Guest Editor's Picks -- January 11, 2008

Hello all!  I have been invited to do the
picks this week, and I am very happy to do so.  My name is
Lori, aka Helmswondermom,
and I have been keeping an AOL Journal, Dusty
Pages, for just under three years now.  A
little about myself before moving on to my picks -- I live in Southern
Indiana (otherwise known to the locals as Kentuckiana), but I'm a Kentuckian
by birth and at heart.  I've been married 20 years to the same
wonderful, hard-working gentleman-of-a-husband, and since my job with a
giant health insurance provider was outsourced to another country 18
months ago(!!), I have been a stay-at-home mom to our two great
children, 18 and 12.  I am also home-schooling the
12-year-old, and that is challenging, as well as a lot of
fun!

Now, as to these
picks...!  Phew!  What a job it is to narrow down
journal recommendations to only a half dozen!  Guido (two
weeks ago), and Krissy (last
week) both recommended journals that I already read, with only a couple
of exceptions, and when I started going down my list of favorites I
realized that quite a few of them have been plugged in Guest Editor's
picks of recent months.  So I decided I was going to
try to plug a few that may not be as well
known.  Let's see how I did, shall we?

First of all I want
to recommend Pauline's
Country's Tales and Other Thangs. 
Paula, a self-described born and bred South
Texan, describes her journal as "Things i have seen and things
that have happened to me since i moved back to the country", and she
has been sharing her country tales since Octoberof 2003. 
Paula has a way with words, and can make a trip out to the cow pasture
to check on the "girls" into a high adventure -- which it often
is!  Drop by to visit her soon and go along with her and John
as they stop by their favorite Mexican cafe for breakfast, take a
detour so Paula can explore a little rambling lane she's often wondered
about, bump and bounce over the rutted fields where wild hogs have been
making holes (in John's old truck, of course, not
Paula's newer baby), or sit and listen as she tells a funny story about
places she's been and people she's known.  I know you will
enjoy!

Now let's move on
from cattle to bison at Lisa's Life on a Bison
Farm.  Lisa has been keeping this journal for almost a
year now, but I was introduced to her much more recently.  She
introduces her journal as a "...chance for everyone to see what life on
a farm is really like along with happenings in my world", and boy does
she!  She's a great photographer and often enriches her
entries with photos, most recently one that, in response to a Community
Photo Challenge with the theme of "Beginnings", shows the birth of a
bison calf about to take place.  You can just barely make out
two tiny hoofs making their entrance into the world.  Lisa too
has a great writing style, and often has a funny or thought-provoking
entry to share, so please stop by and say hello.

Now we'll leave the
countryside and move to a more urban setting when we visit nzforme at So
This is A Treadmill.  This journaler has been around
J-Land since September of
2003.  She always has interesting entries, whether she's
taking you along as she treks through Europe, goes dog
sledding in Alaska, fights to get a package delivered to (gasp!) her
own door, or dealing with the (probably
thousandth) barf-gift in the middle of her bed from her cat,
Jasmine.  She's witty and smart, andasure good-read every
time.  So go visit
her. Seriously.

And now, we'll
travel to the UK to meet up with a journaler who is rather new to
me.  That is Pam, at Almost
40.  Well, actually I guess Pam would be fairly new
to everyone, as she just started this journal in August of
2007.  Pam began her journaling with an entry that
included a description of her Saturday night: concert blasting
on the TV, daughter moaning beside her on the couch, and a bottle of
wine -- excuse me, LARGE bottle of wine -- in her hand, which, she
assures us, is the only thing in the room with which she is NOT
frustrated!  Well!  After an entrance like that, you
just know this is going to be a fun read!  So go say hello and
see what she's up to this weekend.

And now I'm going to
jump back over the pond to return to my own neck of the woods, visiting
Angel's
Thoughts in Kentucky.  Angel began her
journal in 2006, just after she lost her mom to breast
cancer.  I think her journal was a way of dealing with the
loss, as well as a place to share her memories of her mom.  It
is a new journal to me, but I have truly enjoyed her personable writing
style and her descriptions of life with her family.  And I'm a
sympathetic reader because she recently was suckered into keeping a
tiny little beagle pup (and I've SOOOO been there).  In her
own words the pup is a "little girl that
I've decided to keep for my own (hearing an old Bugs Bunny cartoon in
my head.....I will love her, and pet her, and keep her.....and I will
name her Coco)."  So go say hello to Angel,
okay?

Now we're going to
drop by Silverdoe64 at
Yathink?.  I'm
rather new to her journal as well; she's been around since early
2007.  In a recent entry she vents some frustration --
"You know the saying: when a
door closes, another opens -to which I am replying today: "where the
heck are the dang doors that open"?  It seems I am stuck in
the hallway of closed doors.  And if that weren't bad enough
- it is as if I just keep banging on the closed doors until it
is painful." Yeah.  I think we can all relate
to those feelings.  She is so funny and
she describes her family, her day-to-day life, her work,
everything with wit and charm.  There is
a nice flow to her writing, and I invite you to stop by and say
hello.

Well, that's six,
isn't it?  And I had to leave out so many
very, very good ones.  I hope I've been able to highlight a
few journals that are new to a lot of J-Landers.  If you drop by
my journal, check out a few more that I have listed in my side bar (a
side-bar which I really need to update), and visit with some of my
other favorites.  Have a good one, everyone!  Now, go
enjoy your reads!