This Miso Soup was awesome. Light yet filling. And healthy. A perfect thing for a winter afternoon. Miso is heat sensitive, so be sure and refrain from boiling the soup – keep it at a simmer.

The recipe makes 9 cups or six servings and prep time is about 30 minutes.

Ingredients

2 Tbs Sesame Oil

1 Bunch Scallions, thinly sliced, white and green parts separated

2 Tbs Minced Fresh Ginger

1 Tbs Minced Garlic

6 Cups Low Sodium Vegetable Broth

1/3 Cup Red or White Miso

8 oz Shredded Rotisserie Chicken (about 2 cups)

1 Cup Canned Sliced Bamboo Shoots, drained

1 Cup Canned Baby Corn, drained

½ Cup Shredded Carrot

1 Pkg. Ramen Noodles, seasoning packet discarded

2 Cups Baby Spinach

Heat sesame oil in large saucepan, over medium high heat. Add scallion whites, ginger and garlic. Cook until mixture begins to brown, about three minutes. 

Add broth and simmer 10 minutes. Pour 1 cup broth into small bowl, whisk in miso until dissolved, stir broth-miso mixture back into saucepan, reduce heat to low and simmer. Do not boil!

Add chicken, bamboo shoots, carrot, corn and noodles and cook until heated through and noodles are tender, 3-5 minutes. Remove from heat and add spinach. Garnish each serving with scallion greens.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Makes: 10 Servings, Prep Time: 25 Mins, Cook Time: 4 Hours

Ingredients:

For the Goulash

1 3# boneless beef chuck roast seasoned with salt and pepper

¼ Cups Flour

2 Tbs. Olive Oil 

2 Cups Diced Onion

2 Cups Freshly Peeled Diced Beets

1 Cup Diced Celery

2 Cups Sliced Carrots, ½ inch thick

¼ Cup Tomato Paste

2 Tbs. Minced Garlic

2 Tbs Hungarian Paprika

2 tsp Coriander

2 tsp Ground Cumin

1 tsp Caraway Seeds

½ Cup Red Wine

1 ½ Cups low-sodium Beef Broth

¼ Cup Chopped Fresh Parsley

2 tsp Red Wine Vinegar

For the Noodles

1 Lb Dry Egg Noodles

1 Stick Unsalted Butter

 ½ Cup Chopped Fresh Parsley

Sour Cream

Coat the roast in flour and sear in oil in large sauté pan over high heat until deep brown on both sides, about 12 minutes. Transfer roast to 6-7 qt. dutch oven and reduce pan to medium-high heat.

Saute onion, beets, celery and carrots in drippings to soften, about 3 minutes. Add tomato paste, garlic, paprika, cumin, coriander, caraway and cook 2 minutes more.

Deglaze pan with wine and cook until nearly evaporated, about 1 minute. Add broth, bring to a boil and transfer mixture to dutch oven. Cover and cook roast until fork tender on high setting, about 4 hours. Shred the meat, return to dutch oven.

Add ¼ cup parsley and vinegar, salt and pepper to taste.

For the Pasta, cook noodles in large pot of boiling, salted water. If you want really tasty noodles, cook them in chicken broth instead of water, but that’s not required. Drain noodles, toss with butter and ½ cup parsley, season with salt and pepper if needed.

Serve goulash over noodles and garnish with sour cream.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

We searched all over town for just the right apples, so don't settle for anything other than what's recommended here - it definitely makes a difference. The original recipe called for Gorgonzola cheese, but we're not fans, so substituted goat cheese instead. It was pure perfection.

2 cups Moscato d’Asti or other sweet, fragrant wine

1 Cinnamon stick

1 3/4 cups sugar

8 Tbs (1 stick) butter, cut into ½ inch cues, plus 2 Ts for the pan

10 medium Golden Delicious, Cortland or Empire apples, peeled and cored

5 very ripe Figs, stemmed and halved lengthwise

10 oz. Goat Cheese (or Gorgonzola – if using Gorgonzola, cut into 1-oz pieces at room temperature)

Preheat oven to 375.

Place sugar, wine and cinnamon stick in a saucepan and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Lower th heat and simmer for 10 minutes or until the consistency of a thin syrup. Remove from heat and stir in cubes of butter.

Butter the sides and bottom of a 13.9 baking dish and place apples upright in the dish. Press each fig in the shape that will fit into the cavities in the apples and stuff the apples with the figs. Pour the Moscato syrup over the apples, place the dish in the oven and bake, periodically basting the apples with the pan juices until the apples are soft but still standing, 35 minutes.

Remove the baking dish from the oven and immediately place a piece of goat cheese on top of each apple, like a hat on the cavity. Allow to cool for 10 minutes.

Serve warm or at room temperature, with a spoonful of the pan juices over the top.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

1 Tsb unsalted butter

1 small shallot

½ Cup sugar

½ Cup dry red wine

½ Cup fresh orange juice

1 cinnamon stick

1 whole star anise

1 t yellow mustard seeds

1/8 tsp ground allspice

1/8 tsp ground cloves

1 ½ lb. firm, ripe figs, stemmed and cut into 8ths

1 baguette, sliced thinly on the diagonal

Olive oil

1 package goat cheese

Fig Chutney

Melt butter in a large, heavy saucepan over medium heat. Add shallot; stir to coat. Cook until translucent,about 5 minutes. Add sugar; stir until dissolved. Add red wine and next 6 ingredients. Increase heat to medium-high; simmer until syrupy, about 15 minutes. Add figs; stir to coat. Reduce heat to medium; simmer, stirring occasionally, until figs are soft, 10-15 minutes, depending on ripeness of figs.

Bruschetta

Preheat oven to 350. Put sliced baguette on cookie sheet, drizzle with olive oil. Bake for 5-10 minutes until crisp. Remove from oven, spread with goat cheese, then top with fig chutney. Devour. Repeat.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

This might be one of the most wonderful things a child - no matter their age - can ever say to you:

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Dear Lucy and Lola,

Thank you so much for the chocolate cake! It was "spectacular."

Please thank your Mommy for moving the flowers so that I could come down the chimney!

You guys had a great year!

I really appreciate you delivering presents to the less fortunate kids and thank you so much for giving up your binks! My kids will love them!

Keep up the good work at school and swimming lessons! Please make sure to take Daddy to exercise, he really needs your help.

Elvis loved staying with you guys! He'll be back next year.

Love, Santa.

Ho Ho Ho ... Merry Christmas!!!

And off he went, back to The North Pole .......

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Today the Chili Peppers a/k/a my almost 5 year old twins and I set off on a new holiday adventure. We went to the local homeless mission to pick up gifts to deliver to needy families in the Kansas City metropolitan area. Our city is no different than yours - of that I'm certain. And there are more families than ever before struggling to find a way to give their kids gifts this season. We've bought a lot of presents for those families, but I also wanted to get the girls out and let them experience a different kind of giving. The kind that just takes your time, not your money.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Great read here from @briansolis

Amplify’d from www.briansolis.com

Google and the Rise of Facebook November 22, 2010 32 Comments and 1169 Reactions Share385 In 2007 I said that Facebook would be the home page for your personal brand. Now it seems that Facebook is officially setting out to become your homepage period. The other day I logged into Facebook and noticed a new message at the top of the screen. I was presented with a simple way to make Facebook my homepage so that I could see “what’s happening with friends as soon as I opened my browser.”  And, I’m not the only one. Why am I taking the time to let you know that Facebook is making it easy for you to drag and drop Facebook to your home button? Facebook started out as a social network, but it is officially growing into a full-fledged personal OS, where friends and experiences are interconnected inside and outside of Facebook. And, at the center of everything is you. Facebook is a platform where relationships create the construct for the 3C’s of information commerce. The acts of sharing and consuming content in social media represent the social dealings between people and set the stage for interaction and education.But, it is the platform that offers a sandbox for development and also a solid foundation for social architecture. It is the sites that feature Facebook interconnects that weave the fabrics of relationships and the ties and interests that bind us. More than one million websites have integrated with Facebook Platform. 150 million people engage with Facebook on external websites every month. Two-thirds of comScore’s U.S. Top 100 websites and half of comScore’s Global Top 100 websites have integrated with Facebook. The more we interact with Facebook around the Web through Likes, Shares, and Comments, the more we feed the social effect and the greater the personalization inside Facebook and within its partner sites. Indeed, according to comScore, Facebook traffic soared by 55.2% hitting 151.1 million in October 2010, up from 97.4 visitors at the same time last year. It’s also important to note that Facebook was home to 300 million active denizens last year and now it has a population of more than 550 million. While Google is earning 173.3 million visits in the U.S., Facebook’s trajectory is only gaining in mass and force. And it’s only gaining momentum… - 50% of active users log on to Facebook in any given day - The average user has 130 friends - People spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook Don’t Google Me, Facebook Me Over the years, Google has missed steps to foster a social network of its own, perhaps focusing on a culture of code rather than human culture and behavior. What lies ahead is a quiet war where  your social graph is at stake. Facebook is taking large steps to move you away from Google and toward the social web.  As this new “homepage” request rolls out to active users worldwide, we will see many follow Facebook’s instruction to now make the social graph the starting point to their online experience each and every time they fire up their browser. Doing so changes behavior and teaches us that we can indeed get a little help from our friends by leaning on them for empowerment, entertainment, and enlightenment. We don’t take to Google for insight, we  now take to the stream… What’s materializing before us may in fact represent the beginning of the end of the Google era of Web domination. This is the rise of the Facebook economy (F-commerce) where commerce represents the currency of information and engagement and the net worth of the relationships we nurture. While it doesn’t beat the drum in its march toward online supremacy, Facebook is in fact setting out to help you improve the way you communicate, discover, and share. Since you are at the center of the social egosystem, Facebook is designing products and services that make managing and interacting with your social graph more efficient. From Gmail to Facebook.com > We now have a new messaging platform on its way to us with @facebook.com email addresses yours for the taking. It changes how we think about messages and exchanges and may in fact, encourage us to follow Zuckerberg’s vision away from the traditional inbox. By integrating messaging into one system that connects through multiple clients and devices, Facebook also starts to minimize the value of Google Talk. Does Google turn its 193 million Gmail users out of the inbox and toward a social network…something like say, GoogleMe? Now with its social hooks in MySpace, Google must revisit its human algorithm. From Google.com to Facebook search > The future of search is social and we are already investing in social media optimization (SMO) in addition to SEO. We can’t underestimate Facebook search. Google has long dominated search and the behemoth of a company is showing its age and its weaknesses. Even though Google is experimenting with integrating social into traditional search results, its algorithm is in dire need of a human touch – a human algorithm. At the same time, Facebook is slowly but surely improving its search feature. What used to simply display results within the network, now starts to feature results from around the Web where the displayed list is curated by the actions of your friends – as part of the platform. This will only improve and become more substantial in the coming months. From Google Voice to Facebook + Skype > Google Voice is a valuable service that combines voice, Web, and email. While it’s not getting thunderous roars of attention, Skype and Facebook are introducing the ability to call friends directly from the News Feed. As this integration becomes seamless and demand for such a service gains awareness and pervasiveness, Facebook and Skype will rival Google Voice one day. From Google Latitude to Facebook Places > Google is experimenting with geo location, but Facebook Places is gaining mass adoption. Competing for attention online and offline is helping Facebook merge experiences and channel the activity into the News Feed. From Google Groups to Facebook Groups > Google Groups was once one of the Web greatest hosts for contextual networks, groups organized by interests, events, and causes. Now with the release of the new and improved Facebook Groups, people are forming nicheworks, networks within networks. Their focused activity is enhanced by a dedicated group framework that fosters collaboration and conversation whether the group unites relationships or actions linked by strong, weak, or temporary ties. From Google Docs to Facebook + Microsoft Office > Google Docs are the industry standard for Web collaboration around documents, spreadsheets, presentations, forms and artistic canvases. While the world was abuzz with Facebook’s messaging service, Microsoft introduced Office Web Apps as part of the new messaging system. The technology alliance allows people to view Word, Excel and PowerPoint attachments with the Office Web Apps directly in Facebook. It just the beginning of something more productive… Twitter Me This…The Facebook Generation And what of Twitter? I believe it is the moon that orbits a networked planet. It turns the tides. It defines its rotation. Twitter is your window to relevance, but Facebook is your homepage for the social Web. According to recent data released by Hitwise, Facebook accounts for 25% of all page views in the U.S. And it’s only going to skyrocket as we interact with content and one another through the Facebook platform. Depending on which data we review, Google is either in Facebook’s rearview mirror or in its sights. Hitwise claims Facebook has already surpassed Google in terms of views. Earlier we stated that comScore has Facebook nipping at Google’s heels. Either way, it’s just a matter of time until Facebook traffic surpasses Google with tenable data supporting the historic milestone. We are witnessing the dawn of the social consumer and their network of preference for the immediate future is Facebook. As I’ve previously observed, the medium is no longer just the message. In social, the medium is the platform and as such, people now represent both the medium and the message where reach is defined by a blending of the social graph, the context of the story and the expansion and contraction of strong, weak, and temporary connections. The Facebook platform serves as the foundation for our Social OS and in turn, we are its driving force. With every action, we trigger an equal and opposite reaction. With our relationships serving as Facebook’s construct, we are realizing that the social graph effect may in fact, spark greater volumes of reaction than Google, or any of us, may have anticipated. Welcome to the Facebook generation…the question is, will you call Facebook home? Connect with Brian Solis on Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Facebook ___ If you’re looking for a way to FIND answers in social media, consider Engage!: It will help… Read more at www.briansolis.com

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Good read here from @roncallari

Amplify’d from inventorspot.com

Social Media's Interaction With Content More Trustworthy Than Google Search by Ron Callari Anyone who has worked in search engine optimization (SEO) knows that 'link building' was one of the key methods of improving rankings for Web sites and publisher's content. As Google's algorithm awarded sites for this practice, sites found more ways to game the system. Today, no matter what side of the privacy issue you favor, Facebook's LIKE buttons are usurping Google's prominence in this space and are gaining more trust than search results. In my previous post, "Social Media Morphs Into Semantic Web As Peoplelinks Replace Hyperlinks," I sited social media guru Brian Solis' report that "peoplelinks" derived from clicking on LIKE buttons across the Web are building a fabric of personalized marketing based on the "choice words and sentiments shared by like-minded groups and influential people online." Bruce ClayEven search industry vet Bruce Clay whose company has spent the last year offering SEO services for Web sites and content providers believes that "Likes are the new links." According to an interview he conducted with WebProNews, Clay sees LIKES as new 'go-to' source for reliable discoverability and the focus of 'quantity of links' versus 'quality' has blinded a lot of folks into building an ecosystem of links that is biased. In the first graphic novel about Facebook, "Facebucks and Dumb F*cks" shows how Mark Zuckerberg (aka Z-Man) reaches this epiphany when he instructs kidd millennium in how he will overtake Gobble (aka Google) using 'peoplelinks' versus Google's outdated hyperlinks. Page from Facebucks & Dumb F*cks graphic novel But just as easily as marketers learned to 'work' the Google search algorithms to their advantage, will they do the same with Facebook's LIKES. Instead of "Link Farms," might Facebook users start building "LIKE Farms" and engage in the practice of actually buying LIKES. According to an AllFacebook post, this activity already exists and Nick O'Neill cites several instances where this is happening. "Like farms are spamming Facebook with random quotes and phrases (e.g., LikeBunny, and  LikeItPage) and will continue to proliferate until Facebook develops a system that determines which add value and which are just spam generators." In May, Mashable's CEO Pete Cashmore pointed out that if "LIKES" surpass links as a way for one site to recommend content on another, than effectively Facebook will 'own' the Web." So whether you categorize LIKES as 'social links' or 'peoplelinks,' the Open Graph appears to be gaining traction over Google's old school SERPs (search engine result pages). Since LIKES can be tied back to a specific user, searchers of content can now determine whether a link is vetted by people they follow and trust. However since Google and Facebook are rivals, and 'don't play nice together,' it would take a lot for Google to gain access to Facebook's social graph data to incorporate into their ranking algorithm.  According to Clay, he thinks that "we're going to see that LIKES and referrals and recommendations (will cause) a general shift towards 'quality' of sites (not quantity)," and that Google's methodology will lose out to Facebook. What do you think, readers? Is Facebook's optimization the new SEO of the next decade? And will the world look something like this in years to come? Read more at inventorspot.com

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

For AmEx's Small Business Saturday, I wrote an article about Kansas City small businesses and how they're faring. To them, success is about people. Go figure.

Amplify’d from www.openforum.com

In Kansas City, it’s All About the People Shelly Kramer about Facebook® Recommend The Facebook® Recommend button is incorporated only in select, public areas of the American Express OPEN website. To learn more about the Facebook® Recommend button, click here. Nov 30, 2010 - In the urban neighborhood known as Brookside in Kansas City, Missouri, small businesses abound. And flourish. In Brookside, shopping local is very much a way of life. There are a unique collection of stores and services, the owners often live within walking distance, and are all very vested in the community.   For ShopGirls, Brookside Toy & Science and Stuff it’s too early to tell much, but this holiday season feels good. Solid. And it makes them hopeful. Two of the three shared that 2010 had been their toughest year of the last three, but still, the signs are good.   They feel as if things are turning around and they’re less fearful of what’s to come than in previous years.   Aimee Green and Katy Hamilton, Mary Jo and Jim Ward, and Sloane and Casey Simmons all emphatically agree on one important point—what they sell isn’t about the stuff, it’s about the people. “Our customers know they could get something less unique somewhere else, and pay a few dollars less in the process,” says Mary Jo Ward of Brookside Toy & Science, “but they don’t want that. They want meaningful. And they want quality.”   These are retailers who don’t give a moment’s thought to competing with big box stores. Instead, all are laser focused on the things that make shopping with them different. Their collective calling cards are stores filled with unique, well-made and often one-of-a-kind items. They are staffed by knowledgeable experts who love what they do and it shows, and service that includes little extras like free gift-wrapping and personal attention.   Casey Simmons of Stuff might well have hit it on the head when she said, “We don’t compete with big box retailers, but we do compete. Because of the Internet, we compete on a global basis. Everyone is our competition. So, for us, it’s about the people. Funny, when you have a store named ‘Stuff’ that it’s not really about stuff. It’s about people, creating an experience and making the people a part of the business. That’s why we’re successful. It’s all about the people.”   That’s the magic of small businesses – it’s all about the people. Read more at www.openforum.com

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Hys*freaking*terical courtesy of @amyvernon

Amplify’d from amyvernon.tumblr.com

I am dying. DYING. Susan B. Anthony Read more at amyvernon.tumblr.com

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Some great tips and resources here from @lissaduty - including some that even I didn't know about. My favorite kind of find!

Amplify’d from www.momeomagazine.com

The BIG Idea File: Social Everywhere – Simple Steps to Build Your Social Media Presence Posted by Lissa Duty on November 23, 2010 · http://www.momeomagazine.com/?p=6316">View Comments  20tweetsretweet When you think about social media do you immediately think of the big four – Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube? However, there are lots of other social networking opportunities available that will help you get the word out about your business. When you create a social media presence you want to include some of these other sites in your social media plan. The key is finding the social networking platforms that fit your business. #1: Directory Listing Sites Every business should go out to the directory listing sites and claim their business. Many have a place where you can list your business hours, website, and your customers can review your business. Don’t just think of reviews as negative. Customers like to give positive reviews for a job well done. Remember, whether you use social media or not, your business is still being talked about online. You need to be involved in the conversation. Yahoo Local (www.local.yahoo.com/) Best of The Web (www.local.botw.org/) Bing Local (www.bing.com/local/) Google Places (www.google.com/places) HotFrog.com (www.hotfrog.com) Merchant Circle (www.merchantcircle.com/corporate/) Yelp (www.yelp.com) Urban Spoon (www.urbanspoon.com) #2: Article Marketing Sites Writing articles and blogging is an important piece of social media and is one of the best methods for branding yourself as an expert in your field. After creating an article or blog post, submit them to FREE article and social bookmarking sites. Go Articles (www.goarticles.com) Ezine Articles (www.ezinearticles.com) Article Directory (www.articledirectory.com) Digg (www.digg.com) Delicious (www.delicious.com/) StumbleUpon (www.stumbleupon.com/) Reddit (www.reddit.com) When you submit to the article sites, you cannot be self-promoting, such as listing your business name, your name, website in the body of the post. However, you can list those in the biographical information. It takes some effort and in some case revisions to get approved, but once you get through the red tape you will be on a roll submitting content. On some of the social bookmarking sites you cannot submit your own article content. You’ll need to find a strategic partner and submit their content for them and in return have them submit yours. #3: Event Listing Sites If do you do public speaking, or host workshops and webinars, event listing sites are the best way to expand your audience and brand yourself as an expert. Plus taking your online connections to an offline venue, builds the relationship. Plan Cast (www.plancast.com) Zvents (www.zvents.com/) Event Sync (www.eventsync.com/) EventBrite (www.eventbrite.com) #4: Niche and Upcoming Social Media Networks There are many other Social Media sites out there and new networks are developing all the time. Bizzy (www.bizzy.com) Bizzy is a newer social networking site that is growing and expanding to new cities/states. Get in on the ground floor, if they are in your city and grow with them. FriendFeed (www.friendfeed.com) Friendfeed is quite similar to Twitter. You can set your GoogleReader to feed to your FriendFeed account, which you can setup to post to Twitter as well. Plaxo (www.plaxo.com) Plaxo is in essence an online address book. It syncs with your Outlook. It has been making some updates and has a social networking feature. You can post status updates to your network on Plaxo and get a weekly birthday reminder email of connections who have birthdays coming up. NameChk (www.namechk.com/). The NameChk site will let you see all the social networking sites where your username is available or taken to ensure your branding is universal across the board. I recommend only registering for the popular or growing sites. Don’t be overwhelmed by all the websites out there. Take it one website at a time. You cannot do it all of overnight, but once you have mastered one, add another one into the mix. Eventually, you will be using them all and won’t even realize it. Social Media can be time consuming, but in the long run is worth the effort! If you find you have difficulty mastering some of the technology, there are lots of social media professionals that would be willing to help you out and get your accounts set up for you. Special Thanks to @AnaLuciaNovak for her added contribution to this blog post. Your HotFrog.com find and share is another great example of your social media knowledge and willingness to share resources with fellow professionals! Read more at www.momeomagazine.com

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

URL:  http://www.dawn.com/2010/11/12/christian-woman-sentence...

More Christian Persecution in Pakistan! I can't be silent on this for in my silence I would support it. So I share it on Facebook and Twitter and anywhere else I can. Please do the same.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Three people I really enjoy. @AmyOscar, @ikepigott and @asouthernyankee. If you read the post, you'll see why

Amplify’d from www.v3im.com

The Angel, The Brain and The Hot Mess Posted by Shelly Kramer on November 21, 2010 · http://www.v3im.com/?p=2133">View Comments   Share You know what happens. You’re working, kind of. Or at least you should be. Then you pop over to TweetDeck to see what’s going on with your pals on Twitter or hop over to Facebook, just for a jiffer. Then you see an interesting link (or 27) and pretty soon, it’s over. I blame social media. You’re pulled into the interwebs and all hopes of getting anything accomplished (work, that is) are dashed. Too bad somebody already wrote the book on it, because I’m a professional Internet lurker + Time Waster. But I refuse to believe that’s all bad. For instance, one day, I saw a random tweet complimenting a writer on a beautiful post. I was intrigued, popped on over to check it out, and before you an say “lickety-split” I’m sucked into what may well have been the most beautiful piece of writing I’ve ever seen. And, in no time, I’ve come to be great friends with Amy Oscar, the writer of that piece (and many more), read her stuff if you know what’s good for you. She’s an angel. You’ll see what I mean. I few months ago, through random Facebook interaction, I discovered Ike Pigott, who might just be the smartest guy I know. It was actually his amazing post on the dangers of Friending Strangers on Facebook that hooked me and, naturally, I’ve been stalking him ever since. He has a way of writing that not only speaks to my heart, but engages my brain in ways that send cool neurons firing all over the place. Kind of like what happens when you eat chocolate, only with less calories. Jason Falls called him “The thinking man’s PR wizard” and that’s pretty apt. I’d like to amend that to read “The thinking person’s writer” – maybe Jason won’t mind that so much. Damn, but it makes me wish I could do that. Write like Ike, that is. Today, when I was supposed to be working on the book that Wiley is paying me to write, well, you guessed it. I got sucked into Twitter. Again. This time I discovered the Hot Mess, that inspired the title of this post, Gordon McCleary, and all because of a random Tweet that said his blog was hilarious. Well, I’m bored. I need some hilarity. In fact, I consider it medicinal. So, off I went. Gordon doesn’t know me (yet) but he had me at not only the fact that he’s a Yankee living in the south, but that he is, apparently, inspired to write by getting out and experiencing people, places and things. I’m like that. And I’m also a transplanted Yankee, which is a whole ‘nother story. I’m constantly ridiculed by my family and friends (for a variety of reasons), but many related to how I discover my blog content. Everywhere I go, I’m inspired by something new. I feel as if I’m literally tripping over great content. Ideas come a mile a minute and, as a result, I’m often (annoyingly) engaged in the process of snapping pictures, taking notes and getting all crazy documenting things so that I can write about them later. Gordon apparently suffers from the same syndrome. Somehow, I knew I would like him – from the moment I saw the word “hilarious.” So he had me early on. And then I dove into his post called Yankee Musings – A Hot Mess about his trip to the Winn Dixie, jamming to James Brown and multitasking – all of which ultimately lead the cashier to call him a “hot mess.” Clearly, he is. And clearly, since the only words that can ever be accurately described to describe MY life are “hot mess,” we are kindred spirits. My work here is done. Consider yourselves introduced to three amazing people. Find them, read their stuff, engage your heart, your brain and your sense of humor. Then send me some cupcakes to say thank you. Read more at www.v3im.com

Permalink | Leave a comment  »