Friday's Five: Michelle

Welcome to my weekly feature, Friday's Five, in which I ask a fabulous blogger five random questions. 

I'm excited to be visiting this week with Michelle from Scribbit. I first found her site after googling for help with some blogging problem I was experiencing. She is a well-known blogger and most of you probably already read her online magazine. This fellow Alaskan is the mother of four, an artsy-crafty marvel, and a prolific writer. She posts daily, hosts a monthly writing contest, and offers lots of giveaways. Michelle spoke on How We Communicate: FAQs for Beginning Bloggers at BlogHer last year and recently published her e-book of tips for bloggers, Blogging in Pink: A Woman's Guide.

1. How old are your children and what kind of fashions are they into? Grace (15) [is into] her Twilight t-shirt and the seafoam green flutter-sleeve dress she sewed for the dance last weekend. Not together :) I've been teaching her to sew with that old "if you sew it I'll pay for the material and pattern" carrot.

Spencer (12) goes strictly with jeans and t-shirts. Usually the same pair of jeans every day unless I forcibly rip them off his body and stick them in the machine. He tends to be the kind who has a favorite and sticks with it.

David (10) is all about baseball so he wears his little league uniform everywhere right now. I usually make him take off the pants, but if left on his own, he'd wear the whole ensemble: hat, mitt, shirt, pants 24/7.

Lillian (7) likes frilly dresses despite being a bit of a tomboy and keeping up with her older brothers. She's an odd mix of digging for worms and digging the dresses. Her birthday is on Sunday and she's getting a couple more to wear.

2. From your experience, what is the best and the worst thing about living in Alaska? I suppose it's all in your perspective. Worst thing? The isolation and dark winters. But then I suppose that isolation and darkness contributes to a lot of the great things about our state. Maybe instead I'd say the worst thing is that I can't grow fruit trees. I've always dreamed of having a house with apricot, peach, and cherry trees where I can just pluck what I want right there. The best thing is that it's a great place to raise a family. Economically and socially and educationally.

         

3. You've mentioned on your blog that you are planning a trip to India. What are you most looking forward to on this adventure? I'll be seeing quite a bit, [because] we're going to visit my parents who have been there for two years and they travel quite a bit. Dehli, Coimbatore, Bangalore, Chennai (Madras), Mombai (Bombay), Vizak, Hyderbad, even Sri Lanka and Nepal—they visit it all so it's a matter of how much can we cram in in two weeks. Oh and Goa. If you're a fan of the Jason Bourne movies, when he's in India he's living in Goa and it's a gorgeous resort town with beautiful beaches that I'd like to see.

I'm a little nervous about the whole thing—there's a lot that is pretty shocking about India. My sister was there last January and said the smell knocks you off your feet, but my parents have said that if you can get past the things that shock (children begging in the street, the smell, the chaos and crowds), it's the most beautiful place and they love it. I'm looking forward to meeting many of the friends they've made over there and seeing the places they've come to love.

4. Your e-book offers so much helpful information to bloggers, and I highly recommend it to anyone who is currently (or even considering) writing a blog. What are the pros and cons of putting all your material together and then offering it as a free e-book? Well, I did it mostly for me, so that's a selfish reason right there. I wanted to see if I could ever write a book, so compiling some of my previous posts and then organizing it and adding more material to flesh it out into a full book made me feel that yes, I can actually produce enough words in cohesion to make up a book.

I suppose some people would say I was foolish to offer it for free but I really do like helping out other bloggers and there were so many people who helped me when I was starting that it seemed natural to just put it up there as a bonus. Plus, if I can show that it's been well received and popular then maybe it will help me down the road when I write a "real" book.

5. What did you have for dinner last night? Hamburgers on the grill. And tonight it was homemade pizza. I've been rather lazy at cooking lately and have fallen back on the old standbys this week.

Thank you, Michelle! When you referenced Jason Bourne, I knew immediately what you were talking about—I remember that beautiful beach at the end of The Bourne Identity. I didn't know it was India, though. We look forward to lots of pictures and posts about your travels when you return from your vacay. By the way, I'm the one who should be apologizing for lazy cooking . . . tonight, it's tuna melts and tomato soup AGAIN.

And for all the other lazy cooks out there, get off your duff next Friday and come back here for another edition of Friday's Five. I tell ya, it's food for the soul. Have a great weekend, friends!

Friday's Five: Dianna (The Kennedy Adventures!)

Friday's Five: Jen (Li'l Man's World)

Friday's Five: TwinMama (Bringing Up Twins)

Friday's Five: Michele (The Stefo Crew)

Friday's Five: Geri (saddlepotatoes)

Friday's Five: Lana (The Kids Did What?!)

Friday's Five: Lisa (Oh Boy, Oh Boy, Oh Boy)

Friday's Five: Helene (I'm Living Proof that God has a Sense of Humor)