Bloggers Coast to Coast

Not gonna lie, I'm a tad jealous of my Texas blogger friends as they're all pretty closing and get the chance to meet up from time to time, participate in local stuff together, etc.

I've looked/Googled for bloggers in the Northern Illinois and Southern Wisconsin area, but haven't really had much luck (the majority of my search results are the professional blogs of our local newspaper reporters - not the kind of bloggers I'm looking for, obviously!).

So you can imagine I was thrilled when I saw that Angie made a post recently about Shane's Bloggers Coast to Coast link-up! Apparently there's other bloggers out there that seem to have the same problem as me - there seems to be no other bloggers in your area! Well thanks to Shane's link-up, I found a handful of bloggers within 90 miles or so of me! How exciting!

So if you think you're alone in your neck of the woods of Blogland, check out the link-up and see what other bloggers exist in your area! Maybe build some new friendships!

This is "The Symbol" along the river
walking path. No one really seems to know
what it's supposed to be or mean, but
whoever the artist was that scrapped
this thing together sure was a genius!

If you're visiting from the link-up, I'm in Rockford, IL - approximately 90 miles west of Chicago and just south of the Wisconsin border. It's made Forbes' list of 10 most dangerous cities 2 years in a row now, but it's home for me. I've lived here most of my life aside from when we moved to a small town called Malone in upstate New York due to my dad's job 2 weeks after I was born but we moved back when I was 2 (again, due to my dad's job). I also lived for about 6 years 30 miles south in DeKalb when I attended NIU for college and stayed down there awhile after graduation until a job brought me back to good ol' Rockford.

Rockford is also the home of rock band Cheap Trick (you know their songs "I Want You to Want Me," "Surrender," "Dream Police," and many others over the last 3 or 4 decades), Michelle Williams of Destiny's Child, and Jody Benson (aka Ariel from Disney's classic "The Little Mermaid").

{Not So} Shameless Plugs!

If you aren't reading my posts via Google Reader or some other reader (or in mobile format for that matter), then I'm sure you've noticed 2 things by now.

<------ On the left hand column here there are 2 things:

1) At the top is my blog button with code, as all the "cool" kids in Blogland have these now

and

2) If you scroll down a bit there's a bunch of buttons with some {perhaps familiar?} faces on them. These are peeps I have "swapped" blog buttons with in a way to help promote each others blogs!

I LOVE the idea of "sponsoring" other blogs as it helps get the word out about various awesome bloggers. And well, frankly I love the idea of button swapping because it's free and I'm cheap. Some bloggers charge for adspace, which is great and dandy and all, but not everyone can afford to pay on a monthly basis and some of us don't use Paypal anymore either so that kinda nixes that.

If you'd like to swap blog buttons with me, feel free to grab mine, add it to your page (tweak the size if need be - I don't mind!), and lemme know so I can grab yours and put it here on my blog!

Anyways, I figured I should probably share a bit about these awesome bloggers, even though some I have mentioned previously around the blog here!

First there's Nikki Darlin' from Southern Mama, Bad Mouth. I don't remember how I came across Nikki but after following her blog for some time and eventually her Twitter, I've learned that her and I share a lot of common interests, which is awesome! Nikki is down in the great state of Georgia and has a super cute little girl - we've sorta bonded over the fact that our kids both have unique names. She also has an Etsy shop - Southern Survival Charms - which specializes in military-style bracelets with fun charms! Be sure to check her and her shop out!

J, from An Unstyled Life, is a mommy and a blogger (ie: not JUST a mommy blogger, as she blogs about other aspects of her life as well) from Texas that I believe I came across during a huge blog link-up last summer. She is also a mommy to a toddler not too much older than Jay I believe so we've bonded some over mommy-stuffs on the Twitter. She's an awesome person so be sure to check her out!

Vicki, from My Vickilicious Life, is one of those bloggers I kept hearing being mentioned around Blogland and amongst fellow bloggers on Twitter. Eventually I checked out her blog, started following her on Twitter and have really enjoyed getting to know her! She also is a co-host of the weekly Friday blog link-up "The Nail Files." She's a fun gal, so be sure to give her blog a visit and link-up on Fridays!

 

I came across Celia, from unSimply Celia, due to various Scentsy giveaways of hers that were being held on various blogs I read regularly. Realizing that hey, she has a blog, I decided to check her out and eventually got to know her a bit on Twitter! She really is a sweet girl from Texas and is engaged to her love of 7 years! She is currently in the process of closing down her Scentsy biz, but if you're interested in the products (which are great by the way!) she can definitely make some recommendations for you and point you to a good consultant to order from! She also often co-hosts various blog swaps (like for nail polish and Valentine's Day goodies!) so you definitely don't want to miss her blog!

Gigi, from Sweet & Sassy Texan, is a fairly new blogger in Blogland, and as she puts it, she is "sweet tea drinker, sassy talkin Texas Lady! A housewife of 3 boys - 2 teens and one husband whom refuses to grow up." I definitely know that feeling on the last part (just kidding, hubby! Well... kinda, lol...). I actually just came across her recently, as she found me on Twitter and started following me. I get notifications sent to my email whenever I "gain" a new Twitter follower and reading her profile description, she didn't seem to be one of those obnoxious "spam-bots" (if you're familiar with Twitter, you know what I mean!) so I checked out her page and blog and really liked what I saw! Help a new blogger out and give her a blog a view - hopefully you'll enjoy it like I did!

And last, but not least - the wonderful Ms. Neely from A Complete Waste of Makeup! I actually just recently added her button as an extra entry into her 1500 follower "15 Favorite Things" giveaway, but I gotta be honest, I love her blog's name as it's too true - some days really are a complete waste of makeup! Like Vicki, she was another blogger who's name/blog kept popping up around Blogland and amongst various bloggers I follow on Twitter. Neely is from Dallas (one of my favorite places thanks to football!) and hosts the weekly Thursday link-up known as "It's OK Thursday." Her blog is full of fun and snark and wit and I love it! Be sure to visit - you'll find some posts that'll really make you smile!

Nikki Darlin': Check her out!

For this month, Nikki Darlin' was offering free sponsor spots for her blog and since the more I read about Nikki, the more we seem to have common interests and I love her blog posts, not to mention she's pretty awesome herself, so of course I volunteered to sponsor her this month!

I'll let Nikki tell you a little about herself:

Hi I'm Nikki I blog over at Southern Mama with a Bad Mouth.

I'm a 22 year old, part time working, mommy and wife. 

My husband and I have been married for 2 and a half year now. I met him when he was in the army and we got married married when he came home for R&R on September 1st 2009. 

We have a beautiful 2 year old daughter named Skylee. She's a mess on two little feet. 

We live in Georgia and we all all things country. If it comes in pink camo I'll buy it. 

I started blogging about 2 year ago and fell in love. 

I love all the new people I have met and am so proud to call them my friends. 

I blog about my life. 

I love to share pictures of my daughter and our puppy Sookie. 

I also love to vlog. my youtube channel is YouTube.com/xonikkidarlin.

I'm slowly becoming famous for my "duck face" pictures. 

I post way too many of them. 

I have a link up every Monday to share my duck face picture and I love to see everyone else too. 

You can also follow me on Twitter @xoNikkiDarlin

Getting my blog "out there"

So many link-ups today!

For those of you that are jumping over from Neely's blog discovery link-up, WELCOME to Point Me to the Sky Above! (and by the way, you rock if you know where I got the title of my blog from =) )

I'm RAY J, as they know me in Blogland. 

I can also be found on Twitter - @RAYJ829.

I've kept a diary of sorts off and on growing up, blogging online for almost a decade - I first started out on Diaryland, switching soon after to Livejournal during the heyday of my college years to using the blog function the now deceased Myspace to eventually making my current home here just over 2 years ago. While I do enjoy seeing my number of followers increase and getting comments is nice and assures me that people are reading what I write, I really just blog to get out my thoughts and opinions and to document things in my life (especially milestones with Jay!) as well as hope that someone may stumble upon my writings and benefit from what I've gone through in regards to certain things.

Speaking of Jay, Jaydran is my recently turned 1 year old baby toddler boy. He was born on February 4th, 2011.

He's had a bit of a rough start in life - 3 weeks after he was born he was diagnosed with Failure to Thrive and spent a week on the pediatric unit of our preferred local hospital hooked up to a feeding tube as he wasn't eating enough to grow. We learned later that they noticed a knot in his umbilical cord after he was delivered which we believe played a part in this problem, as at 28 weeks gestation he was measuring big, yet somewhere between weeks 30 and 35 his growth had significantly decreased and they had me deliver him via induction at 37 weeks, 5 days as they were concerned he had stopped growing. We think his stomach never reached its full size, therefore he was used to eating very little - just enough to survive - and never knew the feeling of being full. The week on the feeding tube stretched his stomach out though, and now, almost a year later, you would never know he had any eating problems as the kid eats like a champ! I can't even sneak a cracker without the kid toddling over, wanting some too! Did I mention the kiddo LOVES Goldfish crackers as well as applesauce? We buy both in bulk, lol...

At 35 weeks gestation they also discovered he had an enlarged left kidney, which continued to be enlarged post-birth. He was diagnosed with hydronephrosis - which I guess is pretty common among baby babies - and after some further testing it was discovered that his blockage is actually a UVJ obstruction, meaning his ureter tube is pinched shut at the bladder and not up at the kidney (which is more common). We were planning on him having to have surgery to unblock it around his 2nd birthday, however at his check-up last week, the fluid in his kidney has significantly decreased, meaning that it appears the blockage might have opened up on its own! His pediatric urology specialist in Milwaukee would like to monitor it a few more times, making sure this isn't just a fluke, before doing further testing to confirm the blockage has opened up on its own (which is very rare!).

Anyways, other than that, Jay's quite an active little guy, making messes of toys all over the house and tormenting our kitty. He's a typical little boy in the sense that he likes Elmo, Thomas the Train and Super Why - a boy superhero that teaches reading. He also likes playing with toy cars that zoom across the floor. He has a Super Mario Bros themed room and had an Elmo and Sesame Street Friends themed 1st birthday party. He was also the cutest little Ewok you've ever seen for his 1st Halloween!

I mentioned Jay likes to "play" with our kitty - Tiger is our almost 3 and a half year old domestic bronze Egyptian Mau that hubby gave me for our 1st Christmas as a married couple. In college, my long-term roommate had gotten a kitty shortly after we moved in our apartment, so for the previous 3 years I was used to having a furball around. When hubby and I got our own place around the time we got married, it was a bit lonely at night, with him working 3rd shift, so he gave in and surprised me with a kitty of my own! Tiger's mellowed out a lot, especially since we got her fixed last summer. She likes tormenting Jay as much as he likes tormenting her though - we have a gate blocking off the open stairs to our basement, she likes to hid on the steps and "encourage" Jay to throw toys at her, jumping out of the way. Jay thinks it's hilarious! She also likes to make him chase her, only to eventually jump over the gate and down the stairs or up somewhere high where he can't get to her!

Rounding out our family is hubby. As I mentioned last week in the Our Love Story link-up, hubby and I have known each other since 8th grade, going back to December 1997. He usually sat behind me in our small 2nd hour Sunday School class (I was 1 of 2 girls that regularly showed up), and he stopped me afterwards one morning, handing me a folded up piece of paper before quickly running off. I wouldn't have known his name had it not been signed at the end of the love poem he had written me! We eventually became friends over the years, him becoming one of my close friends in college (and one of the few from high school who bothered to keep in touch with me during those years) and eventually 9 years after that 1st introduction the timing was finally right and I gave the guy a chance. Yes, I made him wait 9 years to date me - oops! We got engaged shortly after our 1 year anniversary and got married 8 months later on September 13, 2008. We've had our ups and downs (more so than some couples do, or so it seems), but we try to put the past screw ups and mistakes behind us, focusing on the future instead. It is hard though and marriage takes communicate, that's for sure! Hubby's a hard worker, doing his best to provide for us as he currently works 2 jobs - part-time as a supervisor for UPS (although he's in training to go full-time in the near future) and then full-time as Inventory and Purchasing Manager for a growing, local authorized Verizon Wireless retailer (and yes, we're an Android family - since paying off my $2000 fruity paperweight, the only i-Products that still work in our home are old iPods - feel free to read why I'll never waste money on another i-Laptop again). He is also an aspiring author sticking to the sci-fi and fantasy genres, hoping to have his first major novel published in the near future.

Our recent family photo for our 2011 Christmas card.

Some things about me...

• I'm a full-time mommy (if you didn't already pick-up on that).
• I'm from the Northern Illinois area, not too far from Chicago though, and have lived in this area most of my life.
• I went to good ol' Northern Illinois University and have a bachelor's degree in Art (with an emphasis on Graphic Design). A lot of my art is showcased here.
• Despite a graphic design background (specifically with print layout, design, and graphics) the economy kinda sucks and my job doing that is kinda defunct at the moment, so I work part-time several days a week for a great national children's clothing retail chain at our mall - as you can imagine, with a constantly growing little guy, my discount comes in handy!
• I am a Christian, and while I'm nowhere near perfect, I do try my best to set a good example and outwardly reflect Christ in me.
• Hubby and I are both big Dallas Cowboys fans since we were both kids, despite never living down south. We did take a trek down to Dallas in fall of 2010 though and witnessed in person the Monday Night division rival game against the New York Giants at awesome Cowboys Stadium!
• I have 2 tattoos.
• I take part in various swaps around Blogland here, despite getting stuck with the occasional crummy partner.
• I've regularly been linking up with Savannah and friends for the Monday Phone Photo Fun posts and Neely and Ashley for Boob Tube Babble.
• I regularly watch Once Upon a Time, The Walking Dead, Glee, New Girl, Community, The Office, Game of Thrones, True Blood, Conan, and a lot of TBS. Sometimes we watch Spike or Comedy Central. We also have PBSkids or Sprout (the 24hr PBSkids channel) on during the day as well.
• While I do enjoy a GOOD chick flick here and there, I prefer comedies or awesome action movies (Jason Statham = yummy!)
• As far as music goes, I'm definitely more into rock, metal and industrial, but I also enjoy electronica and techno/dance. Some pop stuff isn't too bad either. I used to go to a lot of rock shows in my high school and college days - Static-X and Powerman5000 are 2 bands I've seen live the most. My 25th birthday was spent in Chicago seeing Nine Inch Nails' last show ever in Chicago - it was pretty epic!
• I also enjoy reading - usually sticking to the fantasy genre but I do branch out. Right now I'm on book 2 of The Hunger Games trilogy, squeezing it in before the movie comes out. I'm also working on the Game of Thrones books and waiting on Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest to come out in trade paperback format at the end of the month so I can finish that series. I also enjoy the Sookie Stackhouse books as well as the Harry Potter books. I'm sucker for the Chicken Soup for the... Soul books too!
• And I'm a bit of a gamer. I grew up playing Nintendo and Atari since the age of 4, owning a Sega Genesis, a Playstation, a PS2, a Wii and a PS3. I also got sucked into World of Warcraft during it's early days and continued to play for most of 5 years. I quit playing shortly after Jay was born though, as I didn't login enough to make the $16/month worth it. I have recently started playing Fable: The Lost Chapters though for PC, having briefly tried the original Xbox version back in college and enjoying it. I'd love to play the new Star Wars MMO, however until I can commit to playing a game regularly, I think I'll stick to non-MMOs for now as I can't afford to be paying for something I rarely have time to play.
• Oh and in case you couldn't tell, I have a bad habit of rambling - oops!

Are you visiting from the link-up? 

If so, lemme know in the comments below and share a link to your blog so I make sure not to miss it!

Thanks for stopping by! Hope you add me to your G-Reader!