My Best of List for Living Large
Mat, you’re the winner of the audio book, Ozark Mountains Fishing Stories,” by Rolland Love! Please email me at fivecoat@ozarkmountains.com with your snail mail address by the end of this week.
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I was tagged by our friend over at Frugal Kiwi in The Seven Links circle going around blogs that began at Tripbase.
Here are my choices for the “Best of” Living Large:
Most Beautiful Post: “Peace,” a post I wrote about remembering my brother. I finished “No Immediate Threat: The story of an American Veteran,” the memoir I wrote about his life and death at Our Little House. This post is about our finding peace here and by bringing Steve’s story here, about my finding peace in his passing.
Most Popular Post: “Visualizing your Dreams,” remains one of the most popular posts, according to my server’s analytics. The post was written over 1 ½ years ago and I’ve had another posts on vision boards since, but this one really struck a chord with readers. Both posts on vision boards had a book giveaway for “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Vision Boards,” an excellent book on how to create a board to bring your dreams to life.
Most Controversial Post: “The Dreaded Deer Hunting Season.” The post about the opening of deer season here and the negative effects it has on our usually peaceful surroundings. This post made it around on the pro-hunting sites, where I was accused of misjudging hunters and pro-animal sites, where I was hailed a blogging hero. I guess you can sometimes please everyone!
Most Helpful Post: “Baggin’ it,” which describes my use of cloth grocery bags. I think getting into the habit of using cloth bags, even if only to go to the grocery store, is one of the smallest things we can do that will have a big impact on the planet. In over 20 years of using our bags, we’ve saved over 10,000 plastic ones from the landfill. We also save space at Our Little House by not dragging anything else into the house.
The Surprising Successful Post: This was a tie. “Books at The Little House,” a list of my all time favorite books and I asked you to list yours as well. Book posts at Living Large are always popular ones, but this one was one of the first and it surprised me how much Living Large readers love books! “Why are Children Bored,” was one of my most popular posts as I think it struck a chord with so many.
The Post that Deserved More Attention: “Time Capsule.” As a student of history, I’ve always been fascinated by reading about it as well as recording it. I thought many of our community would be interested in putting a time capsule into their own walls as they were building their tiny homes. A few months later, I posted “A Time Capsule Found in a Little House,” about such an artifact being found in a small home in England. The letter gave a glimpse into another time and made us realize that one thing never changes. Most of us love our homes and hope that future generations will care for it as we did.
The Post of Which I’m Most Proud: This was a tough one as I’m very proud of many of my posts, especially the ones that help people understand how serious it is that we take care of our planet. However, I chose “Feeding my Soul,” because I truly believe to have internal happiness, we must be doing things each day that feeds our soul, so that we may help feed others.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this list and going back over some historical posts at Living Large. Do you have opinions on any of these posts or others I didn’t list?
The 5 blogs I choose to tag:
Little House on the Southern Prairie. Love Emily and love her blog. She lives in her small house with her hubby and adorable baby, giving a different perspective on small house living.
Champion of my Heart. Roxanne Hawn’s journey with her fearful Border Collie, Lilly, is a great read for you dog lovers. The 2010 Best Dog Blog winner of the Petties and a 2011 finalist, this is truly an award winning blog.
Discover Washington State. Heather is a friend of mine and a Living Large community member. She specializes in Washington State travel and since I’ve always wanted to visit, I enjoy living vicariously through her blog posts.
Midlife Matters. Dale and I are just beginning to find out that we are entering a whole new world in midlife health wise and Sheryl Kraft’s posts are both informative and inspiring to us aging boomers.
320 Square Foot Home. I like reading different perspectives on small house living and Debra Jordan’s story is inspiring. Not only did she have a YouTube video tour of her home go viral, but it’s interesting to see how she copes with her husband and teenaged son in a house the size of The Belle Writer’s Studio.
Thanks so much for the tag, Kerri! I love my visits to your Little House, virtual as they may be. It is always wonderful to connect with a fellow writer, protector of animals, and lover of the environment and simple living.
You’re welcome, Emily. Glad to do it, love visiting your little house too! 🙂
Great posts, and I love that Visualizing Your Dreams is the most popular. I guess that topic never goes out of style, thank goodness.
Maybe since Living Large is largely based on following your dreams, we get a lot of people interested in the topic, Jane. I’m glad it has helped some folks.
Maybe since Living Large is largely based on following your dreams, we get a lot of people interested in the topic, Jane. I’m glad it has helped some folks.
As a newcomer to Living Large, I’m happy to see what you chose as the “best of” from your archives. That deer post – wow! As someone who also grew up in a rural area, I understand the importance of hunting culture and the need to keep population levels down, but those people – hunters or not – are simply RUDE. No respect for animals, humans, or their surroundings. I’m so sorry you have to deal with that.
As more people have moved down here and hunters realize that this is more populated, it has gotten a little better, Casey. Still, it’s not very settling to know that people could be running around your property lines with .223s!
This retrospective reminds me of how much I love your blog, Kerri! One I loved that you don’t mention was the two-parter on “would I move to the country again?”
https://livinglargeinourlittlehouse.com/2010/10/would-we-move-to-our-little-house-again/
I loved how honestly you summed up the issue and I bookmarked it to consult when I make my downsizing decision in a few years.
Thanks, Melanie. I liked that one too. 🙂 Thanks for being a part of Living Large!
Your blog offers such a variety of reads, yet they seamlessly fit the theme of living large in your lil house. I really admire that and enjoy your writing.
Thank you, Merr. I really didn’t realize how varied they were until I started going back through them!
Fun to read this list. I really like your posts about books too. Maybe b/c I’m a bookworm…
I think there’s a little bookworm in all of us here at LL, Jennifer!
Thanks for tagging me, Kerri. I always enjoy reading your posts, and this is nice…kind of like finding re-runs of your favorite shows on TV!
Was glad to tag you, Sheryl. Love your blog!
Great fun, isn’t it? Now I’m wishing we’d put a time capsule in our walls in our recent renovation. I’ll put that on the list if we have to open up any more walls. Thanks for the inspiration.
Yes, I love the idea of future generations knowing our story. Although I hope The Belle Writer’s Studio is here for a long time and no one finds it for hundreds of years!
Kerri,
I especially enjoyed your post on books, but I’m wondering: no poetry made your list? or perhaps you’ve done a another post on that?
I have written about the poetry books in my collection. I have to admit, I’m not a big fan of poetry, something really has to grab me. My two favorites are Robert Frost and Edgar Allan Poe. I do have a very large book, “A Treasury of Poems” that I like a lot.
well, you’ll not be surprised to hear that I take most of my poetry in the form of songwriting, but good to know there are poets in your collection too.
And as I said I don’t read a lot of poetry, the first thing that popped into my mind today upon hearing of the death of an acquaintance, was a line from a poem. Certainly a part of my subconscious.
always a good thing for a writer, I think.
I remember several of these posts and enjoyed reading them. I always look forward to hearing what you have to say from the vantage point of your little house.
Thanks, Alexandra. I love reading what’s going on at the Cape as well!
I agree with you about reusable bags. I’ll have to come back and read some of your other posts from your “best of” list.
Thanks, Susan.
Thanks for passing the baton to Champion of My Heart. I’ll need to pick my 7 posts and find 5 blog fans to tag (assuming they haven’t been already). Did you find it hard to choose your 7 posts? Having blogged since April 2007, there is so much content … I fear I’ll forget some good posts. :o)
You’re welcome, Roxanne! Yes, I did find it hard. Very hard. I had to go back through my archives, make a list and then choose. Fun, as I had forgotten about some of the posts, but very tough.
What a great type of post. It’s actually quite helpful to the readers. I can’t wait to read all of your picks.
Thanks, Alisa!
I’m going to come back and read all of these posts when I have a little more time. I enjoy your blog so much and it’s nice to have some older posts highlighted to go read.
Thanks, NoPot. The blog appreciation is returned! 🙂