I See What You Meme

When you find yourself willing to share many aspects of your life online, there is an expected amount of attention that you know is going to come your way.  We learned this during Charlotte's illness.  Roger or I would post a Caring Bridge blog. Within days (or sometimes hours) of the post, we would see folks out in the community and they would already be "up to date" on our news.  Instead of, "What's new with Charlotte?" we got "I just read your update and...".  It did sometimes save time and effort in retelling stories. Plus, we always felt that the community knew what  we needed when  we needed it. As I have continued the blog after Charlotte's death, not much has changed.  Going through times of challenge and grief , the community continues to walk beside us, crying empathic tears and shouting with joy when the moments presented themselves.  I know that this type of self-expression isn't for everyone, but it works for us. Now we ar...

It never fails.  The minute I start blogging about not blogging for a while , I get flooded by writing opportunities.  Sometimes the absence is due to lack of inspiration and sometimes it is due to lack of time.  For whatever reason, writing about writing seems to get me back on track. Today I went to Virginia Blood Services for my regular platelet donation.  I have been donating blood since high school but I started donating platelets almost two years ago on Charlotte's birthday.  I have been making that my de facto mode of donation ever since.  My goal this year is to make at least 12 donations and I am on track to make that happen.   Sweet Abbie I think about Charlotte, and the other kiddos who require platelet and blood donations during their treatment, every time I make a donation.  Today, I thought especially about Abbie Waters since a blood drive was held yesterday in her honor .  I dedicated today's donation to her.  G...

My grief journey has afforded me an opportunity for very interesting interactions with people.  One of the topics I discuss in Four Seasons for Charlotte   revolves around the idea of saying the right thing  or doing the right thing  when you try to support a person in crisis.  With that in mind, I wanted to share two very interesting interactions I had with relative strangers in the past two weeks.  Ever since Charlotte's death, I have braced myself for that inevitable question : Do you have any children? The question (and subsequent answers) take many forms, depending on the circumstances.  Sometimes I actually bring up the topic of Charlotte's life (and death) on my own.  Sometimes I wait for others to initiate.   Two weeks ago, I was expanding my knowledge of leadership in a Nonprofit Learning Point class.  During the lunch break, the conversation turned to a book I was reading and somehow the topic shifted to my own book releas...

While strolling ( not  trolling) through some of my favorite blogs, I found a fun new meme on Avitable's website.  It seems he got the idea from The Verdant Dude . The gist of the meme is to put each letter of the alphabet into your browser and see what website comes up. If you're working in Chrome or Firefox, you will get a pretty accurate collection of your most frequently visited websites.  As I type this, I haven't even tried it yet so I have no idea  what is going to come up. I promise to share my results just as I find them. Drum roll please... A - The official ABC website .  I will admit that I have been catching up on Desperate Housewives lately. How is it all going to end? B - The CJSTUF blog  (since the official web address is blog.cjstuf.org) C - The CJSTUF website . No surprise there.   D -Google Docs.  I use it a lot for work.  E -My Eagle Rare Life entry . All that daily voting certainly paid off! F -Th...

Can you believe that it's been a year since I started my blog? My first post was December 13, 2010 (Yes, I realize that's technically not until next week but I'm writing about it now. Deal with it.) Here's a few stats for the math nerds: 88 posts (this one will be 89) 26,000+ pageviews 352 Twitter followers Where do these readers come from? While most of you hail from the U-S of A, I've had people in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Germany, India, Romania, the Philippines, and the Netherlands read this blog (hi y'all!) This was my most popular pos t, thanks in part to some interesting conversation generated within the comments. This was the next most popular post  but I think this poem was my favorite post of the year. I read an article on Mashable today about the most popular Facebook status updates of 2011 (Facebook's memes , if you will). It looks like I covered about half this list.   For your review: Here are my comments o...

For this week's Follow Friday, I'm going to highlight a few of my favorite "mom" sites out there on the web.  You've already learned about Miss Britt .  She's still cruising up the east coast and getting ready to hit Boston in September.  One of my other favorite "mom-bloggers" is Alex at Late Enough . This talented Richmond mom is smart and funny. Her blogs are entertaining , insightful , and frequently touching . Plus we share a passion for Zombies and Angry Birds .   Her blog was one of my inspirations to start my own.   Speaking of Richmond, if you live in the Richmond area and you are a mom, you definitely need to know about RichmondMom .  Kate Hall is an amazing entrepreneur who has built a fabulous resource for all things related to parenting in the #RVA.  I recently wrote an article for her website so now you have even more reason to check it out.  Finally, check out the world of FreeAnissa. Anissa Mayhew is not just a mom blogger. S...

Yes, I know. It's SUNDAY.  I will justify my tardiness by citing a mixture of life's been way too busy and don't quite have the motivation . It's a long weekend so I figure I get a little leeway.  One of the reasons why this post is so late is because we had some houseguests from Thursday through Saturday. We were privileged to host Miss Britt and family on the Richmond leg of their cross-country tour. What? You've never heard of Miss Britt? Hey! I think we just found our topic for #FollowFriday.   (convenient, eh?) Britt is a blogger extraordinaire. She lends her writing and editing talents to several blogs (some of which she founded herself). I found her through a mutual friend's blog and have been following her personal blog for about a year. Here's what I love about Miss Britt: She's a good writer. She's positive without being schmaltzy or overdramatized.  She's real. She talks about the shit stuff we deal with every day.  ...

I joined the Twitter-verse two months ago and since then I've gained 151 followers and a whole new vocabulary.  Tweet Retweet Hashtag Tiny url Spam-bot Follow Friday I've decided to embrace the spirit of that last term and start my own #FollowFridays here on my blog.  It seems that the first Follow Friday started with a single tweet on January 16, 2009 when Micah Baldwin had an amazingly simple idea: recommend someone that you follow to people who follow you. In true social media fashion, the idea has taken off and has now become a Friday ritual for the Twitter feed. In that spirit, I bring you my first Follow Friday. Since you're not all on Twitter, I'm going to share bloggers as well as tweeters.  My theme this week is: People I Follow Who I Know Personally So in no particular order,I bring you.... Native Born : Faiqa and I went to high school together. So we're old friends. Actually, we weren't the best of friends in high school but we did take a l...