A while back we asked our readers/listeners what their favorite local blogs were and then announced the top 5 on the show. I’ve been hearing more and more, both on Twitter and in person, “I really want to do a blog, but what would I say and who would read it? I don’t think I have a lot to say!”
Well, I think sometimes we all think that. “Who would want to read my stuff?”, “What DO I have to say?” That’s the beauty of the blog you see, you can say anything you want. Tell enough friends and other like minded individuals what you are doing and people will want to know what’s going on with your bad self!
I wanted to take a few minutes to share my favorite personal blogs and why I love them. All of these mentioned below are local and I usually check to see if there are new posts 1-3 times a week. I’ve been inspired by these blogs on so many levels and hope you will too. In no particular order they are as follows:
Cami Kaos: www.camikaos.com
Podcaster and blogger, Cami Kaos is one of my favorites because she’s honest and heartfelt in her writing. I’ve read posts that have had me busting up, pondering my “youth”, and others that have totally made me cry. A complete stranger to me when I first found her blog earlier this year, she made it seem like she was pulling back the curtain a little more into the life of someone that I respected and could totally relate to. If you want to know why people blog, she hits the nail on the head in this post, which I have to say, inspired me to write this.
Mile 73: www.mile73.com
The writer of the Mile 73 blog, Heather, has got to be my sister from another mother, I swear. I’ve been reading her blog for about a year or so now and each post just gets me every time. Each post has something I can relate to, something that I say, sometimes out loud, “OMG! That’s so me!” She’s got a crazy bastard of a cat…yeah I have one too, she only eats leftover pasta, yup! me too! She bitches about the people that walk for a stroll, dammit, that was my experience yesterday! I feel an automatic connection with this person and her stories. The experiences that she writes about have an awesome visual presence to them that, even though I’ve yet to meet Heather, I can totally picture her doing things like, locking herself out of her apartment. Plus she’s got some awesome links to other blogs on her site, she writes about food experiences, vacations complete with photos and she’s got a category called, I’m a Jackass! What’s not to love about Mile 73?
Mountain Girl Silver Blog: www.mountaingirlsilver.com
Mountain Girl Silver is a personalized silver jewelry company in Oregon, run by Erika Martenson. Out of all the blogs I read, this one is really the only one that I can think of that is local, personal and is attached to a business. Aside from the fact that I love her products, Erika’s blog is one that I check out about once a week and totally get a kick out of. She writes about her personal life, what it’s like to run a business out of her home with two children, and writes about her clients. Her stories are honest, heartfelt, thoughtful, and revolve a lot around her family and her kids. I like reading her blog because I find it rare that people can combine their business and their personal life together as well as Erika can in her writing. It’s usually either one or the other. I love it when she gets inspired as a business owner to actually write about the experiences and inspiration that her clients get from ordering her products. It’s a wonderful combination.
Our PDX: www.ourpdx.com
I love this blog. I love that it’s this diverse culmination of people writing for it. I love that no matter who writes a post on it, I read it. I don’t skip over anything on this site. I love that the blog covers a wide variety of events, sports, and media in the Portland area…but with a personal twist. I’m not a huge sports (basketball) fan, but I know that can rely on Radio Gretchen to get me to care about the Blazers, and I really enjoy reading Betsy’s perspectives on local issues and find myself nodding my head in agreement. I can always rely on them to post a story on whatever hot topics are going on in the city of Portland. In fact, I read about the recent water, e-coli issue from Betsy as I wasn’t getting anything useful from the water site itself! Their about page says it all, “Can’t people subscribe to the local blogs they want to, creating their own personal patchwork quilt of voices?” Yes, yes they can…..and I do.
Stephanie Stricklen: KGW News
I’ve been reading Stephanie’s blog for quite a few months now. I usually visit it every couple weeks to see what might be new in the world of Stephanie, her experiences with being a new mom and balancing her work on KGW. I love reading her blogs because first of all, I think it’s really great that her work supports her writing and that she’s able to do it on the stations site. Second of all I love reading it because she’s been really great about sharing her journey of being a news person, a pregnant mom to be, to a mommy, going through her heartache with her in having to leave baby Elle when she went back to work. It’s been a process for her and she wanted to share it with others that cared. One of the other reason I love it, it’s like a mini, what to expect when you are expecting, when you have a baby and what you can expect afterwards. I love the humor in her posts along with the very ‘real’ aspects of having a baby, including catching puke. Love it.
There are a lot of other blogs that I read to get the latest happenings in our city, these just happen to be a bit more on the personal side. If you have others that I should be checking out, let me know!
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Aw, I wuv you. Thanks so much for the props. Glad to hear I’m not alone in my crazy nuttiness. Also, update: Bastard cat now has zits on his chin. Awesome!
Interesting list of local bloggers. I’m glad I found this post…that’s a few potential interviews for my site right there! Haha!
Wow, sort of a feminine list there. With the exception of OurPDX, every one of these is written by a female. That’s kinda cool… But was it intentional? Just curious.
It wasn’t intentional when I started putting the post together. Didn’t occur to me until after I had done a final proof read on it that they were almost all female bloggers.
I also read:
http://www.lizzydishes.com
http://www.kptv.com/joev/index.html (Joe V. from KPTV)
http://www.expurgate.nu/weblog/ (Sam Storicks aka @mixmutt on Twitter)
http://kristenbowie.com
Thanks Sabrina. I may have blushed or something.
This gives me new stuff to check out, excellent!
We’re in amongst some pretty impressive company there…!
Thanks so much for including OurPDX in your list of favorites. And that’s even *before* I gift you with that long-promised bottle of wine, no less.
(making note to self: upgrade wine to better grade…)
Thank you, dear lady!! That’s nice to get included among those other rockstars. I really appreciate it and I’m glad you like what I write.
Awwwwwwwwww shucks. Thanks!!