BEST WEBSITES & BLOGS

Of course everyone has different interests, so these just reflect my own personal likes and hobbies, but perhaps you might find one or two of these useful:

http://mimismartypants.com/ The anonymous author has also written a book called The World According to Mimi Smartypants. I thought it was one of the funniest books I’ve ever read and continue to enjoy reading her blog. When she wrote the book in 1999 after just starting her blog, it was just her and her husband. Now it’s a family of three since they adopted Nora, their now 7 ½ year old daughter. Even though I personally don’t have children, and really don’t enjoy reading about other peoples’ kids, her exploits are quite funny and she often includes pictures, so she’s kind of grown on me. Anyone who knows Chicago, or has precocious children will be able to relate to her.

http://www.saucysprinkles.com/ This blog almost always makes my mouth water with her delectable photos of the many delicious treats she makes on a semi-regular basis. She also makes bracelets and other crafts that she sells on etsy.com, so there are photos of those too. I dare you not to find this website good “eye candy” as she mentions on this week’s entry. This website is probably mostly appealing to a female audience, but there may be a few others out there who can appreciate it too.

http://thxthxthx.com/ I came across this blog after seeing it recommended on another blog. I think she sums it up best herself: “Leah Dieterich's mother always told her to write thank you notes. So she does. To everything. thxthxthx is her daily exercise in gratitude.” For someone who finds the concept of keeping a gratitude journal to be difficult, I think I could handle doing something like this on a daily basis.

http://www.flickr.com/ This is my favorite photo-sharing website. It’s free to post photos, but only up to a certain bandwidth. If you want unlimited usage it costs $25 a year for a “pro” account. At times I get a little frustrated and wonder why I bother posting pictures when almost no one ever comments. However, once in awhile I get an e-mail from someone wanting to use my photo somewhere in exchange for a photo credit and sometimes extra goodies (like produce & bottled products from California). So far my biggest success to date (in my opinion at least) was getting a photo published on Woman’s Day magazine’s website. Okay, so it would be even more prestigious to have it in the actual paper copy of the magazine, but beggars can’t be choosers!

http://www.shelfari.com/ For those of us who like to read and keep track of all the volumes we read, this is a great website. It’s even better because it’s linked (and probably sponsored by too I suspect) to www.amazon.com, one of my favorite shopping websites.

my three favorite shopping websites: www.amazon.com, www.etsy.com, www.ebay.com. All three have their pluses and minuses, but I never fail to find something useful for a reasonable cost from time to time. If I only ever had just these three websites to do my shopping from, I could die quite happy.