AOL Journals: Magic Smoke

Hello all!  I have been invited to do the picks this week, and I am very happy to do so.  My name is Lori, aka Helmswondermom, and I have been keeping an AOL Journal, Dusty Pages, for just under three years now.  A little about myself before moving on to my picks -- I live in Southern Indiana (otherwise known to the locals as Kentuckiana), but I'm a Kentuckian by birth and at heart.  I've been married 20 years to the same wonderful, hard-working gentleman-of-a-husband, and since my job with a giant health insurance provider was outsourced to another country 18 months ago(!!), I have been a stay-at-home mom to our two great children, 18 and 12.  I am also home-schooling the 12-year-old, and that is challenging, as well as a lot of fun!

Now, as to these picks...!  Phew!  What a job it is to narrow down journal recommendations to only a half dozen!  Guido (two weeks ago), and Krissy (last week) both recommended journals that I already read, with only a couple of exceptions, and when I started going down my list of favorites I realized that quite a few of them have been plugged in Guest Editor's picks of recent months.  So I decided I was going to try to plug a few that may not be as well known.  Let's see how I did, shall we?

First of all I want to recommend Pauline's Country's Tales and Other Thangs.  Paula, a self-described born and bred South Texan, describes her journal as "Things i have seen and things that have happened to me since i moved back to the country", and she has been sharing her country tales since Octoberof 2003.  Paula has a way with words, and can make a trip out to the cow pasture to check on the "girls" into a high adventure -- which it often is!  Drop by to visit her soon and go along with her and John as they stop by their favorite Mexican cafe for breakfast, take a detour so Paula can explore a little rambling lane she's often wondered about, bump and bounce over the rutted fields where wild hogs have been making holes (in John's old truck, of course, not Paula's newer baby), or sit and listen as she tells a funny story about places she's been and people she's known.  I know you will enjoy!

Now let's move on from cattle to bison at Lisa's Life on a Bison Farm.  Lisa has been keeping this journal for almost a year now, but I was introduced to her much more recently.  She introduces her journal as a "...chance for everyone to see what life on a farm is really like along with happenings in my world", and boy does she!  She's a great photographer and often enriches her entries with photos, most recently one that, in response to a Community Photo Challenge with the theme of "Beginnings", shows the birth of a bison calf about to take place.  You can just barely make out two tiny hoofs making their entrance into the world.  Lisa too has a great writing style, and often has a funny or thought-provoking entry to share, so please stop by and say hello.

Now we'll leave the countryside and move to a more urban setting when we visit nzforme at So This is A Treadmill.  This journaler has been around J-Land since September of 2003.  She always has interesting entries, whether she's taking you along as she treks through Europe, goes dog sledding in Alaska, fights to get a package delivered to (gasp!) her own door, or dealing with the (probably thousandth) barf-gift in the middle of her bed from her cat, Jasmine.  She's witty and smart, andasure good-read every time.  So go visit her. Seriously.

And now, we'll travel to the UK to meet up with a journaler who is rather new to me.  That is Pam, at Almost 40.  Well, actually I guess Pam would be fairly new to everyone, as she just started this journal in August of 2007.  Pam began her journaling with an entry that included a description of her Saturday night: concert blasting on the TV, daughter moaning beside her on the couch, and a bottle of wine -- excuse me, LARGE bottle of wine -- in her hand, which, she assures us, is the only thing in the room with which she is NOT frustrated!  Well!  After an entrance like that, you just know this is going to be a fun read!  So go say hello and see what she's up to this weekend.

And now I'm going to jump back over the pond to return to my own neck of the woods, visiting Angel's Thoughts in Kentucky.  Angel began her journal in 2006, just after she lost her mom to breast cancer.  I think her journal was a way of dealing with the loss, as well as a place to share her memories of her mom.  It is a new journal to me, but I have truly enjoyed her personable writing style and her descriptions of life with her family.  And I'm a sympathetic reader because she recently was suckered into keeping a tiny little beagle pup (and I've SOOOO been there).  In her own words the pup is a "little girl that I've decided to keep for my own (hearing an old Bugs Bunny cartoon in my head.....I will love her, and pet her, and keep her.....and I will name her Coco)."  So go say hello to Angel, okay?

Now we're going to drop by Silverdoe64 at Yathink?.  I'm rather new to her journal as well; she's been around since early 2007.  In a recent entry she vents some frustration -- "You know the saying: when a door closes, another opens -to which I am replying today: "where the heck are the dang doors that open"?  It seems I am stuck in the hallway of closed doors.  And if that weren't bad enough - it is as if I just keep banging on the closed doors until it is painful." Yeah.  I think we can all relate to those feelings.  She is so funny and she describes her family, her day-to-day life, her work, everything with wit and charm.  There is a nice flow to her writing, and I invite you to stop by and say hello.

Well, that's six, isn't it?  And I had to leave out so many very, very good ones.  I hope I've been able to highlight a few journals that are new to a lot of J-Landers.  If you drop by my journal, check out a few more that I have listed in my side bar (a side-bar which I really need to update), and visit with some of my other favorites.  Have a good one, everyone!  Now, go enjoy your reads!

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• #20 Comment from malikas4478 
  1/18/08 1:58 PM | Permalink

  Hi Krissy,
  
  We will look into it and keep you posted.
  Thanks for writing to us.
  
  Malika
• #19 Comment from fisherkristina 
  1/18/08 11:29 AM | Permalink

  Hi Vishy, Malikas & Joseph.  Hope you are having a good week!  I don't know if this is the place to add this comment, but I figured it was as good as any.  I wanted to let you all know that each time we journalers edit an entry, the entry alert is sent out again.  Therefore, people are getting multiple alerts for our same entry.  This problem was cleared up for the past several weeks, but has returned.  Please consider mentioning to AOL that we would really hope that it would be cleared up. :)  Hope you all have a nice weekend.  
  
  Krissy :)
  http://journals.aol.com/fisherkristina/SometimesIThink
  
  
• #18 Comment from plieck30 
  1/17/08 10:33 PM | Permalink

  Thanks again. Now that I've read what you wrote about your picks. Wish I had been around. Some of the journals are new to me and some I know. They are all good along with yours. Thanks, Paula
• #17 Comment from monponsett 
  1/14/08 11:20 AM | Permalink

  Good job, Lori!
• #16 Comment from nzforme 
  1/13/08 7:47 PM | Permalink

  Thanks so much, Lori!  I appreciate the plug and am honored to be counted among this great group.  :)