The first Greeblemix of 2009! How exciting! You know the deal.

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1. Comment as often as you like, up until midnight (Mountain time), January 5th, 2009.
2. The more comments you make, the more chances you have to win.
3. No anonymous comments. Please make sure I have, or can get, your email address!
4. Winners from last month, please take a month off.
5. Tomorrow morning, I will use Random.org to randomly select three winners. Three free mix CDs, three winners!
6. Winners must be willing to give me their snail mail to send the CDs.
7. No need to have to have a blog to enter. We are equal opportunity around here.
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While I am at it, I should mention some of my favorite music from 2008. It was a good one, seeing as 3 of my very very favorite musicians (Keane, Jason Mraz and James Morrison) put out new albums. And I already saw Jason, I'm seeing James in 2 weeks with Adele - so c'monnnn Keane!!!

Adele - 19
Bauhaus - Go Away White
Brendan James - The Day is Brave
Brett Dennen - Hope For The Hopeless
Eric Hutchinson - Sounds Like This
Hilary McRae - Through These Walls
James Morrison - Songs for You, Truths for Me
Jamie Lidell - Jim
Jason Mraz -We Sing. We Dance. We Steal Things.
Jenny Lewis - Acid Tongue
Keane - Perfect Symmetry
The Kooks - Konk
Lenka - Lenka
Lizz Wright - The Orchard
Michael Franti & Spearhead - All Rebel Rockers
Poi Dog Pondering - 7
Priscilla Ahn - A Good Day
The Sea and Cake - Car Alarm
Sia - Some People Have Real Problems
Thriving Ivory - Thriving Ivory
Tokyo Police Club - Elephant Shell
Tristan Prettyman - Hello
Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
The Verve - Forth
The Weepies - Hideaway
Weezer - Red Album

How about you? Did you find anything you loved in 2008?

(UPDATE: This is NOT the Greeblemix for this month, but my fave albums list of 2008! Although, some some songs from these guys do make an appearance. And many songs from these albums have appeared all year long in previous Greeblemixes.)

Last year, I had the amazing honor of being a finalist for "Best Kept Secret" in the 2008 Bloggie Awards. It was a really cool experience and I was even at SXSW (for work) during the awards ceremonies. No, I didn't win, and that's OK because, really - it was a totally fun experience from beginning to end. OK, maybe the end wasn't so cool - the very end - where the guy who beat me told me in my concession post that he mostly lied in all his posts. Hrmpf. That's kind of hard to swallow since I am patently honest here, but at the same time, it again goes to show what I was saying in my latest Twitter post, that there is something - and someone - for everyone here in the blogosphere.

So. Why am I blathering on about this? Because it's time for the 2009 Bloggies.


And I figured, since you have to nominate multiple people, that I could give some suggestions if you are having a hard time coming up with ideas on who to nominate. And stuff.

Now, PLEASE. I am just suggesting some people who I think are awesome. I don't mean to hurt anyone's feeling by leaving them off, putting them in a different place than they might, or not suggesting the people *you* like. In fact, please use the comments to suggest other awesome bloggers for people to check out and nominate. I really would like this post to be about the love. I am also skipping categories I don't have strong opinions about.

Best Canadian Weblog
Her Bad Mother
Jen and Tonic
Schmutzie
Whiskey In My Sippy Cup

Best Photography Weblog
Digital Photography School
Jessica Claire
Me Ra Koh
Shutter Sisters

Best Art, Craft, or Design Weblog
A List Apart
CSS Zen Garden
Design Mom
Mom-O-Matic
Try Handmade

Best Weblog About Politics
Daily Kos
Huffington Post
Momocrats

Best Computer or Technology Weblog
Geekologie
Mashable
TechCrunch

Most Humorous Weblog
The Bloggess
Citizen of the Month
Dad Gone Mad

Best Writing of a Weblog
Chicken and Cheese
Finslippy
Sweet | Salty

Best Group Weblog
Kirtsy

Best-Kept Secret Weblog
Playgroups Are No Place For Children
Simply Nutmeg
Stop Screaming I'm Driving

Best New Weblog
Bacon Is My Enemy
The Wind In Your Vagina (Black Hockey Jesus)

Lifetime Achievement
Mighty Girl

Weblog of the Year
Oh, The Joys
Rude Cactus
Sizzle Says

And now it's time for you to go to work. Nominations close JANUARY 12th. Go to the 2009 Bloggies link and scroll right (and right and right and right) and there are all the nomination slots. You will have to provide a valid email and do the whole captcha + confirmation rigmarole, so please follow through.

And again, these are just MY thoughts. Nominate who YOU love!

Just spread the love, peeps!

Well, it is finally 2009. And Zune meltdown notwithstanding, it went out kinda nice and quiet. If you count hanging out with a bunch of kids quiet. And I am pretty much kidding about the Zune thing, seeing as I could really give a crap except for the fact that it cracks me up and I am glad it didn't happen to iPods. We went out to dinner with our friends and their 3 kids and all 4 kids made it to midnight and we played Rock Band and woke the adults up who fell asleep to ring in the new year watching Dick Clark and Ryan Seacrest awkwardly banter with the Jonas Brothers, which is even more awkward knowing it's technically a repeat since it technically already happened 2 hours prior on the east coast. Well, some of us know that. My friend Sarah did not. She thought all those people in Times Square were whipped into a MAJOR frenzy just for us poor schlubs in the lame-ass mountain time zone. Isn't she the CUTEST???

And here is the part where I am supposed to put my new years resolutions. I actually like doing new years resolutions. Because we are a health education company, that builds web sites to promote healthy living... stuff like quitting smoking, being safe in the sun, eating better, exercising more, yada yada... and all that stuff is goal-oriented... I know all about setting goals. Setting attainable, measurable goals. I can DO new years resolutions and do them wicked awesome.

I just don't feel like it this year.

So, here is my goal. To come up with some wicked awesome St. Patrick's Day resolutions.

By then, my two most hated months of the year will be over and I will feel more, well, purposed.

Is that even a word?

Yeah whatever, I can't stop myself. I had to post this.

Here's Poe and his brother Enzo playing in a huge mulch pile at our friends house. HOW COULD I NOT POST THIS???



And before you get all "I'm calling PETA" on us, I promise they were totally playing. And being freaks. And playing freakishly.

P.S. Happy last day of 2008. Hope you have a great time tonight. As for us, we are going to dinner with friends and then all coming back here to hang out with our freak dog.

This post has been brewing for a long time. See, I am kinda obsessed with the workings of Twitter. As are many of you, I know. But this is where my psychology minor comes in to play. I love watching the inner workings of Twitter, the comings and goings, seeing how this simple web site has almost become a living, breathing, Borg-esque thing.

Now, before you go worrying that I need an intervention, I am not THAT fascinated.

But I did kind of have an epiphany recently.

Are you ready?

Twitter is what you make it.

Here's the thing. I was kind of getting frustrated, watching conversations that annoyed me, watching companies get nominated for a Shorty Award after twittering for about, oh, 3 seconds, or better yet... watching people do, well, nothing. And I was talking to people - lots of people, because like I said, you all are just as fascinated as I am - and getting really interesting perspectives left and right.

Someone reminded me of Maggie's great article from this summer about Twitter Etiquette, and how some people are "responders" and some people are "broadcasters." That responders interact all over the place, and broadcasters, well, broadcast. Dude. Totally.

And just like most things in my life, I am a mix of responder and broadcaster.

No wonder it kind of bugs me when some people who only tweet once in a millennium have 30,000 followers. It feels like they are not contributing to the community. And no wonder when some people have private conversations in a public space, it also, shall I say, irritates me. As documented here.

But here is where the epiphany came in.

Who the fuck cares?

People tweet as people see fit and I am free to watch or not. That lovely unfollow button is a release valve. And if someone gets irritated that I stopped following them, all the more reason I am glad that I stopped following them. Twitter is a fun place for me, not about business for me, and when it comes right down to it - really NOT ALL THAT IMPORTANT to me. (OK, kinda important, but when you think about the grand scheme of things, compared to the mortgage and world hunger - NOT THAT IMPORTANT.) The point being, I can shape it how I like.

Sure, I have little rules for myself as to how I "do" Twitter, but they are MY rules. And sure, I totally agree with Maggie, that Twitter has overarching etiquette just like any public space - cyber or solid.

But it really comes down to one thing.

Twitter is what you make it.

Personally, generally, I follow people with like interests, who are smart, who are funny, who inform me, and who I genuinely like.

Who do you follow and why?

OK, OK, I promise this blog won't turn into Poemonkey. Well, OK, maybe only a little. Cause, hello!?!? He's so damn cute. But several of you asked me why why WHY a puppy, why so QUICKLY, and why so BIG?

Here's the thing.

You may not remember, but we had a Chow named Rio back in the day who was the best doggy on the whole planet. I know you think your dog is the best, and I hate to burst your bubble, but really, Rio was THE BEST. And she had a bad bout of cancer two years ago and we had to put her down.

Oh lord, did our hearts break that day.



It took us nearly a year to be ready to spread her ashes.

And lord, have we missed her.

But we also have enjoyed the freedom. Especially with a little one running around. The freedom to just jump up and go to the store whenever. To not have to run home from work and let the dog out. You know, all that doggy baggage.

But Bryan is a dog person. There is no doubt about that. So, we had been tossing the idea around for a while, and always, Bernese Mountain Dogs were top of our list.

See, we'll NEVER have a Golden Retriever. Never have a Terrier. Never have a Poodle. Don't get me wrong. They are all really nice dogs. But they are not for us. I am a big believer that if people spent more time finding a dog that matched their personalities, there would be a whole lot less dogs in shelters.

Chows match our family. But guess what? Chows are on a list of dogs that are banned by our home owner's insurance. Our agent had to go to bat for Rio when they changed their policy, because he knew her and knew what a great dog she was.

Personally, I believe there are no bad dogs, just bad owners.

And a lot of people don't understand Chows. Don't understand that they have poor peripheral vision, so children tend to startle them. Don't understand that they are strong willed, so you have to be a strong owner. Don't understand that they can get solitary, so they need tons and tons of socialization.

We loved our Chow. But when she passed we knew we could not have another, which is unfortunate. The Bernese Mountain Dog was always the breed at the top of our list after that. Who doesn't want a dog they can walk AND ride???

So, when our friends up the street brought home a Berner, the situation presented itself. QUICKLY. And we ended up with Enzo's brother, the last of the litter, clearly the runt. So maybe Poe won't grow to the full 100 pounds? Maybe???

Either way, we *are* a little freaked with the decision, but it truly wasn't rash.

And who could have said no to THIS?

POE!



Technically his full name is "Poe Hamster." Poe as in Edgar Allan. Because Bryan loves Edgar Allan Poe as a writer and Poe was from Baltimore (where we grew up) and also Poe the dog was born in October - so it was a slightly creepy name we could both live with as an alternative to Bryan's first choice for a name: "Zombie."

And Hamster? Um. Declan kinda insisted on it. I have NO IDEA where he gets his penchant for weird names.

Anyway, Poe is a Bernese Mountain Dog with 1/8th Great Pyrenees mixed in to help him live longer. So, yes, that means he is gonna be HUGE. At 10 weeks, we think he is already about 12 pounds. But the good news is, Berners are especially lazy for giant breed dogs. Perfect for lazy owners like us.

Here are some other photos of the cutest puppy ever, and you can bet more will be added daily.

So far, so good. The first night was rough... but he's already doing pretty well at getting outside for bathroom business and clearly loves Bryan to death. Which is good because that is who is going to take him for walks and clean up his poop.

I am going to take a little vacation from the blog this week and spend lots of quality time with my family. Oh and work. There's that too. And I *am* taking Christmas Eve off the make yummy rouladen for the crew, which means I will also be up to my eyeballs in meat rolls.

In the meantime, below is the photo from our holiday card this year.

(click image for larger version)

Thanks for the feedback way back when as I was looking for a way to use less time, money and trees! The postcards worked out great! Except for one teensy detail. Nearly every single person missed the link we printed on the cards with this masterpiece below for their viewing pleasure. So I am sharing it with you now, seeing as it was WAY too much work to collect cobwebs on the internet.



And with that, I will go black (figuratively speaking) till next Monday. Well, not totally since you KNOW I will still be twittering my head off... but you get the idea.

I wish all of you a VERY VERY VERY wonderful Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa or whatever it is you celebrate this time of the year.

The point being, HAVE A GOOD ONE.

Sorry I didn't get this up first thing, but it's been a cuh-razy day. It's year end at my company, which means I run around with my head cut off trying to make the budgets come in line for our governmental funders, and oh yeah, we throw a hilarious White Elephant in the middle of it too. In case you are wondering, I won a rooster candle that I plan to give to my best friend who collects chickens. But the real prize was being able to say things like "I love my cock" all afternoon.

But you really don't care about any of that, do you? YOU WANT TO KNOW WHO THE WINNER IS, RIGHT?

It's Kristin Mainemamma. With this awesome image of Rusted Snow. Seriously. That is so damn magical it doesn't even look real.



So Kristin gets the incredible prize from Pro Photo Rental - $250 worth of camera rental! And also, by the way, Jared has finally started an official Pro Photo Rental twitter account, so be sure to start following them. The awesomeness abounds.

And thank you thank you thank you to everyone who participated this month. You all rock.

Happy weekend.

This week, my friend Amy's business partner had a car accident. Which sucks. But is especially scary since she is 6 months pregnant. She is fine, but is now on modified bed rest. Send her good thoughts.

But what was freaky for me, upon seeing Amy's tweet about the incident, was how quickly MY experience whooshed over me. Something very similar. I'll describe it as the gigantic funny crazy clusterfuck that it was, because in the end we were fine too.

Let's see, I was 4.5 months pregnant, summer of 2002. I was driving east on 6th Avenue Freeway, minding my business, when - basically - a bumper came flying out of nowhere. OUT. OF. NOWHERE. Literally 4 cars in front of me smashed into each other like accordions all crushed and compressed. Because, let's not forget, other than I-70, this is the ONLY main east-west artery in Denver. And if you look at the link above, I was just about to hit the I-25 intersection, which is the ONLY north-south highway. ONLY. Translation? A fuck-load of traffic.

I managed to stop my car within INCHES of the car ahead of me. My hands went round my swollen belly and I crouched forward as cars blurred all around me. Then BAMMMM! A Jeep trying avoid a Semi who was coming around the pileup on the shoulder swerved and slammed into my right side.

The whole car moved left as I slammed into the window.

Then silence.

The entire freeway, it just stopped.

My hand shook as I immediately grabbed my cell phone and called 911. Then Bryan. He was close, he was coming.

One of the vehicles in the blur had stopped. It was a delivery truck from American Family Furniture. He was running from vehicle to vehicle and tapping on windows, checking on people. One awesome thing I can say about that dickhead Jake Jabs, he employs good people.

He got to me. I cracked my window and whispered, "I'm pregnant."

He told me he was an EMT and asked if he would check me out. I felt fine. I really did. But I let him check me. He said the police and others were on their way. He agreed with me. I felt fine. But I wasn't allowed to move. Not one inch.

Then the sirens came. All around. All because some asshole had duct-taped his bumper to his car. We knew this because they found it about 5 cars behind me. We won't talk about the time in college I tied my bumper on with a rope because the manly men in my life made sure it was totally SECURE and it certainly never fell off on a major highway and caused a massive pileup.

The paramedics got to me, checked me out, thought I was good too. But wanted me to come to the hospital - just in case.

By this time, Bryan had arrived. How did he get there, you may ask? By driving up a side street and CLIMBING DOWN THE EMBANKMENT ONTO THE HIGHWAY. Don't ever think my hubby don't love me to pieces, kay? Cause he proved it that day.

And off I went. To the hospital in a roaring ambulance. Trying to remain calm. Leaving Bryan behind with the mess of cars piled up on the highway, mess of police to talk to and mess of traffic lined up all the way back out to Golden.

As for bumper guy? He could have totally gotten away clean. But he loved that damn bumper so much he came back for it. OH YES HE DID. Right in the middle of all those mangled cars and ambulances and tow trucks and police cars, he tried to retrieve his stupid duct-taped bumper. One of the witness looked over and said to the police officer, "Hey! That's HIM!"

The most beautiful two words in the whole world? Instant Karma.

Oh my word. I am totally going to have a coronary one of these months. Or if I actually had any nails to chew on, they would be furtherly non-existent. Or if I start talking in my sleep again it's totally gonna be all about trying to decide among the cats. (Pssst, in the end I just couldn't, argh!). Because you all are so fabulous. ALL ALL ALL SO SO SO fabulous. Cats or no cats.

So, OK, here we go, BELOW are 10 finalists this month (alphabetically). I place them lovingly into your hands for the final vote. Remember, a $250 camera rental from Pro Photo Rental hangs in the balance! So, please spread the word! Help these talented folks out!

And, oh yeah, I said there was no theme, but you just knew the holidays would at least show up, right?

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Amy McGibbon - Twinkle


Busymomma66 - Hot Cocoa


Christophr - Santa Paws


Corey Living and Loving - November


Craig - PBJ


Karen Creative Captures - Leather & Lace


Karen Kayak 57 - Waiting


Kristin Mainemomma - Rusted Snow


Monstergirlee - Disappearing Boy


Strawberrygoldie - Green Trees



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Baring any OTHER major technical difficulties, voting runs through Thursday at midnight!

HAVE AT IT!