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

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

Note: I am resurrecting this post because of a mention in the lovely Meemalee’s blog. It’s not exactly the same as her meme, but close enough.  Her post also reminded me of the very first post I remember reading on her blog, Jive Bunny (could be distressing to fans of Thumper).

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, it’s a guest post from my friend old friend Tara of Two Hands and a Roadmap!

Long before Tracy hated her messageboard, I hated my roommate. Lucky for me, this was only for two months. Unlucky for me, the scars will last a lifetime.

I thought of this roommate today for two reasons: First, Tracy wrote a guest post for my blog, which will run tomorrow, in which she mentions inadvertently seeing a guy’s junk. You’ll see why this is relevant in a minute. Second, the roommate’s name was Tracy too.

I was attending Ohio University in the 1990s when I met her, so let’s call her “OU Tracy” to differentiate her from the Tracy who writes here. Funny how it sounds like “Oh, you ____ Tracy.” Oh, you whore. Oh, you drunken slut. Oh, you check bouncer who still owes me for our phone bill to this day, plus $20 in banking fees. Oh, you!

During the summer between my sophomore and junior years, I stayed at school and worked cleaning the campus dorm rooms. Finding an apartment for a few months was easy. I wanted a place to stay for cheap; another girl wanted someone to rent her place for the summer so she could go home without going broke.I paid her upfront, assuming the place was mine. Just mine. We were cool.

When I moved in after Memorial Day, though, I met OU Tracy. My roommate. (Why does someone not tell you that you’re going to have a roommate for the summer, when you’ve already made arrangements to rent from her? I still don’t get it.)

Looking back, I see so many things about that summer that were weird: The surprise roommate. The graduate student from India who introduced himself to me and almost immediately told me in halting English that he had a problem with thinking too much about sex with college girls, and hey, would I like to take a walk along the river with him sometime? Becoming friends with two students who seemed to make a hobby out of cheating on their boyfriends throughout the summer. None of these stories topped the one of OU Tracy, though, and The Night of the Naked Man.

It was really late on a Sunday. I woke from a dead sleep confused, not knowing what had jarred me awake. I figured it out quickly, though. Oh yes. It’s that strange naked man who is climbing onto my futon next to me.

Wait, what?

I’d never seen this guy before. My roommate met him at a bar, I guess, and brought him home for some recreation. He fell asleep, got up to go to the bathroom, and somehow wandered into my room instead of hers. In his defense, he probably hadn’t known OU Tracy long enough to even realize that he was with the wrong person until it was too late. Poor guy. Poor slutty guy.

So naturally I was all, “Hey! Get out of here, naked guy!” And he leaned forward, as if to be charming, and said something like, “Hey, baby. Don’t be like that.” Surreal. After arguing mildly with me for maybe 20 seconds, he ambled out of my room for friendlier territory. And he certainly found it. (Let’s face it: friendlier territory has rarely been plowed than my friend OU Tracy.)

The next morning I woke up and walked downstairs. The two of them were sprawled on the pull-out sofa, fast asleep. There was a pair of men’s underwear lying on the floor. (I’m assuming they were his, but I think we both know they could just as easily have belonged to Mr. Last Tuesday.) With one last furtive glance at the couple, I grabbed the briefs and left. With only the tiniest twinge of conscience, I dropped them in a dumpster on the way to work.

As far as revenge goes, it maybe isn’t quite as good as making a blog in his honor. (I Hate That Drunken Guy Who Banged My Broke-Ass Roommate doesn’t have much of a ring to it anyway.) Still, it was all I could think of at the time.

Creative commons photo courtesy of profstewartrk

You can read more of Tara’s hilarious writing at her humor blog, Two Hands and a Roadmap. Don’t miss If Keyser Sose Were a Substitute Teacher and Boundaries, Schmoundaries Just Let Me Watch TV.

Or, it’s Sunday Round-Up Time!

Don’t you hate it when you realize you’ve let yourself get too busy and almost missed out on something awesome? My new friend and colleague, Lori Taylor has been working on a terrific project called “Thinking Outrageously (In Less than 30 Days)” over at Pick the Brain. You can register at Pick the Brain for the daily motivation via emails that help you change your perception of yourself and empower you to tap into the power of being outrageously authentic.

I love the tagline:

Stop wasting time trying to change YOU (You don’t have to wait for pigs to fly to have everything you’ve ever wanted)

I’ve been reading through the posts this weekend and Lori knows her stuff. She’s been such an inspiration to me as I learn how to balance kids, work and staying true to myself.

By the way, if Pick the Brain sounds familiar, it’s because I’ve posted a ton of motivational posts there for their 90 Day Project which you can read here.

My friend Jerry Battiste has started a new blog called “The Starved Writer“. I’ve enjoyed reading his posts, especially for lines like this:

The oldest profession in the world is not prostitution, it is ghostwriting.

The constant barrage of emails notifying me of new comments on Nanny Goat’s in Panties’ “Catheters Make Me Squirmy” post and thus reminding me of my own epically squirmy experience with catheters has been a valuable reminder that one should always double check to make sure that one has not checked the email me all new comments box on blog posts relating to catheters, urethras, guinea worms, stoma fetishes or any and all assorted grossery one might come across and be compelled to comment on.

Which is why I haven’t even begun to comment on my friend Two Hands and a Roadmap’s post “So What Was the Lie” which is the most sordid tale of betrayal and filth and golf clubs since Tiger Woods.

So what have you read that was awesome this week?

Or Happy Lazy Saturday!

We had to root for Ireland, even though I’m not sure I get Jedward.

Moldova had the best hats!

Azerbaijan won but I’ve been told that it doesn’t count because it’s all political and Ireland was robbed.

Or, I really should stop listening to the radio

Edge of Seventeen has been playing every day on the radio. I’m not sure why radio stations play the same songs over and over. I mean, obviously “today’s hits” style stations would, but this is the local “you’re old so we we play only soothing music that you are familiar with” station. They have zillions of songs to choose from! But they instead they play the same songs over and over again, especially country songs that mention Jesus.

Why don’t I change? Because I am old. Because they also play copious amounts of Journey and Air Supply so I can have my little moments of awesome while driving. Because the Music for Generation X station went off the air and is now talk radio and besides they used to play “Slim Shady” every day, too.

The good thing about them playing this song every day is that I finally realized the lyrics weren’t “just like the ones we love sing a song that sounds like singing” but:

Just like the white winged dove
Sings a song that sounds like singing
oooh baby oooh baby oooooooh

But now I wished I’d never realized that because it bugs me every time. My way, that makes sense, I mean people like me and my singing could be described as sounding almost like singing on a good day but doves? If they are singing well then of course it sounds like singing – what would it sound like? Crying?

The clouds never expect it when it rains
But the sea changes colors
But the sea….
DOES NOT CHANGE

Deep man, deep.

Or, wow putting your money where your mouth is hurts

I don’t actually want to be famous, but there are a lot of things I want to accomplish this summer like:

• Get all our ducks in a row at Ghostwriter Dad for total domination. I think we have something like 14 titles already in the queue with more being added almost every time I turn around. By the end of this month we will have published four titles.
• Awesome project with one of my most fabulous friends.
• Figure out some sort of big project for myself that will make me happy. I’ve got lots of ideas but it’s hard to narrow it down when your life is so overwhelming as it is.

The thing is, I’ve been trying to keep all my balls up in the air for the past year getting  at most five solid hours of  time to work each week (and usually less than that as somebody always has an appointment or is sick or there’s a field trip or volunteers needed). I’m completely ragged and it shows.

Add to that, while in theory I could have my kids at home with me while I work, in practice that means they play way too many video games and watch far too much tv and we’re all stressed and yelling and nobody is happy.

So, I’ve signed them all up for day camp this summer. They are thrilled and looking forward to it. I’m excited for them and me but thinking about the bill takes my breath away. It’s more than our mortgage, car and insurance combined each month.

This feels like one of the biggest leaps of faith I’ve made in my career.

It’s one of those Irene Cara moments, y’all.

Have you ever made a leap of faith in your career or personal life? Please share and let me know how it went!

Or, it’s my anniversary, I’m sick and anyway most writing after the headline is superfluous on this blog

Stock photo picture of a family as my husband doesn't want proof online that he's in any way associated with this nonsense.

1. Not that I’m hinting or anything but it’s almost my birthday and I could really use this boombox bag* so as to be able to play “In the Air Tonight” whenever the situation warrants. Which is surprisingly often here in the Dirty South.

2. Confession: I’m not really sure if Dirty South refers to corruption, crime or unspeakable sexual practices. Can any of my readers help me out?

3. Important! Question! Would anyone be interested in creating a bail fund if I decide to do something a little crazy at the Kenny Loggins with the Boston Pops concert? I mean, you don’t bring that crap to my town and expect me to just accept it.

4. Debate: Is it selfish for those that work from home to send their dogs to doggie daycare so that they don’t have to listen to them whine all day because there is a dog across the street? WTF, dog, do you think you own this street or something? Aren’t we Ms. Ladidida-forgot-our-humble-beginnings.

5. My enemy list: elementary drop off and pick up edition, including Ms. Couldn’t fit in Parallel so Parked Diagonally at the Curb and th Complete Disregarders of the Zipper Merge Crew.

6. You know you’re burned out on parenting when you hear Cat’s in the Cradle on the radio and cry tears of relief. You mean one day they’ll leave me alone? I just have to get old? I can do that!**

7. Why does blue frosting make green poop and other toddler potty training mysteries solved!

8. True confessions of an SEO Addict: At my low, I was using any excuse to slip in anchor text no matter who it disgusted or confused. I just had to get my links and wasn’t about to let a little thing like relevance get in my way.

9. Why I hate those “Stay at home moms would totes make a zillion dollars a year for all the jobs they do, if they got paid” studies. Dudes, “if we paid you, it would be a lot!” really doesn’t do bupkus for me. Also, less concerned about what SAHMs would theoretically make, more wondering why the hell we pay daycare workers so little.

10. Dynasty vs Dallas Which team are you? (Or are you a minxy little Falcon’s Crest fan?)

PS as you can see above In the Air Tonight is a most useful song for your various life occasions. Which song would you carry around in your boom box bag?

*totally an affiliate link

**Mommy just makes these jokes on the Internet to pay for you college sweetheart. Cross my heart!

Or how can I delete my precious memories? I only have 100 or so GB of them!

I can’t delete this one because I’m totally going to learn Photoshop one day and erase the snot out of it and make it suitable for framing. His future spouse will thank me!

I can’t delete this one because my friend Ming sent me that Tomato shaped tomato sauce dispenser and I somehow lost it in the move and this is all I have to remember her by. Well that and her phone number and address and about 10,000 emails.

I can’t delete this one because one day I’ll have a post or article that can only be adequately illustrated with a photo of Spider-man holding a cheeseburger in a can.

I can’t delete this one because my friend Bebes sent me this owl and I haven’t hung it up yet and if I ever break my ankle and need my husband to go up in the attic to get it so that he can hang it near my sickbed so that I can take comfort in this visual representation of how much my friends love me, it would be nice to be able to print out a photo to help him.

I can’t delete this one because while I can’t remember what Easter it was or which kid took a bite out of a whole hard boiled egg, shell and all it’s still one of my most treasured moments that I reflect on again and again. Oh that generic kid of indeterminate age was such a scamp!

Are you good at keeping your photos well organized?

Ruthless in deleting the duds and keeping only a well curated collection?

Or do you believe as I do that the messier the pictures folder the bigger the heart?

Or, easing myself back into posting with a round-up-ish post

Remember last year when I joined the Blogathon? I wasn’t going to this year but then on the spur of the moment I did and I’ve got way too much foolish pride to back out so you’re stuck with me for the month. Then I might disappear again or I might start blogging here regularly again. I make no promises either way.

Last Blogathon I dedicated Sundays to round up posts where I shared posts that I’d published on other sites as well as things other people wrote that I found nifty, notable or novel. It seems fitting to open the Blogathon with that because it also shows that I have too been doing stuff and am not entirely lazy and unmotivated.

For those who have never met me, my day job is as a writer and content manager over at Ghostwriter Dad wherewe  provide a wide variety of writing and social media services as well as help good writers earn a great living™. Or Sean does, my main job is to listen in on client calls and go “Yeah” as appropriate.

And sometimes they let me out to write posts to share my advice on writing and related matters, such as these:

1. 10 Grammar Rules that You Can (And Should!) Ignore

See those 62 comments? 61 of them are to tell me that I’m wrong. You know what though? Screw those people, I wrote Chicken in a Can, bitches! You can’t tell me I don’t know my way around the English language!

2. Five Blogging Mistakes that Make You Look Dumb

One day I will tell you why my nickname for Sean is “That Headline Writing Asshole” but for today, let’s just say if it had been up to me I would have titled it “Five Blogging Mistakes that are Like, Totally Opportunities to Learn More and Grow!” because unlike some people, I am a graduate of life coaching and very, very positive. But I didn’t need to tell you that because my entire blog design just screams it.

3. The 5 Laws of Grammar Etiquette (How to be Polite to People What Don’t Write So Good)

I wrote this because I felt like the war between the prescriptivists and descriptivists was getting a bit too East Coast/West Coast for my liking. Did Biggie and Tupac teach us nothing? I think that time I tried to be the Good Mood blogger really showed that I am, if nothing else, a bridge-builder. And also full of very helpful advice. And impeccable taste.

4. 9 Easy To Make Word Mistakes That Are Making You Look Dumb

Okay, free marketing advice here: if you use words like warning, mistake and dumb in your headlines, people will not be able to resist the urge to click over to either make sure they aren’t in grave danger of death or humiliation or to laugh at others who are. I think there is possibly an awesome German word for that.

5. 5 Ways To Forget About Writers Block (And Actually Start Writing)

Also numbers, numbers are very good. That’s a good tip when you can’t think of something to write, start with a number. Or if you can’t do that, do this.

If you’re interested in learning more about blogging, writing and social media, visit the GWD Blog when you get the chance or follow us on Twitter or Facebook.

BTW last year I didn’t publish one Blogathon post in on time and didn’t earn a badge. That’s okay though, I think we all came out winners. Here are a few of my favorite posts:

15 Options Facebook Needs to Offer

What’s Your Poo Telling You – A Book Review

It was a Disastrophe of a Day

I’ll update this post later with the URL to the Blogathon blogroll. Next week, I’ll be sure to share some of my favorite discoveries.

Blogathon 2011 Blogroll!

Now I’ll ask you, if you were me and you needed to come up with a post a day for thirty days, what would you blog about?

Or, dear readers you could at least pretend to show some interest in my life

Trio of Rolls: Black bean and sweet potato, pepperoni and cheese, plain cheese. These were for a recipe post for another site but I didn't like the pictures so I'll have to do them again some time.

Now that I’ve sat down and found a picture for this post, it doesn’t seem like there is too much to say, really. Unless you really, really want to hear me yap about oh my gawd, I have so much work to do and kids! I’ve got kids coming out of the rafters! I wish somebody had told me what causes that!

So I’ve been swamped and feeling frazzled and realized I needed to take my own advice and make myself and my interests a priority, so I’m back to blogging and doing other things that I want to do first, instead of pushing it to the back-burner.

Alisa Bowman and family

The first thing I want to do is finish reading Project: Happily Ever After: Saving Your Marriage When the Fairytale Falters by my friend Alisa Bowman. I’ve linked to Alisa’s blog many times; she offers sage  advice on marriage and having a happier, more centered life.

She has a great giveaway going on for Project Happily Ever After Readers, prizes include a Kindle 3G, games and other fun things. I feel that as somebody who was mentioned in the book on page 264, last paragraph, four words from the end, I should not enter myself, so I am excusing myself.

I still want to buy a copy, so let me know in comments if you’d like to read this book and I’ll choose one person at random on Saturday morning, 8 am CST.

Other Good Things

We’ve re-launched Ghostwriter Dad with posts every weekday on writing and finding a market or, in the case of my posts on grammar, to give readers an opportunity to tell me how very mistaken I am.

Sean has put together a free report called The 9 Mistakes Most Writers Make That are Keeping Them Poor. You sign up for your free report via the sidebar or bottom of the linked page.

I’m also very proud of a project we just finished at Pick the Brain called the 90 Day Confidence Booster. It’s designed to help readers develop confidence and find motivation over the course of 90 Days. If you’d like to sign up for the once a day emails, you can do so in the sidebar. You can also just read my posts here: The Collected Wisdom of Tracy O’Connor.

I am also posting at Money Ning on Mondays and Coupon Shoebox on Tuesdays.

Working up the courage to try this, the can says premium by my heart says no. I might have to work my way up to it by trying something else in my grocery bag full of goodies. We’ll see how it shakes  out.

Until then, have fun and don’t forget to let me know if you want to read Alisa’s book in comments!

The winner of Project Happily Ever After is Heather C! Congratulations and thanks to everyone who entered!