Do you have an RSS reader? Before I started reading blogs, and then started blogging myself, I had no idea what an RSS reader was. I knew it was something that super computer-tech-savvy people used, and I was familiar with that little icon:

But the more I started reading blogs, and saw the little icon, and especially after I found a blog or two that I wanted to read as soon as a new entry was posted, I decided to find out more about this RSS thing. Then, when I signed up for my Google homepage, and found out about Google Reader, I signed up.
So, basically, what a reader does (and there's a whole bunch available, just look up "RSS Reader"), is compiles all of the new blogs posts from every blog that you subscribe to, and keeps them all in one spot, so you don't have to go all over the place, trying to keep up with everything. It's kind of like email - you can even have a subscription sent to your email inbox. But I get enough email already, so I choose to look at my reader on my homepage.
Here is a picture of my iGoogle homepage:

I have my Art of the Day widget, my Google Reader widget, my Mad Men quote of the day (don't even get me started on Mad Men), and a couple of other things, maps, links to other Google services like Blogger and such, and on my other iGoogle page, I have a widget for a new Calvin & Hobbes comic a day (even though they're old). I love Calvin & Hobbes. Watterson just GETS how some kids' minds work. Probably because he was that kind of kid. Me too.
Anywho, here is a picture of my Google Reader widget:

One of the first blogs I started reading is from a lady in Oklahoma who just happens to be The Queen of All Bloggers, The Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond. I like Ree's blog for a number of reasons:

• She's very candid, and unassuming, and her humor comes out well in her writing.
• I love to cook, and she has FANTASTIC recipes. Warning: They are mostly laced with butter and bacon fat (but that's what makes them so good).
• Beautiful photography. She also hosts photo contests, and the entries from her readers are just amazing.
• Free giveaways - which incidentally, she funds herself as a thanks for making her blog so successful. I like that. And she gives away nice stuff - ipads, cameras, Fiestaware, Kitchen Aid stand mixers. Yeah.

But here's what I DON'T like about her blog:

• She's an overachiever. Every time I log on to my homepage and see my reader, it's FULL of PW (Pioneer Woman) posts. She must blog ten times a day. P-dub, I love ya and all, but I don't need an update every fifteen minutes. 

But the other drawback to seeing someone else being so prolific - and this is the real crux of the situation here - is that it makes me feel

• GUILT for only blogging one post every couple of weeks. I've never been an overachiever. Not really an underachiever, either, but just kind of pokey. 

I'm also one of those people who decides she needs to do EVERYTHING, so I have a lot to do, and so some things get done not as often as others. So if you only hear from me every so often, it's not because I don't love you (And believe me, I do love you, my one subscriber out there in the ether, whoever you are), it's because I'm doing one or more of the following:

• working
• cooking (and I'm planning on sharing some recipes here soon)
• feeding: kids, husband, horses, dogs, cat or bird
• laundry, my arch-nemesis 
• cleaning
• grocery shopping
• watching Mad Men
• writing
• attending a writer's critique group or function
• reading a book (just finished Mockingjay)
• or reading someone else's blog.

On that last note, I have to give a shout-out to my fellow SCBWI writer-friend, Amy Fellner-Dominy, on her latest blog post. Her first book, which has been bought and is in the stages of production a book must go through before it hits the shelves, just received its cover:

Congratulations, Amy!
Make sure you look for OyMG in spring of 2011.