Lately I’ve been cleaning, and when I say cleaning, I mean emptying dressers, stripping closets, and purging file cabinets and hard drives. I feel agitated when the kitchen counter is not scrubbed clean. I eye the newspaper moments after bringing it in from the porch, eager to recycle it.
The other day, as I was uttering “Why are these (fill in the blank: trains, balls, cars, clothes) always on the floor?” while I zipped around the house tidying, it occurred to me that the intensity of all of this scouring, scrubbing, and sanitizing isn’t, um, exactly normal for me.
Then I remembered something my friend said during her first pregnancy. “I knew I was nesting when I finished vacuuming and then took the vacuum apart to clean it.”
Oh, right, nesting. Is that what I’ve been doing?
Here’s what Pregnancy Weekly says about it:
Nesting brings about some unique and seemingly irrational behaviors in pregnant women and all of them experience it differently. Women have reported throwing away perfectly good sheets and towels because they felt the strong need to have “brand new, clean” sheets and towels in their home. They have also reported doing things like taking apart the knobs on kitchen cupboards, just so they could disinfect the screws attached to the knobs. Women have discussed taking on cleaning their entire house, armed with a toothbrush.
Okay, so that does sound curiously like what I’ve been doing. But I’m still clinging to the idea that I rationally make decisions about my day-to-day activities.
In any case, I figured I’d put all of this organizing mojo to use and attack a few of the more messy, disheveled, bedraggled corners of my life.
Enter: my Google feed reader.
A minimalist blogger recommends regularly purging your feed reader entirely and adding back only the blogs you miss. Sounds like a great idea, right?
I opened my reader, resolved to click on “delete all”. Except first I had to browse through my list of blogs … and then read through a few recent posts … and then click on a few of the posts those posts mentioned.
Full confession: I added seven blogs to my feed reader and deleted maybe six. Oops. So much for purging. But I fully intend to return to said reader with a more discerning eye in the near future.
There are just so many great blogs out there. Recently a reader recommended Drawing America by Bike, where Eric Clausen documents his 14-month round-the-country bike tour with ink drawings. It’s very cool, and it made me wonder what else I don’t know about.
I know it’s the opposite of purging, but in the interest of making my feed reader more interesting (albeit a little cluttered) will you help me by answering a few questions:
What’s your favorite blog? What blog(s) deserves to be on my feed reader? If you have time, I’m also curious, approximately how many blogs do you read? How do you keep up with them? Do you use a feed reader or some other method? Do you read blogs every day, once a week, or less often?
Thanks for your feedback! I’ll check out all of your recommendations and report back next week on my favorite new finds.
(To reach me, you can leave a comment below, email newurbanhabitat at gmail dot com, or tweet @newurbanhabitat.)
I read yours, http://citygirlfarmer.wordpress.com/, http://malindaessex.wordpress.com/2011/06/21/gratitude-tuesday/ and a few from the Fresh Pressed page.
I sign up via email, and have the posts filtered to a “Blog Posts to Read” file in my email software.
Sometimes, I read while drinking my morning coffee.
Sometimes, I don’t check it for weeks.
If I find several blog posts that have set unread for awhile, I usually delete my subscription. Simply because most posts (not mine, but most others) are short and sweet and if I haven’t read them for awhile, then either I’m way too busy and need to take some ‘quiet time’ to re-organize my own life, or the blogger has started off on a topic or tangent I’m not interested in following – either way, it’s nothing personal and keeps my blogstoread folder short and sweet.
One thing I always keep is the subscribing to comments notifications – I tend to comment frequently and if I say something that is either mis-understood or causes another pain, I want to know when they post about it 3 months later – – so I can make amends…..LOL
As for nesting, shortly before my youngest was born, I spent an hour getting every last bit of hairspray residue cleaned from the handle of my curling iron and took Q-tips to clean out the fuzz in my blow dryer filter.
I suspect these activities replace the preparation we did thousands of years ago, when getting ready to give birth meant chopping up the ground to have a soft place to lay, putting up a lean to and making sure there was enough around us to support us while we gave birth (food, heat, shelter).
With our modern conveniences, our ‘nesting’ instincts have to find some kind of outlet –
On the plus side, organizing and getting rid of what you don’t need is always a good thing – ask anyone who tries to clear 30 years of ‘accumulating’ in the three months after someone dies or retires – for me, I try to do it once a year!
Besides yours, I like Rowdy Kittens, The Non- Consumer Advocate, Tiny Yellow House and Relaxshare, Click Clack Gorilla, How to Cook Like Your Grandmother, First Ways…an urban foraging blog, and Zen Habits. This is a partial listing. I’m sure there are several more that are slipping my mind. Many of these arrive in my email while some of the others I read while on facebook. I like the facebook route because it’s easier and quicker to keep up with any new posts.
I have about 250 blogs on my RSS feed. The vast majority of them are not updated very often, though. I read at least some of the stuff on my RSS feed every day. How much depends on the amount of free time I have that day and if I find myself routinely skipping posts from a particular blog I’ll take it off my feed.
Two of my favourite blogs are http://ramblingtaoist.blogspot.com/ and http://spritzophrenia.wordpress.com/. The former is written by Taoists and the latter by someone who is spiritual but not religious. Both blogs ask fantastic questions and have made me re-examine my assumptions more than once.
I follow blogs in my reader and currently have 127 of them. Sometimes I read frequently, sometimes not. Often I just skim headlines and pick what stands out. I follow blogs on biking, transit, queer families, general queer issues, education, simplicity, and environmentalism so it helps to really keep them organized. I pared down my list recently and wanted to delete a ton, but really only deleted about ten. It really is too much to read, so I need to trim more!
I currently have 68 blogs in my feed reader after a recent purge down from over 100. Probably only about half of my subscriptions update daily. I try to make it through my feeds every day; I try to make it a habit to click through them quickly in one sitting, and only stop or click through to the actual blog if something really interests me, otherwise I keep rolling. Many of my favorite blogs are ones that are already fairly well-known, but three of my (possibly) lesser known favorites are:
http://www.chiotsrun.com
http://beautythatmoves.typepad.com and
http://fimby.tougas.net
You already read most of mine. I do read The Automatic Earth but that isn’t for everyone – depends if you like economics etc. Mostly I read at night when I don’t have a good book and there are a couple of hundred blogs but most are either short or updated once or twice a week (or longer). I do delete anything that gets boring for me or just doesn’t apply but not often.
viv in nz
Coming back to add one more: Uplugged Sunday just launched this week
http://unpluggedsunday.blogspot.com
It was started by Heather of Beauty that Moves and her husband; Renee of FIMBY is one of the contributing writers, and they have a great group of contributors lined up to write each week.
I read http://www.attainable-sustainable.net/ for great tips on more sustainable living in small steps anyone can manage, http://livinglargeinourlittlehouse.com/ for small house living, and just found http://www.theartofdoingstuff.com/ has great recipes and DIY project and is GREAT for a laugh. I also browse the http://www.curbly.com and http://www.motherearthnews.com feeds for DIY and green project ideas.
I have lots more blogs in my Google reader and click them if their post titles catch my eye. Most days, I’ll go through and browse, deleting each category as I go, otherwise the number of posts pile up fast!
There are blogs I love: yours, Kitchen Stewardship, exhale.return to center, sorta crunchy, a few others I can’t remember. They go to my email so I don’t miss anything. The rest go to my google reader (life.yourway, life as mom/good cheap eats, FIMBY and those of friends, plus more). It’s not that I don’t love them, it’s just that either there is less content, I can easily find what I’m looking for if I want to go back (like for a recipe or something) or though I like the story, I rarely need to go back and reference.
Stuff I reference often or requires more time (hopeful weekend links) has to go to email so I don’t miss anything!
I have maybe 20 blogs in my reader. Other than yours and blogs that have already been mentioned I love: Becoming Minimalist (http://www.becomingminimalist.com/), A Guy Named Dave (http://guynameddave.com/), Momentum Gathering(http://momentumgathering.com/) (a favorite for inspiration), and The New Pursuit (http://www.thenewpursuit.com/).
And my new most favorite blog is another Claassen on a 12-month carbon sabbath/bike tour (oddly enough), Scott Claassen. Scott’s blog is Carbon Sabbath (http://carbonsabbath.org/) which is sure to be challenging and interesting (however frequent he is able to post) as he tours the country and speaks about climate change and what not along his way.
my favorite is http://www.zquill.com
fresh dual author blog with humor articles about social and personal matters.
it’s published in 2 languages also
spicy words with a twist !
I’ve gathered some of MY favorite blogs from your links. Thank you! I too have been honing down. We all know how promising blogs sometimes aren’t so wonderful after awhile.
Here are my additions.
I love to get ideas from Robinsunne. She’s a mixed media artist with lots of tutorials on her blog http://sunnespot.blogspot.com/
I adore the way Laura Weldon helps me live more mindfully and hopefully through her blog http://lauragraceweldon.com/blog-2/
And I keep up with progressive education via Institute for Humane Education’s blog http://humaneconnectionblog.blogspot.com/