Time for a New Fantasy Team

This is my second year playing fantasy football, and I am getting royally screwed. I have the most number of points of any of the eight teams in our league, and I am in SIXTH place with a record of 3-5. Four of my five losses have been by nine points or less. The game I lost last week was three points and it's only because Brett Favre threw that 82-yard pass in overtime on Monday night. If the Broncos had won the coin toss and scored first, I would have won. If Favre had thrown a TD pass for 24 yards or less, I would have won. If Favre had thrown a pass for 49 yards or less, I would have tied.

But, I lost on Monday. I am bitter. And I am pissed at my luck in fantasy football this year.

Thankfully, it's time to choose my fantasy team for NaBloPoMo. I did this last year, in response to all the hoo-ha surrounding National Blog Posting Month. Eden Kennedy of Fussy founded NaBloPoMo as a blogging-world compliment to NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writing Month project. I knew that I didn't have the stamina to post every day, and really, I wasn't sure that the Internet needed one more screaming voice. I decided I could contribute best by reading and rooting, that is, cheering on the people who stuck their necks out and said they would come up with something to say everyday for a month.

Jody and Heather tipped me off to NaBloPoMo last year, and I decided to put together a fantasy team of five new blogs to follow for the month. I chose the cheeseblog, Her Able Hands, Less of Paige, Peach and Pearl and Vindauga for my fantasy team. I liked them all so much that I kept them in my Bloglines and still read them regularly. In the year since I got to know all of them, some good things have happened and some bad things have happened. I'm glad I've been there for all of it.

So, since NaBloPoMo is doing an encore, so am I. For the next month, I'll be reading and rooting (aka, leaving comments) for five blogs that I've never read before and know nothing about. I clicked through a bunch of links on the NaBloPoMo blogroll and settled on five that attracted me in some way. Here they are, in alpha order:

• Berlin's Whimsy - Berlin Smith is a newly separated mom who maintains a list of cookbooks from which she's 'now cooking,' providing plenty of recipes along the way. There's also beautiful photography and photos of sewing and quilting projects that remind me of my grandmother's work.


• More Kisses Please - Jill is a great writer and photographer, and she lives IN Vancouver, one of the greatest places on earth! I can't say enough about Jill's beautiful photos, including those of her boyfriend who does NOT live a long distance away. (edited, see comments. whoops)


• Tenth Muse - It's Joelle! From Put Down the Donut! I used to love Put Down the Donut. Really, what a pleasant surprise to stumble across her personal blog. She sings and loves karaoke and has written a book. I'm in awe of all she's accomplished.


• You are the music while the music lasts - Jyllian M got married on Halloween, which is so cool. She has a daughter (maybe close to Petunia's age?), and she had a miscarriage at the beginning of this year. Needless to say, that part of her experience really speaks to me.


• Now What? - I can't do the upside-down question mark at the beginning of this title, which is too bad because I think it's important to the blog. Now What? has one son who is adopted from Guatemala and is working on adding another member to her family, though things are not going well for anyone trying to adopt from Guatemala right now.

So that's my team. I'm going to be reading and rooting for all five of them to make it through NaBloPoMo.

If you're not participating in NaBloPoMo, get off your arse and put together a fantasy team already! Just browse through the list of participants, check out the blogs whose names or mouseovers appeal to you and add four or five URLs to your feedreader or bookmarks folder. Then check in with those blogs and leave comments. It's like standing on the side of the road and cheering for people who run marathons. It's good karma, and you just might be inspired by what you see.

Good luck, NaBloPoMo'ers!