Spam Comments Are The Best

That might sound a little weird, I know, but spam comments are always one of three things: weird, hilarious, or ridiculously complimentary. All of them have a purpose, and provide a chuckle or an ego boost. Some of them don't always seem like spam comments, but they always end with the tell-tale "Also visit my weblog/my website/my homepage: random link that makes no sense"/. Here are a few of my favorites that I've received (all are written as they appeared in the spam comments -- grammar/spelling is not my own):

"Hi there! Do you use Twitter? I'd like to follow you if that would be ok. I'm undoubtedly enjoying your blog and look forward to new posts."

"I like the valuable information you provide for your articles.
I will bookmark your blog and check once more here regularly.
I am reasonably certain I'll be told many new stuff proper right here! Best of luck for the following!"

"I like what you guys are up too. This sort of clever work and exposure! Keep up the awesome works guys I've added you to my blogroll."

"Thanks a bunch for sharing this with all people you really realize what you're talking approximately! Bookmarked."

"Hi dear, are you really visiting this webpage regularly, if so then you will definitely take nice knowledge."

"Its such as you read my mind! You appear to grasp a lot about this, like you wrote the ebook in it or something. I feel that you could do with a few % to power the message house a bit, but instead of that, this is a wonderful blog. A great read. I will definitely be back."

"Aw, this was a really good post. Taking the time and actual effort to produce a superb article...but what can I say...I put things off a whole lot and never manage to get anything done."

"Great beat! I would like to apprentice while you amend your web site, how could I subscribe for a blog site? The account helped me a acceptable deal. I had been tiny bit acquainted of this your broadcast offered bright clear idea." (and then I received the same comment, but "great" was changed to "fantastic", and "bright clear" was changed to "vivid transparent").

"Excellent post. I was checking continuously this blog and I'm inspired! Very useful info specifically the closing section :) I take care of such information much. I was looking for this certain information for a very long time. Thank you and best of luck."

"My partner and I absolutely love your blog and find almost all of your post's to be just what I'm looking for. Can you offer guest writers to write content in your case?  I wouldn't mind producing a post or elaborating on a lot of the subjects you write concerning here. Again, awesome site!"

"Greetings from Ohio! I'm bored to death at work so I decided to check out your blog on my iphone during lunch break. I love the knowledge you present here and can't wait to take a look when I get home. I'm amazed at how quick your blog loaded on my cell phone .. I'm not even using WIFI, just 3G .. Anyways, awesome blog!"

"I don't even know how I ended up here, but I thought this post was good. I do not know who you are but certainly you're going to be a famous blogger if you aren't already ;) Cheers!"

Do you have any memorable spam comments?

WW: It's Just So Dreamy

Yesterday was my birthday, and my WW post was going to be pictures from my trip to the zoo. Except we had to postpone the zoo trip. Instead, my husband and I went to Home Depot and he walked around with me and didn't complain the entire time (trust me, that's a gift itself -- he hates Home Depot). I saw this stove and fell in love -- beautiful burners just waiting for some gas, a DOUBLE OVEN (which I've been obsessed with since the first time I saw The Brady Bunch, AND it has a built-in griddle in the middle, which is amazing. I love griddles. I had originally meant to Instagram this, but it wasn't showing up in my pictures for some reason.

Got a Wordless Wednesday post? Link up!

Happy 2nd Birthday, Good Girl Gone Wife!

You may remember last year's blogiversary post where I gave some stats and answered some questions, and I'm doing the same thing this year, but with a twist -- this year, I'm answering all of your questions via vlog! It's a little (okay, maybe a lot) long, but I wanted to make sure I answered all of your questions!

But first, some stats!

Number of posts: 325 (up from 108 a year ago, which means I've written 217 posts in the past year)

Number of comments: 1334 (up from 72! So in the past year, I've gotten 1262 comments -- you guys ROCK!)

Number of hits: 86,373 (up from 9,230; I knew the blog had grown, but I didn't realize it had grown that exponentially!)

Most popular post: Wordless Wednesday -- What I Did At Work

Number of hits: 8087 (for perspective, my most popular post a year ago had 296 hits)

Most-searched term that leads to my site: "project runway logo" ("eShakti reviews" is a close second)

Biggest readership outside of the U.S.: China (Ni Hao!)

I'm really gobsmacked by how much these numbers have changed from a year ago! I knew there was a substantial difference over the past two years, but I didn't realize the blog had grown that much just over the past year! And I owe it all to you! Thank you so much for being a Good Girl Gone Wife reader, and actually reading the crazy things that come out of my brain!

But now, on to the answers to your questions! I'll admit that I tend to get a bit sidetracked, so try not to be too weirded out when I go off on tangents about how my sister thinks I talk or that my husband and I won't be making a sex tape (because yeah, that kind of gets brought up. I'm weird like that).


Again, THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! None of this would be possible without YOU!

Lazy Sunday #10 -- Blogiversary Edition

Welcome to Lazy Sunday, a no-rules social media hop! Link up your blog and social media links, and you might be featured next week! Today is a special Lazy Sunday, because it's my blogiversary!

This week's featured blog is Craft Cravings! Head on over and see what Heather's been up to lately!

Facebook | Twitter| Pinterest | Google+

Link up, mingle, and have fun!

When I Grow Up, I Wanna Be Famous

Since this is obviously in your head now. You're welcome.

When I was little, that was my main goal in life. Mostly, I wanted to be an actress (I had it  all planned out -- I'd act on both film and stage, then win a Tony for portraying Dorothy in a stage adaptation of The Wizard of Oz), but more than anything, I wanted to be famous. And I didn't care how it happened, provided that it was a good kind of famous (you know, like Marie Curie famous, not Monica Lewinsky famous).

As I got older, the less I cared about being famous. I figured I'd never be able to cut it as an actress, because I just didn't look the part. I turned my eyes toward more practical career paths and left my lust for fame behind me. It was years before the thought of being famous ever crossed my mind again.

It was after I started blogging.

If you blog or read blogs (heck, even if you don't), you know there are some HUGE bloggers out there. Bloggers that get book deals, national morning show appearances, and use their blog as their main source of income. They've achieved a newer kind of fame -- being blog famous. There are other, less successful blog famous blogs of course; they don't have a book deal, but a lot of bloggers know who they are, and they're raking in the benjamins.

I didn't realize this when I first started blogging. But the more I started branching out and reading other blogs, the more I became aware of what it meant to be blog famous. And the more it started to sound appealing. For awhile, I thought I might try to become blog famous.

I started tying to model my blog's appearance after more successful blogs that I admired. I tried forcing myself into a niche, because I was told it would help make my blog more successful (and I absolutely loathed it, and I'm really glad I dropped it like it was hot). I spent hours reading articles I had Googled about how to make my blog more successful. I even joined one of those humongous giveaways where I didn't have to pay anything and just sent in social media links (a move that now makes me feel like a bit of a sell out). And yeah, my blog grew (and my social media followers grew quite a bit), but not by much. 

I read a few other blogs similar in size to mine, and a few of them seemed to explode overnight. It seemed like this had happened because they sucked up to bigger bloggers, or paid a lot of money for ad space on a major blog. It's like a group of them just decided to stick their heads up each others butts. And it's working for them.

But that's not something I'm interested in doing.

If I become blog famous someday, awesome. But if it happens, it's not going to be because I paid for it (whether with money, flattery, bribery, or integrity). It's going to be because people genuinely like what I have to say. But being blog famous? It's not important. And it's not something I'm willing to compromise myself for anymore.

 Like me? Awesome.

 Don't? Whatever.

Either way, I'm okay.

I'm me.

I have my own place to discuss my thoughts, and I have my integrity.

And I have my Psych gifs :)

(Not So) WW: A Haitian Throwback

***There are four days left to get your blogiversary questions in! Ask me anything!***

I love to travel, though I haven't been able to do it much, and lately the bug has been stronger than usual. To placate it, I've been looking through pictures from my 2009 trip to Haiti (pre-earthquake), and I thought I'd share some with you :)

I went as part of a missions team with my church, and we stayed in a mission compound  in a tiny village called La Digue that contained a house, school, and church, as well as other buildings.

This was the view from the porch of the mission house.  The building on the left had been turned into a sewing workshop. They taught the village women to use sewing machines, taught them how to sew simple bags (which they have available for sale), and pay them wages to help support their families (though where we were, bartering was quite common, but there were larger towns farther away where they could purchase items and services).

Everyone in the village had a goat, and everyone knew which goat belonged to which person. They would often sneak onto the compound to hang out and eat (and get chased by my friend Seth, who desperately wanted to touch one -- and failed).

 This is the mission church, located next to the mission house/school. The villagers brought rocks until they had enough to build it, and everyone built it together :)

One night in the middle of our stay, one of the women from the village came and cooked us a Haitian meal. I don't remember every item on the menu, but we had chicken Creole, goat Creole, a beet salad, fresh mangoes and bananas, and fried plantains. I absolutely LOVED the plantains, and tried the goat (it was good, but I felt weird about eating a goat, so I just had a couple of bites). The fruit there tastes so much better than it does here. The bananas were like velvet, and the mangoes were sweeter and juicier than any I'd ever had here in the USA. I actually don't eat bananas nearly as often as I used to, because it makes me sad that they don't taste as good.

The mission house occupied the top floor of the main building, and the bottom floor was a primary school. School wasn't in session when we were there though.

There were turkeys running around everywhere too :)

The mission delivers "love bundles" (bags with toiletries, toys, and peanut butter) to neighboring villages, and one day we went and delivered some. This was my first non-aerial view of the ocean, from a small mountain village.

Another day, we walked to a nearby village called Barbancourt, where we helped serve lunch to the local children and spent time coloring and talking with them (some of the children do speak English, because it's taught in at least some of the schools at a certain age). It took about an hour, but we got to see some cool things. We trekked through a banana/fig/plantain field, and hiked through a gorge and stream.

On our last full day, the missionaries took us to Wahoo Bay Beach resort for a day of fun and relaxation. It was also the first time I went in the ocean (and boy, it was hard to get me out!), and the first time I went snorkeling. I had a blast, and I can't wait to get back to the ocean!

Got a Wordless (or less than wordless) Wednesday post? Link it up!

Mental Health Isn't A Joke

A friend of mine posted on Facebook earlier today that he needed to find a way to see a therapist, because he was upset with himself and that he couldn't "keep living this way". I didn't ask for specifics (we're not that close), but recommended a local counseling center that operates on a sliding fee scale, which he seemed to appreciate. Two other people had commented before I had.

The first comment said that the gym is cheaper than a therapist (this might be true sometimes, but not always). But he already goes to the gym almost daily. He doesn't need to find a gym. He flat-out said he wanted to go to therapy. To me, it just seemed like the first commenter wasn't taking him seriously.

The second commenter, in an attempt to lighten the mood, quoted that old SNL sketch where Sean Connery is on Jeopardy and sees the category "Therapists" and says he'll take "The Rapists" for $200. I get that he was just just trying to be funny and cheer him up. I get that. But it doesn't make me any less irritated.

Maybe you think I'm getting too upset about this, but I don't. I think more people need to be more upset about people not taking mental health seriously. I dealt with mental health issues for pretty much my entire adolescence, and I have several loved ones who have struggled with mental health issues as well (they actually run pretty rampant through my mother's side), so this is an issue very dear to me. If someone is asking for help, it's because they want help; they don't want jokes, they don't want to be belittled...they want HELP.

We live in a society that attaches a stigma to mental health issues, so when someone has one, they are often hesitant to ask for help. They don't want to look weak, or out of control, or "crazy". They're willing to be falling apart inside while they put up a front to maintain appearances. And some people are awfully good at it.

So when someone takes the brave step to ask for help, WE NEED TO HELP THEM. We need to offer our support. If you don't have the necessary resources, recommend someone who does. A Google search can work wonders.

There's more that you can do though. Mental health care needs to become more accessible so that more people can get the care they need. You can help make this happen by writing your Congressmen. If mental health issues have directly affected you, I encourage you to share your story with others. The more we talk about mental health issues, the more people will realize that mental health issues aren't something to be embarrassed about, and that might embolden them to seek help when they need it.

When I was in elementary school, the insult of choice was "Go to Charter" (Charter was a mental/behavioral health center in the area). Every time I think about that, I'm embarrassed. Yes, I was a child, and I didn't exactly know better, but it just shows that the stigma attached to mental illness can be learned at a very young age. It's my hope that by the time I have kids, they won't grow up in a culture that still feels that way. I know it seems improbable, but together, we can work toward making it a reality.