Ferns unfurling in my back yard last spring

I skipped last weekend but that’s okay. Everyone was too busy having fun to think of reading a link up, right?

Lots of stuff going on here, all my kids are now back to school except my oldest who will be flying back to his father’s home this week. I’m working with my friend David Wright, aka Blogger Dad, on a redesign of I Hate My Message Board. After putting a lot of thought into it, I’ve decided to narrow the focus of this blog to just food related topics since those are by far my most popular posts. I will still be doing weekend link ups so that those who are interested in my other posts on various sites can easily find them.

HealthCompare Guide

Protect Your Financial Health With These Free Personal Finance E-Books

Whether you want to learn how to save money, explore ways to make more money or are looking for advice on how to invest, there is a free e-book out there waiting for you to download.

12 Reasons Why Libraries are the Ultimate Frugal Resource

Libraries have always been the frugal person’s best friend. These days, libraries offer much more than just books and the old stereotype of librarians as prim little old ladies making everyone shush has gone out the window.

5 Reasons Parents Should Put Themselves First

How many times have you put aside your own needs and desires to take care of your children first? Although our children’s health and safety are always paramount, there are times when it’s okay to devote your time and resources to doing things that make you happy, even if it means your children will have to come second.

MoneyNing

5 Reasons Why I Don’t Have a Deep Freezer

Of course, for many people a separate deep freezer makes a lot of sense and can save them both money and time. The real point is that it’s important to think about your own lifestyle and preferences before making an investment or lifestyle change based on common wisdom.

15 Ways to Earn Extra Money

Sometimes being frugal is not enough to meet your financial obligations and goals and you’ll have to look for ways to earn some extra cash. Whether you’re a stay at home parent looking to supplement your family’s income, looking to pay down debt or establish an emergency fund or saving for a special purchase, here are some ideas to help you make some extra money.

Guest Post

Why Optimists Prosper on Pick the Brain

Optimism is not pie in the sky thinking but rather a way of looking at the world with the knowledge that positive outcomes are a reality, that individuals can take actions to increase their own happiness and financial well being and that failing at something does not make you a failure.

Speaking of guest posts, I’ve joined Jon Morrow‘s Guest Blogging Apprenticeship program. Membership is closed for now but you can still learn a lot from the free material posted on guestblogging.com. If you’re a blogger, I urge you to check it out, even if you aren’t interested in guest blogging.

Other People

My friend Kathy Frederick of The Junk Drawer was quoted by the Wall Street Journal and other major news outlets about her video demonstrated how loud the new Sun Chips bags are. Congratulations Kathy and I hope this is the start of many great things for you.

Blogger Dad wrote a spectacularly feisty post F@#*! the PTC about their protests against the new show $#*! my Dad Says.

This is not a new post but it’s one I’ve always loved and it was reposted on IttyBiz this week: When You Feel Like a Raging Failure. You are not the only one who ever feels that way.

More next week!

Or, mid August during a heat wave is the perfect time to just post my Google Analytics

If you really care to see this you could click to enlarge it

beef cheek smell

what color is your poop after c section and what color

addicted to japanese things

addicted to pooping in weird places

addicted to pork rinds

awesome things to be addicted to

asian drink sweat

babys poop color reference chart

benny mardones creepy

best egg substitute recommended by famous cooks

black itchy spot inside ear

black spots with holes inside your ear

can humans eat chicken bones?

color chart of healthy people poop

birds die dead memphis

haggis as a gift

haggis bagel sandwich

hate my frugal parents

have to eat the whole can of spam

how can i get aggravated prostitution off my record

i am a boring person, the person with me to the final separation is always

i eat canned chicken all day

pictures of weird looking chickens that have been cooked

papaya taste vomit genetic

panko fried hot dogs

my kefir has larva in it

my ass and perineum hurt so bad

porking ogre

songs about jheri curld

why i want to be a loser and a quitter

the “food industry wants you to believe” tracy

strange ear hole that itches sometimes, i was born with it

should i broth exgirlfriend man?

rice wheat chips like pork rinds

Congratulations! According to Google, this is the place to find it!

Or, celebrate with me for tomorrow is the first day of school

Picture of a house we didn't buy last year. Now you tell me, even if you weren't able to fix that water damage wouldn't you take the pom pom off the dang mask before you started showing the house?

For those curious, yeah I do just pick random photos from my albums for these link ups. Why not? Somebody has to look at them and it might as well be you.

I want to start this week’s round up by asking a small favor of all my readers that use Facebook. My children’s kindergarten and elementary school have gathering votes to potentially win $500,000 each. All you have to do is become a fan, and vote. You have 20 votes and can distribute them how you wish, five per school. You can do a search for schools so even if you don’t want to vote for my kids’ schools you can vote for a different one. There will be 20 winners and each winning school gets a half million dollars.

Am thinking about making some sort of incentive like I’ll eat something super grody if we hit certain milestones but would be humiliated if nobody cared enough to see me eat huilatache or pig uterus to click vote a few times. I mean, that’ the kind of thing that gets you laughed out of blogging conventions. So if you want me to do it, you better speak up and say so and let me know you’d spread the word far and wide.

Disclaimer: no matter how many votes we get I will NOT eat any sandwich consisting of a bagel and bean sprouts. Is not going to happen /inside joke for the old timers.

Anyway! To the links!

Stuff I wrote that was posted elsewhere:

Meal Planning: The key to tasty, healthy inexpensive eating

Still working on a fool proof way to implement this piece of good advice. Family of five boys is a very, very scary thing for your food bill!

If you don’t want to go to the store every day, make sure your children understand it’s not okay to waste or over-consume food. That said; make sure that you budget for reasonable amounts of healthy, inexpensive snacks.

Three reasons stay at home parents should consider working part time

The choice to have one parent stay at home with the child(ren) is a deeply personal, individual one that goes beyond finances. However, there are many reasons why it’s a good idea for stay at home moms and dads to seek part time work, even if there is no immediate need for income.

I was tickled pink that the above post was linked in the Consumerist and Time.com.

By the way, I am also helping with the Money Ning Facebook stream and would love if you liked us and participated in our lively discussions.

Stuff other people wrote this week:

Fans of IHMMB should enjoy Nibbles that Gave Me the Shivers (Or Sh*t I wouldn’t eat again). Highlights include guinea pig and sea horses. A few of the pictures might not be for the extremely squeamish so use your best judgment in clicking through.  It’s from a lovely blog called Uncornered Marketing that I found on The Daily Brainstorm.

To go a bit meta, I’d like to link to this post 80 How-To Sites Worth Bookmarking from Stepcase Lifehack. Technically it was written two years ago and not last week but it’s still most useful. Explore at your leisure right after you’ve read all my best posts.

“Mr. Dogg is Angry at the Prospect of Sharing His Alcoholic Beverage”: The Secretive Heroes of Wikipedia by Aaron Lefkove at The Awl was an interesting look at the people behind some of the most hilarious descriptions of rap videos on Wikipedia. Check out the comments for links to funny treatments of videos on other sites.

And I’ll play myself off with this video this week. I heard it in the car yesterday and just about sobbed my eyes out from laughing so hard. Then I felt really bad about myself but I think Biggie would understand. Am working on a plan to make friends with both Diddy and Elton John and Eminem so that when I pass I will have the most awesomely epic tribute song of all times. Am hoping Kanye, William Shatner and Charo will agree to a self-deprecating cameos. I’m worth it.

PS I know this was a long ass post so I will remind you to kindly let me know is you is or is you ain’t going to encourage me to engage in cockamamie stunt eating to get people to vote for my kid’s school.

Or, we’re having some link up drift here

Caramelized banana blueberry bread

This is the last week of summer vacation for most of my kids and we’ve been busy getting everything in place for school. We’ll be making a big transition this year as I’ll only have one child with me three mornings and two afternoons a week and twice a week for 2.5 hours a day I’ll be completely alone.

All by myself.

What on earth am I going to do? Probably do a lot more baking, for starters. Like this caramelized banana blueberry bread. Instead of just mashing the bananas, I softened them into submission by slooooowly browning them in butter until they more or less melted into in intensely banana goo. Then I made banana bread in the usual way, but threw in a bunch of blueberries for good measure and some graham flour and ground flax seed because I care about good nutrition.

What I posted this week:

10 Signs That You Are a Cheapskate

Saving money and living a frugal, sustainable lifestyle are very worthy goals. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being thrifty, but if you’re crossing the line into cheapskate territory, it’s time to take a look at your relationship with money.

How to Buy Safe Second Hand Goods for Less

Buying second hand makes a lot of sense. It’s not only frugal, but it’s also good for the environment. However, it’s important that you make safety a priority when shopping for used items. It’s not a bargain if it’s putting you or your family at risk.

Three Reasons Stay at Home Parents Should Consider Working Part Time

The choice to have one parent stay at home with the child(ren) is a deeply personal, individual one that goes beyond finances. However, there are many reasons why it’s a good idea for stay at home moms and dads to seek part time work, even if there is no immediate need for income.

I Hate My Message Board Mentions!

Salon -  Convenience Foods for the End of the World

The Daily Beast – The Weirdest Food Trend Ever Photos in Gallery

Both also feature the Candwich. I’ve been promised some Candwich samples at the end of August, which is a great motivation for me to keep on living.

And More Big News

I’m really happy to announce that I Hate My Message Board is now a part of The Daily Brainstorm which is an awesome new blog aggregator. Some of the other bloggers involved include Leo Babauta of Zen Habits, Darren Rouse of Problogger, Trent Hamm of The Simple Dollar and Gretchin Rubin of The Happiness Project. I was so honored and surprised to be invited to participate in this wonderful project.

You can follow the Daily Brainstorm on Twitter and Facebook.

Speaking of Facebook, I Hate My Message Board Fan Page has passed 300 members, but I totally cheated to get there which will be the subject of a future post.

I seem to have run out of room to talk about anyone else, but you know, sometimes it’s got to be all about me.

And now I have a Punk Rock Girl earworm, so we’ll close on that note.

Or, happy Friday my party people

Just wanted to give everyone a chance to enter the Ritz Crackerfuls $100 giveaway. Entries close tomorrow, July 31 at 5 PM PST. The video is just because.

Have a great weekend everyone!

It’s the last two weeks before my kids go back to school and the good news is my services are very much in demand the whole world around but sadly, there is still only one of me, so I have that feeling that I’ve got 50 lbs pressing against my chest and so I thought okay, yeah, that’s a sign I need to go on and write about Dolly Parton.

There was a time when I thought Dolly Parton was impossibly cheesy. I fancied myself a very deep thinker with profound, complex emotions and there was no way that I could relate to somethingy so hokey and homey.

Then I grew up and blah, blah, blah life lessons, experiences, hard roads et cetera et cetera and now I think Dolly Parton is one of the most awesome people that have ever lived.

She has such a great sense of humor about herself but at the same time you can tell she takes pride in who she is and where she came from. Here’s some quotes I love:

I look just like the girls next door… if you happen to live next door to an amusement park.

I was the first woman to burn my bra – it took the fire department four days to put it out.

I’m not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I’m not dumb… and I also know that I’m not blonde.

You’d be surprised how much it costs to look this cheap!

She also has such a great attitude about work and life. Remember, she grew up one of 12 children, dirt poor in a one room shack in the Smoky Mountains and instead of turning her back on her community when she made it, she’s given back and invested in the area and people.

I’m not going to limit myself just because people won’t accept the fact that I can do something else.

If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one.

People make jokes about my bosoms, why don’t they look underneath the breasts at the heart? It’s obvious I’ve got big ones and if people want to assume they’re not mine, then let them.

The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.

We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails.

When I’m inspired, I get excited because I can’t wait to see what I’ll come up with next.

Every month my kids get new books from Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. If you have kids in your life from birth to age 5, I highly suggest that you see if the program is available in your county (they also serve Canada and are expanding into the UK!). I am not sure if it works the same in all areas, but in my county there are no income restrictions and they encourage everyone to participate. Some of the books that we’ve been sent have been loved to tatters and they are so excited every time  a new one comes in the mail. Can you imagine how much this program must mean to kids that aren’t as fortunate and might otherwise have no books to call their own?

When I think about all Dolly Parton has achieved and how much she’s given back, it inspires me to do the best that I can do. She really is a hero. I wrote this today as much to remind myself of that as I did to share with you how wonderful I think Dolly Parton is.

Who is your hero? Or, if you don’t have a hero, what is your favorite Dolly Parton song?

PS I noticed that the Imagination Library Fan page is trying to reach 10K fans before school starts. Why not help them reach their goal?

Or argh, browser crash edition

Dried Crickets

I was almost completely finished with this post when Firefox went crash, boom, bam and so now I have to start all over. Only, I’m really tired, so this is the bare bones edition. If you want the explanation behind these pictures, go to the I Hate My Message Board Fan page.

My posts elsewhere:

How I will have an actively frugal weekend

12 things to keep in mind for back to school shopping

12 super cheap, super nutritious foods you should be eating

And to answer the question I know is on everyone’s mind, no I don’t know why they ask the girl that buys crap like canned chickens to write personal finance posts.

A post that touched my heart:

What makes the perfect dad by Stickyfingers

A post that inspired me to follow my instincts:

The benefits of losing control by Lateral Action

A post that made me laugh:

Mind your own business, Gmail!

Posts that made me wonder if I’d somehow made friends with the cast of Little House on the Prairie:

First Attempt at (Anti) Social Home Canning by Kim Woodbridge

Long nights, hot jars: why you should try home canning by Two hands and a Roadmap

Post where somebody will win $100 next Saturday:

My brave battle against workday boredom, a review of some tasty crackers and $100 giveaway by Me on This Blog please enter.

And to end on a high note, we have a new, most viewed ever post on this blog!

PS if you missed it, Microwavable Milkshakes was featured on the Consumerist. Also, I found the first edition in drafts but it’s too late now, that ship has sailed.

Or, I’m not above doing a meme if the situation is right

Not relevant to post, just wanted a bit of color.

So this morning, I’m reading my email and I see this 7 Link Challenge in the Problogger newsletter.  I don’t usually do a lot of memes, but I have plans for this weekend and I won’t be doing a Saturday Night Link Up so why not?

You can find the specifics for the challenge in the Problogger post linked above if you’d like to participate. If you do, send me the link so I can read it later on this weekend!

Your first post

I figured the name of my site needed some explanation before I started writing, so my first post was Here’s How the Story Begins where I talk about how the name came to me, how I happened to host a message board on this site for some time and how time changes how you view your online community.

I no longer host forums at this site. It was a difficult decision and one I might write about some time in the future but for now I think it’s best just to say it was for personal reasons. Don’t worry, not hiding any huge drama, but it’s hard to talk about your personal reasons for breaking off any sort of relationship in public without risking hurting other people’s feelings.

A Post You Enjoyed Writing the Most

I enjoyed writing 6 Things I Secretly Hope are Included in Life Coaching not just because I got to spend lots of time listening to 80s music but because I did have a some nervousness about starting the whole process and this helped me deal with that. It was a lot of fun imaging what could happen and it helped reassure me that no matter what happened, I would still be myself.

A Post Which Had a Great Discussion

Is Racism the New N-Word? is a much different kind of post than I usually write for this blog. Some of the comments were fantastic. I was blow away by Shereen’s and almost wish I could use it as a post in itself. When she said:

There is no blame, even if there is anger. You are not to blame. I am not to blame. But in order to change it, we have to acknowledge it, and work actively to dismantle it.

I felt like, yes, you said it so much better than I could have. There were also those with other perspectives and I thought about what they said for days and came to a deeper understanding that it was not just about making sure my own voice was heard, but allowing others to have their voices heard as well.

A Post on Somebody Else’s Blog You Wished You’d Written

This is hard, because there are so many hundreds of great posts I’ve read in the few years I’ve been involved in blogging. Honestly, though I’ve never read something and wish I’d been the one to write it. I guess it’s because it’s not like that subject is now completely and forever off-limits to me and well, I can write it, if I wanted to. I’d just write it differently.

I have been jealous at good ideas or ingenious ways of looking at things, but again, it’s more a feeling of awesome! I can build on that.

There have been posts I wished that somebody else with some talent would have written but I don’t suppose that’s in the spirit of #7 links.

Your Most Helpful Post

Besides the ones that are great appetite suppressants, I think My Ear Itches on the Inside was the most helpful, based on how many people have landed on it from Google. While I did not offer any solutions, I think I helped them feel less alone, which is the greatest help of all.

A Post With a Title You are Proud of

It’s a tossup between People Who Need Pupa are the Pluckiest People and I Said it Before and I’ll Say it Again, Spam is the King of Canned Meats.

A Post That You Wish More People Had Read

11 Reasons I Sometimes But Not Always Dislike Doing List Posts. No reason really, I was just looking at my posts with not a lot of views and this one has something like less than 1% of the views that Chicken in a Can does and since it was my other attempt at doing a Problogger inspired post, it seemed to fit.

Not that I’m saying that Problogger inspired posts are doomed to be kicked in the butt by some soggy ass chicken but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t having second thoughts about hitting publish on this one.

I’d love to see your 7 Links challenge, so if you’ve done one or do one, go ahead and link it in comments for us all to enjoy.

Or, this week I am grateful for the Candwich

Two years ago we found this turtle in our backyard. Now, we live in the middle of the city and you don’t often see turtles just wandering around, so I was afraid it was somebody’s pet and sent my oldest boy to knock on the neighbor’s door to see if they were missing a turtle.

He comes back to tell me that our next door neighbor said that she’d thrown the turtle in our yard because she didn’t want it in hers. Okay. I guess that makes sense. Anyway, we had great fun with the turtle for a couple of days then it was gone so I figured it had moved on to a better yard.

Until a few months later when we were raking all of the leaves out of the garden beds and found a completely empty turtle shell. Although I knew it was a stupid question, I asked my husband if turtles molted because I couldn’t quite stand the thought of there being a dead, decaying turtle in my hostas for who knows how long but he gave me the roll eyes. We never found any bones and I’m still wondering what happened to those and how they got out of the shell, because it was completely empty.

The whole thing still gives me the willies.

Enough stories about the good old days, let’s get to the link-up. One awesome thing I’m finding out lately is whenever traffic seems to be slowing, something happens to get things moving again. Either a post will go big on Stumble Upon or I’ll get linked on a big site or some guy misappropriates money to invest in the Candwich and thousands of people will post on the internet “You think that’s bad? Have you seen this thing in a can on IHMMB?”

This week on Money Ning I posted Warning: Are Any of These Five Things Keeping You From Being Frugal

There is nothing worse than thinking you’ve found a great deal on something you need, only to find out a few weeks later, you already had a perfectly good one at home. I’ve learned this the hard way many times.

On HealthCompare Guide I posted two stories:

Are You Trapped in a Time Cage of Your Own Creation?

Do you feel like you have absolutely no control over your time and that it’s being stolen from you by all of your obligations? That if only everyone else would ease up on their demands you would have plenty of time to do with as you please?

12 Ways to Get Out of a Rut

You don’t have to feel like your life is doomed to be the same thing every day with no hope for change. The first step is the hardest – it’s a cliché but it’s the truth. Once you start taking action to live the life you want, your progress will snowball and each step will be easier than the last.

This week I’m going to link to posts by other people that had me thinking long after I closed the browser window. You know, I find it’s not usually the BIG QUESTIONS posts that do that to me but the little every day questions.

Even though we’ve absolutely no plans for Baby #6, I read Nancy’s Baby Names several times a week. What can I say? I like names. This week she posted a dilemma about using Family Names as Baby Names. And I don’t know what I would do. I really can’t make up my mind and that’s why I haven’t commented yet.

Selfish Blogger posted Be a Jerk and be More Successful where he asks:

Why does it seem to me that so many successful people have a “jerk gene”?

And while I know what he’s talking about, I am still not sure if it’s really so or if it’s a matter of only remembering what stands out. Any thoughts?

On the How to be Rich and Happy Blog, John P Strelecky posted Hope is Not Enough where he talks about Mad How disease. It made me think a lot about things I’ve just assumed were far too difficult without putting any effort into finding out how to do them by asking somebody how. It is amazing what people will tell you if you just ask.

I also felt a bit stupid for finally throwing out all the leftover fish and cheese sausages instead of selling them as iPhone styluses. And heck yeah that was an affiliate link, I ATE one of those, I should be getting PAID.

What did you read that was great this week?

PS Don’t forget to enter the $100 sweepstakes sponsored by Ritz and Blogher.

Ritz Crackerfuls, Cheddar Cheese Flavor

Find out how I deal with work day boredom and read my review of Ritz Crackerfuls. Then, leave a comment letting me know how you make sure to remember to eat some healthy snacks and meals during the day so you don’t become a shaky low blood sugar irrational mood swings beast for a chance to win $100 from Ritz.

Note: the review, post and contest are sponsored by Ritz and Blogher. I got paid! (And, no you can’t borrow any money, my pupa eating brother)