AOL Journals: Magic Smoke

Friday, March 21, 2008

Greetings from Paradise!

Hi, I'm Robin and I am this week's guest
editor. I'm an Air Force wife and Mom. A
Daddy's girl, treasure hunter (fun way of saying I love antiques),
& daydreamer. I love football, hockey, camping, the
ocean, the mountains (anything outdoors really) 80's music, the Rat
Pack, cooking, traveling and spending time with my family.
Sheez, that sounds a
little like a personal ad.

We move a LOT! Lived in 6 different
states in the last 11 years. Hubby and I started our lives
together in 1994 back in Arizona and then the Air Force took us to
Clovis, New Mexico, Spokane, Washington, San Antonio, Texas,
Sacramento, California and now....Tampa, Florida. Whew...it's been a
ride. We have lived in Florida going on 5 months
now. When we move we take our 27 foot travel trailer with us
and "camp out" until we either get base housing or find a house off
base. A lot of you may know me from my travel journal called
"Tales of a
(part-time) Trailer Park
Princess." When our
trailer is parked I write from my "everyday" journal called
"The Yellow
Brick Road" formerly known as "These are
The Days of our
Lives."

Since I am new to Florida I thought I would give shout outs
to my Florida neighbors here in JLand. Some I
have known for a while...even way before moving here and some I may
just be in "lurking" stages with. One thing about
us all...we all LOVE Florida. Whether it be for the food,
fishing, sunshine, cultural diversity, beaches or spring when I hear
the snow birds will finally leave. Heck...it's gotta be a great place
if you are willing to stay during hurricane season...right? So if you're
still freezing your butt's off where you live, close your eyes and
imagine kicking off your flip flops and wiggling your toes in the warm
sand and then read these fantastic blogs brought to you
all the way from the Sunshine State!

Bill! My good buddy
Bill. Long time JLand friend, good
listener, poker player, convertible driving, living in two places
now...part time in Mississippi (we wont hold that against him) and part time in
Orlando, knows how to make me smile....BILL! I had
to put Bill first since he was really the first Floridian I
knew. Bill used to joke about us getting stationed in Florida
one day and low and behold it happened. I've promised to
lunch with him next time he is in Tampa. He's a special guy,
a dear, dear friend and knows enough about me to possibly black mail
me. LOL! He's
cute too ladies, just remember I
saw him first!

Check out Bill's "My
Journey" when you have
time...maybe it will encourage him to write MORE
OFTEN!

Bethe! She has a beautiful smile
and is just on the other side of the bay from me!
She is a double Army Brat, her mother a Army
nurse, her father an Electronics Engineer who installed
electronic equipment in ballistic missiles & radar communications in Viet
Nam. She loves to
travel and has lived in 26 places, she's been to all but 5
states! She calls home an RV now ... something we sorta have in common
only I think her RV is a lot nicer and probably bigger than my 27 ft
travel trailer. I love her entries about Florida...she really
gets around. From Strawberry festivals to meeting JLand
friends in real life. Check out her spot in JLand, she's a special
lady and one I hope to meet some day.
Bethe's "Palm
Harbor."

Lyn! A fellow military wife! She
also lives in Florida but was born in England. A wife, "Mum"
and fun loving gal that likes to shop, the beach and diet
Coke. I knew when I read she was addicted to Diet Coke that I
would love reading her blog! She is
funny and makes me laugh all the time. She has a HUGE
following and certainly doesn't need me to direct any more attention
her way but I couldn't leave her out cause I just love her
journal. Go say hi to Lyn at "Brit's Blog" and wish her
well...she has been under the weather lately.

Brenda! Brenda Spears actually and
yes...that is her real last name. Cute hun? Brenda
also lives here in Florida I once read she lives in Plant
City, I think that is close to me. I
haven't seen an entry from Brenda since February but I am
hoping she will come back soon.

Someone directed me to Brenda when I posted an entry about
Gasparilla, the pirate
festival that takes place here in Tampa each year. Brenda
wrote about Gasparilla at the same
time...funny how small the world really is. She's an Irish
girl like me and a lot of fun too! Fly on over to
Brenda's "Brass Butterflies" and see for
yourself!

Derek! I used to read Derek a long
time ago and then lost his link...I just recently found him
again. I love all the pictures he takes, he posts the best
"people" pictures. You know how some people are good at
taking pictures of wildlife, buildings, country side and such...well
the people pics he takes are my
favorite.(but everything he captures is fantastic!)
I can never take people pictures like he does. They
are so fresh and clean, everything just pops in them. His people
pictures really tell a story, there is so much feeling in them, in
their eyes and smiles. It amazes me how he cancapture so much about a
person in a split second.

When I read Derek's journal I always get the feeling that
he has a good spirit and kind heart...he is someone who I think would
make a great friend...he's just that kind of guy! Wanna see what is
"developing" over at Derek's place then click here "Celebration of my Exhistance"

(thanks for the
make-over Derek! wink wink)

That's it! Thanks for
letting me share some of my "Neighbor's" blogs with you...I'm
outta here
now! Anyone seen my beach
towel?

Magic Smoke - Opening up

I
wanted to share some info about the future of Magic Smoke, the journal.
Up until now, Magic Smoke has been your Friday pit stop, to get
Blogplugs and Guest Editor entries. This has been great on Fridays but
we would like to give you reasons to visit Magic Smoke, on other days
of the week also. In short we want Magic Smoke to be
a community hub.

To that end, we
would like to have the JLand community participate
in this evolution of
Magic Smoke. So, we invite the community to host
their games, contests, photo challenges, trivia etc, on Magic Smoke.

You can also use Magic Smoke as
a bulletin board to announce events or activities
that you host on your journal.

We
would also like to hear from you, if you have anything to share with
the community at large, be it a shared journal that would be of
interest or some upcoming event that you would like the community to be
aware of.

Just send email to
journalseditor@aol.com and we can add you as a writer to this journal.
Just let us know what you want to
convey.

Questions, comments
welcome

Tags: magic smoke future

Friday Blogplugs - 3/21

Hey
folks,

A very happy Easter to
all! Let's review the entries for blogplugs this
Friday.

* Stacey
writes about the scary
cartoons she disliked as a
child.

* Ken
believes in "essential
integrity", not "victim's syndrome". He also requests you to
take the time to acknowledge
those around you for their efforts.

* Paul posts
his 8th
entry (10 movies to an entry) of his favorite 100 movies.

* Tawnya's
wednesday
hero, is Army Spc. Monica Lin
Brown.

* Robin goes
out to lunch
on St. Patrick's day and has some fun.
She is also eggcited
about
Easter.

* Mary is
back blogging and is very intrigued by the phrase "spark
of anticipation" and wonders what it means for each of
us.

* Indigo has
been nourishing
her soul, the last few weeks and recommends you do the
same.

* Jody has
completed 4 years of blogging
on AOL Journals.
Congratulations!

* Penny has
moved
into her new home in Redding, CA and is beginning to
adjust.

* Beth writes
about the virtues
of getting enough sleep.

* Christopher
writes
about our fellow JLander Gazker getting married. Gazker writes a
journal called Dairyofapodgypoof.
Congratulations
Gazker!

* Betty has a
pictorial narration of how maple
sugar is extracted. It's that time of the year in New
Hampshire.

* Sugar's
furr babies wish
you a very Happy
Easter.

* Sherry
writes that her hometown
was flooded. Luckily there were no deaths, only loss of
property. She has some pics in her entry.
She also
wants you to know that she survived
the first round of tests at the hospital, which were
horrible.

* Krissy is
excited
about going on a vacation to Florida! First one for her, in 10 years.
Hope you have a good time. She also goes grocery
shopping at 5am in the morning and sees snowflakes and
Christmas lights!

* The blog
of a military wife whose husband is in Iraq. Moshe the Mouse,
keeps the wife company, while Abraham the bear, watches over the
husband.

*
Marie writes about the holy week for Christians, starting
with Palm
Sunday. She asks if the Blessed Sacrament a Him
or an It?

Other Blogs to check
out

* Kristi is
new to JLand and has started her journal called "rambling
woolysheep". Please drop by to say
hello.

* Lisa's
journal "Adventures
from Florida" was recommended by a fellow
JLander.

* Patti is a
dining
diva and co-hosts a radio
show.

Contests &
Trivia!

* Weekly
sentence with Val. This week's letters were IRELND.
The entries are here
and the winners are here.

* Dawn has
new weekly feature called "The
Wednesday Word of the Week" where she will share a word with
us every week. So, if you do not know the meaning of
"immolation" head over to her entry to find
out!

Lights, Camera and
Action!

*
Marie's AOL
Community Photo Challenge, beginner
and advanced
entries
for the subject "Wearing of the
green".

* Marie has a
tip
on using the Photoshop Horizon line to keep the photo
straight.

* Krissy's
JLand Photo Shoot entries
for the subject "Photographer's
Choice"

Thanks again for the blogplugs
this week. Don't forget to tag your best entries with
"blogplugs". If you want to be a Guest Editor or have some
interesting (or useful) blogplugs, send your submissions to
JournalsEditor@aol.com and we'll review
them.

~Vish

Tags: blogplugs,
aol
journals

Friday, March 14, 2008

Guest Editor's Picks -- March 14th, 2008

Hi
fellow bloggers, for
those of you who don't know me I'm Yasmin from, Isn't she
great.

My
thanks to Vishy for
the invitation to to "guest" on this journal.

I'm
43 and live in the UK, Colchester to be exact, which is Britain's oldest recorded
town, so quite a lot of history here.

I'm
currently in the throws of a career change, and hope to go into
teaching, this year having already completed the first part of my
course.

I
started blogging
about eighteen months ago, after finding the site on AOL, and began
reading, took me a while then decided to have a go myself, to be honest
what I didn't expect was the warm welcome I received from fellow JLanders, and of course to be
allowed to share in their day to day lives, and the support that is
given to those in need of support. It has been quite difficult to
choose from so many, as everybody contributes in their own way which is
what a community is all about.

So
on to my choices for this week:

1.
Life
on a Bison Farm,- Lisa is a very warm caring lady who along
with her mother runs a Cat rescue and every Tuesday she does a feature
on her many cats, which I always look forward too, Lisa is
also a very talented photographer, her pictures are always amazing so
are some of her films one in particular of the "girls" playing in the
snow, the girls by the way are the
Bison.

2.
On my
mind- Sheria writes very thought provoking posts which
always give me pause to think,with her keen eye for detail, her
observations about life is always an interesting read. Sheria has a keen sense of
humor and writes
about many subjects often including poems, videos, articles from the
news, and is often generous in spirit and compassion to her fellow
man.

3.
Diary of
a Podgy Poof- I don't know Gaz very well but his journal entries always make
me smile, no laugh out loud, and often regales us with events that have
happened in his life, the good and the bad but always with humor, he is getting married
next week to Phil his partner of 26 years, I wish him
well.

4.
Daughters
of the Shadow men- Gerry has been writing her memoirs which
at times make very difficult reading, but she perseveres. Gerry has had
a roller coaster life
in which many things have happened good and bad and I admire her spirit
and putting it all out there for us to read, I always look forward to
the next chapter.

5.
Serendipity-
Jan is such a star, a lovely lady who writes about her life in the
Fens(Cambridgeshire),
although retired is still very active in her community, and I always enjoy her cheery
journal and the unfailing kindness she shows to
others.

6.
My
Extremely Simple life- Joyce is quite new to Jland and I met her through a
group were both members of, a cheery journal about life in Tennessee her two children who
she is incredibly proud of, and her two cats, she is always kind and
interested in others.

So there you
have it , hopefully there is a couple of new journals for you to read
so stop by and say hello.

Take
care

Tags: Guest Editor picks Graphic by SAZZY KREATIONZ

Friday Blogplugs - 3/14

Hey
folks,

It's blogplugging friday!. Pretty busy week
for me, putting out some fires, at work :) Before I begin, I just
wanted to let you all know, that the problems some of you experienced
with the "grayed out" buttons on the Add Entry page should be history.
Many apologies for this inconvenience and thanks for your
patience.

Let's see what we have for
blogplugs.

* Dan writes
a review
of Lost: Ji Yeon (Season 4, Episode 7). He was absolutely floored by
this episode.

* Ken is
happy
to be home after a work related driving trip to Columbus. In
case you have never been to a Mongolian Barbeque, you can get the
lowdown, in this
entry.

* Dana reminds
us that Mar 13th was World Kidney day. Her husband suffers from Chronic
Kidney disease and her entry has lots of info about the
problem.

* Tawnya's
wednesday
hero, is Sgt. Steve Morin
Jr.

* Dorn
describes her pre-senior
changes.

* Donna has
some great pics of winter
in her neck of the
woods.

* Dan's son
Smiley turned 3 years old and they celebrated with a 'Bug' party at his
house. Part 1 of the celebration is here
and Part 2 is here.

* Mary writes
about a job
interview over the phone where in the end, she felt she was
in a "mothers club". A funny
read.

* Sugar has a
special
post for all beloved furrs that have gone on ahead and posts
a reminder
on child/dog
safety!

* Robin takes
her daughters to a concert
and she survived! There is a video and pictures of the
event.

* John's cool
things - part 1, aircraft
and dinosaurs; part deux, Battling
Tops and Jonny Quest.

* Sherry is
counting
down the hours and has some weight loss tips. Her last
post before she checked into the
hospital.

* Mssingmysoldier
invites
you to play the game of "Paying it
forward".

* Jim's
favorite day of the week, Friday, is here, and he plans
to go out. Have
fun!

* Beth has
some very fond
memories of the time she spent with her cousins as a
child.

* John thinks
it is ludicrous to bring charges against a poodle owner for dyeing its
hair pink.

Contests!

* Weekly
sentence with Val. This week's letters were STANAD
and the winners are here.

* Monday morning question
with Krissy - What does your first name mean ?

Lights, Camera and
Action!

*
Marie's AOL
Community Photo Challenge, beginner
and advanced
entries
for the subject "Wearing of the
green".

* Krissy's
JLand Photo Shoot entries
for the subject "Photographer's
Choice"

Tags: blogplugs, aol journals, features, top
picks

Friday, March 7, 2008

Guest Editor's Picks -- March 7th, 2008

Hi
journal friends old and new! I am Val from There is a
Season. I want to thank Vishy from Magic Smoke for
allowing me to be Guest Editor this week! Magic Smoke is a
blog well worth putting on alerts! Again, thanks
Vishy!

Who am I? I am a 42 year-old mom to
a young adult son and daughter and a grandma to two boys. I
live in central PA and love the area! I started blogging four
years ago as an outlet for my pent-up feelings. I have always
kept a paper journal since a young child, and when I saw the "create
journal" icon I was fascinated. I typed a few entries and
began to get comments. I was astounded that anyone wanted to
read MY words. I still am to this day. Now I write
for others as well as myself. I like to share my thoughts on
my disabilities, my passion on mental health awareness, blood donation,
feeding the hungry, domestic violence, taking care of one another,
among other passions. as well as sharing fun, games and joy along the
way! Reading someone's journal is like walking into their
home and sitting at their kitchen table and sharing a moment in
time. I value it.

Now on to my
picks. I thought awhile about who I wanted to
showcase. There are so many good journals out
there!! I decided that I would introduce you all to five
blogs that I have found inspirational as well as educational and
perhaps even life-changing. I hope you enjoy these
picks!!

     *
Tammy from Down
Home has been a true inspiration to me since the day I met
her! Although she isn't always feeling well herself, she
makes sure that others are taken care of! She keeps numerous
journals. In Down Home she shares recipes, facts, her life,
and fun links! She has another special journal that has
brought the disabled together in JLand - As I Am.
They have been able to learn more about their
disabilities and each other's. Tammy has done so much behind
the scenes that she has truly inspired
me!

     * Kellen from
Faith in Roman
Catholicism
is one of the neatest teenagers I have ever met! He has
brought together different Christian faiths in JLand as even
non-Catholics enjoy his blog. He fosters community spirit and
education through his Journal
Tournament. If you have ever played, you have certainly
learned a few facts!! He has shared his journey through
high-school and now college.  Presently,
Kellen is in a musical, Guys and
Dolls, and is really
excited!!

     *
John from too stubborn to
die is, well, too stubborn to die!!! John writes
with poignancy and wit. He is re-telling his experience with
Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, bone cancer and a subsequent bone marrow
transplant. John has just celebrated two years.
Happy Birthday, John!! His experience has inspired others to
donate 274 + pints of blood!! If you would like to know how
to donate in John's name, send me an
email!

     *
Angie from Peyton's
Water shares her life as a mom and a
co-owner of a home business. She is sharing her weight loss
journey with her readers as well as sharing
her desire for others to donate blood.    Angie started and now helps
run The
Giving Tree in JLand.   This is
a journal that mates a need with those who can supply the
need. She also offers a discount in her sidebar for her
readers.

     *
Rosemary from Inspirations is a Life Coach. She says
she hopes people find "comfort, inspiration, hope, and love" in her
blog. She makes inspirational posts as well as gives free
life coaching assignments. A recent one is called
Define
Yourself. Rosemary is filled with wisdom and
love.

I hope you enjoyed my picks this week and were
able to find a new journal or two that just may change you in some
way. Hugs, Val xox

Friday Blogplugs - 3/7

Happy Friday
folks,

A very busy week just went by. Let's see what
we got for
blogplugs..

* Indigo has
started filling up her Christmas
jar! You can do this too, to help someone in greater need
than you.

* Krissy's
very last entry on John's birthday
party.

* Indigo
talks about how patience and love has restored good
relations with her daughter. Good for
you!

* Guido highlights
a Breast Cancer fund raising activity, that Kelly (Kim's sister) is
participating in. He also writes that next week the focus is on
Prostate Cancer.

* Krissy
reports that she has a health
problem (a Pulmonary Nodule). Further tests need to be done
to determine if it is malignant or benign. We hope and pray for the
latter.

Contests!

* Weekly
sentence with Val. This week's letters were APSTMS
and the winners are here .

Lights, Camera and
Action!

*
Marie's AOL
Community Photo Challenge, beginner
and advanced
entries
for the subject "March into
Spring".

* Krissy's
JLand Photo Shoot entries
for the subject "Sights of My
Town"