4. I only water my pants when the roots get good and dry.
5. We need to make a list of misspelled words! Yes, there’s a post idea. Let’s tart one up, shall we??
6. Thank you. I’m duly fattered by your compliment.
7. I’m one friend who will never dessert you. [I'm Haagen the Dazs all to myself!]
Photo credit: Haagen Dazs, UK
8. In Nova Scotia she’ll have plenty of chances to wear hats, mitts, parkas and snot boots
9. I have to say I find all your blog pox of good quality.
10. Funny how we ALL struggle with thoughts of worrying what to write, but those are usually the times sour writing wells are re-filling.
11. Just thrilled to hear you really like my blog even tho I know some of my pots are better than others.
(No, this is not MY garden! Nor anyone’s garden that I personally know of. I found the pic on a stranger’s blog.)
12. Since she’s only ever been in private school, she’s yet to ride the cool bus.
13. Waitressing is a hard jog I think.
14. He will be missed. A lot of people considered him a great roll model.
Photo Credit: Edible Memories
15. We did a buttocks routing to that song at Jazzercise.
16. It was not always easy to read “The Unbeakable Child.”
17. Tho blogging can be tie-consuming, it’s a real joy.
Photo: Fotosearch
18. I never know what’ll pop up next in my keyworld searches.
19. When I get my first “Like A Bord On A Wire” tome published one day, will you come to my book singing?
20. Yes, among some potato farmers in Bulgaria my blog is just blazing off the carts.
The Czar?King? President? – yah, the President (that’s him!) of Bulgaria, one of this blog’s many lurkers, is flying us and a bunch of our friends over there for camping this weekend! In his private post-Concorde era Mach17 jet! Yay — camping in Bulgaria! What a dream come true!!!!
Kelly and her pals are so excited about the much-touted flaming marshmallow toss, the trampling of the moldy tomatoes and pin-the-cat on the blind-folded wild donkey.
And we big kids can’t wait for “the beer dunk,” whatever that is — but it sounds great.
(Whoops, for those of you who may have missed my blog’s first birthday celebration post a few days ago, JannieFunster.com is getting super-duper popular in Bulgaria. Huge huge fans over there.
And of course President Georgi* (Or Parvi, as he likes me to call him,) though far too shy to leave blog comments, e-mails me like, TEN times a day. And sends jokes. And pictures, like this one from yesterday…
That Parvi! Always up for a little humor break from his busy political day.
Anyway, gotta be at the airport in a little over an hour, rushing soon to pick Kelly up from school. Just wanted to give you the heads-up that I’ll be away from computer until Sunday, maybe Monday if I’m jet-lagged. Possibly even Tuesday, depending on how that whole Mach17 after-effect thing goes.
No Internet for me in the woods of Bulgaria, boo hoo — Parvi condones only wilderness-style camping. He writes “Miss Foonster — NO komputer on kamping! NO eye-phone! NO plastik forke! NO wirings in your upper undergarment!”
Unfortunately, they do have a 7-child hammock limit in Bulgaria, but I’m sure Kelly and her pals will make do just fine.
And off I go! The Mach17 awaits.
xo
* The President of Bulgaria is not to be confused with their Prime Minister, who also exists. Educational here at Funsterland, huh?! Who knew?
Yesterday Blue Bunny blurted out at our Funster Inc. monthly Blog Strategy board meeting, “my jannie, you blogg is growed. i clikked you Alexxa weedgit todae and you is so bucktotts kikking!”
And he’s (she’s?) right!
In the stunning chart revelation above you will note my bumpy, yet overall somewhat steady lurch towards expanded web presence. (That tallest spike was for this post that got thousands of Stumbles.)
Whoo-hoo!
(Yes, Alexa shows this site existing prior to Sept 22nd 2008, reflecting my old comment-less blog, but that saga era is so water under the pre-Wordpress bridge for me.)
Birthday-Birthday! It’s my special day!!
And holey kadiddlehopper, my Alexa stats show that these past 3 months I’ve lured an average of 0.0004% daily internet users here. I know, I know — a real mind-bender of my sheer global reach.
And did you know I’m really getting popular in Romania among the beer and donut set, especially the bra flinging beer and donut set? Yep! I’m totally, like — the 69,417th most popular site over there! And Bulgaria – don’t EVEN get me started on Bulgaria, I’m trying to remain just a tad humble here.
But, seriously…
It’s been one AWESOME year. THANK YOU ALL SOOOO MUCH!!!!!
If I were to single out every one of you for kudos on the ways you’ve inspired, bolstered and generally buffeted buffered me against the storms of life in just one year, this post might never end. Suffice it to say, YOU are the reason for my blogging season. In fact, there is so much joy in my heart for all of you, I might just spontaneously explode into a combustion of glazed donuts all over this genuine refurbished Dell 8200.
And the best blogging is yet to come, of course.
Always the best of everything yet to come in life!
Anyhoo…
As I enter my second year of blogging (whoo-hoo!) I ask you three burning questions…
Any blogging advice for me?
Anything you’d like to see more (or less) of at Funstertown?
Any rhubarb recipes or rhubarb life-experiences to share?
Friends, I started to categorize these into Butts, Bras, Typos, Miscellaneous and Just Plain WTH? but it seemed so many could be considered just plain WTH? so in random order I give you… phrases people typed last month to land themselves in Funstertown.
– body cast tickling
– blue things you might see at a lake
– I’m 54 and I can’t find a good bra
– naughty sprites
– hipwaders for short round people
– jannie whopper
– are fruity rolls bad for dogs
– women chocolate tussle
– singing donuts
– is it okay to run in sports bra with slightly flabby belly
– trio of french funsters
– poem about missing someone who has dyed
photo credit: How Stuff Works
– how to hold a ukulele breast
– barbie cotillion crochet bra
– neighbor shows chest wearing loose shirt and short shorts
– lurker in texas lost pines
– humorous poems plus square dancing
– “she’s a very cheeky girl” song
– chainsaw man voice
– tiny tim donuts ingredients
– high school boys and jock straps
– If things were my way I’d put a condom on your heart
– shirley temple girdle
– how to take care of hip weighters
– how to behave in a restaurant [NOT!]
– retro fat butts pics
– retro hairdues
– what bra is good for sagging boobs
– fluffy fuzzy monster boots
– what is the name of song that goes whoo whoo whee whoo
– tilt of the kilt
– what does it mean if you have two voices in your head
– lolly pop cadence
– hell yes i’m crasy
– man girdle pictures
– bra connection wedgie videos
– who is the hootiest cutiest boy
– where to look for missing donuts
If I were brave I’d tell you something deeply secret about me. But I’m a total wimp, so let’s get on with a book review, shall we – a book by someone who actually IS brave in a real way, Kimmi Rich.
I liked Kimmi’s writing style so much over at her Writer In Waiting blog that I ordered her The Unbreakable Child, recently released on Kunati’s “Provocative, Bold, Controversial” label — a book the September issue of Writer’s Digest Magazine cites as “a wonderful model of how to craft a hopeful ending,” an assessment I second, third and fourth!
It was far from an easy book to read, but you can bet it was ten thousand times harder to write. From the second paragraph her story broke my heart with accounts of unspeakable abuses and neglect that she, her three sisters and countless other children suffered at the hands of Catholic nuns and a priest at an orphanage near Louisville, Kentucky in the 1960s. Kimmi entered their so-called sisterly “care” when she was three and finally escaped their clutches nine years later.
“Look out, Kid. They keep it all hid.” — Bob Dylan
Unspeakable. Yet she spoke. Spoke up for justice and for the ones who could not speak — the class action lawsuit she initiated the first in the United States to result in a monetary settlement from a Roman Catholic order of nuns, 45 victims in all.
It was Kimmi’s spirit and beautiful writing that kept me reading. Her sheer will and resilience in the face of horrors. Yes, even with humor sometimes. Unbreakable spirit. Her joy at simple blessings such as the gift of a bracelet from a kind soul — her one possession in nine years, a bracelet she managed to keep hidden from the nuns and still wears to this day. Small triumphs such as the honor of having a piece of her school artwork displayed for a few hours before a nun destroyed it. A possible once-yearly day trip somewhere. Getting to feed a dog, albeit not the friendliest dog in the world, while it’s alcoholic nun owner went to “dry out.”
Kimmi is the unbreakable child who finally ended up with the forever family she longed for and deserved — her loving husband and children. She volunteers for Habitat For Humanity and at a homeless shelter. She helps kids learn to read and write. She signs hundreds of copies of The Unbreakable Child at her book signings. She listens to “Swinging On a Star” on her iPod.
Why do some people rise above childhood atrocities to lead wonderful productive lives and bring their own children up not only without abuse, but allow them to flourish, while others who’ve faced the same abuses crash and burn? Spirit? Courage? Luck? Love? Forgiveness?
