The remaining blogs I’m singling out as special don’t have a lot in common. Some of them have a kind of hippie-chick vibe that appeals to me — a grow your own food/do it cheaper kind of thing. But others are just good reads, great information, or plain old fun.

Margarette Burnette runs the Coupons and Kids blog and caught me immediately with posts that spoke to my needs and considerations. For example, today’s post is about getting rid of cable, something I’ve toyed with for a while. This gives me a step by step guide. I love her coupon database, too.

Suddenly Frugal, by Leah Ingram, is a similar kind of site, with coupons, ideas for saving money, and well-researched articles — store brands versus name brands, the value of organic food. She has a regular feature called Freebie Friday that I love. I’ve subscribed for some time, and follow on Facebook, too.

Spoonfed aims to get kids interested in healthy eating — a near obsession of writer Christina LeBeau. It’s her journey, and her advice, and it’s good and entertaining. She found a cute placemat that speaks her language, she has a printable decree on her site about getting junk out of school food, If you agree with her perspective, you’ll love the blog. And any parent who has run the juggernaut of end of year school parties filled with junk food can’t help but agree with much of what she writes — check her post on the topic here. She continues it here.

Amanda Klenner’s Natural Living Mamma was created out of her own journey to wellness. There are lots of cool recipes — natural ginger ale is very tasty (I use twice the ginger, though, and use a microplane zester so I get more of the ginger goodness). She has this new thing going with a couple other bloggers to create simple meal ideas every Friday. I’ll be checking in on that a lot. Maybe not on Fridays only!

Ever Growing Farm is the adventures of Melissa Willis to create an urban farm on 1/8 of an acre.This spring, she and her partner started a “Local Bite Challenge”, trying to eat food sourced as close to home as possible, spending just $100 per week. Having an urban homestead probably makes that possible. Interested in bee keeping? She has posts about it. Want to know what to do with a big harvest? There are posts on food preservation. Gardeners of all stripes, you will love this blog to death.

The Lisa Wannabe blog award goes to The Homesteading Hippy — because in a perfect world, that’s what I’d be. Me and some chickens and a pig for fun and some goats for manure. And lots of gardening. My favorite post so far this blogathon is one that I’ll make use of for years to come: natural hand sanitizer. YAY!

Of course, you can’t always be natural, and that’s guilt inducing, Which is where the Natural As Possible Mom blog comes in. Sure there are musings, but there are also good ideas, links, even game reviews. Go forth, read, and feel no less guilt!

California Wildwoman is one of those blogs that doesn’t fit in one of the categories I’ve used. But I like it. Holly Ocasio Rizzo, the writer, speaks to me in some very personal way every week. The blog on having a personal “poverty week”, being too much of a pansy to actually write it down, whatever “it” is, and random stuff that comes out of her virtual pen, like this lovely. Subscribed. Read it when it hits my in box.

Paul Vachon’s blog covers writing, but also Michigan and Detroit. It’s his history-related posts that get me — I am, after all, a trained historian! I’ve never been to Michigan — maybe I never will. But I’ve learned a lot about it thanks to Paul.

I’m old now, says my (older) brother. So I appreciate sites that exercise my brain. To wit: Cranium Crunches Blog. I don’t get to it daily, but I do some of the puzzles and games every week. I’m hoping it helps me, as the blog tag line says, find my keys. Although my car doesn’t need keys any more.

I debated putting this last blogger on a separate list, with non-blogathon writers whose work I discovered outside the confines of this yearly exercise, but Elizabeth Kricfalusi’s Tech For Luddites blog is a part of the party, so here she is. She writes about tech. So that I can understand it. Put those sentences together. Reread them. If you know me, you realize just how mind-boggling that is. And she answers questions and points you to resources, even if they are things that don’t enrich her specifically. So, she understands tech, explains it to you, and has a moral compass. Seriously!

Have fun reading. If you found any gems in your blogging travels, let me know in the comments.

*Sung to the tune of the Gilligan’s Island theme song