have a ton in my reader, all for different reasons, but the majority of them are written by moms. I'm in the midst of the "mom" portion of my life, so I think it makes sense that I should be attracted to those. There are hundreds (I'm guessing!) of places where you can find mom blogs. Just do an internet search for "mom blogs" and see what I mean. Go ahead. I'll wait.

See? Told you. Easy to find.

My other favorite category of blog? The military spouse blog. There are a handful of places to find those online but not near as many. And for the number of military spouse blogs out there, you don't find them grouped together very often. I've picked most of mine up from military spouse forums. Or some internet searches. Or blog searches.

Not too long ago I stumbled across this blog written by Ann-Marie. I love the yummy recipes and the beautiful pictures she posts, but what I love most about her blog is the community feel she gives it. It isn't just a place where she tells the story of her life; it's a place where she asks for the stories of her readers' lives as well. I've never met Ann-Marie, but I'm guessing that is a good indication of how she is in the flesh.

Her newest project is a Military Spouse Blogging Community. And I love it! So if you are a military spouse who blogs, hop over and sign up. If you are someone who reads military spouse blogs in order to better understand or give support to military families, head over and start reading! There are some wonderful blogs listed already and more on the way. Either click on the link above or hit the new button over in my sidebar.

pardon the dust!

I'm in the middle of changing the layout to the blog. It's something I have wanted to do for several months but was too scared to attempt. I finally just went for it and I'm so glad I did! It seems to be going well so far but I am still ironing out a few kinks and tweaking a few things so there will continue to be some changes over the next few days. I could use your help there! If you happen to notice anything wonky here at the site, could you drop me a line or a comment and let me know? (Or, you know, if you think it's bee-u-tiful! I would love to know that too. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.) I'm looking at everything in Mozilla and Google Chrome but there may be errors in other browsers.

If you like the style of this layout and are interested in getting something like it for yourself, head over to Lauren's site and see if you can find something that works for you. She has several free Blogger templates that are wonderful! Installing them isn't too bad either; if someone like me can do it then anyone can. Seriously.

Anywho! Let me know what you think. Thanks!

some links you may enjoy

While I upload pictures to Flickr and plan out the next two weeks of fun with the kiddos, I thought I would put up a list of links that I've recently run across. Well, most of them recently. Please read the comments before clicking on the links as some readers may not like all the links provided!

SnowDays
This is a great site that my grandma e-mailed me a few years ago. You get to make your own snowflake and set it out into the world with a holiday greeting of your choice. It's a lot of fun and very kid-friendly. Try it out!

1000 Awesome Things
I love this site. The blog author is setting out to write 1000 posts about (you guessed it) 1000 awesome things.

FOUND Magazine
Some of the entries are funny. Some are just, well, weird. Probably not a site that everyone will like but I find it amusing.

KnittaPlease
Facebook was kind enough to let me know that one of my cousins is a fan of this site. I clicked over to see what it is (because I can be vaguely stalkerish at times, I guess) and I love the idea! Knitted graffiti! Awesome!

passiveaggressivenotes.com
This is similar to the FOUND Magazine except that the entries are mostly sent in by the recipient of the notes. The notes range from neighbors complaining about "night-time noise" (ahem) to pointless notes left on pinball machines in an employee break room. There are some funny ones in there.

dontevenreply.com
This one might offend, so if you don't like cussing or humor that is very non-PC you should just skip this one. I think it is a riot. The blog author responds to classified ads he (I'm assuming) finds with absolutely outrageous results. Some of the posts are better than others; I highly recommend reading the best of list that is on the site. Too funny!