I just had an idea. I have a very personal relationship with my Google Reader. I have discovered so many wonderful people out in the internet-world that have so many good things to teach me. My only problem is that there are SO MANY of them! I can never keep up with all of the informative, beautiful, helpful blogs out there. So I am constantly weeding out my Google Reader, deleting any blog out of it that is not really super helpful and informative. That still leaves an AWFUL lot of blogs, so I just try to do my best to only read it when I really do have time to spare and to skim everything and only read the MOST helpful stuff thoroughly.

My husband reads probably much more interesting blogs than I do. He reads the current events and politics and economics (LOTS of economics) and some Second Amendment stuff and religion…and I don’t. I read the stuff he passes on to me and tell myself that I should read actual books about that stuff because I DO think I would be better off reading an actual book about economics or politics so that I understand the underlying concepts first. I have not yet read any of those books. But I intend to! And then maybe all those posts my husband translates for me will make more sense.

So almost all the blogs I read regularly have to do with cooking, healthy or otherwise, teaching and mothering one’s children, homemaking, and that sort of thing. I have stopped feeling too bad about it because I actually feel that it DOES help me do a better job at this stuff. I think that’s the secret - the minute you spend all your time READING about how to do something well so you don’t have time to DO anything well, you’ve missed the mark.

So back to that idea. I thought I’d share what blogs I’ve decided are the most helpful/inspiring/beautiful in the hopes that you will do the same! If you choose to post your own, please leave a comment here since I might overlook your post, since, you know, I do all that skimming and kicking blogs off my Google Reader.

I am actually not going to list all the blogs of my own personal friends. Rest assured that if you are my own personal friend, I probably read your blog, and I probably do more than skim it.

Organized by the categories on my Reader, in the order they appear:

Mothering/Homemaking Blogs

The Daily Weaving: I actually just added this one because she had good feast day ideas and I found directions for making a St. Brigid’s Cross for St. Brigid’s Day. So I don’t know much about her. She is Orthodox, likes stuff from the British Isles, has a Gadsden Flag on her sidebar and posted a pretty awesome speech by Charlton Heston (did I just say that?) last week, so I think we could be friends.

Festal Celebrations: Not so much a personal blog as a storinghouse of ideas on celebrating the Feasts of the Church.

Amy’s Humble Musings: Amy Scott is a household name around here. Paul actually read her long before I did, and many conversations between us begin with “did you see what Amy posted about…” or “Amy said…” Yes, we are on a first name basis. The Scott’s moved from Florida to Kentucky to start a farm in an Amish area, renovating an old farmhouse. Her stories about learning how to butcher things, catch cows, and deal with snow as a native Floridian are HILARIOUS. Plus, while we don’t often see eye to eye on theology, we do like her politics, which are mostly apparent by her Delicious links that show up on my feed.

evlogia: This lovely site might be my favorite of all. Mary is lovely, thoughtful Orthodox mother of six homeschooled children, the youngest of whom was born a couple of months before James. She is developing an Orthodox homeschool curriculum with two of the other bloggers I will list, and I’m sure I will be using her ideas often as James gets bigger.

In the Heart of My Home: This is the online home of Elizabeth Foss, longtime homeschooling writer. She is the mother of nine, from a big guy in college to a little one year old. She is a great writer (check out her links to articles she’s written in the Arlington Catholic Herald) and I love peeking into the home of someone who has worked at doing the homeschooling/homemaking/domestic church thing well for so many years. Paul has gotten used to my constantly referring to both the “the evlogia lady” and “the Catholic lady with nine kids.” Mary and Elizabeth also happen to be close friends.

Charming the Birds from the Trees: Matushka Emily is one of the other mothers working with Mary at evlogia on the Orthodox homeschool curriculum. Her site is focused on cultivating loveliness both personally and in the home, as well as living out the Orthodox faith with her husband, a priest, and two little ones (with another on the way). Her blog title is fitting, since “charming” is the most fitting word for her site.

St. Theophan Academy: Anna is the third mother working on the Orthodox homeschool curriculum. I haven’t read her for very long, and she doesn’t post quite as often (although, a WHOLE LOT more often that me!) but I always like what I find there.

There are three pretty extensive blogs that I read that are all similar, Keeper of the Home, Passionate Homemaking, and Heavenly Homemakers. They are all focused on trying to raise a family healthfully, naturally, and frugally. They post on saving money while feeding your family very well, making your own cleaning products, avoiding toxins, etc. I get a lot of good ideas from them and quite a few of my recipes come from them.

I read Pleasant View Schoolhouse just because it is so pretty and I wish I could make things as pretty as she does. She even makes exceedingly pretty children. She also makes these adorable dresses from vintage patterns that I am quite envious of.

I just discovered Like Mother, Like Daughter, and I can’t believe I didn’t find it before. I think I love these women! And I love the concept. A mother raises seven children, who now range in age from 28 to 12. In order for the mother, her four daughters, and the grandmother to share their thoughts, photos, and projects with one another, they started this totally adorable blog. The mother posts the most, and she is so funny. She seeks to pass on the wisdom she’s won from raising seven children in a happy and beautiful home so her daughters, and we, don’t have to reinvent the wheel. I’ve only had time to read a little of it, but so far I love it. So far I’ve particularly liked reading about what she learned from her short stint of having a cleaning lady, the importance of having a Reasonably Clean, Fairly Neat, and Comfortably Tidy home, and thought her post on getting up on time was pretty funny (I did not learn to be a morning person until I married a morning person and then had a baby that apparently takes after his father and does a full-fledged happy dance upon getting up every morning, so I appreciated this part: “if you live for jumping out of bed and are an amazing morning person, I love you, please go away.” And: “Never mind your neighbor who wakes up in an hour that begins with a ‘five’ and works out, prays, and cleans her house before her family even stirs. We will never be like her and we are just going to try not to hate her.”

Ok, now on to the Foodie Blogs, which other than the “Friends” category is my only other category. I’ll keep this short, since I have failed at brevity so far.

David Lebotitz: Former pastry chef at the famed Chez Panisse who now lives in Paris. Need I say more? I am currently in the process of making his choclolate custard ice cream from the ice cream cookbook of his that Paul got me for Christmas, this time with his homemade chocolate almond toffee (think a sheet of Almond Roca) mixed in (the last batch had Trader Joe’s mini peanut butter cups stirred in).

101 Cookbooks: Really pretty blog of a cookbook author that actually has more cookbooks than I do. Vegetarian and sometimes way too healthy, but a good place to get recipes for the fasts.

Food Renegade and The Nourishing Gourmet are both healthy eating blogs focused on the Nourishing Traditions diet, which we don’t follow strictly, but I try my best to employ some of the concepts. Food Renegade is more full of general information, and Nourishing Gourmet is full of recipes. I get quite a lot of my recipes from her, and especially like her weekly posts full of super frugal meal ideas that are still very healthy.

smitten kitchen is . . . not usually healthy. But oh so yummy and pretty. I generally want to cook every single thing she posts.

That’s all, folks. Now tell me yours! And don’t forget to leave a comment. You can also just post a few favorites, if you don’t want to do such an extensive post as this.