Sprite's Keeper

Have Geek, Will Travel

High speed isn't just for odometers anymore.

John has been dealing with this blogging thing since January. He seems to think I'm a little addicted. Addicted? Me? No! Well, maybe the pen and paper to catch ideas before they fall out of my head can be a little much and I have been known to type as he's talking to me to make sure his words are coming out verbatim, but no addiction here... Right? (Crickets)

John knows that whenever we go to the East Coast for visits with the family, I miss my laptop. I miss it greatly. Nothing to look at besides John's profile (Not that looking at his profile is bad. But if I feel as if someone is looking at me from the side and my peripheral senses are tingling, it tends to creep me out a little and I prefer not to creep someone else out, especially when they're driving at speeds upwards of 70 MPH on an open road! 'Tis all.) and the road ahead. I could look at Sprite, but her eyes are usually focused on the DVD player since she lost interest in pointing out trees a long time ago and the trees just don't look like Elmo no matter what I suggest. (Rural scenery can get a little repetitive sometimes. Tree, water, dirt, gator, tree, tree, gator, tree.. Get it?)

He knows when I have a post brewing, because I get very quiet and a little smile starts to play on my lips. This happens often, although I get interrupted by the traffic and my own backseat driving which can annoy him as well. And then that idea gets snuffed out by the interruption and I lose what I was thinking, where I was going, and what I was going to do. (Sigh) I lose a lot of posts that way..

So, John decided to make my blogging passion a little more mobile and at the same time make his long distance driving a little less nagging.

He hooked my laptop up to his Blackberry phone so I have Internet! On the road! I can blog on the road! (Hey, it's new to me!) (!!!)

This will come in very handy for those trips down the Alley when Sprite is sleeping in the back and John is listening to some of his music that I don't like AND for an immediate posting on any alligator sightings, because, well, you want to know about that, right? Right? (Crickets) (Will someone close the door please? Bugs are getting in!)

I love my IT department. I don't have to pay him much, I don't offer benefits, and there's a lot of overtime. He's loyal to the company though. And thoroughly vested.

So, this weekend, we have a lengthy trip to Fort Lauderdale for a huge family gathering which will most likely take a majority of the weekend. (And my sanity.) (And my patience.) (Oh, God! Not my patience!)

I will try this out for the first time, trying to write a post while on the road. If it comes out jittery, it's not due to the coffee I've been consuming, it's because the roads are in need of some repaving, okay?

Fort Lauderdale, ho! (I'll be taking my IT department with me. Oh yeah, his job requires traveling too. Should I give him a raise?)

How Could You Lose?

Kirst is AGAIN having another contest! She sure loves to share the...love. (Redundancy tends to repeat itself, sorry.) (Sorry for that one too.)

My always gracious blogging buddy Kirsten at My Life For the World to See recently hit 10,000 hits, which is momentous to us bloggers, so she's generously hosting another contest to celebrate with you. By giving you something!

This contest is so easy to enter, you cannot lose. Just click the link above (hint, it's in blue.) (I've got your back, wink.) and follow the easy directions and you could be in the drawing for an Amazon gift card!

That's it!

Like I said, easy!

So, head on over, wish her a happy 10,000th, and enter for a chance to stake your claim!

And the Nominees Are...

Whoa, is it Blog Award Season?

Let me begin by losing the snark for a second (but just one second) to say thanks to Arwen at Walk Beside Me and Kirst at My Life for the World to See for the great blog awards that I get to add to my site today. It makes me feel warm (which is good, because the thermostat in my office building is permanently set to Witch's Teat) and mushy inside to know that what I write is honestly appreciated.

So, now that I humbly accept these awards, I get to go one better and give them to blogs that I enjoy, have discovered, have lurked through, cried over, commented like a stalker, and laughed over (some all at the same time. Figure THAT out.)

First up, this one:

Thanks again to Arwen at Walk Beside Me. I've been a follower/mostly lurker at her other site, Spors in the Desert for a while now.

Here are the rules:

1. The winner can put the logo on their blog.

2. Link to the person you received your award from.

3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs.

4. Put links of those blogs on yours.

5. Leave a message on the blogs you've nominated.

And the nominees are: (Please hold your applause until all the nominees have been announced.)

Becca at The Katz Cradle: She's the reason I decided to start blogging in the first place. While Becca doesn't post a lot, what she does post is witty and full of mommy humor.

Lisa at Boondocks Ramblings: Her son and my daughter are roughly the same age so we're usually going through the same trials at the same time.

Alison at Allinole: Her blog is one of the newer ones out there, but she's genuine and warm, and her snark level is never biting (unlike mine, which can sometimes bite me back.).

Black Hockey Jesus at The Wind in Your Vagina: His site is not for the faint at heart, but if you enjoy stories, the true or the false, then look past the misleading title and check his writing out. To say the guy is brilliant is an understatement. To say he's out there is definitely in the ballpark. While I can't say I respect everything he writes about, I have a lot of respect for his talent, and it keeps me coming back.

Kirsten at My Life for the World To See: Her platform is about raising a child with epilepsy, and while some of the posts deal with this subject directly, most of her posts are chock full of her daughter being a normal kid having a great time and Kirst's love for her family comes through in everything she writes.

Heather Pride at View From the Short Bus: A rare find. She wrote this one post about Doritos that had me laughing so hard, I felt sick. And I was hooked from there. Not only should you check out her site, you should check out her archives. Great material.

Wendy at Notes From the Sleep Deprived: She's brutally honest about her life. It's almost a no holds barred approach to writing in which she has no problem with venting about subjects most of us would rather keep to ourselves. She's matter of fact, and I admire that. A lot.

Is that seven? Oh, there's so many more out there that I admire. Luckily, I get to do another category.

This one was given to me by Kirst at My Life for the World to See:

The rules are exactly as above, but mentions five blogs, so I get to spread more love.

And the nominees are: (Again, hold your applause.)

Andrea Frazer at Pass the Zoloft: a writer at Momformation, her own blog, and Good Housekeeping, she has snark in spades and is a wonderful writer.

Betsy Shaw at numbmum: I first caught her Babes in the Woods posts at Momformation over a year ago and have been following her since. She is a writer at Momformation and covers interesting current events.

Kim Modolfsky at Hormone-Colored Days: I just love her title. It speaks volumes before you even link to it. She's another writer over at Momformation who also writes for Chicago Moms Blog.

Arwen at Spors in the Desert: Amazing artist who also likes to wax philisophical on a majority of issues. Her thoughts are well balanced and well presented, a difficult thing for most people to accomplish.

Heidi at The World According to Heidi: A little bit of nepotism here, due to the fact that she's my cousin, but every time I see something new about her family, her blog does exactly what the award indicates, makes me smile.

So many more blogs out there that, that, Excuse me! I'm not done yet! Can you turn down the music please? Thanks!, that I've been discovering and starting to add to my collection, and every one deserves a shout out, not only because you blog, but because you stay with it. So, huzzah to you!

One more thing, some of you bloggers who have been identified in this presentation do not like to forward this type of thing or feel uncomfortable about it, so my caveat to the entire shebang is to please accept the award and know that I like your site.

Okay, I'm done. Is there a dinner after this?

And where's the champagne?

These Are the People in My Virtual Neighborhood

I have a blogging ritual. I check out my favorite blogs before I go to my own home over here in Typepad land and tinker with my own.

I have become a blogging junkie, wrapping myself in other people's stories, the fly on the wall in their personal lives, having access to what they let me in on. Some of the bloggers are shameless about their honesty, throwing their lives and opinions out there onto the virtual stage to be ridiculed or revered. Other bloggers are only going to let you see what they want you to, keeping you at arm's length and keeping things friendly, if a bit frosty.

I tend to fall somewhere in the in-between along with a whole slew of bloggers out there, who like to write about life's mysteries and peculiarities we call kids, but keep the deep stuff out of the equation. I typically write about what Sprite is up and frolic in the shallow end of the blogging pool, although sometimes I do feel inclined and inspired to wade into the deep end and swim a bit with the melancholy/angst authors.

Most of the blogs I have grown attached to are basically light hearted and fun, humorous musings on life and life's obstacles. I use these blogs to escape reality for minutes at a time on a daily basis. (You know, come to think of it, blogging could be my version of WoW... Oh, the irony!) These daily posts usually never fail to deliver the needed seritonin boost.

It's easy to imagine that the authors of these blogs are like fictional characters of a sitcom or a Disney movie. The plot or daily entry is always simple to navigate and usually wraps up within 10 minutes and sends you off with a little zinger to make you chuckle.

Nothing bad ever happens in a Disney movie (unless it's to the parents of the hero or heroine for some reason. Ariel's mom? Bambi's mom? Nemo's mom? Wow, a lot of moms here. Um, is there a trend to killing off the mother that no one's told me about?) and life lessons are taught. Kind of the same thing in these light-hearted blogs. We write about our kids' antics and mishaps and share a giggle with the (mostly) faceless virtual world.

And then reality creeps in and reminds me that the people behind these blogs are human just like me. They suffer through divorce, death, miscarriages, fighting, make ups, and emotional upheaval you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy.

Two of my favorite bloggers provided a bitter dose of reality this morning when I checked their blogs. I felt somehow betrayed when reading about the impending divorce of one and morose and empathetic when reading about a miscarriage for the other. Tears came to my eyes both times and dashed my good mood. This isn't supposed to happen here! You're not supposed to have bad things happen to you! Yet, it happened. Life didn't spare them just because they write about life. In some way, it seems like life hit them a bit worse because they write about life.

I do not actually know either of these people, yet I do know them more personally than some my family members. Does this make sense? I have a daily view of the innerworkings of their life just like they have a daily view of mine. In the virtual world, bloggers tend to travel in the same social circles. It's kind of like high school. There's the cool kids everyone wants to know and be associated with, the sci-fi geeks, the jocks, the brains, every clique you can think of. However, unlike high school, everyone's door is open to you. They allow you to get to know them as much or as little as they want. If you want to lurk and leave without announcing your presence, it's your choice. Or you can leave a comment when something resonates with you.

I'm still a newbie and somewhat of an outsider in this blogging community, but I feel like some of these people could be friends in real life. So, I laugh with their jokes and mourn with their losses like every other loyal reader out there.

And I've learned, while I may read a blog for a tickle, I should be better prepared for a sucker punch if and when it happens.