A Whole Lot of Nothing--Angie hails from Orlando, which makes me insanely jealous of her and her easy access to all things Disney. I forgive her, though, because she's raising a little Penguins fan. That's all it takes for me to know that someone is good peoples, n'at.

Thin Spiral Notebook--Tara hasn't always been at this URL, but she has always been one of the sweetest, kindest people around. She posts beautiful photographs and meaningful commentary that make me want to just walk around with her and listen to her describe the world.

Redefining Perfect--Sarah somehow manages to find time to blog in between wrangling three kids, two of which have Cystic Fibrosis. She documents the challenges of parenting special needs kids in a way that very few could, and yet manages to throw in a laugh just often enough for you to know that she truly loves the life she's leading.

The Miss Elaine-ous Life--Elaine wins for the best blog title, of course, but she also wins for posting adorable photos of her brood. She loves them with every inch of her being, and it shows in everything she posts.

Here are a few others moms who sometimes blog about their kid(s) and who happen to live in Pittsburgh.

Mildly Amusing Musings--I try to surround myself with people who live a full life, who find joy in everyday things, and who want to make the world a better place. Elisabeth is most certainly one of those people. On top of being a really amazing person to be around, Elisabeth is also a hugely talented seamstress and absolutely gorgeous. Go read her blog. You'll fall in love with her like I did, I'm sure.

Bralys in the Burgh--They are quite possibly the most adorable Okies in all of Pittsburgh. Seriously, the entire family is so adorable and sweet that it makes my teeth hurt. This blog documents their lives in a way that no baby book ever could. I'm a fan.

Secret Ninja Mom--Shortly after I presented at PodCamp in 2010, Kathy walked up to me and introduced herself. She was interested in meeting some other Pittsburgh moms who maybe were "normal." Apparently, I had fooled her good, because the group of us who get together frequently are SO far from normal. As is Kathy. She's the mom of three girls, and two of them happen to have been born on the same day. I think having twins does something to your brain because Kathy is crazy. The good crazy. The kind of good crazy that writes funny stories and sends you bizarre text messages.

Three Weasels--Speaking of twins making people crazy, here's another example! Ha! Jennifer writes at Three Weasels about her daughter (who Alexis absolutely adores--it's a little scary when they get together, to be honest) and her twin sons. The whole family is the very definition of Pittsburgh. They work hard. They play hard. Jennifer manages to document it all on their blog.

Steeltown Anthem -- A little architecture, a lot of design, and even more Pittsburgh love. I just flat-out adore this site and it's author.

Confessions of a Human Vacuum -- It's a personal blog written by the amazing Lindsay. She works 62835 jobs and yet manages to fit in some time for fun and food.

ScareHouse Scott -- Scott is all over the place, but usually you'll see him representing his kick-ass haunted house (ScareHouse) located in Etna. This blog, however, is a bit more on the personal side. It gives you a chance to see how twisted he really is and just how much he loves Pittsburgh.

Cusp of Normal -- Mermanda is ridiculously adorable, entirely too sweet, and altogether a great person to have on your reading list. She defines happy. Period.

The Voices Made Me Do It -- In a perfect world, I would have Mindi chained to one of my kitchen cabinets. The woman can COOK. And she needs to cook for me. Now. Her blog isn't a food blog, but rather a sort of diary. It's probably a good thing because I would gain 20 pounds just looking at her blog if it were all about food.

Through all that home renovation and decorating madness, there are some sites I've been relying on to stay motivated. Some are blogs and some are not, but all are a good place to go when I need a little kick in the butt.

Young House Love--I don't get that many ideas from this absolutely adorable blog, but I do get a lot of motivation. The lack of ideas isn't because what they manage to accomplish is bad--on the contrary, they do some really amazing things. I just happen to be dealing with the blank slate of new construction while they're giving existing things a facelift. They're doing it in amazing ways and constantly inspire me to get up off of the couch and get things done.

Pinterest--If you want to make a bunch of your friends love/hate you even more, send them a Pinterest invite. They'll be thanking you as they curse you almost instantly.

Pinterest is a place to save pretty things--home decor ideas, DIY projects, recipes, art projects, photographs, anything. You "pin" things you like to a board (you can have as many boards as you want) and you're left with a virtual bulletin board of related items. For example, I have a board for outdoor projects which has lots of photos of decks, gardens, and playhouses. Everything I have pinned to that board in some way will serve to help me focus my goals for those projects as I get to them. It will be far more efficient that printing out a bunch of pages or saving a bunch of bookmarks.

Houzz--I'm a sucker for photos, so I just dive into this site and stare at all of the pretty pictures.

House*Tweaking--Similar to Young House Love, this site chronicles the story of a family as they work towards making a house their home. They are at the very beginning stages of a new house right now and I'm looking forward to watching them work some magic.

I have about 400+ more sites I could list, but not the time needed to list them all. At least this is a start!

Shirebacon--This blog is new to the blogging universe, but Amy is not new to my social media circle. She's been cracking me up on twitter for a very long time. I may have used twitter to bully her into starting a blog. It's possible. Anyway, she's off to a great start with clean writing, adorable photos, and consistent posting. AND ZOMG HER BOYS ARE SO CUTE.

My Very Last Nerve--Gina writes exactly how she speaks. She's a little bit rambly, never lacking in an opinion, and absolutely hysterical. She writes about anything that makes its way into her head on a particular day, which is sometimes her kids and sometimes not. Gina is an incredibly kind and generous person and while she tries to put on a meanie face sometimes, her heart of gold keeps on shining through.

Long Daze Short Years--I haven't met her yet and now that I think about it, WTH? That needs to be fixed. With four kids serving as inspiration, this is one blog that is never lacking in material. Expect a little of this, a little of that, and a whole lot of what you'd normally expect from a Pittsburgher--hometown pride doused in kindness.

Anyway, here's a couple of people who consistently impress me with their ability to weave a tale with words.

Yankee Drawl: It's no secret that Yankee Drawl is one of my favorite blogs. I've met Jayna in person and she is fantastically lovely, completely down-to-earth, crazy kind, and absolutely wonderful. I started reading her WAY back when she was playing the role of single parent to one while her husband was stationed in Iraq. Now she's the hard-working stay-at-home-mom to two beautiful girls who may very well tie her up and leave her in a closet some day.

Is There Any Mommy Out There: I don't really know what to say other than DAMN. The writing at this site is amazing and fantastic and Stacey constantly impresses me with her ability to paint an image with words. She is the mom to a four? Twelve? Seventeen? ... a lot of kids. She shows the intelligence of her lawyer background and the patience of a saint as she bluntly tackles the daily challenges of life.

kdiddy: Kelly is one of those people who has no idea how incredibly gorgeous and talented she is, which pretty much makes me want to stick her in my pocket and carry her around with me as a reminder that grace and humility are amazing attributes in a person. The only problem with my plan is that she would have me falling over laughing too much to get anything done.

Raising ZoeyJane: I don't comment at Terra's site nearly enough and that is because she often leaves me speechless with her raw, emotional writing. She writes all over the place, but my favorite of her homes is this one.

Whiskey in My Sippy Cup: Shannon used to be one of the most prolific writers out there. Shannon used to be one of those bloggers who understood that content was king and that free crap is the quickest way to ruin a blogger. Now her posts come a bit more sporadically, but everything else is still the same. Shannon can write and remains one of the bloggers who inspire me to keep content king. No gimmicks. No link baiting. Just good writing.

Deal Seeking Mom: Frankly, 90% of what is posted there isn't worth my time. But, the 10% that IS worth my time is REALLY worth my time. The site includes links to coupons and deals and tips on how to combine discounts to really get a bargain. Be aware, though, that there are sometimes posts that are clearly not good deals, which are likely getting posted so the author can make some money via affiliate links (check Amazon or another site for the item just to be sure if the price is OK). Oh, and from Deal Seeking Mom you can directly access three of the five places I go for grocery coupons, which are:

Redplum

Smartsource

Coupons.com

These are the same coupons you'll find in the Sunday paper inserts, but I find it much easier to only print out what I'll actually use. I also prefer that printed coupons are uniform in size because it makes them easier to dig out of the depths of the great-unknown that is the bag I keep coupons in.

One note about printed coupons: different stores have different policies about what they will and will not accept. Giant Eagle's corporate-owned stores do not accept printed coupons for free items, nor any with a face value greater than $3. I think. I can't be sure because, SURPRISE!, I have been told everything from, "We don't accept any printed coupons" to "We take them all." The cashiers either aren't trained or are just too gooberish to understand/remember the policy. To avoid drama, I just use the self checkout line. If the computer doesn't accept a coupon, fine. I've only ever had one it didn't immediately recognize.

Swagbucks: This is another place that I go for printable coupons. If you're not familiar with Swagbucks, it's basically a giant advertising mecca disguised by a system that allows you to earn Swagbucks, which you can exchange for various items. There are tons of ways to earn Swagbucks. You can watch videos (which, *yawn*), you can snag codes from various social media places, you can use their search engine (much like Google, but with a lot of promoted results in your searches), you can shop at various stores, and you can use coupons. The coupons happen to be my favorite because it's the same coupons I can get on coupons.com, but I get swagbucks for using them. I turn those Swagbucks into Amazon gift cards. So far, I've managed to accumulate $45 in Amazon gift cards without any real effort.

Target.com: This one is an absolute must for printing coupons. I have found that when Target has a coupon available for an item, it's probably also on sale. As an added bonus, Target allows you to use both a Target coupon AND a manufacturer coupon on the same item. I've been known to go home with a gallon of ice cream for $1.00 and cereal that cost just 50 cents.

Groupon: I am a Groupon whore. I admit it. I'm subscribed to receive daily deals for at least five cities, because you can never know when the perfect dinner plans for while we are on vacation will land in my inbox.

Living Social: Just like Groupon, Living Social is a site that publishes one deal per day for a particular city. We usually score museum passes, restaurant discounts, etc. through either Living Social or Groupon.

In order to combat that See Food Diet, I only keep up with a couple of food blogs. Here is a sampling of them:

Picky Palate: Divine photos. Simple recipes. What more could you ask for? This saffron rice recipe is one of my favorites I've made so far (I adapted it to be vegetarian. Obviously.)

Our Best Bites: Honestly, this site and Picky Palate are virtually identical in my head. Fortunately, that's a good thing. Divine photos. Simple recipes. I'm planning to try this stuffed pepper recipe very soon. (An aside: One of the things I love about this site is that it's run on Blogger. Proof that it's blogging content, not platform, that matters the most.)

Brown Eyed Baker: The author is a Yinzer, which makes her awesome by default. Besides, anybody who posts instructions for making Penguins sweater/jersey cookies is full of win.

Bakerella: Honestly, nothing "new" has been posted there for quite a while, but that's in part because there are so many things that can be done with cake pops that it's insane. The photos are crazy inspirational, absolutely beautiful, and lots of fun. I might even be about to attempt cake pops myself.

Irene Smith Photography: I've had the good fortune of meeting Irene, and she is as amazing in person as you would think she is by looking at her stunning photos. She's got a trio of gorgeous daughters, including one who can inspire you to be a better person just with one glance.

Burning Bright Studios: Hey! Another person I have met! (My life definitely doesn't suck.)  Kristy brings to a room a sort of energy that just leaves you breathless. She's fantastic at wedding photography, but I'm really blown away by how well she manages to capture even the tiniest bits of art with photos like this.

Rob De La Cruz: As luck would have it, I've met him as well. In fact, I kind of want to fight Rob for his girlfriend. ;-) Rob is insanely talented, wildly creative, and just an all around swell guy. His Flickr feed is one on my Must Watch List, and not just because he's been known to photograph every amazing detail of many Pittsburgh Social Media events.

Weddings by Heather: I haven't met Heather, which is probably a good thing because I would turn into a bumbling idiot if I were in the room with someone with so much talent. The woman takes the absolute most amazing newborn photos ever. Ever ever. Ever ever ever.

Kimberly Reed Photography: Speaking of people who are entirely too amazing for me to be coherent around, Kimberly is easily my favorite Pittsburgh photographer. I want to be just like her when I grow up.

Moosh in Indy: Hands down, I think Casey is the best photographer/mommyblogger around. Period. She doesn't edit her photographs to the point that her curly-haired blur of a gorgeous daughter looks like a zombie. She shows life as it happens rather than carefully crafting a staged effect. Her photographs feel, if that's possible.

Sweet Salty: Just go look at the photos. Then go back and read the words. You'll understand.

NieNie Dialogues: She's telling a story that will make you cry at every turn, even as it fills you with hope and joy. I love her photos because they're real. Not staged. Not perfect in the technical sense. Rather, they are perfectly capturing life as it happens. That's my kind of photography.

Chookooloonks: Inspiring. Beautiful. Poetic. All words I would use to describe Karen's site. Her photography is gorgeous and will leave you wondering if you imagined that you could smell those flowers or if they were really there.

This is by no means an exhaustive list . . . in fact, it's barely the tip of the iceberg. Still, it's places I go when I need a little photography attitude adjustment.