Love is in the air!

With Award Season apparently in full swing, there's love flowing all around the blogosphere. Unfortunately, this particular blog is turning into the place where memes come to die.

I both appreciate and resist these things. There's a fine line between recognizing the effort people put into their blogs, and seeing the whole thing turn into a giant virtual circle jerk. It's also hard to figure out who to pass these things along to, because thanks to the magic of RSS feeds, I have literally dozens of sites I check regularly, and dozens more that I skim semi-regularly. (Actually, I just checked, and I currently have 92 feeds from blogs, news sites and other sources. Yikes.)

Some people post occasional gems, and others provide insights daily. Some make me laugh, and some make me think. And providing a list of three or five or ten always leaves some on the cusp. Just like those college basketball teams who feel slighted when they get edged out of the last slot in the sixty-five team NCAA tournament. So I don't like tagging other people with this stuff. Just like I am a curmudgeon about Valentine's Day. And a scrooge at Christmas. I'd rather share the love any day and every day in a variety of ways.

So thank you to Kate, Chile, and BG for the compliments. I'll find ways to point people to my favorite blogs, don't you worry.

Now, having said enough about that, I have to admit that this "archive meme" is pretty cool. The idea is to dig through old posts and pick out your favorites in the categories of Family, Friends, Self, Something I love, and Anything. I'm very tempted to tag people with this one. But I won't. If you are reading this and you want to play along, do it and leave a comment saying as much.

Here are some of my "greatest hits" based on my own feelings and the feedback of others...

Family:

One for Amelia: Little Miss Sunshine
...and one for e5: We're Gonna be Rich
Sorry Baby. Your day will come...

Friends:

Fun with Bloggers and... (Amelia sneaks her way into this one too.) I could have gone with the Secondhand Baby post, but I don't know if that quite qualifies as "archive" just yet.


Self:

My Crazy Scheme as it appeared over at Groovy Green. You can also find links in that one (or dig through archives here) to get the Director's Cut, which is like four times as long.


Something I love:

Chestnuts of (Permaculture) Wisdom. Well, I do love trees. Permaculture is pretty fascinating too. (The good people at Midwest Permaculture just contacted me about using this piece on their site. Cool!)


Anything:

Life Immitates Art, wherein I accidentally blow our cover by using my son's (and my) real name instead of that catchy pseudonym. Those pesky black helicopters must have been controlling my brainwaves that day. But I guess that tricky blog name doesn't fool them anyway...


And finally, a big public Valentine to my wife, who has been spending this week as a single parent while I am out wining and dining in beautiful San Francisco.

I thought it would be funny to have a picture of myself and my old college roommate drinking beer in some bar with smiles on our faces, juxtaposed with a picture of my eight-months pregnant wife and the two little heathens (miss you all!) looking miserable. But I think that would only be funny if I waited ten years or so first.

For what it's worth, I did everything I could think of to get out of this trip, I've spent most of the week with a migraine, I'm stuck in a classroom all day, and I seem to be coming down with a nasty cough. But Lori's still got the harder task by a long shot. So thank you one more time, my Love.

--