What's going on in my blogland...

Ladies and gentlemen, the world is a semi-stressful, busy place.

And I have found a place that I am truly sensitive-assault on my character. You want to find a way under my skin? Call me dishonest. Call me lazy. Allude to me not being the single most upstanding individual you've ever had the fortune to meet.

I can't handle it.

Whether it's a question on my use of a grocery coupon, or a (highly undeserved) disparaging moment at work- call into question the fiber of my integrity, and you will have me seething for more time than I should devote to anything.

And I'm putting a mental end to the trauma. It's flat out impossible to go through life un-criticized. There are going to be people who don't agree with me. Who don't understand where I'm coming from. What I am going to do, is do the best job I can explaining myself in the future, and let the chips fall where they may.

So I'm dropping this off here on the internet where I can forever face consequences for running my mouth and moving on.

Here's what's coming up at (the very honest and hardworking) Casa de Angels:

A sand gone review and giveaway. Sand Gone is a soft, coconut scented puffing powder that helps remove sand after the beach or sand box. I'm going to give this one a shot in the next couple of days (at the beach!!!!) and have it up and running next week!

Another Tropical Traditions review and giveaway! Tropical Traditions sent me the biggest container of shredded coconut chips you've ever seen in your entire life, and they've got one for a lucky reader as well. I'm loving the texture of this organic, unsweetened coconut, which is the thickest cut I've ever seen. This should go up when I get back.

My Mixbook has shipped. I just got the email that it's on its way. Unfortunately no giveaway with that one, but the website is VERY COOL and super easy to work with. They are also running a discount code TOMOSON20 to get 20 percent off your order.

And I just got approved for some Granite counter top cleaner. Yes, that means I will be making an appearance at an in-law's near me for some free scrubbing. All for the joy of writing.

What's going on in your blogland this week?

Ugh, I have so MUCH to do.

One of those weeks! I'll be around to visit everyone's blogs tomorrow, and I apologize wholeheartedly for my neglect.

I've been chosen to be a group mod for the Current Events and Hot Topics group over at Cafemom. I've spent a good couple of hours over there trying to learn the lay of the land and neglecting blogdom as a whole. I'll be back tomorrow. But hey, if you are a mommy who wants to talk politics, come on over!

A side note: target has some really great kitchen knives on clearance, as well as some nice hiking boots. Check your end caps, people! Also, set aside some money now for Christmas shopping in July- July is when target does tons of clearance on toys to make room for the hot stuff of the season. I saved a fortune last year doing this!

Another Reason I've stopped Reading Your Blog

You know what they say about opinions- they're like butt holes.

Everyone's got one. But I've got a blog about ten people read, so I'm going to keep talking about mine. :)

There's a fairly new phenomenon that I don't love-the drop down ad. Seriously, I get it, I click the ad, you get paid for it. We all understand this process pretty well, as MANY of us participate in paid to click programs. (Those ads on the side aren't for the fun of it, people.)

I want to tell you, I've stopped going to people's blogs because of this. I HAVE a pop blocker. You've actually gone out of your way to embed code in your blog to circumvent my security. It's rude. It's self entitled-I'm already GIVING you a page view and entering your contest and tweeting to increase your readership and doing all kinds of things I hope people are going to someday do for me, and you have the NERVE to demand I both LOOK at your ad AND choose NOT to click it.

Um, yeah, about that? I'll take my readership someplace else, thanks. It slows down my computer, it bogs it down (which is why pop up blockers are a dime a dozen) and it wastes my valuable time.

The best part is, the ad isn't usually even relevant. I'm on a mom blog, and it's like a subscription to men's health, and it flashes every one to two minutes while I'm trying to read. I've left blogs, without my usual comment, and refused to go back regardless of the giveaway offered. I'm just saying.

It's your blog. Do what you want with it. There's no law saying I have to read it!

Yes, People, There is a Santa Clause. (or a PG porn bot)

I mentioned recently my hatred for all things captcha related. Have an eighth of a glass of wine, and it's almost impossible to read those effers. I don't do captcha, and I don't moderate.

Evidently, blogger does it for me. The comments section has a spam bin.

Lesson number one: do not click on links provided by anonymous commenter on 7 month old blog piece. Especially one that compliments your writing style. The link will take you to a page full of scantily clad, airbrushed, impossibly toned female figures that have clearly never TASTED butter, chocolate, wine, or pasta, with inflatable balloon boobs.

Lesson number two: the blogger spam bin works pretty well. It didn't publish the comment, but idiot me thought I had a visit to return and clicked the link anyway. Now I have to blow up my computer and boil the parts to prevent icky computer diseases from spreading rampantly throughout my house and into all the other electronics. Or, you know, run the anti-virus.

And now a question...and this is serious, people. Why, for the love of all that is holy, do annoying little web trolls keep sending me pictures of naked women? They're effing everywhere! in my email spam bin, dm'd on twitter, and now the creepy little web freaks have found me here.

I'm straight. Got it? Branch out! Send me a naked penis. If I wanted to see a naked woman, I'd go upstairs, strip, and look in the mirror. It's called targeted advertising. Little web trolls should take an effing class.

Damn Mice

I have a LOT to do today.

The sun is shining, it's SO gorgeous out. The house needs to be cleaned, of course, laundry done, and sugar snaps need to go into the ground. I want the yard cleaned, I want the everything done, and I start my day each day multitasking- poking the blog with a sharp stick, returning blog comments and catching up on hops and coffee, while nursing the baby for a marathon hour long session.

It's what we do, each day. Not today. Today I settled into the couch with a steaming cuppa only to see the dreaded yellow exclamation point over my internet connections.

At this point I have to marvel at how far I've come in the last two years. While not completely and totally tech savvy, I can work around a router and modem with no assistance. A quick glance at the cords behind the modem revealed the problem: A mouse had EATEN the damn cord down to the copper.

I'm at my wits end with these things already. I've killed over a dozen since we've moved in. I've tried peppermint oil, potato flakes, and snap traps, with various degrees of success. We live in a half double, and so, we need the mice to be gone from both sides of the house. I'm loathe to bring it up to the neighbors, I really like them, and there are five or six things I'd like to mention to them, the biggest being the mice situation.

*big, deep, sigh*

How does the conversation go? Is there a good way to bring this up? "Excuse me, Lovely Mr. Neighbor Whom I Adore for NOT playing Guitar Hero at 3 AM while Smoking Pot Like My Old Neighbors, Do you by any chance happen to have a rodent problem? Because you're sharing it with me, and I don't want to put down poison and accidentally kill your cat that moans outside my front door in the cold."

Ugh.

I guess the point of this is, if I promised you a visit to your blog or a vote in your contest or an entry in your giveaway, I'm about twelve hours behind, and I'll get there before too long, I promise.

And if you have any ideas on how to execute a rodent mass murder without harming plants, animals, children, the ozone, or small orphans in a far off country without child labor laws, I'd be glad to hear them.

My Favorite Thing About Blogging-

Is that I can totally inform my husband I have to work, take the laptop upstairs, and play on the internet for 2.6 hours, uninterrupted.

Why did I not start this YEARS ago?

If I never make a cent off my blogging endeavors, these ten-fifteen minutes of peace, with no sounds but the tapping of the keys, will serve as payment enough.

But really, I am working right now, visiting the blogs that have been nice enough to visit me, and doing a bit of blog hopping, which I'll post the buttons for shortly, and entering some giveaways.

This is easily going to take six, maybe seven hours ;-).


I follow back, all the time, if you leave a comment. If you say something besides "hi, found you at the hop, love for you to follow me back, I'll leave several comments and maybe find something I like and add you to my blog roll.

I'm totally enjoying my kids right now.

I've had an easy time having kids. Kind of like, if my husband looks at me funny I wind up pregnant. We've had an easy time of it, quick, relatively pain free births (please don't hate me) super healthy kids, very little in the way of trauma.

Some people can't have kids. Just can't. And my heart breaks at the thought, as I didn't as much choose my children as they invaded my life... I get to love them, I get to hold them, I get the big smiles and the glowing blue eyes looking at me every morning.

I also get to cut all their hair off when they have lice, and listen to them cry like I'm mommy dearest. I get to say no to things like a walk down the street (with a BOY) unaccompanied by a parent. I get to be the evil parent that says no to skirts that are too short and pants that are too tight (when did I become such a prude? I know my skirts were shorter and my pants were tighter, and I sure as hell would have taken that walk unaccompanied!)

But I GET to. And I'm ever so blessed.

Plagiarism Sucks.

Ok, people, listen up.

This is the rule. It's not up for debate. If you use the copy and paste function on your computer to take something someone else wrote and put it on your site, you've got to source the person.

If you right-click on an image and download it to your computer and post it to your website, you've got to source the website.

If you surf photobucket, or one of the other 800 photo sharing websites, and you grab a picture, you've got to give credit to the photographer.

Because that's the right thing to do. Got it? Copy something, source someone.
This is not rocket science people. I like to write. I do. I tap away at this freaking keyboard like it's my personal business, and someone is actually gonna read it. So if you like something you see, give a nod in my direction. That's not hard, is it?

Now apply it to the rest of the internet. Because Karma, she's a bitch.

Rant brought on by my favorite Author in the whole world's tweet this morning. And I hope whoever stole her stuff gets a quadruple helping of badness.