Friday Five: Blogroll Spotlight

Over at RevGalBlogPals, Mary Beth writes:
Some of you probably use feed readers to let you know when your favorite bloggers have posted...not me, not yet. I just have folks who are part of my day-to-day.

So for today's Friday Five, give us five blogs you visit regularly, and tell us briefly WHY you like them. These can be RevGal and Pal bloggers and others ... or news sites, knitting sites, etc. Who are you showing the love to on a pretty constant basis?

Hopefully we will all get to know some new bloggy friends this way!

I'm trying to list some blogpals who aren't RevGals to spice things up!

1. Check On Steve, a blog my friend Tyra Damm writes to keep folks up to date on her husband Steve's condition. He's fighting that brain tumor with gusto, even naming it (The Damm Spot. Out, out, Damm Spot!).

2. The Dallas Morning News Religion Blog. These guys do a thorough and whimsical job of gathering and posting all kinds of religion-related stuff, local, regional, national, international. (And they occasionally link to my day job. And I to theirs.)

3. Cake Wrecks is a spot I should really visit more often (I only hit it about once a week). I just shouldn't do it while I'm at the office. It makes me laugh too hard.

4. At first I thought this type of humor only worked with cats, but I Has a Hot Dog has won me over.

5. And another one that I really should check every day, but don't: Superfantastic. By Lori. We've never actually had a meetup, but we've come close a couple of times.

The Heeler Slouch

Doesn't he remind you of a teenage boy trying to look all cool and casual?

Crack-looker.

This is the view we get of Angus as we're pulling into the garage.


He knows we're coming home, he knows he can't get to us from there, but he looks anyway. At a certain point, he runs inside the patio to wait for us to let him inside, but looking at us through the crack by the back gate is part of his routine.

I'm feeling annoyingly introspective tonight and wondering what I can learn from my crack-looker.

What cracks do I peer through even though looking there won't do me any good?

What's worth anticipating, and what's not?

Does looking where I cannot go make any kind of positive sense?

I ran up against something today. I knew I was going to run up against it. It's a barrier that's been there for a while. I don't see much likelihood that it'll go away. I just figure that someday I'll attend a funeral or two and after that I won't even get to look through the crack by the gate.

So, until then, is looking through the crack better than nothing?

Investigation, and prayers

When I unpacked from my business trip late Friday night, some investigation was necessary:


After a thorough forensic examination of my dirty laundry -- er, the evidence -- The Boy concluded that I had consorted with two other canines while across state lines. I assured him they were good girls, and that he'd sniffed one of their people before, and after a while he calmed down about it.

I'm always glad when I get some dog time during my relatively rare business travels. Having a nose nudge aside my laptop to demand ear-scritchings really makes me feel at home (as did my wonderful bipedal hosts, as well). And I'm very happy to be back with my own pack now, too.

Now, for the prayers: My fellow RevGalBlogPal Cheesehead is grieving the death of her sweet dog Tanner. He was a very good boy. Last spring when we bid farewell to Cub, Cheese wrote a lovely post about how Tanner made such a difference in her life. What a great dog, much loved and deeply missed, even by those like me who never met him face-to-face. Rest well, Tanner.

New dog, 30-something bridesmaids

Just two of many highlights of this weekend in Home State:

1) meeting my new canine brother-in-law, Gus...

Here he's cuddled up next to my mom-in-law. The vet's guess is that he's 2 or 3 years old. He's very, very cute and, unlike my dad's 4-pound maltie-poo (my canine sister? man, that's so much more weird for some reason), Angus and Tuesday recognize him as one of their own species, which makes it much less likely that they'll try to eat him.

(Incidentally, the vet my in-laws have used for years got poisoned this week. He's recovering, but wow -- who knew that small-town veterinary drama like that could happen? Wish I could find a link to the actual story, but it's not popping up on the area paper's site.) UPDATE: Vet drama link in the comments, courtesy of The Alpha.

2) Co-hosting a wedding shower for one of my college roommates, and getting fitted for the bridesmaid dress while I was in town. Here I am with my co-host, the matron of honor. I think this is the last time we'll be bridesmaids (bridesmatrons?)... we're not exactly "maids" at our ages, but hey, this is the bride's only wedding, so by golly, we're doing it right!

There were other unbloggables, of course, but those things likely would've happened even if I'd been at home this weekend. (Should they have happened? No. Can I stop them? No. Can I change them? No. Do I need to go insert myself into the situation just because I happen to be in the same county? No. Look at me, setting healthy boundaries with my family.)

Okay, off to work. Busy week ahead.

RevGals, DogPals meet up

Had a wonderful weekend with fellow RGBP Zorra and The Scientist, including a visit with The Vicar of Hogsmeade:


You can see Amie the Cattle Dog ambling in the background on that pic, but here's another one, in which we succeeded in getting all three DogPals to shoot their creepy-dog-laser-eyes at the camera:


Thanks to The Alpha and The Scientist for serving as our photographers. And thanks to Zorra, The Scientist, and Amie for making the long car trip to hang out with us! Amie's a good traveler, and was a polite guest after she finished explaining to Tuesday that 14-year-old dogs do not want to bounce around with big dogs named Tuesday. The ol' girl still has a spring in her step, though, and is very, very sweet.

Blerg.

(Post title courtesy of Liz Lemon)

After a frightfully busy day at work yesterday, I skipped Disciple class (with permission from the facilitator -- yes, I'm that much of a goody-goody). But I made a list of three things to accomplish with that free time and leftover nervous energy, and I did all three!

Okay, one of the things on the list was "skip class."

And one of them was "write check for BE balance."

But the other thing, the most daunting thing, the thing I'd put off doing over the weekend -- de-clutter two areas: the table by the back door and my gigantic desk at which I almost never sit -- that got done. Yes, hello, I'm DogBlogger, and I have a clutter problem.

So, Zorra, when your trio of travelers arrives, know that what you see, though not immaculate, is far, far better than what I started with on Tuesday night.