I'm not dead yet!

Internet, I have been neglecting you. I'm sorry.

See, my husband is out of town for the next month and I've been crazy busy with the non-profit volunteering crappe AND I got smacked with some kind of virus that landed in my throat, swelled up my tonsils, and generally made me miserable.

So the only blogging I've been doing is Contractually Obligated blogging, like the piece I did on updating your eyebrows for BlogHer, and a couple of posts I did for Mamarazzi, like my Field Guide to Reality Show Skanks.

The rest of the time I've been curled up on the sofa with my collection of Buffy the Vampire Slayer DVDs. I'm almost through with Season 7, which means that I'll soon be blogging again.

Until then, there's something you ought to know. Gargling with a salt water solution every hour really does make your throat feel better!

But it bloats you up like a pregnant lady in her third trimester. I'm just saying.

To mix a catch-phrase: Go ahead. Light a candle.

You know the old saying: it is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.

This is a metaphor, kids. (More use for my expensive literature degrees, yay!)

In this case, the darkness is that part of the blogosphere that is not already reading Badger Meets World. Badger is the funniest mommy blogger I know. Why isn't the whole world aware of this?

And so, the candle is my nomination of Badger Meets World on the Babble.com list of top mommy bloggers.

At last view, Badger was #366 #234 #190 #156 #120 on the list. Please go here and vote for her.

Does this cupcake make me look fat?

Well, my friends, tough titties if it does, because it's a blog award, and I'm all about the ego strokes.

This award is from tutugirl, who has excellent taste in blogs, and I'm not just saying that because she picked me. Listen up, oh ye of little faith; she also picked the Hotfessional, so there. Also a couple of gals I've never heard of before and now need to check out.

And let me tell you, not only am I thrilled to win this award on its own merits, I'm also thrilled because it gives me something to blog about.

I don't know whether you've noticed, but blogging has slacked off around here. It's not that I'm not blogging regularly, because I am. I take that whole Blog365 thing very seriously. (Too seriously.)

But there has been a certain ... meme-ness seeping in. A tendency to indulge in the facile or the quick-and-dirty. A certain reluctance to engage--to talk about what I'm actually doing.

The cry goes up: This is Poppy's blog. Where's her slice of life?

It's up there, disguised as a cupcake.

Which pretty much sums it up for me at the moment.

First of all, if I were to really let it rip, the slice-of-life stuff I'd write is so brutal and ugly that it's unthinkable. I mean, my readers would quit on me in total disgust if I told them this stuff. And it's not that I think Sarah Palin represents the nadir of modern political so-called "thinking," because I said something along those lines yesterday, and it worked out fine.

No, the indigestible truth is this: my mother wrote me a very unpleasant letter about two weeks ago. And it really pissed me off. Big time. And now, every time I think about blogging about something going on in my life, all I want to do is post about what an asshole my mother is.

The thing is, she's really old. I should show some respect. And anyway, she won't be around forever, so I should just suck it up. And anyway, a mommyblogger knocking her own mother? This just seems wrong. We get to BE lovably imperfect mothers, but do we get to HAVE them? I don't know. I don't notice a lot of women knocking their mothers on their blogs. Kids, yes. Husbands, hell to the yeah. Mothers? No.

So there's that.

Now my other real-life stuff just reveals that I'm a brat who is spoiled rotten.

I mean, you aren't about to weep vats of tears over the fact that my cleaning ladies move my stuff when they dust and don't put things back when they're done, and I have to go around and rearrange my mantelpiece and my perfume bottles and other little knick-knacks. And it drives me crazy.

See, that's petty, right? And I'm spoiled. Somehow I don't think that would generate 137 supportive comments and ((((hugs)))). You know?

So, these days either I feel like a turdball for simmering away, full of repressed "OH YEAH, WELL FUCK YOU" type feelings that I refuse to actually express about my mother, or I feel like Marie Antoinette sitting around blogging while someone else deals with my wretched refuse yearning to be put out in the trash can.

I'm telling you, sometimes you just can't win at this blogging gig.

Except for today, because I just did! I won a prize.

Thanks, tutugirl!

We have a winner!

OK! Here's how I did it.

First I went to random.org

and asked it to pick a number between 1 and 525.

Here's what happened:

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

78

Timestamp: 2008-08-02 22:21:55 UTC

Then I scrolled down through the comments--yes, by hand, because Blogger doesn't keep score for me--and the winner is ... Misty!!!

Who totally desesrves to win because she left the following adorable comment:

so glad you entered the giveaway because i love your blog!!!!

Then I emailed Misty to let her know she won.

Now, as for the rest of you ... well, I'm overwhelmed at the response. And as I scrolled through the comments, I just about fell in love with every single one of you. Your comments were funny and cute and gave me a serious case of the warm squishies.

So your consolation prize is this: I'm going to visit every single one of your blogs and leave a comment. Now, with 525 blogs to visit, this will take a while. But I'll get there!

In the mean time, thanks to all of you for playing. I <3 you all.

Chick Lit Winner!

Now that I am a practiced random integer generator, what with all these drawings and all, you'd think I'd post the winners of my contests a bit more promptly, wouldn't you?

Well, no you wouldn't. I'm husbanding mah blogging resources, people. You see, as a proud member of Blog365, I'm stretching things out, posting one winner a day. Because you never know--there may come a day when I don't actually have anything to blog about. OK fine, it hasn't happened yet, but you never know. I might hit a dry patch come November.*

So I did my drawing--and then I held back. Until now!

The winner of the chick-lit-with-a-token-book-by-a-man contest is

Jenn

of

Jenn Cooks and Footprints on the Moon and a whole lot of other blogs. (Seriously, girl--when will you have time to read all these books?)

Congratulations, Jenn! Email me your snail mail address (to poppy2006 @ gmail.com) and I'll pack up those bad boys and send them out.

To everyone else, thanks for playing!

* Oh great. I just reminded my intestines that I'm planning to blog every day for a year. They appear to think that's a bad idea, and have sent me a shooting pain or two to communicate their displeasure.

Barbies Winner!

OK, I was really busy and there were a LOT of comments. And that is why it took me a while to do the drawing for the three new-in-box "Limited Edition" Barbies you were all so excited about.

Can I just say that I really enjoyed the comments? Especially the ones that used outrageous amounts of flattery? My other favorites were the ones that tried to evoke huge volcanic eruptions of hot molten guilt on my part. It didn't work, but I appreciate the effort.

You see, I am long past feeling guilt for anything other than my own stupidity in holding on to these Barbies for so long.

I mean, think of how many opportunities I've had to put those Barbies into a Toys for Tots bin. But no, I held out for Internet Stardom Whoredom!

----
For the drawing, I had 198 comments to deal with, so I headed over to random.org to work some random integer magic. But then I realized that not all 198 of the comments were actually people wanting to enter. Some of them were blackbird saying that while the Barbies were lovely, she thought she'd pass. Others were Joke, making fun of me (which seems extraneous when I write this blog, the one you're currently reading, to do exactly that.)

And then there were the people who entered more than once. I dumped the duplicate entries. I also snipped anyone who entered after the cut-off time of 5:00 p.m. Sorry, people, but I left you out of the running to make the odds better for the people who managed to enter on time. I'm cruel--but fair.

So that left me with 183 names. Then I added Jen Lancaster to make a total of 184.

So I plugged 184 into the random thingie. And the winning number was 169. And this left me using my left hand to count ... down ... 168 comments ... while ... I ... scrolled ... down ... the ... screen ... with ... my ... right ... hand. Which, not surprisingly, was easy to fuck up.

This resulted in much frustration and swearing as I started the whole ... long ... laborious ... process over again. And again.

And then, That Stuff Muffin I Married rescued me from my English-major stupidity.

Why not, he asked sagely, count up from the bottom?

So that's what I did.

(You know, he's just brilliant. And when I burst into grateful tears and hugged and kissed him, he looked at me calmly, pushed his glasses back up his nose, and said. "Well, dear--I am, after all, a computer scientist." Which is bullshit. He's an attorney. A smart one. Who doesn't stuff Barbies into every single one of our house's orifices.)

But I digress.

The winner is: Mandi. Who left this comment:

So I found you again through Jen's blog, originally heard of you from Susie Sunshine (I am sad she left her blog)... all that is beside the point, any who, I would love to be entered in the drawling for the Barbies because my "daughters" would love these, I have 2 daughters...one of them should like them right lol if not I have 3 nieces! Hey free barbies..I'll take anything free...they are free right? Haa haa

February 01, 2008 10:01 AM

(Just so you know, I've tried to accommodate Mandi in every way, including typing this description of the "drawling" with a really annoying affected version of Long Island Lockjaw. You can't hear it from where you're sitting, but I sound exactly like James Spader in Pretty in Pink.)

So anyway, Congratulations Mandi! Email me your address and the Barbies are yours.

To everyone else, thanks for playing! If I don't hear from Mandi in three days, I'll hold another random drawing, so keep the flattery and ass-kissing coming. A better woman would be above enjoying that sort of thing, but I LOVED IT.

Bloggy Giveaway Carnival--Hermes scarf--We have a winner!

I kept track of the responses so it would be strictly fair. Susie Sunshine only got one entry (even though she posted two comments) and Babelbabe wasn't entering, so I took hers out of the computation. I entered everyone else, even Kim, although she wanted to hold out for my eldest child.

I used random.org for the drawing. Here's what it said:

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

14

Timestamp: 2008-02-02 02:51:19 UTC

So the winner is:

Number 14

Miss Britt!!!

Bloggy Giveaway Carnival--Fragrance giveaway winners

The fragrance giveaway was the easiest for me to decide, because it wasn't a random drawing--not with nine different things to distribute. Basically, I planned to start with the first commenter, give away the fragrances until they were gone, and then stop.

(If only life were always that easy.)

OK, I know I said you could ask for more than one, but I wanted to disappoint the fewest number of people, so starting with the first commenter who specified something, each person is getting one fragrance.

However, as a consolation prize, I'll stuff a few samples or decants into the packages. If you're reading this, ahiltz, email me and we'll work something out. (Also, blackbird--I do believe I have another bottle of Ombre Rose. I'll bet you can guess where.)

Here we go:

Sara gets the Serendipitous
Jafarhie gets the Caleche
m.e. gets the Hiris
flutterby gets Jardins de Bagatelle
Hanna of Cultivating Home gets Ombre Rose
Smellyann gets the Eclat d'Arpege
Naomi gets the Madeleine Vionnet
reeva gets Joy
and Laura gets the Allure

I'll email the winners this weekend--or feel free to email me.

Bloggy Giveaway Carnival--Hermes scarf, or, the best things come in orange boxes

Today's giveaway is yet another thing that I thought I would like, but didn't.



Mind you, I think the design is lovely. But my computer monitor misrepresented the colors. When it arrived and I opened the package, I recognized at a glance that this particular color--a shade I categorize as "gym uniform green"--was going to make me look, in the words of Helen Gurley Brown, "recently exhumed."



And so, Internet, I am giving you the opportunity to find out whether you find this particular shade of green flattering. It's a definitely more green than turquoise, but there is just a suggestion of blue in it. Other colors are a medium smoky blue and a medium rose pink, yellow, and taupe on a white background.



The design is called Marionettes blah blah blah--here's a close-up of it.



OK, I stand corrected. It's called Le Temps des Marionettes, which is French for "Ze time of ze puppets." And it can be yours! And I'm sure it will look lovely.

To enter, leave a comment. If you don't have a Blogger ID and profile, let me know your email address, too. I'll hold a random drawing on Friday. Polls close at 5:00 p.m. Central Time.

Good luck!

Halp

A dear, dear, dear friend of mine has mentioned in her recent emails that my blog is taking a really long time to load. Like 20 minutes. And this is with a fast connection.

The first time she mentioned it, I got rid of a few widgets in my sidebar. The second time, I pruned my sidebar ruthlessly. It's a haiku of its former self.

Well, I've run out of ideas, so I turn to you, Internet. Could you please tell me:

1. Does my blog tend to load slowly?
2. If so, do you think it's all the pictures? Because I can upload fewer, or upload less-detailed pictures.
3. If so, and it's not the pictures, is there a fix that any moron, i.e., me, can manage?