Friday, March 6, 2009

Happy Weekend!!

First piece of business.

Sometimes I accidentally find out that somebody has featured My New 30 in a post elsewhere in the world wide web of blogs and when I do I will always reciprocate! I am a true believer that life blesses you when you bless others and that successful blogging is a karma thing, in that what you give will come back to you. I always treasure those anonymous shout outs so, if you ever see My New 30 featured someplace, let me know and I'll feature both your blog and the blog that featured me! I love sharin' the love!!

In that spirit, this very morning I discovered one such post so I jogged on over to visit and want to give a shout out to Sandra over at Sandra Sews, who featured several links to some of my chicken recipes. She, well, sews! And has some really cute projects posted like gift bags, penny pockets, and beer pillowcases - oh and LOVE LOVE those totes. (Sandra I sense the intense need for an Etsy site from you maybe?? Hope so!) She's also a self proclaimed Fur Mama like me so you know I loved her right away! If you visit Sandra and tell her you heard about her blog here, it sure won't hurt my feelings! ;) Thanks for the sweet shout out Sandra!

Okay .. now on to me own yakety yak!

Wow, did this week fly by! I think mostly it was because it was cold here and when it is cold here I want to cocoon, stay in and veg out and not do much of anything else. As my regular readers know, I am an out of work paralegal, who thanks to Hurricane Katrina was pushed out of a lucrative and long held career and I've not had a lot of success with getting re-employed since, so I'm basically a stay at home housewife these days. What a change for somebody who'd been in the workforce full time for 30-some odd years!!

But, we are back on a warming trend down south and I'm getting the itch to get out in the yard and revive things.
(Just wish the darned gnats weren't so bad right now) We only have a couple of days of freezing weather down here a season, but it's enough to kill off everything, to where it all gets kind of gray and dull looking. I'm ready for some color! So I've been digging through the Burpee, Park Seed, Jackson & Perkins, Spring Hill and Gurney's catalogs, among others. And, of course, I'm ready to kick into the veggie garden season too - I am SO wanting some good tomatoes for a change from what's in the stores right now - and veggie time will be upon us very soon! I'm ready to get some seeds going here pretty soon.

This weekend my mother-in-law and I are thinking of going to a vegetable garden seminar being hosted by our county extension service, so if I do go, you'll be hearing about it here for sure! Either way, I'll be chronicling my garden trials - both floral and veggie - so watch those buttons over there on the left for those adventures. I've been so frustrated over the years with pests and blight doing in my veggies that I'm pretty sure that I've settled on giving the square foot method of veggie gardening a try again - so hopefully that will be fun to follow! I did that method a few years ago and thought I'd give it a go again.

This afternoon Hubs and I are off to see our son and grandson. I hear that the grandbaby is into repeating whatever you say these days, so that should be interesting. My son and daughter in law are those constant on the go types, so it's hard to catch them sitting still long enough to visit, even though we all live in the same town. Such is the life of the young and restless! Of course I want to make a quick run by WalMart before we go since Grandma and Grandpa can't show up without a new toy!

I don't think that I have mentioned this before, but
we have another grandbaby on the way and this time it is a girl!! She is due in July and my grandson will be almost 2 then. I am so excited!!! One of these days maybe I'll be able to talk my son into letting me post pictures of the grandbabies - he's still not too into that whole idea of putting pictures out on the net.

Now... on to the primary business of the day and the reason for this post, that being that what I really wanted to post about this morning is that I decided to make a page to honor and feature my very special blogging buddies! If you're visiting my blog, please be sure to stop over and say hello to these featured bloggers and let them know Mary at My New 30 sent you!

Most of the bloggers behind these sites feature a My New 30 button on their site and are regular followers and faithful with commenting, which makes doing this all worth it. I have learned that a lot of people visit my blog for recipes but few stop long enough to comment, and of course that's okay! I suppose that many who are out there looking for a solution to something like how to quickly soften butter, or a specific recipe, don't really realize just how rewarding it is to hear from them. It's nice to know that readers have found value or something of interest in what you have typed up. We live in a busy world, so it's hard to just stop sometimes. I get that. And everyone of you who do stop and say hello, or let me know you tried and loved a recipe, well, it just simply warms my heart and makes doin' this all worthwhile.

I initially started this as a private blog back in 2007 where I was using it primarily as a diet diary. But then as I got more involved in a diet board elsewhere on the net, I stopped using the blog. At the end of October 2008, however, I decided to revive the blog and what started off as an intention to chronicle what life in general was like on the other side of age 50 - which is where the name My New 30 grew out of - the blog took on a life of its own, and soon became more about life in the south, and as such, mostly about food and cooking in the south. Food is really so central to everything there is about southern life. When I made that switch, I learned that there were a lot of people interested in southern cooking and the blog has been continually growing in readership ever since. Who knew!

When I started doing this, I really didn't understand the whole blogging thing, but I've since learned that there is a lot, and I mean A LOT of work behind blogging. The food blog that I have created has become a very central part of my life and takes a lot of time, which since I am not working full time outside of the home these days, time, I have! I now have a profound amount of respect for everybody that keeps a blog active and interesting, because I now know the labor behind it. As in other types of blogs, keeping active posts going on a regular basis, especially as I have found when you are posting a lot of original recipes, is really a lot of work. There is the inspiration and development of the recipe itself, the ton of photography that is behind that one or handful of tutorial photos you see posted, the typing of the recipe and tutorial and editing is always needed it seems, and then of course there is the keeping up with responding to those who are faithful to comment, and returning those visits at their blogs too!

That is why I was frankly quite shocked at the audacity of someone who would cherry pick among all the food blogs out there and take someone else's recipes and photographs and just blatantly post them on a blog as if they were their own work! And, when that happened, out of all of the food bloggers this person took from, it was my blog that was ripped off from the most - 30 of my recipes and many more of my photos! I suppose in a way that should be a compliment, but not a very welcomed one.

Anyway, the bloggers I have listed have been very supportive of my blogging efforts since I decided to revive this blog back in October of 2008 and so I want to honor them. Big hugs and a special thanks to all of you for being who you are in my little section of the blogosphere! You all have a special place in my heart.

Since it's Lent and this is Friday, we'll be having seafood today. Likely shrimp since that is what I have thawed out, but I've yet to determine what I'm gonna do with it! Will get that up as soon as I decide and then type it up.

Good grief this is a long post ... well, if you hung with me this far, I know you must love me LOL!!! ;) And I sure love ya back! I guess I'm feeling talkative today.

So, I'll shut my mouth now and tell y'all to have a wonderful, beautiful weekend - hope the weather is warmin' up for everybody!

P.S. Anybody know what is going on with Blogger fonts? I like to use a larger font, but everytime I try to edit or mostly it seems when I use formatting features like bold or italics, it changes all of the text back to the smaller font!!! It is making me nuts!! Anybody else experiencing this too??

14 comments:

  1. Hi, Mary! Thanks for the shout-out - I have plans to try many more of your recipes (especially the desserts, hehe) - I can already the need to start buying Cream of Chicken soup by the case ;)

    Have a great visit with your son and grandson, and congrats on the upcoming new PINK arrival!! I don't have any grandies yet, but it's awfully fun making baby gifties, so when the time comes, I'll be ready ;)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hey Mary,

    What I like about your blog is that you keep it real. Congrats on the baby girl. My three grandkids just bring so much joy to my life, and are such a blessing. Enjoy your weekend.

    Wishing you love, Joyce

    ReplyDelete
  3. Awwwww Joyce, that's about the nicest compliment a gal could ask for! Thank you {{{{{HUGSS}}}}}} and back at ya!

    ReplyDelete
  4. LOL Sandra - well condensed soups are a staple down south ya know??!!! For some reason your post wasn't showing first, sorry I missed that. Anyway, you're welcome and thanks again for the nice post. Let me know when you open that Etsy shop to sell some of that pink stuff!!! ;)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Regarding your son not wanting his kids pictures on the net. Maybe you could ease into it, by convincing him to post a picture of the back of the kids - you know how some people post those pictures where the kids are walking down a path away from you, so you don't see their face, but it's such a cute shot?

    Anyway, thanks for visiting my blog last week when it was featured on SITS.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Your blog is true to you! that is what I love so much!!! :)

    and of course the good food :)

    ReplyDelete
  7. Actually that is a great idea - now gotta get that shot, right? Thanks for the tip! And you're welcome! I'll be back - I totally enjoyed my visit.

    Thanks so much Jennifer!! :)

    ReplyDelete
  8. There must be something about that 50+ time in ones life. I had a need to start blogging and to open it up for all to see. I enjoy meeting new online friends and sharing a piece of my life with them. Enjoyed reading your Blog :-)

    ReplyDelete
  9. Hi Auntie E! Thanks for coming by my blog. Yeah, I think you're right about that over 50 thing. Course for me, it turned into more about food than anything! I do talk about other things too sometimes, just more food than anything else LOL!

    Hope to get to know you better!!

    ReplyDelete
  10. What a cute blog love all the yummy recipes! And warming up I don't think I know what that is ... LOL. Stopping by from SITS :)

    I have a fun giveaway going on if your interested, It's an unusual post for me but still fun. Monday back to mom days :)

    Alexis @ Running Away

    ReplyDelete
  11. Hi Alexis - thanks for visiting! Thanks for the invite - interesting site there!!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Hi....thanks for dropping by my blog. I can't wait to look at all your recipes. I'm originally from the South myself and I love Southern cooking. I know I'm going to enjoy myself!
    Elaine :)

    ReplyDelete
  13. Hey, congratulations on the new grand baby.
    I was shocked when I heard people were stealing from others in bloggy land. What's the point??

    Anyway have a great weekend.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Hi Elaine! Hope I manage to bring a touch of "home" to ya!

    Nana, I swear! I have no idea what this person was thinking, but I really hope that they don't do that again! Building a blog off of the backs of others is just downright wrong! I am avoiding housework and yardwork - it's a beautiful day out and people are beginning to get their yards in shape, but Hubs ran off to watch Nascar with a friend so it'll wait till he is home to help me LOL! I'd rather be inside cookin' anyways!! ;)

    ReplyDelete

Welcome & thanks for taking the time to comment! From time to time, comment moderation may be activated due to comment spam. I also reserve the right to edit, delete or otherwise exercise total editorial discretion over any comments left on this blog.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE
All content and images, including any not yet watermarked, are ©My New 30 2008-2017, unless noted otherwise. You are free to print articles for personal use, but please do not republish anything from this site without prior written permission. All rights reserved.
Is someone stealing your content? Click here to find out what to do.