So one of the neat things about having a blog is that people send me products to try in the hopes that I will like whatever they send and then tell the interweb all about it.

Typically this process works really well if I, you know, follow through and actually review the product.

But unfortunately what tends to happen is that I get a product and I like it okay, but I don’t love it or think other people will necessarily need it, and the review gets pushed way down my to-do list and before you know it I’ve forgotten about the whole thing.

Which is why I’ve never discussed the fancy baby monitor that never really worked very well because the portable receiver unit wouldn’t hold a charge. And if you’ve ever had a child, you know that the receiver is really the most critical part of the baby monitor operation what with it enabling you to hear the baby and all.

Some nice people also sent me a Swiffer Carpet Flicker cleaning device thing-y. And it worked fine, but not really as well as I needed it to since I have a preschooler running around, so I felt guilty that I didn’t like it (especially since I am a HUGE fan of the original Swiffer) and gave it to my mama. As it turns out, the Carpet Flicker works quite well for a couple of retired empty nesters with a low-pile Berber, so all’s well that ends well.

And then there was the British mama-lit book that I wanted to love and adore and recommend to everyone…but the protagonist got on my nerves with her non-existent backbone and misguided paranoia (a little harsh, perhaps, but that’s how I felt). And while I did relate to her postpartum lack-o-fitness, I could not get on board with her superficiality and her belief that wearing the right clothes would make all of her emotional baggage disappear. Of course she came to her senses by the end of the novel, but by that point I was still ticked off at her for falling for her yoga instructor because how could she not see the game he was playing from a mile away, especially when she had a perfectly wonderful man at home?

HAVE MERCY.

So needless to say, I think I’m going to have to be very clear with marketers from now on that I won’t mention the product they’re promoting unless I really, really like it. Because the fact of the matter is that the Southern girl in me does not like to say negative things about specific products unless it is something that I’ve paid for (like, for instance, OUR CABLE SERVICE).

However, recently I received a product that I have really enjoyed: the Dove SkinVitalizer.

I have tried just about every exfoliating / cleansing product that you can buy on the Walmart health and beauty aisle, and this one is the best, hands-down.

Using this product is so easy. The cleansing pillows are disposable, so you don’t even have to clean up afterwards…just toss the little pillow in the trash, and you’re all done (please don’t lecture me, environmentalists – I am just a girl who wants pretty skin, and occasionally the pursuit of pretty skin requires that you use a two inch by two inch piece of cotton that cannot be recycled, for which I am deeply sorry).

This product is also great for traveling because you don’t have to worry about bottles of cleanser leaking into your make-up bag or luggage. The absolute best thing about it is that the cleanser is so gentle and mild that it won’t irritate your skin at all (trust me, as I am the girl with skin so sensitive that it breaks out if I use cinnamon-flavored toothpaste), and the cleansing pillow also exfoliates as it cleans.

In short, I’m a fan. And if you’d like to try this product for yourself, you can get a coupon for $3 off here.

And tomorrow I’ve got an extra-special surprise for y’all…because somebody sent me extra free stuff to share with some of you!

Oh it’s all terribly exciting.

See y’all tomorrow.

So now that we’ve officially established that it’s not at all necessary to ask someone’s permission before linking to her blog, I’m going to LINK WITH ABANDON, oh yes ma’am I am.

And I believe I’ll start with some teacher-people. Just because.

First, check out two of my new favorite college professors, even though I’ve never, you know, actually been in their classrooms: Mental Tesserae and Bub and Pie.

Both of these women are eloquent, intelligent and thought-provoking. Sometimes they use adjectives with which I’m not entirely familiar, but that’s okay because I have a dictionary widget on my desktop and I LOVE TO LEARN, PEOPLE. Be sure to check out their blogrolls, too – you’ll find some great blogs that you might not have known about before.

And then there’s my friend Lori over at Rattling Around. Lori is a former chemistry teacher (now homeschooling her three children) who writes beautifully and always manages to challenge the thinking side of my personality. She is thoughtful in every sense of the word, and I absolutely love her heart. You will, too.

Enjoy, y’all.

It is a list! And it is practical!

1. I am getting slammed by spam, and I’m not talking about the lunchmeat-type product you find on aisle five. Since I switched to WordPress I’ve gotten almost 40,000 pieces of comment / trackback spam, and while I do have a plug-in that catches most of it, the comments that are seeping through the filter are increasingly vile. Today I got a spam comment with a subject line so horrible that I wanted to take a shower after I saw it, and I decided that I HAVE HAD ENOUGH.

So I’m going to go back through every. single. post. and close comments and trackbacks. It’s going to take me a sweet forever, and I have no idea if those posts will re-publish in Bloglines (or other feedreaders) or not. If they do, I apologize in advance, because I know it won’t be much fun for y’all to see hundreds of old posts popping up again. But I have to do something…I’m sick of being bombarded by the nastiness.

Once I get all the old posts taken care of, I’ll leave comments on newer posts open for about a week, and then I’ll shut them down, too. And yes, it makes me angry that the filth parade is dictating a course of action on my part. But that’s another rant for another day.

2. My beloved Mississippi State Bulldogs take on West Virginia tonight in the NIT Semifinals. The game is at 6 central time on ESPN2, and WHO KNEW that a run in the NIT would actually be more fun than being, say, one and done in the NCAA tourney?

So all together now: “COME ON, NOW, SON!”

3. The pollen is so bad here that I can’t help but anticipate the moment when I will sneeze and my sinuses will actually fly out of my nose.

4. I mentioned something the other day about emailing people for permission to link to them in a post, and as a result of that comment I received several emails from people apologizing that they had linked to me without asking. Which was oh-so-sweet but totally unnecessary. So maybe I should elaborate.

• I don’t mind anyone linking to me ever as long as you’re not the evil spam people.
• I typically try to ask people before I link to them in a post because I thought there might be some people who would rather not have an unexpected surge of traffic.
• I typically don’t ask people before I add them to my blogroll, mainly because adding someone to my blogroll doesn’t impact traffic like a link in a post might.
• However, I am realizing, thanks to your emails, that most people require no advance linkage notification under any circumstances. They just WANT THE LINK-LOVE, BABY. :-)
• Which makes me wonder: is there actually anyone who would prefer to be asked before someone with a good bit of traffic links to them? Or is this some elaborate blogiquette procedure that I’ve invented on my own? And that’s entirely unnecessary?

Enlighten me, oh interweb, in the comments.

One day a couple of weeks ago I found myself reading several new-to-me blogs written by some of the smartest women I’ve run across in the blogosphere. These women’s posts are articulate, thoughtful, intelligent – everything good.

Much to my surprise, a couple of the women had written about not having much blog traffic, and I was blown away by that. They should have traffic because they are thought-provoking and clever and inspiring. And needless to say, especially in light of their super smarts, I started to feel guilty for having a good many readers WHEN ALL I TALK ABOUT IS FRIED CHICKEN.

What’s even worse is that I was too stinkin’ intimidated to send any of them an email asking for permission to link to them because did I mention the part about their stunning brainiac-ness? I mean, compared to the stuff they’re posting on their blogs, any email from me would inevitably sound like “Me write blog too. Link your blog? You I think write pretty. Like very much letters and words you use.”

No kidding – these women should have people lined up to read their blogs (if that is in fact their desire), and I should have to, like, shine their shoes or something. And pray that the smarts permeate the leather and in turn rub off on me so that I can perhaps find a synonym for “smart” instead of using the same word over and over.

(And by the way, the women listed in my sidebar are also mighty intelligent, so be sure to check them out if you haven’t already.)

So as a result of discovering a whole new wave of super-smart (THERE I GO AGAIN) bloggers and thus confirming beyond a shadow of a doubt that my blog is waaaay down there on the intelligence totem pole, I have created a first-ever Blog Identity Statement (henceforth known as “BIS”) for BooMama, The Blawg:

“This blog is like a bottomless cup of lukewarm coffee. It may not always be particularly enjoyable, but it’s always there, and all things considered, it’s better than a hot pile of nothing.”

Inspiring, isn’t it?

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to watch a Ti-Faux’d episode of “Dancing With The Stars.”

After all, it is quite cultural, you know.

Because you learn about the samba and the cha-cha. And stuff.

(I’m taking baby steps, internets. Baby steps. Any deep philosophical analysis will just have to wait because OH MY WORD IT’S JOEY FATONE.)

Here’s the thing.

I really expected to come down to the beach and get some clarity about a big decision that I have to make.

I expected to sit on the balcony, read my Bible, look out at the water, and suddenly, clearly, KNOW THE ANSWER.

And frankly, I thought on the drive down here that if the whole clarity thing could happen within, say, the first twelve hours of the trip, then that would be just delightful and in turn leave me more time for figuring out clever ways to use my beach towel to conceal any unsightly flab.

Needless to say, things didn’t work out quite like I planned. In fact, it’s looking like I’ll be leaving the beach tomorrow without having made any sort of decision at all. Without having discovered the answer. Without knowing what in the world I’m going to do.

But memories? Oh, I have those in spades.

And if you asked me for my favorite memory, I’d have to give you a list.

It was standing on the edge of the Gulf with the boy and letting icy cold water lap against our knees. It was sitting in the middle of the beach and filling up a big red bucket a teaspoon of sand at the time (or so it seemed). It was pulling Alex through the pool like a tugboat and assuring him that I would never, ever let go. It was helping him remember how to blow bubbles in the water. It was catching him as he jumped off the side of the pool four or seventy nine times in a row. And celebrating with him over and over again.

It was sitting on the edge of the pool with D., watching Alex play with a little plastic helicopter that he brought from home. He would fill it up with water, then empty it out, then fill it up, then empty it out – this process went on for at least half an hour. And about once a minute, he’d look up at us, smile so big that his eyes became slits, and then go back to the critical business of filling up the helicopter all over again.

Without a doubt, it was one of the sweetest times of my whole life.

So while I’ll leave this place tomorrow with more questions than answers, I have been so deeply reminded about what matters most that tears sting my eyes even as I type this.

Because to sit smack dab in the middle of the absolute magnificence of God’s creation with my husband and my child for the last four days – to talk and laugh and sing and swim and play and snuggle – well, it kind of makes the questions fall away.

And yes, I know that reality will start to creep in again tomorrow. I know that the closer I get to home, the more real life will start to stomp its feet and demand that I pay attention.

But you know what? Even though I may not have the answer I was hoping to have by the end of this trip, I have so much more.

And for now, that’s all the clarity I need.

We are headed out to the pool (I know, I know – cry me a river), but you can imagine THE HORROR OF IT ALL when we got here yesterday, I TURNED ON THE EMAIL, and then I promptly lost my internet connection.

For a really, excruciatingly long time.

Or, you know, SIXTEEN HOURS.

Finally, about fifteen mintues ago, I found a person on duty who could help me, and she didn’t even seem to mind that my left eye was twitching and that my voice was quivering during our conversation. She must have recently completed an advanced hospitality management training course in How To Deal With The Crazies (or: When BooMama Can’t Get To Her Blawg).

Anyhoo, we’re going outside now because the weather is beautiful and the child is SO! EXCITED! ABOUT! THE! WATER! Plus, now that the twitching has subsided, I should be able to sit poolside without drawing undue attention to myself.

Also: BIG PROPS (yes, I just said “props.” I did!) to my brother-in-law for putting mirrors all the way around the master bathroom here, because really, there’s nothing more beautiful than the sight of some BACK FAT to make the inaugural swimsuit outing of the season as memorable as possible.

Later, interpeeps. Wish you were here.