We’re All a Little Irish on St. Patrick’s Day {Foodie Friday}

By Anita Stafford of Sugar, Spice and Spilled Milk

As a child, St. Patrick’s Day meant little more to me than being sure to remember to wear something green to school so that the classroom pranksters wouldn’t catch me at every chance and give me a painful pinch and a hearty laugh. Since those guarded days of being sure to prominently wear my green, I have learned that there is much more to the history of St. Patrick and the country of Ireland than the “wearing of the green.” 

According to history St. Patrick was a missionary to Ireland, and he was so revered for his work there that his death on March 17 is now commemorated as St. Patrick’s Day. He used the three leaves of the shamrock to teach about the Holy Trinity in his missions. The green shamrock is still a symbol of St. Patrick’s Day celebrations in many countries. My thinking is that St. Patrick could have never envisioned that someday little girls would wear green to protect themselves from pinches on a day set aside in his honor. 

Throughout the years the people of Ireland have suffered from civil war, occupation, and famine. During the 1800’s millions of Irish emigrated because of famine and political structure. Even with all the hardships the Irish people have historically endured, they have been characterized to be generally hardworking, yet easy-going and humorous people. 

When I look at my own family tree, I get a glimpse of the American melting-pot, and I find back in 1836 my mother’s great grandfather was born in Ohio with a decidedly Irish name. Abraham McHenry was born to parents who lived at the precise time in history to have possibly fled Ireland due to famine or the exploitation of the tenant farmer. My family roots grow in several directions, and one of those roots leads to Ireland. 

Probably much of what I know about the Irish people is stereotypical, but I do believe it is a fact that potatoes were an important crop on their farms. Because St. Patrick’s Day will be celebrated next week, I’d like to honor my wee bit of Irish heritage from the McHenry clan with some recipes that perhaps are similar to the kind prepared by Irish women long ago. But even if you can’t find an Irish name anywhere on your family tree, go ahead, don your green and speak a little brogue, after all, isn’t everyone a little Irish on St. Patrick’s Day?

anita 1

Slow Cooker Potato Soup
Yields 12
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Ingredients
  1. Potato Soup
  2. 6 large russet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch cubes (about 3 ¾ pounds)
  3. 1 large onion, chopped (about 1 ½ cups)
  4. 2 cloves garlic, minced
  5. 3 (14 ounce) cans chicken broth
  6. ¼ cup butter
  7. 2 ½ teaspoons salt
  8. 1 ¼ teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
  9. 1 cup half and half
  10. 1 cup (4 ounces) shredded sharp cheddar cheese
  11. 3 tablespoons chopped fresh chives
Toppings
  1. 6 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled
  2. Sour cream
  3. Shredded cheddar cheese
Instructions
  1. Combine potatoes, onion, garlic, chicken broth, butter, salt, and pepper in a crock pot.
  2. Cover and cook on HIGH for 4 hours or LOW for 8 hours, or until potatoes are tender.
  3. Mash some of the potatoes until mixture is slightly thickened; stir in half-and-half, cheese, and chives. . Serve in bowls, sprinkled with toppings as desired.
Arkansas Women Bloggers https://arkansaswomenbloggers.com/
Brown Soda Bread
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Ingredients
  1. 2 ½ cups whole wheat flour
  2. ½ cup all purpose flour
  3. ½ cup steel-cut oats
  4. 2 tablespoons brown sugar
  5. 1 tablespoon wheat germ
  6. 1 teaspoon baking soda
  7. 1 teaspoon baking powder
  8. ½ teaspoon salt
  9. 2 cups low-fat buttermilk
  10. 1 large egg, lightly beaten
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
  2. Coat a 9 x 5-inch loaf pan with cooking spray, then line the pan with parchment paper and coat the paper with cooking spray
  3. In a large bowl, combine both flours, oats, brown sugar, wheat germ, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
  4. combine buttermilk and egg, then add to the flour mixture, stirring just until combined.
  5. Spoon the mixture into the prepared loaf pan. Bake for 1 hour and 5 minutes, or until a wooden pick inserted into the center comes out clean. Invert bread onto a wire rack, remove parchment paper. Cool before slicing.
Arkansas Women Bloggers https://arkansaswomenbloggers.com/

Anita2AnitaStafford lives in NE Arkansas and blogs at Sugar, Spice and Spilled Milk. She believes a house can never have too many bookshelves, andconfesses that she has seldom met a food she  didn’t like. Her favorite Irish saying is, “May your home always be too small to hold all of your friends.”

 

On The Road, Still {Have Suitcase, Will Travel}

By Keisha Pittman of bigpittstop

I’m quickly becoming “that girl”. No, not “that girl”, the one with the 2 mis-matched animal print pieces of luggage that stay packed in the floor of my bedroom. Thankfully as a single gal, there’s no dude complaining as he trips over them to get in bed, but I might need to think about the fact that these suitcases are killing my personal life!

Some new changes in job position this past summer have me working with staff across the bilateral, northern part of our great state. When I thought about the topic of “have suitcase, will travel”, my mind when immediately to my 2 week adventure in Italy with my sister. Yea, those kinds of suitcases will make a girl weak in the knees to see that sweet boy with the curly hair and dreamy accent who toured us around the Coliseum (there was a point I thought we were about to get kidnapped like in the movie Taken which came out 3 weeks before…but I’m still here writing today so we get to talk about him being dreamy!).

But my 2 mismatched suitcases somewhat take me on a similar adventure every week. Yes, I’m now a member of several different hotel chains (I work for a non-profit, we got a go cheap not consistent) and I know the life details of the staff at my local Enterprise, but I also get to see crazy awesome things:

• High School stadiums that would rival anything in Friday Night Lights and are sponsored by local banks and bear the banners of state championships dating back to the 50’s and 60’s (some of same names are on those banners and the businesses I pass along the way…)
• I stop for lunch at Subway restaurants in strip malls next to nail salons (and, if I have an extra hour I stop by there too!)
• Abandoned gas stations turned into a local BBQ pit
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• Fields of oil rigs and wishing wells
• Fields of perfectly placed hay-bales that make you wish you were hearing banjos
• Truly seeing “the edge of town” to the scent of the local rodeo or sell barn

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• Coachman’s Inn, Linda’s Dinner and Town and Country Market all occupying the same building that’s been there since 1964
• School district administration buildings that have taken over abandoned car lots
• “community” bank billboards with pictures of local high school students deemed as true “investments”
• Abandoned plantation homes that would make Walter Arnold jump in a time machine
• Little white churches with stained glass windows that make you want to pull in the parking lot and sing a couple lines of Victory in Jesus
• You can see the linear path of destruction from natural disasters and ice storms – where they start and where they end
• Occasionally you get stuck on these 2 lane roads behind a feed sprayer driving approximately 8 miles an hour, 42 under the true speed limit, but this gives your day a gift of time and you have longer to breathe in the scenes around you
• If you’re lucky you’ll find the road to Louisiana where a man rides to and from his destination adorned with period appropriate attire from a saloon in the Wild West or at least the old western days that scarred the streets of old town Fort Smith.
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• You understand and experience the true beauty and fear that comes from the fullness of each season – budding trees, soaring birds of prey, red of maples and winter’s frozen treats

Next time you pull out your “overnight” suitcase for just a short trip, let me challenge you to pack your nostalgia goggles and carry them in your front seat. Whether it’s a trip to grandma’s, work across the state or the county line – stop, look, listen, and breathe in the life happening around you. Kids read history books, producers create movies and writers will tell the tale of what’s happening today. Who knows – our suitcase might just bring home a bottle of shampoo from a soon to be historic hotel, our expense report may see the line item of a locally known eatery and we might just brush elbows with a future state leader.

Arkansas is a place I call home…suitcases packed or not.
Thank goodness to social media, even when I’m on the road I can stay connected – Blog, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, http://www.pinterest.com/bigpittstop/.

keisha1Keisha Pittman can be found over at bigpittstop, a blog started when she was brushing up on her superpowers kicking cancer’s butt. 5 years later, it’s a chapter book of a 30 something navigating life and learning lessons along the way. She is a self-proclaimed nerd and every once in a while lets us have a little glimpse into her recipes-for disaster, Saturday scenic drives and mindless thoughts of life in Northwest Arkansas.

Spring Break or Bust! {Wordless Wednesday}

Lucy. Is it Spring Break yet

 

talyaheadshot-2

As the daughter of an Arkansas cotton farmer, Talya grew up making mudpies and does her best thinking wearing gardening gloves. Talya is passionate about writing and spends most days working on her first book and blogging at Grace Grits and Gardening. She and her husband, John, live in Dallas with their two miniature schnauzers, Lucy and Annabelle. They have two college age children – a Texas Longhorn and an Arkansas Razorback.

A Blogger’s Journey: Becoming A Blogging Superstar

Moss Mountain Farm, A Blogger's Journey
photo by Stephanie McCratic

And by Superstar, of course I mean, A Blogger who gets Free Stuff.

Like I said last week, I was just plugging away, writing my little heart out about why we should all eat more green vegetables (or whatever) and one day I got an email inviting me to an event as a Blogger.

It was from Mimi San Pedro representing P. Allen Smith. I immediately sent it to my friend Sarabeth with a big IS THIS IMPORTANT? in the subject line and she told me she was not sure but that I should just go. Soon, Jerusalem and I realized we were both invited and we heaved big sighs of relief and made plans to go along together to Moss Mountain Farm.

This next part is important, y’all:

I had absolutely no idea what I was going to.

Seriously.

I had never been invited to an event as a blogger before and I did not have any clue that bloggers were sometimes Given Nice Things For Free.

I need you to know that it was by ignorance, friends, and not audacity that I found myself at the gorgeous magazine spread that is P. Allen Smith’s house armed with nothing but a point and shoot camera and a flip phone. 

Gals, I did not even have a Smart phone. It was 2012, but I was resisting. What can I say? However, I was nothing if not resourceful. I joined in with everyone else on Twitter because I had learned to tweet via text message on my Razor.

I’ll pause for you to Be Very Impressed.

I loved every minute of my time at Moss Mountain Farm, and not just because it was a blogging event. That place is amazing. The food, the décor, the chickens! P. Allen Smith gave us a personal tour and I could have listened to him talk all day long. He told stories while Mimi kept us on schedule with her clipboard.

At one point, we were interviewed by cameramen while we had drinks on the lawn with live music. I was star struck. Jerusalem and I both felt like we had hit the jackpot.

On the way home, with my goodie bag full of loot in my lap, I decided that I was now a blogging star. Jerusalem told me she would lend me some pictures so that I could properly write up my day.

I could not wait to get started on my post about Moss Mountain Farm, alternately titled: Look What I Got To Do Because I Am Such A Fabulous Blogger.

Upon writing it, I decided I had officially moved into a new phase of blogging.

A Blogger's Journey, Moss Mountain Farm, Jerusalem Greer, Alison Chino, P Allen Smith
photo by Jerusalem Greer of Jolly Goode Gal

Stage 4: Mesmerized By Free Stuff

I blogged about all the parts of going to P. Allen Smith’s house that I enjoyed, which was, of course, EVERYTHING.

Then my brain quickly moved on to this brilliant line of thought:

If someone gave me a candle and some boots because I am a blogger, I bet I can get some more stuff because I have a blog. Wait a minute! I have already blogged about my favorite sunscreen. I should get that sunscreen for free!

Dear Sunscreen Company,

I am a blogger and I love your sunscreen. I will blog about it some more if you send it to me for free. Here is my address.

Signed,

A Very Important Blogger

I wish that I could tell you that I did not send about eleventy million emails that looked almost exactly like this. If you went through the Sent Messages folder in my inbox from the last two or three years, I can tell you exactly what you would say,

Bless her heart.

I did get a few free things this way, which just added fuel to the fire of my ludicrously bad pitching habits.

It was around this time that I joined Arkansas Women Bloggers. And I went to a conference where I got More Free Stuff, also sometimes called Swag.

I embraced the writing about free stuff with abandon, partly because I am just a writer. Give me something to write about and I will go for it.

Tea?

Candles?

Boots?

Bacon?

Bring it on, y’all!

After about a year I started to wonder if instead of just Free Stuff, I could actually get something even more valuable for blogging.

Like actual money.

Hot diggity. I’m all out of time for this week folks, but come back again next time to learn how to Become Rich And Famous* Like Me.

*Disclaimer: Rich and Famous might be a slight exaggeration.

Go on and tell me. What’s the best FREE thing you ever got for blogging? You’re among friends here. Brag away.

Katie Clifton Quick As a Wink Fish and Black Rice {Foodie Friday}

By Katie Clifton of Mire and MannaKatie fish and black riceIMG_0498

I love to cook. Really, I do. But as a momma of four busy kids it is not uncommon for home cooked meals to be traded for fast food and late night bowls of cereal. Last spring,I knew something had to give. I was treating my temple more like a garbage disposal. After a lot of reading and researching I gave it a go at the whole Paleo trend. And here are just a few things I realized:

  • My body likes eating healthy. Unprocessed food is delicious. The lack of hormones and chemicals made me feel so much better. I had less headaches, less blood sugar drops, more energy and glowing skin. The unwanted curves and despised cellulite seemed to melt away too. That, my friends, was a beautiful added bonus.
  • Last fall, my husband and I added our fourth child through a surprise adoption. With three other busy kids at home our friends lavishly loved on us, in the form of yummy cheesy casseroles, fried chicken (my weakness), Frito Chili pies, and chocolatey desserts that awakened the addiction I had to sugar. Coke was once again my go to drink. Chik-fil-a workers became like family to me again. Sonic car hops would ask about our baby…I was kind of out of control people. I was in rebellion to eating healthy and once again it caught up to me.
  • I am back on the wagon. I am eating clean and mostly paleo. My body is thankful. One of my most favorite meals is a recipe I created. Well, I think I did and please don’t burst that bubble. It is delicious and mouth-watering and cheap and easy and colorful and tasty. So come into my kitchen with me, have a seat at the table and lets chat while we cook together.

 

Fish and Black Rice
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You will need
  1. Rice cooker or medium sauce pan with a tight fitting lid
  2. Medium sized skillet
Ingredients
  1. Bacon grease (Can I get an Amen?!)
  2. Black Rice (I prefer Lundberg Black Japonica Rice)
  3. Salmon (frozen or fresh)
  4. 1 Lemon
  5. Tumeric 1/2 teaspoon
  6. Crushed Black Pepper 1/4 teaspoon
  7. Allspice 1/4 teaspoon
Instructions
  1. My mouth is already watering and my stomach is growling. If you love fish and yummy food, I am certain this dish will be a keeper for you.
  2. I begin by cooking my rice. I don't have a fancy rice cooker so I have to use my stove top. Use 2 cups water and 1 cup of black rice and bring it to a boil. Once it is boiling stick the lid on it and turn your head down to a low simmer. Allow it to cook for 45 minutes, covered on low heat.
  3. When there is 15 left on my timer, I grab my skillet and a spoon full of bacon grease. Sorry friends, I don't actually measure it out. My grandma would probably say it's just a dab of bacon grease, but I will tell you it is the size spoon my husband eats cereal with. We will just call it the man spoon. After I add the grease, cut 1 lemon in half and squeeze all the juice from both halves into the skillet. I turn up the heat to medium allow this mixture to get hot for a few minutes.
  4. In the meantime, take your fish and rub it down with all 3 spices: tumeric, all spice and black pepper. Your kitchen will smell delicious! Once your grease and lemon juice is hot, add your fish into the skillet. The spices will change the color of the grease to a beautiful yellow color so not only is this yummy, but it is pretty to look at. I let the fish cook for about 4-5 minutes on each side.
  5. By the time my fish is done, so is the rice. I serve the fish over the black rice (which is actually a beautiful deep purple).
Arkansas Women Bloggers https://arkansaswomenbloggers.com/
Now, eat up! Enjoy the flavors and smells of healthy eating. Your taste buds will applaud you and your hips will thank you!

katie IMG_0500
Please excuse the hot mess in my marathon picture.  It was a frigid 36 degrees and my body had reached a new point of exhaustion.  I would love to say that this dish was my post race meal.  Unfortunately, it was passed over for an Arby’s sandwich and fries.  Oh well…

 
Katie Clifton is a Jesus loving, wife, mom, business owner, aspiring marathoner and writer. She lives in Central Arkansas with her hubby and four (yes, four) children!  Check out her inspirational blog at Mire and Manna.

Making Memories Together {Have Suitcase, Will Travel}

Written by Whitney Jordan of Polka-Dotty Place

I have fond memories of traveling with my family when I was young.  My parents planned several road trips -from Indiana to New York, Indiana to California and lots of little trips in between.  At the time, I wasn’t thrilled about spending hours in the close quarters of our car, but I always enjoyed the trips.  I have many happy memories of traveling with my family so I wanted to be sure to make traveling a priority when I had my own family.

My husband also loves to travel and we started making plans together as soon as we got engaged.  He planned our honeymoon to Disney World and loved researching great deals for hotels, rental cars and restaurants.  I loved planning the details of sights to see, road trip snacks, packing for the family and finding fun things to do while we were tourists.  Those roles have continued throughout our almost 10 years of marriage.   My husband gets daily emails from hotel and travel sites to keep him up to date on the current deals and we have also done some off season traveling to save money.  You don’t have to spend tons of money to travel with your family.  You can pack food to save money, stay in affordable hotels that serve breakfast and you can get local deals on-line for activities you are planning to do.

We have lived away from “home” our entire married life.  We were both raised in Indiana and have lived in Utah and Arkansas for our married years.  We’ve flown and driven home more times than I can count.  It’s important to us to make it home as much as we can especially for big holidays, special family events and for extended trips when we can.  We are lucky to have family come to visit us and we always enjoy being tour guides for their travels.

I am thankful for my husband because he plans so many fun adventures for our family.  I like to be home and enjoy routines.  He appreciates that, but also knows that we will have a great time together on the trips he plans.  We’ve always traveled on a tight budget.  We don’t stay at the fanciest hotels, eat the nicest dinners but we do splurge on special things here and there.  He will sometimes clear plans with me in advance and other times surprise me with a little getaway.  I love him for taking the time to do special things for us.  He’s a fan of making memories too!

We have a 9 month old baby girl and she’s already traveled more than 10,000 road trip miles in her little life.  We’ve moved across the country (Utah to Arkansas), taken several trips and she is an amazing traveler.  We pack all of her familiar toys, blankets and favorite items.  We try to keep her routine, bring lots of toys and snacks for the car and she does great in hotels.  She really doesn’t know any different and we’re hoping she’ll grow up loving to go on our family adventures.

We made the decision to decorate our home with pictures from our trips.  I take tons of pictures when we are traveling, print them and then decorate our home.  We currently have pictures on display from: Mt. Rushmore, Jackson, Wyoming , San Francisco, Indiana, Mexico and Utah.  We love reminiscing about those fantastic trips together and each time we glance at the pictures we are flooded with happy memories.  We even have a special travel themed Christmas tree.  We pick out a local ornament from all of the places we travel and add to our collection each year.

Do you travel with your family?  Where do you like to go?  I’d love to hear your family friendly travel recommendations.  I hope you plan some fun adventures for your entire family and make some special memories in the process.

Whitney JordanHello!  My name is Whitney and I blog at Polka-Dotty Place.  I am a new mom and my family recently moved to Arkansas.  We are enjoying the state and like to spend our weekends exploring our new home.  I love to take pictures, blog, organize, make lists, bake, accessorize, do DIY projects and watch football.  I am always looking to make new bloggy friends so please stop by and say hi.

A Blogger’s Journey: Beginnings

Alison Chino, A Blogger's Journey Beginnings
photo by Whitney Loibner

 

Hi y’all! My name is Alison, but that’s not really important. If this post is not interesting, you will have forgotten my name and everything else about me before you get to the end. So let’s just cut to the ending, shall we?

I am hoping that by the end of our time together you will have learned something new about blogging.

Because really, is that not why you joined ARWB in the first place? I am not ashamed to say that I joined up to learn from other bloggers, even if it was just by watching all of your blogs to see what new blogging trends you were up to. Also, let’s be honest. I wondered if I would get a few hits from adding my name to the directory, because when I joined ARWB in the summer of 2012, I was all about Self Promotion. 

But I am getting ahead of myself.

I did not start blogging to promote myself. Self Promotion was just a stage.

If you have blogged for any length of time, you can probably mark your blog with stages. I know that everyone’s stages are not the same but I thought it would be fun to tell you the story of my blog in stages and see if you recognize some of the same phases in your own blogging.

I get to hang out here all month so I am going to take my time and have some fun with telling the story of my blog. If I do not manage to teach you anything, at least we will have a laugh or two along the way at my expense. Let me say up front that in taking a mocking tone about my own blogging journey, I do not mean to offend or poke fun at anyone’s blog but my own. I actually think that all the different and crazy things I have tried in blogging have served me in the long run. I have learned by experimenting, so no post has been wasted. Well, maybe just that one about yoga.

Also, let it be known that I do not in any way purpose to set myself up as some sort of expert blogger. As you will see over the next few weeks, my road through the internet has been (and continues to be) very experimental. 

But I believe that starting a personal weblog is an experiment worth doing, so let’s begin at the beginning.

My blog, like many others, began as an online journal in 2007.

I have filled notebooks with my melodramatic musings since I was an angst-filled child of 11, so my friend Jerusalem assured me that I could start a blog.

One winter’s night I stared into the screen at WordPress.com and followed the prompts until it came into existence.

My blog.

I called it Chino House, because Chino is my last name and I was going to record what happened in my house. I am creative like that.

Stage 1: i am too cool for punctuation

Hello stream-of consciousness-nonsense with which I bored my 8 readers.

Hello lack-of-grammar-punctuation-or-editing.

Hello all-text-and-no-photos.

Hello girl-without-a-filter.

Hello ranting-that-would-better-be-kept-to-myself (now deleted).

Let me just say that I loved this stage of blogging. As a stay-at-home-mom, I felt like I had been given a lifeline to the world, and I wrote my little heart out. I exploded with joy when someone commented back, Girl I feel you! or Hang in there! or my very favorite comment, This really touched me!

However, after I had a few more readers, I decided that some ranting should be reserved for drinks with the girls and long weepy emails to my friends. (Hello Sarabeth & Whitney.)

Then I moved to on to Stage 2.

Stage 2: I Have A Cute Toddler

This stage of blogging could also be filed under, I Lost My Mind and Starting Homeschooling or Mommyblogger Wannabe.

During this phase of blogging I tried on all the possible genres of mommybloggers.

I wanted to be funny, but not too crass. Positive, but raw and authentic. I wanted to be a photographer and a maker of graphics. A reviewer of books. Informative and inspiring.

Dear Lord, I am tired just from reading all those descriptions.

It was like the adolescent stage of blogging.

Who am I?

At some point during this phase I decided to post my very first recipe.

Yes! Now I was also a Food Blogger!

Wearing all these hats was a lot of fun, but when my daughter’s birthday or Father’s Day rolled around again and I typed the exact same words as the year before, I started to get bored. I wanted more meaning. I wanted to dig deeper.

So I moved on to being a more serious blogger. And by serious, I mean I took myself too seriously.

Stage 3: Existential Blogging Experiments

NaNoBloMo, Blogging every day for the month of August, or Blogging For Lent.

I sporadically played with schedules. And by sporadically, I mean that I kept a schedule for about two weeks before trying a new one.

A recipe a week?

How about a book review a week?

Oh wait a minute, will that mean I have to read a book every week?

Wordless Wednesday, Fashion Friday, Thoughtless Thursday. (I just made that last one up.)

Link Ups!

Honestly, I re-discovered through blogging how much I really love writing and so I invented all sorts of ways to keep doing it. Often they were utterly meaningless and complete rubbish. But somehow I felt the point was to just keep plugging away.

I would read websites like ProBlogger or CopyBlogger now and then and I realized that there were people out there who were professionally blogging. I figured I had just not yet been discovered. Sooner or later, whoever found The Pioneer Woman would come knocking on my door and give me a prize for making granola and raising children at the same time.

You clever girl, you.

I did not understand that most of the opportunities for professional blogging were actually sought after by bloggers. Sure there are some writers who are discovered through blogging. But they are more often the exception than the rule and even they will tell you that staying in the pro-blog world has involved lots of asks. Or pitches. But I am getting ahead of myself. In Stage 3, I would never have known to use the word pitch. I was still waiting for Oprah to call.

And one day I did receive a call, but you will have to wait until next time for me to tell you who it was.

I know you are riveted.

Tune in next week for Stage 4, in which I become Mesmerized By Free Stuff For Blogging.

PS. I would love for you to share in the comments about your own early stages of blogging! When and why did you start blogging?