Guest Post: Kimberly Novosel, on How to Make Mondays Feel Like Fridays

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We’re switching it up here on the CD today.

Normally, guest posts go live on Wednesdays. Today’s guest poster, though, is ahead of her time. Not just because she’s written a guest post about Mondays. Where do I even begin when it comes to one of the most incredible writers I’ve ever known?

Kimberly Novosel has written a novel I’m a bit afraid to open, because of words and concepts that tear so close to the bone when I read them, such as:

“We had so much to say to each other, like we’d been quiet our whole lives until we met. It was as if I had underestimated how hungry I was for a companion, how much I needed to be understood, to be pursued, to be seen and to be reflected in someone’s eyes.”

Kimberly Novosel, Loved

👨 Guest Post: Sandra of Momma’s View, on Dad Coaches

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It’s cool to find your tribe.

Even if you just hear about them. I recently wrote 11 questions for a youth soccer coach. Quietly, I don’t officially have a team for this fall. It’s the first time since Swedish tennis player Anna Holmstrom finished fourth in the 1912 Stockholm Olympics.

So, it’s been a while.

I wrote the questions for the next generation of youth soccer coaches. Dudes with accents and pointy hair and fantastic calves tend to infiltrate the sidelines of those of us out of Generation X, we of graying roofs and middle-age spread.

📱 Not a Guest Post, but 11 More Smartphone Pics, V

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Hey guys.

So, this A to Z Challenge really kicked my butt. It happened in the home stretch of soccer season. It fell during a time we stressed over Elise’s college status (she got in!) and lots of work workload. Spring’s a time of renewal, too. Although it’s mostly pollen.

If my guest post list were a troubling of goldfish, they’d mostly be belly up.

As readers might remember, when I have a guest-post Wednesday without any guest posts, I turn to my phone. I pick 11 random pics and share them here. Let me know what you think. I promise to have something from an awesome guest next week.

#AtoZChallenge: K is for Keeping up with my Shiznit

photo credit: “When I grow up, I’m gonna be the tiniest, most powerful-est Sith Lord in the whole galaxy!” via photopin (license)

So, I forgot what letter we’re on.

Twice. And what’s even better, I razzed fellow blog dad Eric of All in Dad’s Work about a guest post he promised me for this Wednesday. In the midst of the A to Z Challenge. For both of us.

Only, Eric has already guest posted for me.

In what can be attributed in equal parts to Canadian kindness and just being a standup guy, Eric wrapped up a post in his drafts folder to deliver the guest blog he didn’t have to deliver. Good man, Eric.

Behold, That Gem from American Blogging Ancestry: The Liebster Award

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Today, I’m going old-school.

No, not a mullet or acid-washed jeans. Today, in place of a guest post, I’ll tackle something most of you blogging types will remember from the early days: The Liebster Award.

It’s a little known fact that the Liebster originated in 1901, the brainchild of one American philosopher Anna Brackett, inspired by a lost text from the Book of Matthew, recently found buried in a time capsule found in Haverhill, N.H., during the Chowder Festival.

I think.

Women Explain Women to Me

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My cards said it all.

Not my baseball cards, or even my business cards. The tarot cards spelled out a few things for me. One: to “Not be afraid of the feminine element in my makeup.” That has nothing to do with Cover Girl and everything to do with understanding the opposite sex.

Which, I couldn’t even type without an internal laugh track going on level 10.

Apparently, though, my ability to show my emotions and empathize with others is wholly female. Which hearkens back to the assertion I’m 30% female and write like a girl. Both compliments, in my book. Still, I suffer so in this department.

Guest Post: Vicki, of Horses, Dirt & Motherhood, on the Essentials of a Big Family

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Vicki’s life has a definite smell soundtrack.

“Horses, new babies and my husband!” she said with a laugh in a comment last year, when I took on the A to Z writing challenge. It was the post for B, about breakfast – and the glorious smells that lift our lives.

Vicki lifts plenty of spirits in her blog, Horses, Dirt & Motherhood.

She’s a kind, sharing soul with nine kids and a yard full of animals. A mom of nine! My mom tells me I used to wish for nine kids so I could field and entire baseball team. They might even give the actual Colorado Rockies a run for their money.

Guest Post: Janine, of Confessions of a Mommyaholic, on Baseball

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I can count on certain certainties in life.

My daughters’ love.

My Rockies to struggle.

And for Janine Huldie to comment on my blog.

Janine, who writes Confessions of a Mommyaholic, has been a blog and life friend for years. In times when I’ve pondered the health of this blog and of myself, she’s been there to encourage. Unfailingly. Janine embodies the kind of kindness and loyalty that can help sustain you during good times and bad.

Guest Post: Camdyn shares her favorite websites

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One thing – sometimes I ask the universe for just one good thing.

Usually, it’s a word from someone I love or a gesture. I feel like if I can get just this one thing, I can carry on. I get it sometimes. It’s a well-timed text, a smile from a stranger. Maybe it’s a Norah Jones song on the Pandora or the biggest slice of pizza at the café.

Lately, that something has come in just the nick of time has pretty almond eyes and killer soccer shot.

Grace has been a life-saver. At times I feel downtrodden or can’t figure out why people do what they do or say what they say or why the universe seems to have left me at the terminal, Camdyn comes through. She plans time for us together. She texts me.

Guest Post: Eric of All in a Dad’s Work, on Unsolicited Advice to Himself

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Paired up, it’s tough to tell just what order of shenanigans Eric and I would find.

Eric Wood writes the blog All in a Dad’s Work. He popped up around here during the early stages of my A-to-Z Challenge. At the letter C, in fact. In a river of fabulous hair and ocean of motherhood that is my readership, Eric stood out. Mainly because of his bald head and the fact that he’s a dude. A Canadian dude, at that.

He’s also a soccer coach.

He and I could be cast as madcap bumbling cops who nevertheless get the job done. Or, as the bad guys in a movie like 101 Dalmatians. Either or. He’s stuck around and become a good blogging friend.