353rd Friday Blog Roundup

I had one of those when-it-rains-it-pours weeks, though it was all good stuff.  First, we were at the beach and I picked up hermit crabs with my hands.  Which may sound like nothing to you, but is ENORMOUS for me.  I do not usually pick up things such as hermit crabs, so I was very proud of myself for squelching my fears and picking them up.

Don’t judge.

Then I found out that Babble named Stirrup Queens one of their top 50 pregnancy blogs; which may seem amusing since I write about how I can’t get pregnant, but I do like that the site has expanded the definition of pregnancy to include us.  I also really loved the write up paragraph on my blog, even though it made me blush.  This blog was also given the award as being the “most informative.”  Thank you, Babble.

Lastly, Real Simple listed my book, Life from Scratch, as one of their reader-picked 21 great summer reads books.  It was fairly trippy to see the cover of my book on the Real Simple site.  I don’t know who Cindy B is, but I’d like her to know this: thank you for taking the time to suggest my book.  It was two minutes of time for you, and perhaps right after you did it, you clicked away and didn’t think about it again.  But it was two days of smiling for me, and your actions will stick with me indefinitely.

Beyond Cindy B, I want to thank everyone who has supported me with the book. (This is the part where I get all weepy.)  Obviously, an enormous thank you to everyone who has read it.  Thank you to everyone who has sent an email to someone telling them about the book, or lent their copy so a friend could read it too.  Thank you to everyone who has written about it on Facebook or liked my author page (I will be posting things from the sequel there soon).  Thank you everyone who has ever Tweeted about the book.  Again, it’s 140-characters for you, but it means the world to me.  Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to write an Amazon review.  I’m not sure how they help, but I’ve been told that they’re important.  I know it takes time to write a review, so I’m grateful to everyone who has done this.  Thank you to everyone for the one million ways you’ve supported me with this book, some of which I’ll never know about.

That’s the most important point: thank you.  Those two words don’t feel like enough.  I wish I could infuse them with everything I think in my head so you could understand how much your actions mean to me.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week as well as the week before.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Saying Goodbye to an Alias” (Creating Motherhood)
• “A Tale of Two Tubies” (Mommy Odyssey)
• “In Which I Get Annoyingly Philosophical” (By the Brooke)
• “For Better or Worse” (By the Brooke)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Flotsam has a moving post called “Let it Out” which catches up readers on the last month of her life.  She writes beautifully about the fragility of life and marriage, but beyond that, she writes about needing your blogging space and being unsure you can use it.

Reproductive Jeans has a post about what she’d really like to put as her Facebook status.  It’s one of those posts that need very little explanation — just pointing the arrow so you head over to read it yourself (and let her know what you’d like to put in your own Facebook status bar but never would).

No Kidding in NZ has a post thinking about life in the future; namely, when she is a little old lady.  I love this point, “And so I realise that so much of our loneliness – or rather, so much of our happiness – is dependent on our attitudes.  My mother doesn’t expect (or want) her daughters to be there every day, or to telephone every day.  And so she doesn’t sit there pining for us, she goes out and gets on with enjoying her life.”  It’s an interesting read; especially since life has no guarantees and the best laid plans have a way of crashing down.

Lastly, My Infertility Story has a post about wondering if she made the best choices by treating her infertility.  She asks, “Here we are, 2.5 years later and I’m wondering if we had just let it go and let things happen naturally if we would have a baby right now! I know it’s irrational and unhealthy, but I’m still always finding ways to blame myself. Did I rush things?”  There is no way to know what the road not taken holds, except to try it.

The roundup to the Roundup: A rundown of my week followed by a million thank yous in regards to my book.  Beyond that, lots of great blog posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between August 12th and August 19th) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.