I've got what you're looking for

Every so often I look at my Statcounter page at my blog stats.  It tells me how many page views I get, and where hits come from, and most interestingly, what people typed into a search engine to get directed to my blog.  I think I am supposed to use that to cater my posts more to my audience.  You know, "know your audience?"  Ever heard of that?  Well, based on recent searches, I don't know how to cater to my audience.  They seem to be interested in animals:

"great white shark pooping"

"a pitcher of a sturgeon"

"monkey in make-up going to the gym"

"female sheep vagina"

"Teeth Of Cow"

"ugly llama"

Well, I know they didn't learn much about a great white shark pooping because when I read that I said, "Hey yeah, what's that like?" so I googled it.  The person curious about shark poop must have gone past a lot of sites to finally get to mine.  There are literally hundreds of videos of sharks pooping on the internet.  Hundreds.  Probably thousands.  God, I love the internet.

I don't really understand what the person who was looking for a "pitcher of a sturgeon" was looking for.  A fish you can drink?  A doctor you can drink?  Does he mean picture?  Does he mean surgeon?  I don't know.

I really want to know why someone wanted to see a picture of a monkey in make-up going to the gym. Generally I find that monkeys don't wear make-up when they go to the gym.  They just have to shower after the workout anyway so why waste the time and make-up?

I like how the sheep pervert specified that he wanted to see a female sheep vagina.  And I love that he got sent to my blog to find it.  Yes, I have featured pictures of some sheep nudes that I took myself on this blog, but don't worry, they were very classy.

Who googles "Teeth Of Cow"?  And why capitalize every word?  Is it a title?  Just a minute, I'll google it; nope.  Not a title, the first thing that comes up are the image results for cow teeth.  Lots of pictures of people prying open cow lips to show the cow's teeth.  Did I mention that I love the internet?

Much like the person who googled "female sheep vagina," the person searching for an ugly llama didn't have to be so specific.  All llamas are ugly.

a doi

Bad news that at first I thought was good news. Common sense goes out the window when talking about public school.

I went to a staff meeting at school the other day and the principal told us that there will be 70 less 6th graders in next year's class than there is this year.  My optimistic brain immediately said, "Yes!  That means that there won't be 40 kids in a class next year!  Only 35!"  Then I heard the collective groan from the rest of the staff.  "What are you moaning about?"  I thought to myself, "This is good news!..... Isn't it?" 

No.  It isn't.  Especially for me because I'm at the rock bottom of the seniority list.  Classes will not be smaller, they will be the same size, and there will be less teachers.  So that means I will mostly likely be out of a job next year which stinks, but on the plus side: more time for blogging! I can get back into the groove of writing all about water stains that look like vaginas, my farrier-needing hoofs, and why pandas are such a monumental mistake. 

Lazy asshole

T is for Tip the Scales! It's a Give Away!

No, not the weight scales.  I'm tipping those very effectively with no help at all, thank you very much.  I'm talking about the follower scale.  If you will look at my side bar and scroll down a bit, you will see a widget under the heading "My favorite people in the world."  It's the So... what else member widget. I know it's arbitrary, but as of my writing this, I have 96 members of this blog.  Do you know how much that bugs me?  I need it to be 100.  Four more to go.  Hey!  How about this:  I will give my hundredth follower a gift of their choice of Kira In The Car magnets from the So... what else Store!  Yay!  You could get this:

Or this:

Or any number of other ones.  Your choice.

Hmm? What's that, 96-people-who-pushed-the-join-button-without-knowing-that-the-hundredth-one-would-get-a-prize?  You want to know, "What the HELL?"  Well, sometimes that's just the way the ball bounces.

*Stay tuned for the story about how wonderful my breakfast at the Capitol was.  I'm writing this last Friday so I don't know yet.  I'm as anxious as you to know how it turned out. 

S is for Searches

Occasionally I look at what people google to get to my blog.  There's been a few good ones recently:

 does raccoons hibernate,become dormant,lose its leaves ,migrate??

Everyone knows raccoons become dormant but don't lose their leaves.  How could they survive the inactivity of dormancy with no leaves?  What an idiot.
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 antibiotics from frog skin knife

What?  Who skins frogs?  Their skin is the most delicious part.  I was unaware that their skin contained antibiotics.  And I didn't know there was a specific knife for skinning frogs.  Just a minute,  I'll google it:

Never mind.  Google just led me to my own blog.
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  de vaginas horribles

French perv.
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caveman penis

Cavewoman perv.
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 dr. quinn medicine woman unrealistic surgeries

To the person who googled this:  You better hope you never meet my sister or me in a dark alley.  "Unrealistic" my ass.
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 effexor poop out

 I've never written anything about how effexor affects poop because I am WAY too classy to talk about pooping on my blog, however, since this person is obviously taking effexor, they are "pooping out" waste the size, shape, consistency and color of cannonballs.  Sorry effexor-taker.
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 BEARS EAT PEOPLE

No shit Sherlock.
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  cuter than crayfish crappin

Have another look, there is nothing cute about that.
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 stephen colbert's penis 

Stephen Colbert perv.
******************

  azia hairy

This was on my list a few times.  What the hell, Azia?  Why do people want to know if you are hairy?
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I Got Ranked

Today I got an email from a site called Blog-Rank.  They rank blogs according to category and they say that my blog is 39.  THIRTY NINE!  That's pretty good.  I don't know all that much about the site or what that ranking really means but whatever, I'll take 39.  (update:  I looked again tonight and I'm down to 136.  awwww... Whatever.  I'll still take it.)  I got interested in this ranking business and I saw that one of the things that Blog Rank takes into account is a site's Alexa rating.  I never heard of it before so I looked up where I rank on Alexa: 9,569,300.  (Google is number one.)  That makes 136 sound pretty good!  (On the "Sarah's Parents Official Blog Ranking" I'm NUMBER ONE, right Mom and Dad?)

Anyway, I told Kira about it and she said, without even cracking a smile, "The only reason your blog is funny is because of me."  I cracked up laughing and I hate to admit she is probably right.  She is one of the funniest people I know, and if I didn't have her to exploit, my blog wouldn't be all that funny.  So thank you, Kira dear, for our moderate success in an arbitrary ranking!

We're Number ONE! hundred and thirty six  

Blog Business

Hey guys, I've got some bloggy business to discuss with you.  I made a fan page on Facebook for this blog.  I debated if I wanted to do it or not because I've got enough irons in the fire online right now, but it was pretty easy.  You can visit it here.   If you haven't noticed (Mitch) I added a little fun feature to the sidebar.  I'm going to have a survey of "would you rather" questions every few days.  Just so you know, "neither" is not an option.  So far people are unanimous about wanting to poop their pants over watching a video of their own conception.  Interesting.

I started another blog called That's Not The Way We Usually Do It! all about my adventures in substitute teaching.  I'm thinking about writing a book about subbing so this is helping me get organized.  I've just been moving subbing posts from here to there lately so there isn't really anything brand new on there yet.   Check it out.

Keep your Bloggin' answers coming!  I have enough now to run the feature for a couple of months.  If you know of some bloggers who might have some interesting answers, send them a link and tell them to play along.

That's about all for now.  Now it's your job to decide your answer for the survey question:  A load in your drawers, or being a part of the most intimate and beautiful moment in your parent's lives....

Bloggin': So... what else?

Thank you so much to those of you who have already responded to my Bloggin' questions from yesterday!  I was so happy to read your answers!  What do ya say we make this a Wednesday feature until I run out of blogs to feature?  Okay, sounds good to me.

Nataliedee.com

As promised, I will feature my own answers today:

1. Does your blog fit into a "niche" and how do you choose what to write about? Have you ever pulled a post after you published it because you regretted it?

I guess you could say it is a humor blog because I try to be funny. It started as a mommy blog so I could keep track of crazy things my kids said and did, and I found most of the stuff I was writing was about the funny stuff the kids did and funny stuff that happened. So I guess now you could call it a humor/mommy/everyday life blog. I write about what strikes me funny. I have pulled exactly one post after posting it because it was about my daughter and although it was hilarious, it was a little too personal.

2. Do you read a lot of other blogs? How many? Have you had contact with the bloggers, or are you a lurker?

Yes. I read about 100 blogs. They don't all post every day, and I have about ten or so that I really like and never miss. I put blogs I like in my Google reader and I check it every day in the morning when I eat breakfast. ~Helpful hint: as an avid blog reader I think you should enable your posts to be read in-full in a reader. If you only have it so I can read a few sentences, a lot of the time I won't click the link to your blog to read the whole thing because I have 30 other posts that are right there, easy to read.~ I have communicated with about 30 or so bloggers of the blogs I read. There are many I just lurk on. There is one mommy blog that is just kind of a ho hum family-only blog in Tennessee but I've been lurking on it for YEARS. I don't know why. I feel like I'm a fly on her wall that she doesn't even know is there....

3. Do you comment on a lot of other blogs?

I do not comment a lot. I should comment more. I don't know why I don't. I think part of it is total laziness because from my reader I have to open the page of the post I want to comment on, then I have to comment, then I usually have to do the stupid word verification. So if I comment, it's something I really wanted to say.

4. How important is it for you to get comments on a scale of 1-10? 

I LOVE getting comments. I would say on a scale of 1-10 it is about an 9 because although I love the comments, I would keep writing regardless if I got them or not. Whenever I see a comment in my inbox I get a little thrill. I love to know that someone read the post and liked it enough to comment because I assume everyone is like me and only comments when they really liked what I wrote.

5. Do you respond to your commentors?

Not as much as I should. Isn't that shitty? I'm trying to get better because I know when I comment on other blogs I usually go back and see if the author responded. The other day I commented on the George Washington Wired blog.  They had pictures of newborn baby piglets that were just born at Mount Vernon.  I said that there is nothing in the world as cute as baby piglets, and also there is nothing more delicious in the world than slightly older piglets.  I went back to see if there was any follow up and I got an admonishing response from another reader who told me to have more respect for the animals that give up their lives so I can have delicious bacon.  I felt really bad about that.

6. How many followers do you have? How did you get them?

I have 80 people who have pushed the "follow this blog" button. I have followed a lot of blogs and the other day I checked them all out and many of them are out of business or haven't posted in months. (Lightweights.) I check my stats pretty much every day to see how many hits I've gotten and it hovers around 200 to 300 a day but about 75% of those are from random Google searches and those people generally don't come back because they weren't looking for me, or for a blog to read, they were looking for things like "where does a horse's milk come out" and "ativan shut up juice" and they don't generally return. I would guess that I have about 15 to 20 everyday readers, and another 10 or 20 that check in once in a while. How did I get my followers? I begged people to read my blog. Is there any other way?

7. How do you promote your blog?

Promotion? I don't know much about it. I have looked up how to promote a blog and they say to make it easy for people to subscribe in a reader (check), post consistently (check), comment a lot on other sites (not so much), write guest posts on other blogs (anyone want a guest post?), and advertise (I'm not at the point where I think this blog is worth spending money on.) I also started my store but I can honestly say I don't expect to sell anything. I just enjoy designing stuff on my computer.

8. Do you write for any other sites?

I've guest posted before for The Empress, and I've written posts for Aiming Low, LOL, Mypheme, The Chunkersons, and some other regular blogs that have since quit posting.

9. What is your favorite and least favorite thing about blogging?

My least favorite is that a small part of me can't help see it as some kind of competition. I get discouraged when I see a new blog go up and within three months they have 500 followers and 30 comments per post, and their content is kind of iffy. Does that mean my writing is iffier? Probably.

The best thing is that I have an organized easy way to write consistently and that I've made some great friends. When I started I thought it was just going to be a family focused online diary to tell my sisters and parents what my kids were doing. I had no idea it would be so much fun.


10. What advice would you give to potential bloggers?  What do you HATE to see on a blog?  What do you like?


I would say keep writing all the time.  Make your site nice to look at, not too junky.  Link to stuff.  Have cool pictures.  I hate when I click on a blog and they have music.  I HATE that.  I usually won't go back. Oh!  and one more peeve that's not so much a blogging peeve as it is a writing peeve.  What I hate is when people misuse question marks to show that if they were talking they would say part of it like a question.  Example:  "That dolphin attempting to hump a lady taking part in a swim-with-the-dolphins program? Was the most disgusting thing I ever saw."  It's not grammatically correct.  Don't do that.  

Bloggin'

The only reality show I was ever taken in by was Wife Swap.  I find it fascinating to see how other people live their every day lives and how it compares with how other people live their every day lives, and then to watch it get all mixed up. I really like to know how other people do the same thing I do.   I was chatting with my friend Kady at A Lady Reveals Nothing (who just got interviewed by Forbes online magazine) (showoff) and we were talking about some bloggy things and that got me wondering what other bloggers think about and how they do things.  I want to know these things!  I came up with questions for what I want to know the most. 

I would like you, my fellow blogger/readers to answer my questions so we can get a peek into your bloggy life.  Here are the questions:

1.  Does your blog fit into a "niche" and how do you choose what to write about?  Have you ever pulled a post after you published it because you regretted it or got some horrible feedback?
2.  Do you read a lot of other blogs?  How many? Have you had contact with the bloggers, or are you a lurker?
3.  Do you comment on a lot of other blogs?
4.  How important is it for you to get comments on a scale of 1-10?
5.  Do you respond to your commentors?
6.  How many followers do you have?  How did you get them? 
7.  How do you promote your blog?
8.  Do you write for any other sites?
9.  What is your most favorite and least favorite thing about blogging?
10. What advice would you give to potential bloggers?  What do you HATE when you see on a blog?  What do you like to see on a blog?

Please answer my questions. Even if you only want to answer a few and not all, that's great!  (personally I don't know how you could answer some and not the others, but hey, whatev.) I'll even let you be anonymous and post your answers that way, if you want (but why would you want to?).  I figure if I am curious about how you do these things, a lot of other people are curious as well.  Send me an email at pluvial124@gmail.com with your answers.  You don't have to write a book.  Just a few sentences for each question would suffice. 

It won't take you that long.  I will post your answers one blog at a time and make a big splash about how great your blog is for my 20 or so readers here at So... what else? and maybe we can make some bloggy connections and do some bloggy projects together!  Doesn't that sound like fun!  We could do cross-over events like they did with Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley!  I don't know.  But I know I would really love it if you played my little game.  Just to get the ball rolling, I will post my answers for tomorrow's post. 

So get busy.  I'm talking to you Kady, Summer, Jane, Angie, Andie, Simone, Anne, Kathleen, Eva, (vacation shmacation, Eva) Wendi, Jenny (I wish), Meg, Amanda, Stephanie, Azia, Becky, Linda, You're Lucky I Don't Have a Gun, and anyone else out there that I've thoughtlessly overlooked.  I couldn't possibly get too many responses.

Blog Buttons

I've been having the best time lately playing with picnik.com.  I've been making blog buttons.  They are on my sidebar.  You can take one if you want.  Actually, I don't know how to make real blog buttons, the kind that you, as a reader with a fellow blog are able to "grab" and post on your blog, so they are just pictures with text on them.  I looked up the directions for blog buttons on google and I understand everything except how to assign a web address to a picture. What????  Like anyone is really supposed to be able to figure that out!  I figured out a way to make them the poor-man's (dumb girl's) way:  Take the picture and put it on your sidebar and then link my address to the picture.  I realize that the downfall of this plan is that you could link any site to my picture and that might be kind of hilarious, but I'd like it if you just linked my site to my picture.

I find the best buttons are made from unflattering pictures of myself.  I have so many choices!  This button is made from my all-time favorite picture of myself:

It was taken when I was eleven years old.  We were in Tasmania touring the crap out of the place (I'm not kidding. We lived in Australia for a year. Shut up, Mitch) and my sisters and I were SICK of looking at old convict artifacts so we threw ourselves into playing with our barbies.  We were walking around this old graveyard and my dad wanted a picture of the old graves but he wanted a person in it because he says that pictures are always better with people in them.  I was sick of getting my picture taken too, so I wasn't interested in putting my best foot forward anymore so I didn't bother taking down my hood, or even untying it or loosening it a tiny smidge.  And I was holding Barbie so why not put her best foot forward and give her a little camera time?  And while I was at it, how about a hand on the hip and a white-man's overbite to give that boring old graveyard a little sass?  This picture was lost for a long time.  It was the stuff of Lindahl family legends.  It was talked about and laughed about so much that I thought maybe the silliness of it was being exaggerated.  Then I found the picture a few years ago and it was every bit as silly as we remembered.

On to the next button.  Now, before I show it to you, I want you to know that this is what I thought I looked like:

But this is what I actually looked like:

This is another classic that the people who are supposed to love me most in the world laugh and laugh about.  I was on my honeymoon at Yellowstone National Park and Mitch and my sister and I were seeing the sights. (Amy went on our honeymoon with us. What?)  I was walking around like this ALL DAY.  I had that nifty crossbody bag but nobody told me I was wearing it wrong.  Thanks, new husband!  Thanks, sister!  It's not supposed to go tightly over your boobs, it's supposed to go loosely between your boobs.  I've tried crossbody bags since this incident and they don't look good no matter how I wear them.  If I wear them properly between the boobs like Reese is in the picture of her, it makes one boob look really high and one boob look really low.  Maybe my boobs are lopsided?  Probably.

So grab a button if you want!  And if you know the tightly kept secret of assigning a URL to a photograph, please, let me know.

Happy 800th Post!

Hey, guess what?  This is my 800th post!  That's pretty exciting!  Since I started writing this silly blog three years ago I have written 800 posts, gotten 80 followers, got a troll, got an award and had over 98,000 hits!  I don't really have anything exciting in mind for this landmark post so it's just going to be a re-run.  I was looking back on some of the posts and I found this one that I forgot about from 2009 and it made me laugh.  If I wouldn't have written it down, I would have forgot it even happened.

Tonight on the way to hockey practice, Sam was telling Kira and I about how he thinks Dwight from The Office is so funny when he prefaces things his says with "Question:..." or "Fact:..." Kira caught on to it and would not stop. Every utterance (and there were many) she had was prefaced. Here is just a short sample of her rambling:

Kira - "Fact: It is now 6:30. Question: Sam, what time does your practice start?"
Sam- "6:35"
Kira - "Fact: You are going to be late."
Sam - "Kira, I was kidding, it's not til 7:00. And would you stop doing that, it's getting annoying."
Kira - "Opinion: it was not very nice of you to lie to me. Threat: I am going to punch you in the face."

(merciful silence, driving along, eventually driving past the clinic)

Kira - "Fact: I've been there before. Fact: I choked on a lollipop that the doctor gave me. Fact: it hurt a lot. Fact: you had to give me a popsicle when we got home to make my throat feel better."

This went on and on for about an hour until she eventually said, "Fact: I'm getting very tired of talking like this but I don't think I can stop."

And she hasn't.

That one really should be labeled as a Kira in the Car post, but it wasn't.  I'll do it now.  

Some Important Milestones

Two things have happened in the last few days and I feel like because of them I'm starting an important new chapter in my life.  First of all, I have gotten 90,000 hits on this blog. 

(OMG!!!!!!)

Of course, probably more than half of them are from people googling crazy things like "teens peeing" and "ativan shut up juice," but you know what?  I'll take it.  So thank you to everyone who comes to visit me at this blog every day or week or month or whatever.  I'd keep writing even if I nobody ever read it but if that was the case it would probably be a bunch of craziness and someone would come across it sometime and declare that they've discovered a hidden genius!  Just kidding.  They'd just say I was nuts.  I keep it sane for you, my people.  Oh sure, I've reached out once or twice and let you in on what's really going on in my head, hoping that people would read it and say, "What?  That's not crazy.  I do that."  But you didn't.  You said I was weird.  That's okay, I already knew that.  But I don't need to advertise it, do I?  So I will continue to keep it mostly sane.  Anyway, like I say, I'd still write even if I had no readers, but I am really really glad I have readers.  I love knowing people are coming here to see if there is anything new I have to say.

The other milestone is that I cleaned my oven for the first time since we moved into the house twelve years ago.  It's an old 1970s Tappan and it's small.  It looked so old and crappy when we moved in I thought it would break down so why bother with the cleaning?  Is there a worse chore than cleaning an oven?  I don't think there is.  I almost cleaned it once three years ago but then I didn't.  After about ten years the thought of cleaning it becomes absurd.  Why would I do that?  It's disgusting!  So I'd made myself a mental flowchart which I turned into an actual flowchart:

See?  It doesn't need to be cleaned more than every 12 years.  Next time I clean it I will be 53 years old.  I'm glad because it will take about 12 years for these Easy-Off chemical burns to heal.

Blog Tutorial

Hi!  How are you guys today?  I've had a LOT of caffeine today!  I just got back from the Hmong New Year celebration here in Duluth. I earned some continuing education credits for my teaching license by going to it and immersing myself in another culture for a few hours.  I was the tallest person in the room by at least five or six inches.  It was fun and they were super nice to me.  My favorite part was a singing group of Hmong freshman at UMD who called themselves the "FreshHmong"

Anyhoo, I have some bloggy business to take care of because although I've had this blog for almost three years now, I've lately gotten some questions that lead me to believe some of my followers don't know all the neat things you can do on it.

First of all, you can always get back to the main page by simply clicking on the blog title at the very top of the page.

Did you just click on the picture of the title?  Well that's not what I was talking about.  The picture is only there to show you what the blog title looks like.  You need to pay better attention.

The blogger bar at the top, above the blog title, has some features that you might like:

Starting at the far left there is a blank space for you to type in any query you want and blogger will look up everything related to that query on the blog.  Try it now.  Type in "Mitch" and you will see all posts featuring Mitch.  See?  Neat!

Next is the follow button.  If you haven't clicked on that already, do it now.  Cool huh?  Don't you feel better now?  Next is the Report Abuse button which you will (probably) never have to use for this blog.  I don't abuse anyone.  The next thing is the Next Blog button.  That will take you to a random blogger blog that is somehow similar to mine.

On the right side there are spots where you can click to create your own blog or to sign in.

Underneath the blog title there are eight buttons.

Home is the homepage, the main page, the front page.  It shows the very latest thing posted on the blog and then after that the next most recent post etc. etc.

If you click on Reading List you will see an exhaustive list of books I have read with a short review, linked to Amazon where if you are interested you can buy them yourself or read a better review than I wrote.  The top entry is the latest book I read and it goes to the next most recent from there.

The Searches button is a list of crazy things that people have typed into to google and have been directed to my blog.  I think they are funny.

Under Characters is a list (with pictures!) of the people I talk about on the blog.  I should add more.

The Cartoons page features cartoons by Natalie Dee.  She cracks me up.

The FAQ button is a page with frequently asked questions.  Nobody asks me questions.  I made the whole thing up.  Actually, I asked people to ask me questions so I could make a FAQ page.  I think because I had just learned that FAQ means "frequently asked questions."  I was feeling pretty special that day.  Some people were kind enough to humor me and sent me some questions by they are not by any stretch frequently asked.

The find me page features links to other places on the internet that you can find me.  Click on any one of them and you will get to me.  But you're already here with me now, so why would you do that?  Are you obsessed with me or something?  Just kidding.  Friend me on Facebook.

The last button is a list of nicknames because I think they are funny.

If you go to any of these pages and panic and think to yourself, "OMG!  How do I get back to the main page?  What if she has posted something since I've been reading these FAQs or Cartoons?!  I must get back!" then you just click on the blog title, or on the Home button and you will get back to the main page.  See?  It's not so hard!

Sometime I link to other pages or to previous posts in a post.  When I do that you will be able to tell it is a link because it will be a different color like this.  If you see that, click on it and I could bring you to someplace WONDERFUL!

After each post is a little box with info in it like this:

Starting at the top left  this tells us that there have been three comments on this post.  The little envelope thingy can be clicked on if you want to email this post to someone.  The pencil is just for me.  You don't usually see it.  It is so I can edit the post if I want.  Then there are some buttons.  The M is for Gmail.  Click on it if you want to gmail the post to someone.  The B is for blogger.  If you have a blogger blog and want to blog about this or post this post on your blog, that's what you click on.  Next is a T for Twitter.  Click on it if you want to tweet the post.  And the last one is an F for Facebook.  If you click on it you will create a link to the post on your Facebook page.  Finally there is a button with a little 1 in it.  If you have a google account click on it and you will recommend the post to other google users.

Under that line is labels.  This is how I categorize each and every post.  They are cross referenced by subject and you can find all the subjects on the sidebar under the heading "Stuff I Write About"  If you click on any one of those, you will get all the posts I categorized under that heading.

The last line is for reactions to the post.  I just put a "like" button like Facebook has because people are used to that and I don't want to know if people think my posts suck because I can't handle it, so I didn't put a "this sucks" button on.  Just like.  Click it now.  See how it works?

Next let's look at the sidebar to the right.  I have too much stuff cluttering up my sidebar but that's just the way it is.  The top is widgets you can click if you want to subscribe to the posts or the comments.  I'm not really sure if these work properly because I don't subscribe to my own blog and I've never used them on other blogs because I just add them to my Google Reader and they automatically show up there.

Next is a StumbeUpon button.  I don't know how to use StumbleUpon and every time I try I feel like a total idiot, but if you have a StumbleUpon account and click on the button you list the post on the Stumble website and I get loads of hits.

Next is a Twitter button.  If you click it you will be directed to my Twitter page and you can follow me there.  I'm kind of a dud on Twitter.  I don't post much.  I'm too wordy.

Next is the heading "Sometimes I'm kind of funny" and below that are links to my personal favorite posts that I have written.

Under the heading "Stuff I Write About" is stuff I write about.  The headings I told you about before.

Next is a spot for me to brag about my blogging accomplishments.  This was listed as one of MBAOnline's top twenty humor blogs of 2010.  And I was nominated for a Best Humor Blog for the Blogger's Choice awards.

Next is my complete blog archive. You can see every post I've ever written by clicking on the links.

Next is the followers area.  These are people who have clicked on the "Join this site" button.  I love when people do that.

Next under the heading "Best Blogs Ever" are links to the blogs I love to read.  The top is the most recently updated.

After that are some pictures, a little thing about me, the blogger and my pageview counter.

So there you have it!  A Blogger blog tutorial!

I'm so very versatile...

I woke up this morning not feeling the best because I am having a mid-life crisis.  Why?  Oh, because I'm 41, I'm a substitute teacher (OMG), I've never lost the weight I swore I would lose, I have disgusting night sweats/farts and facing all these facts is sobering, to say the least.  Then I got on line and saw that Angie at Angie Uncovered has passed on the Versatile Blogger award to me.

Thanks Angie!  Actually, to be perfectly honest, when I saw what she wrote about me I thought "Omg, that is so sweet!  Oh crap, now what do I have to do?"  because that is just the kind of person I am and as a blogger, I'm not all that versatile.  I'm kind of a one trick pony.  Maybe this is kind of like getting awarded Miss Congeniality in a beauty contest, or winning a "participant" ribbon at school track and field day.

So, the conditions on getting the Versatile Blogger award are to acknowledge the person who gave it to me with some nice words, tell five little known facts about myself, and then pass the award on to five worthy bloggers.  So here goes.

_______________________________

Angie

I got wind of Angie's blog through The Fred Effect.  He really likes her so I thought I'd check her out.  I like her too.  She's funny and irreverent and always makes me think.  She's feisty and she puts her kids in laundromat dryers if they get lippy.  

You gotta respect a lady who has the cojones to do that!  She's also written some beautiful things on her blog like this, that I find inspiring. Check out Angie!  

___________________________________

Five little known facts about me

1. I always put the salt in the pepper shaker and the pepper in the salt shaker. I don't do it on purpose but when I fill new ones I always think, "okay, I did this wrong last time and I was sure I was right.  Do the opposite of what you think," and then I do it again and never change it because they never run out at the same time.  So if you ever come to my house for a meal expect to shake the shit out of the pepper shaker to get five measly flakes, and expect to get enough unwanted salt on your food from one little shake to make you thirsty for a week. 

2. I once fed my whole family a turkey that when I took it out of the packaging I was pretty sure was past it's prime because of the over powering dead-body smell.  I just cooked it longer than usual.  It was delicious and nobody got sick, but also, nobody appreciated it when I told them I was sure the turkey was rotten before I cooked it.  Lesson: keep your trap shut when you serve rotten yet delicious food to people.  Ignorance is, apparently, bliss.  

3.  My sisters and I stole a bus-tour in Washington D.C.  The bus was a double-decker open-top and the website said that it was a "hop on hop off" type tour.  You buy a ticket for 31 dollars and then you can hop on or off any of their busses all day.  We hopped on and nobody was there to take any money.  We toured for about an hour and then hopped off.  I felt more invigorated than guilty.  I think this might lead to a life of crime.

4.  When I was about eight years old I used to put super-balls in my tube tops because I was sure I was convincing the whole neighborhood that I was in the midst of puberty.  I can't believe the confidence I had that I was fooling everyone.  Turns out I wasn't really fooling anyone because not only was it obvious that a scrawny second grader isn't in puberty, but I wasn't very careful about making sure the superballs were the same size or that they were even.  People probably just thought it was a clever place to keep my balls.

5.  I love to pick things and peel things which is not a little known fact about me, but what is a little known fact is that when Sam was little and would get scrapes or bug bites, he would never EVER pick the scabs and if left to his own devices would let them heal on their own until the scab fell off (can you imagine?) When he was sleeping I would sneak into his room and pick the scabs that I had spotted that were totally ready to be picked.  I'm not proud of it, but if he wasn't on to me, and if he still got as many scabs, I would do it again.  

____________________________________

And the Award goes to...

1.  Anne at Life Is Good because she is my friend, and I love her and I love reading her blog.  She is a great mom and wife and is honest and funny and positive.  

2.  Kady at A Lady Reveals Nothing because she has just about the funniest blog I've ever read. Her blog is about her life of travels and adventures, tampons and poop, her crazy family and her adorable roommate.

3.  Jane of Jane's Junk and Treasures.  Her blog is about decorating and organizing.  She's funny and has great taste and does some amazing projects.  She hasn't been blogging that much lately because she's busy being a good daughter, but she'll be back and when she is, check her out.  

4.  Lawrence at The Lawrence and Julie and Julia Project.  I'm giving him the Versatile Blogger award ironically because of the ridiculous corner he has painted himself into blog-wise.  He is watching the movie Julie and Julia every day for a year and blogging about it, much like Julie Powell made a recipe from Julia Child's cookbook every day for a year and blogged about it.  He's almost to the end and he's losing his mind.  

5.  A. from Milk and Cake.  I don't know if she wants me to put her name on the blog because it isn't even on her blog, so I just put A.  I stumbled on her blog a few years ago by pushing Next Blog and I've read her ever since.  She is very Versatile!  She blogs about her family, her job, her projects, food etc, etc.  I especially love the projects she does.  She's very creative and I would love it if she would come to my house and make me some stuff.  

I have an honest to goodness TROLL!

Did anyone watch SNL last Saturday?  There was a skit on about internet trolls, you know, the people who write mean or nonsensical comments on stuff other people have written, and they do it anonymously because they aren't brave enough to even leave an internet handle. Well, I have one now!  I'm kind of torn between being annoyed by it and being happy that I'm getting more comments.  Seriously, comments are so great, even the bad ones are fun to read sometimes.  That said, I am a little annoyed with this person.  I got nine comments from him/her within about 15 minutes on various posts.  I wondered how this angry person found me so I looked at my stat counter page.  Here is their first entry.

As you can see, whoever it is was in Minneapolis, they were using a PC and Firefox as a browser.  They were directed to my blog by googling "girls dad molest" which, Mr./Mrs. Troll, is just a little disturbing, almost as disturbing as the fact that google sent him/her to me.  He/she happened upon a post I wrote about how weird I think Prolife Across America billboards are and his/her first comment was "Thank God we can still kill babies in this country. Fuck ya!"  Well Troll, thank you for the comment, but I don't think you read what I wrote.  I was writing about how weird the "I could ____ before I was (insert fetal age here)" campaign is.  Of course, I'm sure my political opinion on the issue of abortion probably shines through, but that wasn't what the post was about because that is an issue that nobody is changing their minds about.  This is what I can tell about this troll from that very first comment.  He/she capitalized "God" so it is a religious person (probably only when it's convenient, however, because flaming a blog is not something Jesus would do), which probably explains the prolife stance but doesn't really explain the venom.  It is VERY sarcastic, obviously, which tells me that this person is angry in a general way.  I don't really get the "Fuck ya!" Is it supposed to be "Fuck Yeah!" or more of a "Fuck you!"  because I'll take either one, I guess.


Then next comment was made a few minutes later on a post about Kira asking if you startle bees if it makes them poop out a little bit of pollen.   He says to that one:  "Too bad you didn't abort her. She wouldn't be asking such dumb questions."  Okay, more anger but I have to admit, that was a pretty dumb question.  Dumb but funny!  Which is why I blogged about it.  This post has absolutely nothing to do with my stance on abortion, but Mr./Mrs. Troll can't get over that!  Still mad about it!  


The next comment was on another Kira in the Car post.  This one about what kind of plants she would least like to wipe with if she had to wipe with a plant.  To which he says, "Stupid children poopin' up our woods. Get the coat hanger!" which kind of made me laugh because the thought of kids poopin' up our woods makes me smile a little.  Then "get the coat hanger" which taken in the context of the other comments, I am assuming he thinks that I should abort her with a coat hanger for pooping in the woods.  First of all, she's eleven.  I can't abort her anymore.  She's not part of my body anymore.  She's been born.  For eleven years.  Secondly, abortions SHOULD NOT be performed with coat hangers!  I think that's the whole point of the pro-choice movement.  Abortions should be safe, legal and available.  No coat hangers!  Ick!  Dangerous!


Nextly, he/she commented on a post about nightmares I was having while reading the book Roots.  It's a pretty heavy, sad topic so I was having nightmares about babies being taken away from mothers.  My troll said, "Babies taken away? Just think of it as a really late term abortion. See, all better."  No Troll, I don't think you get the point.  If a woman CHOOSES to go through a pregnancy, she can CHOOSE to keep her baby or put it up for adoption.  It's about choice.  The slaves in Roots didn't have any choices about anything at all. Having babies, keeping babies, or anything else, for that matter.  That's what was so nightmarish about it!  They made a baby, loved it while it was in the womb, and then someone told them they had to give it up.  No choice!  Nobody WANTS to get an abortion.  Pro-choice isn't pro-abortion.  It's pro-getting-a-say-in-what-happens-to-your-body-and-your-life. 


A few minutes after that I got a comment on a post about when my niece was born.  My poor troll was starting to lose it and was making less sense.  The post was pretty much a birth announcement and he said, "Fucking abortion, man. I keep telling you but you don't listen. When did the fetus become a person? Oh after its born."  Nobody said anything about abortion so what does this even mean?  A fetus DOES become a person after it is born.  The first several weeks of pregnancy it is called an embryo, then it's a fetus, then after it starts breathing on its own and is separate from its mother, it is a baby.  So, I guess we agree?  I don't get why you're so mad at me.  


Then he commented on a post about what my sister was going to name her baby.  I wrote a post asking for suggestions.  His suggestion was "Abortion,"  which is not a good name for a baby at all.  I think he is still mad at me about the Pro-Life Across America billboards.  At this point I've pretty much decided it is a man who is doing this because women who are pro-life aren't generally so venomous.  This is the kind of anger I have usually seen in men who don't get what they want. 


The next comment was after a post I wrote about possibly the worst day of subbing I ever had.  It was in a remedial reading class full of obnoxious ninth grade boys.  Troll said, "Fucking Sped kids. Failed abortions." which is not a nice thing to say at all.  For one thing, I made a point to say that the kids in the class WERE NOT special ed. kids.  They were just jerks.  I don't think any of them were failed abortions either, but I have no way of knowing.  To be perfectly honest, I don't think abortions fail all that often so I don't know where you are getting your information.  


Next he commented on a post I wrote about how I told Mitch about how sometimes if my pants are tight enough I can make farts come out the top of my butt crack and how he was grossed out about that.  My troll friend said, "marriage abort! marriage abort! marriage abort!" which I don't really get.  What does that mean, Mr. Troll?  That we should divorce over back farts?  I don't think that is grounds for divorce but if it is, don't tell Mitch.  


The last comment was on a post about when Kira asked Mitch what is the thickest piece of beef jerky he has ever seen, which was weird, which was why I posted about it.  The troll said, "Its in my pants" which really made me sure it was a man because I don't think any woman would insinuate that her vagina was like a piece of beef jerky, but then again, why would a guy say his junk was like beef jerky?  Dry, dehydrated, withered and gross?  


So based on the little bit of information I have on my new troll named Anonymous, I think he is probably a man in his 30s living in the Twin Cities and he is mad about abortion because possibly he wanted to have a baby with a woman and she didn't want to.  Or maybe he impregnanted a woman and wanted to have the baby, but she opted for an abortion because sleeping with him was a big mistake, but not enough of a mistake that she should have to pay for it for the rest of her life by being forced to parent a child (poor baby) with him while trying to dodge his anger and venom and drama.    


And because he has a penis like beef jerky.  Yucky!

Nora Ephron must be a Dwarf

(I posted this at The Chunkerson's blog today as well.)

Did you guys know that Nora Ephron is only four feet and five inches tall?  Actually I don't know that for sure but I am going to assume she must be comically short because in her book I Feel Bad About My Neck she writes this:

"I go off to college. I weigh 106 pounds.  I come back from college three months later.  I weigh 126 pounds. I was once thin and shapeless.  Now I am fat and, ironically, equally shapeless. Nothing fits except for my wool plaid Pendleton pleated skirt, which makes me look even fatter. It's tragic. My father takes one look at me as I get off the plane and says to my mother, 'Well, maybe someone will marry her for her personality.'"


First of all, in what universe is 126 pounds fat on anyone of average height?  I'm five feet and five inches tall and if I weighed 126 pounds I would look like I'd just gone through chemo during a famine, which leads me to assume that Nora Ephron is dwarf-short. I should explain that this paragraph was NOT part of a bigger chapter about what an asshole her dad was.  Maybe her dad was an asshole.  He probably was but I don't know for sure.  She was telling the story as a hilarious anecdote about how good and cold the milk was in her college cafeteria and how she gained twenty pounds in three months and got "fat."  Okay, I'll admit that it's not good to gain twenty pounds in three months, but to be a "famous" "successful" "woman" and say that the twenty pounds she gained in college was "tragic"?  I can see why we are all so obsessed with the scale.  The stupidest part of the whole story is that she is probably lying about the weights!  She probably started at 126 pounds and got up to a whopping 146 (which, btw, I would LOVE to weigh) but could never allow herself to admit those numbers in writing. Women lie about what the scale says all the time because other women lie about it.  It's stupid, and it's kind of sick but when someone famous like her does it, it is tragic.  Thanks for setting women back a few decades, Nora Ephron!

This is part of the diet cycle that is so frustrating to me.  I'm a feminist.  Our culture is toxic to women.  Pick up a Cosmopolitan magazine and see for yourself.  It's not a magazine for women to be better women, it's a magazine that tells how you can drop unsightly pounds, and wear eyeliner to look hot, and how to please your man in bed.  That's tragic.  Even the milder women's magazines are ridiculous.  Have you seen the plus-sized models?  According to women's magazines the average woman in this country is a fat, disgusting mess.  How dare we take up more than our allotted 120 pounds of space!

But on the other hand, I like to be able to breathe when I tie my shoes.  So I think I need to drop a few pounds.  But then I get into an internal struggle about my motivation for losing weight.  Why am I dropping pounds?  Is it really for health, or is it because I want to look a little more like Sofia Vergara and a little less like Ed O'Neill?

I want to look less like Ed O'Neill

I don't know.  I guess at this point I want to feel good.  I'm never going to look like Sofia Vergara.  I don't even really want to because getting ogled at this point in my life would just make me want to throw up.  I'd like to not wake up with a stomach ache and I'd like to not have the squirts and I'd like to have lots of energy.  All that can be fixed with a good diet.  I suppose if I lose pounds in the process that's just gravy, right?  Make tying the shoes a little easier?

If I ever see Nora Ephron in person I am going to (want to) slap her right across her windsock-like turkey neck.

I got professional

Hi!  It's me again, the professional blogger.  Why am I professional now instead of amateur?  Because I changed the domain name from linda075blog.blogspot.com to sowhatelseblog.com.  See, no more numbers and none of the blogger business. (linda075 was my college password when I took classes a couple of years ago.  Too bad you didn't know that back then!)  Sleek and professional.  So change it in your reader or on your toolbar or whatever.  It should automatically redirect, but I just thought you'd like to know that you are reading the words of a professional, not just some wannabe.  You could also email me at Sarah@sowhatelseblog.com too, but I wouldn't recommend it until I learn how to access it.

Follow me? (Forget it.)

I love social media, and waste countless hours on it but I can't seem to grow my skin thick enough for the whole "I'm going to follow/friend you, but then someday I'm going to pull the rug out from under you and unfollow/unfriend you and you will never know why!"  And what really bothers me about that is that I CARE.  I would say that if I saw about half the people on my Facebook friend list in the grocery store or somewhere out in the real world, I would hide so they didn't see me and then I wouldn't be forced to have a stop-and-chat. (thank you, Larry David, for that term)  I know, I'm not a nice person.  Or perhaps I'm just kind of shy?  No, I'm not shy.  Part of the reason is that I hate confrontation.  Even fake confrontation.  Especially fake confrontation, like so:

Facebook friend I don't really consider a real friend but keep on my friend list because the drama in her life provides me with endless entertainment: (FFIDRCF):  Hey Girl!  Where've you been hiding?
Me:  Oh you know, I've been busy.
FFIDRCF:  Ha ha!  We're ALL busy!  What have you been "busy" doing?
Me:  I've been busy with the kids...
FFIDRCF:  You only have two kids!  How busy could you be? (jovial, jokey-type laughter)
Me: .....  I think I just got my period. Gotta go!
FFIDRCF:  Call me!  We have to get together!
Me: ... (under my breath)... I'd rather be murdered in my bed.

I guess I am what you might call an introvert and social media fits that so perfectly.  I watched a show last night about some crazy family that has a thousand kids and how great it is because "you never have to be alone!" and I couldn't think of anything worse.  But I love knowing what is going on in people's lives so lurking on Facebook/Twitter/blogs is perfect to satisfy my social needs (that and of course, you know, having a husband and kids.)

I have recently been trying to figure out Twitter, Stumble and Reddit.  Twitter seems to be for people who like to read mini-blogs, but not necessarily write mini-blogs.  Some of the people on Twitter are hilarious, but I only actually know about three of my followers/people I follow.  When I get an email that says I have a new follower on Twitter I get excited and check them out and nine times out of ten it's a woman from the porn industry that follows eight million people in the hopes that they will follow her and read her very unsexy porno tweets.  So, it's entertaining, but like I say, I don't know those people.  I read stuff on Stumble and Reddit, but haven't totally figured it out yet.

Facebook is great because I can pick my friends.  And if a friend gets annoying in their status updates, I can keep them as a friend, but hide them so I don't have to read their millions of dramatic updates about how their ex-husband is a jerk.

It's all so shallow isn't it?  It's perfect for me.  Except when I get unfollowed/unfriended.  I hate that.  I took the follower option off the blog because I was getting obsessed with it and discouraged that more people weren't pushing the "follow" button.  That eliminated a lot of anxiety.

What do you like about social media? How do you deal with getting dumped?

Sarah Lindahl Poops (yes she does, yes she does!)

Today I have a great job.  I'm subbing for an adult basic education teacher who is on vacation for two weeks.  She only teaches two days a week so for the next two weeks, Monday and Wednesday are going to be quiet and peaceful days.  And I get paid hourly at a wage that is twice the going rate for regular sub jobs.  Sweet!  I have spent my day leisurely helping people with GED preparation, or reading skills, and during the down times I have been reading or on the internet.  A few minutes ago I was looking at my stats page, and I looked at the "recent keyword" analysis again which is the page that tells you exactly what people typed in to Google to get to your blog.  My mouth literally hung open when I saw the following:

Someone actually typed in the words "sarah lindahl poops" to google and got my blog.  I am dying of curiosity to know who wants to know about my pooping habits.  (Dad, was it you?)  So then I hit the link and this is what Google shoots back for anyone who googles "sarah lindahl poops":



There are FOUR entries that lead to my blog for anyone that wants to know about me and poop.  Wow.  I love the internet SO MUCH. 

UPDATE:

Ha ha, BETH.  I know this was you: