I love blogs

I love blogs- I love writing this blog for our friends and family (teamschiele.blogspot.com for those of you following on facebook), I love keeping up with far away friends and family thorough their blogs, I love reading blogs dedicated to educating and documenting… something.

I have a rotating list of blogs that I read regularly dedicated to something that I am curious about, interested in, wanting to understand better. Many of them come and go- today’s favorite may hold no interest tomorrow. I may not have found tomorrow’s favorite. Here are some of my current favorites and why like them.

One Cheep Chick
Lesley Mitchell is a tribune money section writer who keeps this blog of deals and freebees. Of course I love saving money, there is never enough for everything I want, and it is fun to be able to afford things we wouldn’t otherwise. Last Tuesday we went to the spaghetti factory on the cheap thanks to her notice that they were offering 40% off menu favorites. It was a great date and so nice to get out.

Little House in the Suburbs
Tomato Lady and Ivory Soap (not their real names I think) have spent their lives doing all those urban homesteading activities that I spent my life avoiding- only to find that I love gardening, canning, and chickens. Their post on gourds was the deciding factor in the decision to try to grow them. They need a longer season then we have here, but I want to try them anyway.

Rambling Babushka
I would like this blog for nothing other than the name, but Ildie makes eating well look amazing. Her food photos and directions (too simple to be called recipes) make me want to eat better. I can’t tell you how often my efforts to eat better end at lunch when I can’t think of what to eat. She shows what she is really eating and makes it look so yummy. She also documents her workouts- yeah, go Ildie, not following you on that one sister.

Unclutterer: Daily tips on how to organize your home and office http://unclutterer.com/
My most honest resume would say organizer of people, time, space stuff, information. This collaborative effort follows the gospel of a place for everything and everything in its place. I learn new techniques and have fine tuned many ideas from the info found here. Every Wednesday they offer a gag- unitasker of the week. While these are meant to be funny, I find them poignant. My love of shinny junk is barely balanced by my need for neatness. Wednesday serves as a weekly reminder to think before deciding I ‘need’ something.

Growing Girls With Purpose – The Girl Revolution
This is one of my newer blogs. I recently found Tracee Sioux my roommate from my wild and crazy days. We had so much fun together, navigating the single world as young divorced and insane women. She has turned her always strong writing skills, and strong feminist ideals into a blog dedicated to raising girls into amazing women. She is quite an amazing woman herself and I love seeing her and her ideas all grown up and working in the world.

I have been looking for some good blogs on retirement saving/ investing. I understand the basics of stocks and bonds and know that we should be diversified, but how do you figure out where exactly to put your money? I find this subject quickly frustrating so would love to learn in small bites like you get on a blog. Any suggestions?

So what blogs do you follow? Do you find they add to your life or are just a distraction? Are they a good way to learn something new or just another outlet for our voyeuristic/exhibitionist tendency’s?