My Favorite Blogs

Instead of boring you with the minute details of my weekend (making a never-ending amount of bottles and changing numerous diapers, helping to give Riley his second haircut, doing six loads of laundry, FINALLY filing paperwork that had been building up since before Riley was born, wrapping Christmas presents, and trying out two new recipes – this and this) I decided I would tell you about a few of my favorite blogs.

First, let me just say that I am SO glad I decided to start a blog of my own. I really enjoy keeping it up, and I wish I could post more often. (Although, I have given myself a few pats on the back for posting a lot lately…..every day for TEN days straight! Margaret and Lynne, aren’t you happy?) I even find myself coming up with things to write about while I’m feeding Riley or in the shower or cooking dinner or even just walking to the mailbox. However, by the time I’m able to get to the computer, most times I’ve lost what I wanted to say or, perhaps more importantly, how I wanted to say it. There are just too many things going on right now.

I know I’m usually just posting about what’s going on in my own little world and not expounding on the meaning of life. But I’ve always enjoyed writing and the catharsis it can provide. So perhaps with the start of the new year, I’ll make more of an effort to write about more than just my family and what we did on a certain weekend. Don’t worry, though; I’ll still mostly post those family Riley updates that I know some of you wait by your computers for!

Back to the point of this post. In the process of creating and maintaining my own blog I have stumbled across some others that I really enjoy, so I decided to share them with you. Here are my top three right now (plus one more for lagniappe). If you have the time, check them out!

• Pioneer Woman: written by Ree Drummond, whom you may have seen recently on Throwdown with Bobby Flay or The Today Show. Ree is a city girl living out her life on a ranch in Oklahoma, all because a cowboy unexpectedly captured her heart many years ago. Her site has multiple sections, but she basically shares insight about her life on the ranch, writing about everything from how she met and fell in love with her husband to raising cattle to homeschooling to cooking, and including beautiful pictures along the way. I love the way she writes: she has an honest, direct, no-holds-barred approach that I find so refreshing. Plus, she’s funny. Plus, she calls her four kids “punks” and her brother-in-law “pesky.” I have been obsessively reading her site for a few weeks now.
• Stop, Drop, and Blog: written by Jenna, who is wife to a firefighter and mom to two young boys in Ohio. She’s a freelance photographer with a local newspaper, so the pictures on her site are amazing. Plus, I think I’ll get some good tips on raising a boy from reading some of her posts!
• Baked Bree: written by Bree, who loves cooking for her husband and three kids in California. This site is exclusively about cooking, although most of the recipes aren’t exclusively her own. That doesn’t matter to me, though…..I’ve already tried a few of the recipes she’s posted (and have many more on my list), and I haven’t been disappointed yet!
• The Soul of a Lion: written by my friend Barb, who is an English professor at North Carolina State University. This one is all about Barb’s time at Harnas, an animal sanctuary in Namibia, Africa. She traveled to Harnas at the beginning of last year and started the blog then. I highly encourage you to go back and start at the beginning if you’re the least bit curious. The stories she has shared about her experiences at Harnas are unparalleled. (Sidenote: I am currently reading Barb’s book with the same title, published by National Geographic. She is now back in Africa promoting the release of her book and has started posting to the blog again.) 

And just because I know you want it, here’s a picture of Riley. Before the haircut. (I can almost picture him on a horse, with one hand holding onto the pommel and the other on his hip in an “I-don’t-care-what-you-think-of-me” attitude. See it?)

Happy reading, everyone!