Everything I Like Causes Cancer

Stroll around the Internets these days and you can't help but trip over NaBloPoMo tags, discussions, and (already?!?) complaints. For those of you who spend your free time outside, NaBloPoMo stands for National Blog Posting Month. By joining the NaBloPoMo challenge, bloggers agree to post once a day every day in November. I joined said challenge.

But I didn't feel challenged by it. I already, on average, post more than once a day. And it would be easy to stockpile for slow days.* Where's the challenge in that? More than that, it feels like cheating.

So, I decided that I had to come up with a way to make the posts more challenging to write. After much deliberation, clamoring for a muse, and navel gazing, I found it: November's posts will have song lyrics for titles. And the lyrics will relate to the content of the post.

Now, I've hatched, and even executed, some outlandish plans in my day, but I really did give some serious thought to this one. I'm mostly daunted by the pace at which I am going to have to concoct these things. But, no matter. I'm dedicated to the idea. I've even devised a plan for holding my own feet to the fire: a weekly contest tied to the song lyric post titles. This will likely end up being the sole driving force behind my personal NaBloPoMo. (I like talking about it like it's a quest. A vision quest.)

Here's how it's going to work:

1. The contest weeks will run from Sunday at 12:01 am to Saturday at 11:59 pm.
2. Since the first week of November only has three days in it, the contest will start Sunday, November 4.
3. The last week of the contest will include Saturday, December 1.
4. The title of one post per day from November 4 - December 1 will be a song lyric.
5. The song lyric will relate to the content of the post.
6. I may post more than once a day so the official contest post will have the words "Contest Post" in the title, but they will be well set-off from the clue.
7. To enter the contest, leave your answer - the name of the song that includes the lyric post title and the name of the artist who recorded the song - in the comment section of each post. Comments are date and time stamped.
8. Any entries received after midnight on Saturday will not be accepted.
9. You must consistently use the same identity when posting your answers.
10. The winner will be announced each Monday morning, starting Monday, November 12.
11. The weekly prize is a compilation CD of the songs used in the contest throughout the month.**
12. Each week's winner will be placed into a random drawing for a grand prize - a $50 gift certificate to Bridgeview Stained Glass.
13. The grand prize winner will be announced Monday, December 3.

Put your seatbelts on. This one should be good.

*Perhaps this says something about the quality of my posts, but I'm opting to ignore the implication and move forward.
**The compilation CDs will not be mailed until after December 3.

I went to my parent's house today and in exchange for this fried chicken Sunday dinner . . .

. . . I showed my mom how to run her blog, Bridgeview Stained Glass.

Which is really something considering she didn't even know what one was until I started this one in July. And even then I think she faked understanding for a couple more weeks. But today? She was excited and did it all by herself - she even slapped my hand once when I tried to grab the mouse.

I left her with lots of material to post so in the next few days we should start to see new pieces show up - and maybe even a few words about them.

I had a ball helping her create a place on the Internets that she can use to share her art with you . . . and maybe you'll see something you simply can't live without. Go check her out. C'mon. I'd check your mom out.

This is another beautiful piece my mom made.

I'm keeping it next to the new chair I bought on Saturday when she and I went treasure hunting.

Seeing these pictures has convinced me I need to cover that table. It's just too much brown. And a rug; the foyer needs a rug. And an ottoman would be nice.

Damn bargain chairs never really are.

A few years back my mom was looking for a hobby so took a class on how to make stained glass. It was in this class that she discovered her creativity. This is a lamp she made for my step-sister:


This is an original piece (her own design) and is made with a slice of geode:



And these are a few more - the cat is called Cheeky Tom and was patterened after Skylar (look close at his right cheek and you'll see Sky's beauty mark) - and the dragon/bird piece is an original glass-on-glass mosaic design of the locally legendary Piasa Bird:

As you can see her talent is exceptional. So good, in fact, she was recently invited to the exclusive Autumn Market in Elsah, IL. This is from the flyer: