Some Light Housekeeping: Have Book, Will Travel

All right, my lovers. Remember when I said I was working on a project and some of you wrote wonderful things about your first loves and some others of you said you wanted to and I haven't heard from you yet? Well, I'm planning to do a whole link up deal on Monday (or let's call it Tuesday, shall we?) of next week, so you still have time if you wanna.

I have so very much enjoyed reading the posts people have sent me so far. I love a good love story. I love a sad love story. I love a gross love story too, sometimes. I am working on a project that is combining all of these things. Do you know anyone who has a love story to tell? One that you love to hear? Do you think they would like to be interviewed? Would you like to be interviewed? Let me know.

Check out the author's website here.

Speaking of love stories... Jane in Her Infinite Wisdom has been so kind as to share some love in the form of a book with me. Remember that, folks? Creative is a Verb. 


[This is a small digression: as this book has been lying about the house, jBird has been fascinated by it. She is also quite concerned that I am reading fallacious material when she's not supervising me. "Mom. Creative is not a verb." She knows this because she is studying it in second grade. So, either her teacher has misinformed her, or I have. Hmm. I have had to explain the notion behind the title and she grooves it; she really does. But this flexibility of rules is unsettling to her straightforward little soul.]

Anyway, the book came to Jane from Melanie at Is This The Middle, and Jane decided to turn it into a travelling bit of love. I have been the custodian of this fine book for far too long now and it's time for it to have a new home, to provide someone else some new inspiration. It's colorful and beautiful and chock-full of encouragement and gentle kicks in the pants.

Here's how we play: You leave me a comment here if you want a stab at the book. I will roll the dice and see who wins (this will be a totally random kind of thing like having a monkey draw a number out of a hat or something.) I'll let you know who the big winner is and send this book on its merry way. If you are the winner, you are under no obligation whatsoever to FedEx me chips and queso or new jeans. You only have to agree to send it on to another person when you are done. Sound like fun? Of course it does.

Also, if you should notice a distinct change in tone and feel around here this weekend, it's because I will be featuring a guest post by the lovely Tonya Vrba, who contacted me and said she'd like to guest post for me. Hers is an article about her view of the changing nature of relationships and what that does to traditional values. I thought that sort of  fit with the whole love thing we have going on here and goodness knows, I get tired of the sound of my own voice.

There are some things blooming with the spring, folks, and they are causing more than seasonal allergies. Drop your comments below, tell me about your day. Do you want to win a book? If you've already won one, you can comment anyway and tell me not to include you in the fun and games. Be well and adore your lives, folks.

Relatively Light Housekeeping and A Shameless Plug or Two

It may come as no surprise that my To-Do lists are a stream of consciousness affair that flow randomly from one item to another, sometimes with exhaustive doodles or explanations interspersed. I get a surprising amount of things done that way, but sometimes I have to haul the left half of my brain out of storage and make a proper list in order to tie up loose ends. And that, my darling readers, is what today was all about.

This is going to be a bit of a soup today. Apologies to anyone who might be tuning in for the first time or if you came in search of "sleek jowled big melons" - I have a few items of housekeeping I need to deal with and then tomorrow we will be back to our regularly scheduled programming. There is some audience participation required today, though.

Light Housekeeping:
-- You may have noticed a few changes to the "look and feel" around the Periphery. It's because today, with the help of Kristen at Four Hens and a Rooster and the moral support of Tara at Faith in Ambiguity, I put on my big girl pants and delved (with my big toe) into the world of the frightening hobgoblins that lurk just below the surface of the interwebs.

Shameless Plug:
-- You may now like me. Come on, let's make it official. Make an honest woman of me and show your Facebookerly love of me, pretty please? I promise to not over-post or look at all of your family pictures or enter into commenting wars with your Aunt Ethel or do pretty much anything that has anything to do with videos of cats. It just makes me relive junior high a bit to look over and see "1 person likes Periphery". If you're not on Facebook, don't feel left out. You may also add your tiny little face to my merry band of readers with the Googly thing. I decided it was time to 'fess up and show the world just how lame I am.

Light Housekeeping:
-- I have noticed over the last few days, with growing hysteria, a kind of a foot smell emanating from my kitchen. Not a good foot smell either. Kind of a fruity foot smell, but not fruit exactly. The better part of my day was spent locating every possible source of the foot smell and eradicating it. This involved a lot of fridge cleaning, sweeping, trash can scrubbing, yard waste bin inspecting and a hard hat.

Shameless Plug:
--This one is a result of plumbing that was installed by chimps in a 100 year old sink. It objected to my fridge-cleaning activities. That's enough said about that, though.

Light Housekeeping:
-- I have signed up for another month of NaBloPoMo with BlogHer. The theme is Relative and I may or may not follow it. But I must know, before I continue, how is every month National Blog Posting Month? I sign up for their blogroll because I enjoy the community each month of crazy bloggers, but it's a little bit silly to call it NaBloPoMo every month and I'm not putting that badge on my site (even if I knew how to.) Come to think of it, NaBloPoMo is just a silly acronym no matter what month you use it. Can we just agree that this is the year of the blog post here at Periphery and that I will more than likely write every day regardless because I set odd challenges for myself with great regularity, badge or no badge? Also, please, someone, please, please, please tell me what "Sparkle" is.

Shameless Plug:
--I am not knocking BlogHer. It's because of that website that I've even entered into this realm of blogging and have learned as much as I have over the last few months. Plus, someone over there loves me. I've had like 4 of my most random posts featured over the last few months. It's confounding, really.

Light Housekeeping:
--It was deemed vitally necessary that the Hooligan and I make whoopie pies today, too. So there's that.

Shameless - just shameless, really:
--Because of being so engrossed in the production of whoopie pies and building a better blog and eradicating the foot smell, I had to run out the door to get the jBird from school. It was not until after I returned home that I realized that I had been grinning around making nice-nice with some Power PTA Ladies with all kinds of lunch stuck in my teeth and chocolate cookie batter on my hands. And I smelled like a fruity foot. Do not envy my awesomeness.

Light Housekeeping and a Shameless Plug all in one:
--Masked Mom has brought it to my attention that I owe Sting an apology for my muckraking yesterday. If Sting is anything like his character in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, he is not to be trifled with. I am too weary from my exploits today to repeat it all, but check out the comment section on yesterday's post for Masked Mom's compelling argument and my rebuttal. Suffice it to say, Sting, I'm sorry. Your song Russians is not paternalistic twaddle, it's just twaddle.

Light Housekeeping:
--You may have noticed that I have switched up to being TangledLou everywhere. It's not because I don't want you to know my name. It's because I don't want my mom to Google me and find my blog. More on that another time, as well as the genesis of the moniker "Tangled Lou". Never fear, though. It's still just little ol' me.

Shameless Plug:
--When guys have that thing done where they take hair off their back or some other God-forsaken place and have it stuck to their heads.

One Last Shameless Plug:
--Don't forget the Blog Hop on February 29th. You will be granted a reprieve from my madness and there will be someone filling this space with her wit and very Michelle Pfeiffer-like hair. I will be elsewhere, stirring up trouble. Seriously, though, you guys are in for such a treat.