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343rd Friday Blog Roundup

Thank you for all of the birthday wishes.  My Chekhovian mood stretched through the whole week.  Josh asked if I wanted to go see a production of Uncle Vanya and I just stared at him for a long time until I finally said, “do you think that’s a good idea?”  And he had to admit that it probably wasn’t.

I am still feeling Prufrock-y, still wearing my trousers rolled, but I did spend an hour trying out electric guitars.  And then, in true form, walked out of the store without my birthday present and told the man that I needed to sleep on it.  I will most likely go back and buy it tonight — a simple, blue Fender Squier.  Nothing fancy, but a first electric guitar probably shouldn’t have too many bells and whistles.

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But the best birthday gift came from Amazon.  On Thursday I learned that Life from Scratch had been chosen for their sunshine deals program.  They picked 600 books that were already bestsellers or had won awards, temporarily dropped the price, and are featuring them for two weeks to kick off summer reading.

It’s a fairly eclectic list: Sophie’s Choice, Slaughterhouse Five, and… Life from Scratch.  There’s Chelsea Handler and short stories by Andre Dubus and the writings of Martin Luther King Jr.  See — eclectic.

By Thursday night, it was down to #316 on the Paid Kindle list.  Which is awesome.  I mean, it’s very cool to think of new people reading my book, but it also was an injection of energy into writing the sequel.  Stuff was just quietly going on with the first book and I was just quietly writing the second book, and this was like a huge yelp in the middle of a sea of words that woke me up, made me sit up straighter, and actually smile through my Chekhovian mood as I typed.

So.

Life from Scratch is down to $2.99 on Kindle for the next two weeks for this promotion.  It’s the perfect time (hint, hint) to get a copy if you don’t already have one (I don’t personally have a Kindle, but you can read Kindle books on the computer, the iPad, and the blackberry, etc).

And I’m telling you this because I’m going to beg you — as a birthday present to me? — to spread word.  Tell friends and family that this would be a great beach read, some good summer fun.  That it’s the perfect time to get it — it will never be this low in price.  It’s less than a frappuccino!  Tweet it, Facebook it, blog about it.  Pretty please?

My goal, since everyone should have a goal, is to get to #1 on the Kindle List.  Will you help me do that?

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And speaking of birthday fun… the winners of the giveaway (and seriously, I can’t believe 257 entries for a box of baked goods and only 28 for the best games I’ve ever played?):

  1. Rush Hour (winner: JustHeather)
  2. What’s Gnu (winner: Kristin)
  3. Rush Hour iPhone/iPad app (winner: Magpie)
  4. Solitaire Chess iPhone/iPad app (winner: Baby Smiling in Back Seat)

Congratulations!

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

Okay, now my choices this week.

Kate, Uncensored has a wistful little post about wishing for a wedding.  On one hand, she doesn’t need the ceremony, the paper or the ring.  But on the other, it’s this little thing that is missing.  It made me think about all the things we can talk ourselves into living without, but how they always are like a little sigh in the back of our heart.

The Port of Indecision has a post about perspective.  She juxtaposes her experience with recurrent loss with her friend’s reaction to her own miscarriage.  At first the comparison makes her feel badly, but she comes to realize how her perspective has changed with each loss.  She explains: “And how by the fifth time I was simply resigned to the reality that this was the only thing that could possibly happen. And how it’s gone from, ‘Why not me?’ to, ‘Why me, again?’ It’s all a matter of perspective.”

Grit and Patience has a post about donor eggs and the cuckoo bird.  I love this passage: “I’d love whatever kid I had, of course.  I guess it’s just a visceral illustration of that baby or child being foreign, different, not OF ME, us not “fitting”. My reaction to the cuckoo image isn’t as strong now as it used to be.  Maybe it’s the passage of time, maybe it’s the Zoloft.  Who knows?”  But you’re going to want to read the whole post for this line: “It’s the love that makes you ‘fit,’ not the genes.”

Lastly, Write Mind Open Heart has a post about summer, specifically, summer vacations as a kid.  You will mentally go back in time.  Our neighbourhood wasn’t big on fort building, but we played all house hide-and-go-seek (meaning, you could be outside or in any of the houses on our street with only one tree designated as the “safe” zone).  We biked and explored.  We went to day camp for six weeks.  Go tell her what you did.

The roundup to the Roundup: I survived my birthday.  Please help me make Life from Scratch #1 on the Kindle list.  Winners from the giveaway.  And lots of great blog posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between May 27 and June 3) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.

10 comments

1 HereWeGoAJen { 06.03.11 at 8:28 am }

If I buy Life from Scratch on Kindle as my first ever Kindle book (I just got it and haven’t even turned it on yet), will you sign my Kindle?

And ARGH, I forgot to mark down blogs again this week. Don’t worry, eventually I will get good at remembering this.

Happy birthday. 🙂

2 loribeth { 06.03.11 at 8:58 am }

Happy birthday! : ) I have a Kobo, not a Kindle, and I already have a hardcover version — but I love a bargain, & a friend sent me a great little program that does format conversions. ; )

I have been so busy this week I’ve hardly done any blogging, blog reading or commenting 🙁 — my Google Reader is overflowing, eek. I’m still working my way through all the “Right Where I Am” posts. But I will keep my eyes open next week.

3 twangy { 06.03.11 at 9:30 am }

To number one! Can’t wait to get my virtual paws on it..

4 Baby Smiling In Back Seat { 06.03.11 at 1:41 pm }

#279 on Kindle and counting.

Looking forward to playing the game! Thanks for the your-birthday present!

5 Keiko { 06.03.11 at 3:01 pm }

Happy belated! I’ve been waiting for your Friday roundup post because there were two that I’ve been itchin’ to share all week.

From IF to When wrote a raw and jarring post this week, Sometimes you just need a good rant. She says everything that roils through my brain on a bad day and just puts it out there, shamelessly and with abandon. A post about how absolutely craptastic the IF journey can be and her right to be angry and frustrated. Just a really raw, brave post.

Heather from Production, Not Reproduction has a post this week that literally caught my breath in my throat as I read through it: It Came in a Rush. She describes how offhandedly she learned her adopted son has a brother who was adopted by another couple, and that the birthmother had kept this information from her, despite their openness. The post reads at as fast a past as she learned the news and I’m sure it will leave you winded as well.

6 Lori Lavender Luz { 06.03.11 at 5:43 pm }

I hope you get yourself birthday present soon.

Thanks for including my fort revisiting in the Roundup! And YAAAAAAYYY for Amazon being smart enough to include Life from Scratch on their summer reading list — wooooot!

7 jjiraffe { 06.03.11 at 8:57 pm }

I’m honored to be included in the Second Helpings section 🙂

I’d like to nominate this post for this week from Stumbling Gracefully, which gave me the chills when I read it: http://esperanzasays.wordpress.com/2011/06/03/confessional-fridays-i-was-wrong/

Esperanza compares the depression that has come and gone throughout her life to an unwelcome guest who is now knocking on her door again. She concludes:

“And I love my family too much to invite that obnoxious visitor in for an extended stay. He may have been a good friend back in college, when we could stay up late and sleep in later, when we could get drunk without worrying how to work through the hang over, when we could leave pizza boxes in the kitchen for a week because we didn’t need the counter space anyway. He may have been tolerable back then when self-destruction didn’t cost so much, when I didn’t really have anything to lose. But now? Now I have a everything to lose.”

8 Kristin { 06.03.11 at 11:59 pm }

But those baked goods were made by you…and we know how delicious that makes them.

9 Queenie { 06.04.11 at 5:16 pm }

Belated Happy Birthday, and congrat’s on making the Amazon list–that’s so cool.

Andre Dubus used to be my neighbor.

10 kateanon { 06.05.11 at 3:31 pm }

Thank you for mentioning my post. It’s nice to know I’m not the only one with the little sigh in my heart.

(c) 2006 Melissa S. Ford
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