Grubbs n Critters

January 21, 2015

#Blogging 101: Blogrolls and Link Love

Creating a blogroll has been the one thing I have wanted to do for a long, long time since I started Grubbs ‘n Critters – mainly for my own convenience to minimise the bookmarking of the various different sites I like and saving me the trouble to keep track of them each time my computer crashed…(I know, I know,I should back up my bookmarks)

… but for some reason I have been procrastinating for over a year, and just haven’t gotten round to it till YESTERDAY!

Really, really late yesterday , or should I say in the wee hours this morning after #Blogging 101 released the assignment to share a few links I love. I figured that now is a good time to get my shit together to at least do this one simple thing of creating a Blogroll.

I have always wanted to dedicate a full page on my site for blogrolls but wavered when I saw all those nifty widgets you can work with to create one. I spent a couple of hours trying to figure it out and after a few hours fiddling around with it (unsuccessfully), I decided I’m just going to cut my losses and create a page anyway! Like a classmate from The Comments remarked: “if you are feeling generous, you can dedicate an entire page for other blogger and keep adding the list of blogs in the future”

And I did just that. So Ta-DAHHHHH! I now have a Blogroll Page! With categories too – and I realised that a theme emerged from there:

Food & Recipes (surprise, surprise!)
Daddy & Mommy Blogs – bloggers with a sense of (some wicked) humour, or simple inspiring
Inspiring Cool Stuff – from travels, to photography to quote -stuff

I’m still gonna be looking for that nifty little blogroll widget where it sorts of updates itself based on your (in this case my) site visits to other blogs. I’ll just have to figure out how. And when.

Until then, I’m just going to be refreshing or adding on new links to my add-on page. So make sure you check back every once in a while

#Blogging-101, #Blogrolls and Link Love

#Blogging 101: Make a Prompt Personal

Category: Blogging 101

This post is in response to The Daily Prompt Feed Your Senses Blogging 101 Assignment .

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Why buy an alarm clock or set an alarm on your phone as a wake-up call when you have 2 organic ones at home?

They are perfectly timed to wake us up at 6 a.m. every morning, and so far, their impeccable punctuality has never failed on us. Some random mornings, they would go off at 6.38 a.m and never after 7. They each even have a name – Spud and Squirt. They are also called children.

With pillows over my head and my eyes still closed, I could hear the thumping of their feet as they each leave their rooms, rile each other up and then make a dash to our bed, racing to squeeze in at the smallest space they could find on our king-sized bed and fighting over the same.exact.spot. on my side of the bed.

I know I should feel honoured that they BOTH want to squeeze in at the same time on the same spot.

If they both could agree with each other which spot to take (it happens in some mornings), I would usually enjoy the cuddles and snuggles as I lay half-asleep. I love nuzzling up with them- stinky breath and all, and I’m completely drawn to the smell of their hair. I would sniff them stale and kiss them, realising that their baby-scent which I used to love so much has disappeared from my 4-year-old and fast disappearing from my 2.5-year-old. Sigh!

But with the first sensation of the morning feeling violated and getting out-rightly deaf with nothing but screams and wails right into my eardrums, swatting and kicking as they try to push each other out of the way, I’m not so sure that I like all that sensation and mayhem very much.

These are NOISE. The pillows over my face and my ears could not help minimise them. Noise which I’m particularly not drawn to, noise which I cannot appreciate especially when I’m such a major grump in the morning.

And oh boy! My girl can scream the house down. And when she does that, all hell breaks lose. She could scream for hours and we know that the moment she does that, it effectively means end.of.sleep; which makes me even grumpier!

I would try to ignore them as I try to catch a little snooze…letting Silver Bullet deal with them first. I know, I’m terrible – but in my defense, Silver Bullet is usually much calmer with them than I would ever be when I get my sleep interrupted like that.

Those mornings are not fun and it is exactly a morning like that which makes me want to disappear and hoping that the bed would split open and swallow me whole. I hear them before I see them , and when I finally open my heavy, groggy eyes, I would be confronted with 2 kids balling their eyes out and their mouths wide open as they continue to scream their heads off.

Morning stress and chaos from the children like that would easily give me a headache for at least half a day. We haven’t even got to the shower, dressing up, breakfast and getting-out-of-the-house battle yet. Talk about feeding my senses.

Hell yeah! My mornings could not be any more fun that that. I should be so lucky.

Organic alarms?

I’ll just have to tell you that they are the best there is! Out.of.this.world.

#Blogging 101, #Makeapromptpersonal

A Message to All Mothers

Category: Quote of the Day

No. This is not my despicable scam tactic to make you do the dirty work of linking everything back to me. If you decide do that, that would be awesome. If you decide to re-phrase or re-decorate it and make it your own, that’s absolutely fine. If, however, you decide not to do anything about it, that’s OK too.

Because this does not come from me. This came from a very old, dear friend from my tertiary days who had thought about me less than 36 hour ago. She sent me the above message via watsapp and like a wuss that I am (only since I became a mother), I teared. I was moved as the words spoke to me like it did to her.

We haven’t seen each other in ages since we left school 20 years ago, but had reconnected on FB awhile back and met up again not too long ago when she was in town. It’s amazing how, despite our differences and how disconnected we have been with each other, our union was much like the good old days. It was like nothing has changed. It was kindred spirit in motion.

I have edited some of the original words, particularly a liner that told me to send to anyone including the sender. I don’t think that was necessary.

So, I have just decided to put it up here and I hope it has moved you like it did me. If you choose to share, do feel free to share it with anyone who made you smile, not just this year, but at any other well-deserving moments.

To all mothers out there, yes, you are the bravest of the bravest. More than you know.

To my friend, Jamie-Ann: Damn it! You just know how to hit the spot. Thank you for sharing and thinking of me. Till whenever!x.