Archive for the ‘1st of the month featured bloggers’ Category
1st of the Month Featured Blogger: June
Last week when I promised a Palermonday today, I forgot about the 1st of the Month Featured Blogger! We’ll return to Palermo next Monday though, so do come back!
This month’s featured blogger is Melissa from The Traveler’s Lunchbox. Melissa actually made her way to Calabria recently but we didn’t manage to hook up. Hopefully she’ll be back sometime soon, and I can report our meeting here. Blogger meetings are the best!
I’m not sure how I found Melissa, but I quickly fell in love with the way she combined her loves of food and travel. Yes, we have some things in common.
Melissa is an American living in Scotland with her German husband. In the course of writing her wonderful blog, she completed her doctorate in linguistics with the University of Edinburgh (woohoo!), and she kindly lets us tag along on her trips to exotic places like Croatia, Jamaica, Morocco, Spain, and Norway.
Other than writing fabulous posts and taking gorgeous photos, the girl definitely has a way with titles. Some of my favorite posts of Melissa’s include:
- Cinq Jours à Paris, or If You’ve Gotta Turn 30, You Might as Well Enjoy It
- What They Don’t Teach in Foodwriting 101 (and Finally, a Fruitcake to Love)
- Brownies, ala Nona
- Temptation Thy Name is Baklava
- 5 Things to Love about Calabria (yes, I’m kind of biased on this one)
So go visit Melissa (not on an empty stomach!), browse her archives,
& don’t forget to tell her I sent you!
1st of the month featured blogger: may
Two months ago, I got an email entitled “The good news is I’m not expected to die immediately” from my friend Sara of Moving Right Along.
Deep breath.
Sara hadn’t blogged in a while, and it turned out that a brain tumor was the reason why.
Before going in for surgery, Sara sat down and wrote an email to make sure that her online friends knew how to keep in touch with her should she never be able to read and/or write again.
Deeper breath.
I told my mom and P about her story, blubbering through it and finishing with a tirade about the lack of universal health care in America both times.
I thought about Sara at least once every minute I was awake on the day of her surgery and the day after until I received an email from her True Love that she was doing well.
This is just a small measure of how deeply Sara and her blog and her amazing spirit and wit and humor and L.O.V.E. have touched me. The photo to the right is Sara’s “healthy butterfly” from an MRI taken after her surgery, and yes, that’s Sara above on her tricycle.
She’s been through cancer and a leg amputation and insurance company ridiculousness and so much more, and so I knew deep down that Sara would come through this ordeal with an amazing strength as well.
What I didn’t expect was that she would come back writing better than ever, touching my heart on new levels, making me think about everything in a new way.
But I’m not going to blather on about Sara and why you should go read her blog any more; I’m pretty sure that would make her uncomfortable, and that’s the last thing I want to do.
You see Sara is one of those “leads by example” kind of people I admire so much. She goes about her daily business, deals with what life hands her, does it with grace and love, and is kind enough to tell us about it–and when we’re extra lucky she takes photos as well.
Go visit Sara.
I can’t think of a better way to spread some love this Love Thursday.
Happy Love Thursday everyone!
1st of the month featured blogger: april
Sorry, no April Fool’s joke this year even though last year’s was *so* much fun for me, because today we have the:
1st of the Month Featured Blogger
Yes, singular. Just one featured blogger this month, and you know why? Well other than being one of my very most favoritest bloggers and photographers in the whole world (her photos decorate this post), she is the proud owner of five blogs.
You read that correctly, and here is a list of blogs by Featured Blogger Frances:
- Blogjem: Main blog that covers pretty much everything including great photos
- Blogforth: Creative writing blog featuring Sunday Scribblings
- On the Go Blog: Pictures and thoughts posted from Frances’ cell phone
- Photostroll: A leisurely walk with stops to take pictures
- The Meme Section: A home for memes
Frances is also the founder and fearless leader of the group She Who Blogs, a lively group of women bloggers who offer friendship, laughs, shoulders to cry on, advice, and plenty of other great things.
I’m a member, and in fact, Bleeding Espresso is this week’s featured blog at the main site, so click here to check out my interview. And for more information on joining She Who Blogs, contact me or leave a comment.
I’m not sure how Frances and I first “met,” but I’m so happy that we did. I can always rely on Frances for a kind word, inspiration, a fabulous pick-me-up photo, or a thought-provoking post about friends, family (especially growing up with Italians), and life in general.
And New York City? If you don’t love it already, Frances will convince you that it is one of the most beautiful places on Earth–I would love to teleport myself there each morning (NY time!) and walk through Central Park, sharing a coffee with Frances as she snaps photos like this:
Enough of my rambling; you should be busy getting to know Frances.
Go Blogforth
(or Blogjem, On the Go Blog, Photostroll, or The Meme Section)
and multiply the blog love!
1st of the month featured bloggers: march
Can you believe it’s already the 1st of the month again? You know what that means! Time for more
1st of the Month Featured Bloggers
It’s probably not surprising that fellow expats hold a special place in my heart. No matter where we’re from and where we’ve moved to, we’ve left behind all that we’re used to, the comfortable, daily routines that we didn’t even have to think about as we shuffled through them for the unknown–new, uncertain lives in new countries.
Expats end up having a lot in common almost by default, and I think many of us feel sometimes inexplicable connections with other expat bloggers. At least I do.
So here are two of my favorite expat bloggers, chosen for their many talents and also for simply making me happy on a regular basis.
Both of these women have an amazing ability to paint a scene with words and photographs and to draw me into their cities and lives. I always enjoy visits to their virtual homes, and I hope that you will too.
* Jessica of In Search of Dessert *
“At the table of life there are knives in the back, and forks in the road. I keep a spoon handy, in case life dishes up dessert.”
With a tagline like that, how can you *not* want to dive in and see what Jessica is serving up?
At In Search of Dessert you’ll find an American living in Switzerland after stops in Texas, Hawaii, Indiana, England, and Rome. A freelance writer and fabulous photographer now, Jessica has also been a donut froster, a librarian, a dishwasher, and a program manager at a Fortune 500 company.
With her words, photos, recipes, and keen observations on daily life, Jessica brings you right into Geneva and surrounding areas or wherever it is she is at the moment. Ah, and did I mention she’s also planning a wedding? Check out Jessica’s special expat weddings blog, Weddings Start to Finish, as well.
* Amanda of London Southern Belle *
Amanda is a freelance writer who found her way to London after a 10-year long-distance relationship with her British husband; she describes herself as “your average belle with steel Magnolia, sweet potato queen baggage.”
Since November 2004, Amanda has written about “balancing her teaching career as a college lecturer, driving on the ‘right’ side of the road and adding milk to hot tea.” Recently, Amanda’s blog has a whole new dimension as she shares the emotional process of her and her husband’s starting a family through IVF treatments.
Warm fuzzies abound when visiting Amanda’s place, so do brew up a nice mug of tea (I recommend Earl Grey!) before you go. You could be there awhile.
Happy blog-hopping!
1st of the month featured bloggers: february
When I kicked off the new BleedingEspresso.com a couple weeks ago (is it really only a couple weeks ago?), I told you I had some new ideas. One of them is:
1st of the Month Featured Bloggers
While you can always find my favorite blogs in my Links page (just click “links” in the above bar), I also want to take time each month and point you to particularly wonderful places that I know you’ll enjoy.
I’ve chosen two fabulous artists for February’s featured bloggers. Their work always amazes, inspires, astounds [insert more similar adjectives here]; I can’t tell you how often I’ve smiled, laughed, cried, etc., while visiting their blogs because they transmit so much energy and emotion with their words, images, and creations. The blogosphere is truly lucky to have them.
* Seamus Kearney of Shameless Words *
The first blogger is none other than the fearless (and shameless) leader of the Shameless Lions Writing Circle, Seamus Kearney, who blogs at Shameless Words. Remember the part of the collective short story I wrote some months ago? It’s still going on, so check it out here.
Seamus is an Irish Kiwi, i.e., a New Zealander with Irish heritage, who does just about anything artistic that you can imagine–and does it fabulously. He writes, paints, takes photographs, plays the piano, and also composes.
Recently Seamus posted a collection of his photographs of Ireland set to one of his original piano compositions entitled “The Magic of Ireland.”
I truly don’t have the words to describe how beautiful, moving, and simply gorgeous “The Magic of Ireland” is. I tried to embed the video here but it’s not working without messing up my columns even when I adjust the size (I always have this problem with YouTube–it’s not you Seamus!), so you’ll have to head to Shameless Words to see it.
Go! Enjoy! And read lots of his fabulous short stories too!
And tell Seamus I sent you!
* Debbie Egizio of Debbie Egizio’s Creatively Inspired Blog *
I found Debbie’s site through my good blogging buddy somepinkflowers who never, ever steers me wrong. Debbie is an artist, designer and owner of The Beat of My Art shop in Naperville, Illinois and she always has such wonderful creations on her site like these Artist Trading Card heartfelt messages:
Visiting Debbie is the virtual equivalent of brewing a cup of Earl Grey and curling up by the fireplace with the doggies. Indeed, sometimes I do these things *and* visit Debbie. So wonderful!
In a twist of blogging fate, Debbie has just awarded me with a “You Make My Day” award. Thanks Debbie! I think it goes without saying that you make mine as well.
I hope you’ll visit Seamus and Debbie and enjoy your time with them as much as I do–and I’d love if you would choose some bloggers to feature on your blog as well–why not start a 1st of the Month Featured Bloggers at your place? (No penalties if you post on say, the 2nd or 3rd or 14th this time around!)
We all only have so much Internet time, so it’s great to get recommendations from bloggers we read regularly as well.
Or, in other words, share the blog love peeps!
Buon weekend!
Michelle Kaminsky is an American attorney-turned-freelance writer who lived in her family's ancestral village in Calabria, Italy for 15 years. This blog is now archived.
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