Housekeeping

Perhaps it is because I am an Aries—you know, not a lot of patience with the details. Whatever the reason, housekeeping is just not my strongest suit, either in my actual house or on the blog. As long as things are reasonably tidy and mostly clean, I’m good with it. But some chores take me forever to get around to, despite my best intentions. Like repotting the plants. I’ve been promising them new dirt for a year now.

When it comes to blog housekeeping, the equivalent of repotting the plants is updating the blogroll. I want to do it. I need to do it. I just never get to it. Having more than a mild case of HTML-phobia doesn’t help.

For several weeks now (OK, months) I’ve been lurking at a half dozen new (to me) blogs and enjoying them thoroughly. I’ve planned to write a post encouraging TMD readers to check them out, and to add them to the blogroll. But my recent bout of blog ennui has seen me reading without mentioning them, or even commenting much on their blogs. Enough of that.

All of the following seven blogs came to my attention via my friend #1 Dinosaur at Musings of a Dinosaur, who I am proud to call my friend in Real Life as well as in the blogosphere. Dr. Dino definitely has a finger on the pulse of blogland (or would that be a toe?). Thanks, Dr. D!

I think it started with Ambulance Driver (AD) at A Day in the Life of an Ambulance Driver. He writes well, he handles volatile subjects gracefully, and he has a kick-ass sense of humor. When he posted the story of his daughter with cerebral palsy, he had my heart in his hands. Precious few blog posts can bring tears to my eyes, but this one did.

AD and Dr. Dino both had mentions of a nurse in Georgia named Babs, the blogger at Living Single in the Buckle of the Bible Belt, so I had to mosey over and check her out. Wow. A smart-and-sassy Southern blonde; I felt like I had found my blog sister (we share three out of four of those, but she is way sassier than I am). Her blog is now called Just Peachy, which is a lot easier to say than LSITBOTBB.

I am a sporadic reader of comments on other people’s blogs and hadn't been keeping up recently, so I was taken totally by surprise when AD and Babs made a Big Announcement last week. Read his version here and her version here. And congratulations to you both! I just love that Awwwwwwwww factor. I am so happy for you; you both deserve that finding-your-soul-mate joy. It is a wonderful thing to have.

AD also has frequent references to his friend Matt, who blogs at Better and Better. Matt is a small-town police officer in the Deep South who writes with compassion. Recently he and AD and Babs created a beautiful joint effort: each of them wrote a story from their individual perspectives—the responding officer, the ambulance driver, the ER nurse—about the events of a single night. They each posted their sections on their own blogs and pointed readers to the other two blogs to get the whole story. I was quite taken by the creativity of the idea and the beauty of its execution; and deeply touched by what they wrote. If you haven’t read it, do. Matt’s part. AD’s part. Babs’ part.

The two new ER nurse bloggers I am now reading and being highly entertained by are Monkeygirl at Musings of a Highly Trained Monkey and the eponymous blogger of ERnursery. Both are well-deserving recipients of the Thinking Blogger award. Both have the right balance of wit and snark to be amusing and thought-provoking at the same time. Both have many good posts, so rather than point to one, I’ll let you browse for yourself—and do!

Another friend of AD’s (that boy really gets around!) is the LawDog, blogger of The LawDog Files. Another small-town cop who writes well and tells a good story. And I love his hundred-year-old granny; she is five years older than mine, and cut from the same cloth. I’d love to meet her; even better, I’d love for my grandmother to meet her. It’s not so far from Alabama to Texas.

And finally, there is the Medblog Addict—a lawyer—at Addicted to Medblogs. I love her ever-changing lawyer-joke-of-the-day in the sidebar. And I was ROFLMAO when I read the August entry for her Doctor-of-the-Month Calendar. Yes, no other than the estimable Dr. Dinosaur! Both MA and Dr. D are in top form for this interview. And the revealing photo of Dr. D—what beefy cheesecake--breathtaking. I immediately wrote to the dinosaur and suggested an avatar change.

And speaking of the Thinking Blogger award, I was immensely pleased and very proud to have this sought-after crown bestowed upon my own head by Dr. Dino some months back. I did not mention it here at the time for two reasons. I mostly don’t blog about blogging, and I couldn’t figure out how to do the html-thing to get the TB icon in the sidebar. Pathetic, I know. But thanks, Dr. D! I was, and am, honored.

So there you have it. Next thing you know I’ll be posting my results on the Rate Your Life quiz that was all the rage five minutes ago. And house plants, look out! Your repotting is near.