blog day 2007

Well, I was going to write about the day I met Elizabeth Edwards (prompted by this exchange from yesterday over at BlogHer) but it will have to wait.

Because today is Blog Day:

created with the belief that bloggers should have one day dedicated to getting to know other bloggers from other countries and areas of interest. On that day Bloggers will recommend other blogs to their blog visitors.
With the goal in mind, on this day every blogger will post a recommendation of 5 new blogs. This way, all blog readers will find themselves leaping around and discovering new, previously unknown blogs.

I am choosing to interpret "previously unknown" to mean blogs that are new to me, as well as blogs I read but about which I have yet to write in my blog. Here are my recommendations for Blog Day 2007:

1. cmkl / Chris Lawson's personal web site. It lacks a catchy title but everything about this blog is wonderful. Chris is a friend of mine from way back and I have followed his blog through many life changes. He's a gifted writer, with a great, wry sense of humour. I love his entries about politics and his photos of his various forays into the Ontario's wilderness but my favourite posts are about his daughter Mallory and how it feels to be her very hands-on father.

2. Love Babz: A Life in Transition is a very recent discovery. This is how Babz describes herself in her profile:

"I am 44 years old. I am married with 4 children we adopted. My husband and I are separating after 11 years of marriage. I have a BS degree in Marketing and MPA-Masters in Public Administration. I was elected to local office twice. I am the oldest of 4 children. My life as I know it is changing. I am a convicted felon of a white collar crime, And yet I know my future is bright and full of possibilities. Ain't no place to go but UP!"

Babz, like me, is a glass is half-full kind of person. As she faces foreclosure on her house and a thirty-day prison sentence, she continuously reminds us about all the reasons life is worth living. Today's post is particularly moving.

3. I found Yarn-a-Go-Go through Mason-Dixon Knitting (the blog that led to my favourite knitting book ever). Rachael is a writer, an extremely talented knitter (and designer), a dog and cat lover, and absolutely charming. Even if you've never knit a stitch in your life, she's well worth reading. The story of Digit, the cat that came back, is worth the price of admission, all by itself.

4. Nordette Adams is a contributing editor at BlogHer, on the Mommy and Family beat. She's a single mom (to a teenage son and adult daughter) and I find her writing to be both lyrical and incisive. This is a strong woman with strong opinions and a fierce love of her kids. Two Miles from a Dive is her newest blog, started after relocating her family to her native New Orleans:

"That's two miles from diving into Lake Pontchartrain in the toes of the boot, southeastern Louisiana, land of bayous, gumbo, jazz, moss, ghosts, and Hurricane Katrina survivors. You may have read me when I lived in New Jersey at Confessions of a Jersey Goddess, but that was temporary. I'm back home for good."

5. Ok, so it's cheating a little bit to include the Junky's Wife in this list, as she has been on my blogroll (which I really need to update, there are some others to add, for sure) for some time. But I have never written about her before and she certainly fits the Blog Day criteria of featuring blogs that represent a range of life experiences and perspectives. The Junky's Wife is sexy, creative, literate, heartbreakingly honest and madly in love with her recovering junkie husband. I am addicted to this one.

Go check them out.

And let me know what you think.