7 Quick Takes: The NaBloPoMo Edition

1. The Na Blah Blah WHAT??? NaBloPoMo. It stands for National Blog Posting Month. It's actually a website that encourages bloggers to post every day for a month, starting whenever you feel like it. (So I guess every month could be National Blog Posting Month for someone.) It was brought to my attention earlier this week, and fellow blogger Scott Bilik almost talked me into taking up the challenge. (Or, to be precise, he tried to tweet me into it. Gotta love Twitter.) I was, and am, tempted to try it, but I REALLY don't have time to commit to that right now. It's true that between here and my other blog, Cooking Nick's Books: A Sparks Fan's Food Blog, I've posted for five straight days; but after this post I'm planning to give it a rest for a teensy-weensy bit.

2. I like the idea of posting every day, and on the National Blog Posting Month website, you can register your blog if you decide to do the blog-a-day challenge. The list of registered blogs is huge. They even provide a writing prompt for every day to help you get started. Some of them are pretty cheesy--like "What is your favorite animal?" Please. I feel like a fourth grader trying to come up with something for my teacher's daily journal writing assignment. Many of them are fun and thought-provoking, though, and I've decided to pick a few from the last month or so to briefly share here.

3. Tell us the story of a piece of jewelry you own. Where did it come from, and what does it mean to you?

Well now, I have several that are meaningful to me, but I'll tell you about the one that I happened to be wearing the day this question was posted:

When I became Catholic over 14 years ago, my in-laws gave me a miraculous medal that I wore almost every day for years. One day when my kids were little I was playing with them on some playground equipment when suddenly the chain broke. I looked for what seemed like hours among the pea gravel for the little medal, but never found it. So last month when my husband and I took a weekend trip to Newport, Rhode Island, he told me to keep my eyes open for a REALLY special piece of jewlery that I REALLY wanted, and he'd buy it for me as an anniversary gift. (Our anniversary is in August. We often spend a couple of months celebrating; in September we took a day trip to the church where we were married, and then a month later we went to Newport. The anniversary of our first date is coming up soon...hmmm, I wonder how we'll celebrate?) Anyhow, all weekend we browsed through shop after shop, but I didn't see anything that I absolutely HAD to have. Then on our last night in Newport, we popped into a litte antique shop. As soon as I saw it, I said, "I found my present." He also bought me a beautiful cloisonne bracelet. The lady in the shop said they were both likely made in the 1960s, so they weren't THAT old, and methinks he ended up spending a lot less on that gift than he expected.

Today, the chain broke. I still have the medal, though; I just hope I've got another chain to put it on.

(To read the story of how I became a Catholic, click here. This will take you to part one, which links to part two, which links to part three. One of these days I'll sit down and figure out how to put my conversion story in the sidebar.)

4. What toy from your childhood do you still have in your possession?

This one:

Right now it's jumbled among a pile of stuffed animals that our boys accumulated when they were smaller. Eventually we'll either toss or give away most of them, but not Pink Teddy.

5. Do you have any scars? How'd you get them?

I was playmates with the girl across the street, who was a year older than me. They had a big dog that they kept chained to their garage. (Seriously, what kind of person keeps a dog chained to the garage day and night? No grass, no dirt, only the hard concrete floor and the asphalt driveway. No walks, no playing frisbee, no nothing, and the only stimulation is to bark at passersby. What a life.) So anyway, you can probably guess what happened. We were playing hide-and-seek one day in her yard, and I decided that a great hiding place would be the narrow space between the garage and the fence that bordered the next yard. What I didn't know was that the dog's chain was long enough to reach me, and it came around the corner and bit me on the leg. After that my friendship with my neighbor kinda fizzled, and one day we noticed there was no more dog at their house.

6. What's one thing you can't start your day without?

That's easy. Coffee.

7. So...I'm not quite up to the NaBloPoMo thing. But here's another challenge I'm itching to jump into: The 365 Project. Take a photo and post it every day for a year. I might not be able to blog every day, but I can do that. Maybe.

Check out Jen at Conversion Diary for more Quick Takes.