The 7 Links Project

I was tagged by Sandy from Yes I’m Cheap to participate in a meme called My 7 Links Project.  According to Young and Thrifty, “this project got started by Katie from Trip Base.  The purpose of it is to get the blogger to reflect upon some posts (aka dig up posts from the past) so they can see the light of day again.  Then the blogger is to nominate 5 other bloggers to participate.   Hurray. This is going to be fun and I’m going to have fun nominating and reading these posts.

I think I’ll skip my most popular posts for this section as most people find and read them when they hit my site for the first time.  Hopefully if you’re a newer reader and you enjoy this site, this will be fresh batch of First Gen American goodness.

Your Most Beautiful Post

This is a hard one but I’ll have to say that there is nothing more beautiful to me than laughter.  I’m most proud when I can make my readers belly laugh.  I think two of my funniest posts of all time is a toss up between Babci vs the Drug Sniffing Beagle and Babci’s Dumpster Diving for  Golf Clubs.  Sorry, I couldn’t pick just one. They both make me laugh.

I also feel like I’ve grown tremendously by being able to take my mom’s undeniably nutty behavior and turn it into something fun to read that’s not just a big rant.   Growing up, her “screw what anyone thinks I’m doing what I want” attitude embarrassed me on so many occasions that I can’t even count them.  Now, I think it’s great that I can just shake my head at it, laugh, and feel blessed that I am lucky enough to have such a one of a kind mom in my life.

Your Most Controversial Post

I try not to deliberately write controversial posts, but when I was first blogging, I was writing about free and  fun spur of the moment activities and it led me to write  a post that got animal lovers in an uproar.  It was about chasing seagulls in the Walmart parking lot  with my car.  We often visit the seagulls when we are there and  throw food out the window to watch them catch it mid air. Apparently driving into a flock of them so they fly up in the air is a cruel form of animal abuse and I’m a horrible horrible person for doing so.  PS.  No seagulls were harmed during the chasing and I’ve since stopped driving into seagull flocks. I  now save the chasing of seagulls to beach areas, so you animal lovers who spoke up, it did make a difference.

Your Most Helpful Post

Most people don’t give you this kind of feedback in the comments, but if I were to pick one, I think the post on Giving and Receiving Unsolicited Advice was pretty good.  As a blogger, it’s much easier not to give unsolicited advice these days. If something really ruffles my feathers and I need to state my opinion, I can just write about it and save the poor person on the receiving end from listening to something they don’t want to hear.

A Post Whose Success Surprised You

For posts that haven’t been picked up by other sites, the one that has gotten a lot of  hits recently is Settling Estate Disputes Babci Style.  I guess in general there is a need for more posts on conflict resolution as “settling disputes” is a google search that gets people to my site on a fairly regular basis.

I think the lessons in this post are so important.  Having the ability to let go is 1/2 the battle.  Not needing to win because of the principle of the thing is yet another important lesson.  My attorney said that he’s defending a case right now where a guy’s being sued for about $500 but because they’re suing out of principal and both parties feel they are in the right, it has cost about $20,000 in legal fees to date and the issue isn’t even over yet.   When emotions take over reason, it makes for very dumb decisions.

A Post You Feel Didn’t Get the Attention it Deserved

Perhaps it was because it was my very first post and I had no readers, but I really loved Working Moms Care about their Kids too.  It was actually one of the reasons I started blogging, because I thought there was a distinct absence of a working mom’s voice in the mommy blogging arena. I was really tired of hearing yet another mom say that she gave up her career because she puts family first and that she could never be like those other working moms who put their careers ahead of family.  I still think you can do both.  I have made career choices that would allow me to have more flexibility and be home a lot more than I used to be.  I still have a career but in a way that puts my family first.

I also think that just by the nature of growing up without much money, I would feel like I was putting myself first if I weren’t working.  Financial stability is such a huge part of my core beliefs that ditching the job goes against the grain in so many ways.   I feel that every day I’m working is an insurance fund against being forced to work at a time when I may really be needed at home.  There’s no telling when we may have a family emergency that would require around the clock attention from me and I’d be kicking myself if I knew I could have prepared better for it ahead of time.  Knowing that we have our bases covered in other areas (funding the retirement, big emergency fund, paid off debts, kid’s education, etc) would make it a lot easier to take a leave of absence or quit if something required my 24/7 attention.  So, yes, I continue working and only feel guilty or bad about it after a great vacation week or a particularly stressful patch at work.    I’m ticking off those savings goals one by one and I don’t at all feel like I’m being a bad parent for doing so.  In fact, I’m happy that I have a little extra cash to go on family vacations and do little weekend getaways without having to stress about where the money will come from to do those things.

I also think being a stay at home mom is great too just as long as you don’t think less of me for making different choices.

The Post that You are Most Proud of

Again, this is one that I posted just about a month after I started blogging, so not everyone may know of this post. It’s called Negative Role Models.  It talks about my dysfunctional childhood and how my drunken and lazy father actually served as a role model for what I didn’t want to become.   It’ll pull on your heartstrings and make you want to rescue my younger self from that smoky bar my dad used to bring me into as a toddler.  I’m proud of it because it’s a story of survival and it proves that people can be so resilient.   I hope if someone is going through a dark time in their lives, they really believe that it’s only temporary and things will change for the better if they take even the smallest steps towards a better life.

Who I’m nominating

I’m supposed to choose other people to go through this exercise.  I won’t be picking the usual suspects as I’ve already read all of your archives anyway and I’m sure you’ll be chosen by someone else soon.  Also, there’s no saying you have to be chosen to do this exercise, so if you’re in the mood to participate, please do so and link back here so I know to read it.

Here are the ones I’d really love to see this on.

• Mutant Supermodel – So curious on how she’ll categorize her own posts.
• Single Mom Rich Mom – Jacq, I miss your writing..please write something soon. Thinking of you.
• Niki from Debt free by 30
• Ginger from Frugal Student
• Sandy From Journey to our Home
• Kellen from Accountant by Day
• Simple Green Frugal Co-op – Okay, this is not just one blog but a collaborative of great bloggers and I would love a best of links version from any of the writers on this forum.