It seems like only five minutes since I wrote a post giving a shout out to my top three favourite new bloggers, but I find myself doing so again, for this month’s #InspireandFlourish with the Less Refined Mind.

This time, instead of blogs in general, I wanted to mention some posts which have, um, inspired me and made me flourish, if one can describe the end of an hour’s solid breastfeeding in order to try and get Piglet to sleep (at 10.30pm) as “flourishing.”  Because that’s how we roll.

So without further ado, I present to you…..

1.) Mum’s the Nerd.  For my sins, I hadn’t heard of this blog before taking part in #InspireandFlourish, but I will definitely be going back to it.  For a start, it has one of the best blog headers I have seen, with a cute storyboard all in one header, and secondly, it contained one of my favourite recent blogging about blogging posts, Bloggers Gonna Blog, all about why we shouldn’t worry about what other people are doing.  It’s something that has been said before but which we always need reminding of, as it’s so easy to compare ourselves to others, whether for better or worse (and let’s face it, usually for worse).

2.) The Frenchie Mummy.  I recently wrote about how much I love the Frenchie Mummy, but I am now obliged to pick a favourite post of hers, so I am going to have to go for the brilliant I Am A Terrible Person, a poignant but hilariously written tale of the death of someone very close to the Frenchie Mummy…..to find out who you will have to read the post!

3.) The Motherhub.  When I first came across the Motherhub’s blog, I felt that I had found a kindred spirit.  Like me, Motherhub is passionate about feminism, and has written a number of posts on this subject, which is one close to my heart, if one that always gets the trolls running from the hills of Trollsville waving their pitchforks in a manner that never ceases to amaze and alarm in equal measure.  One recent post that actually did inspire me to do something, in actual real life as opposed to just cogitating on it whilst walking Piglet around in the pushchair, as is my usual custom, was Good for Her!  Not for me, where she talks about the great Amy Poehler and some of her brilliant quotes.  One that got me thinking was the successful people don’t wait for the right time-they just jump in and get on with it, which made me think maybe I should get on with online dating.  Motherhub, I blame you for all my future dating woes my inevitable forthcoming Romance of the Century.  I’ll let you know how that one works out.

4.) The Mumzilla.  Mumzilla is always hilarious, but one post that definitely resonated with me this week was Real Life Birth vs. Movie Birth.  It has long been a source of disappointment to me that not only were my hypnobirthing books HUGELY underestimating the pain of labour by insisting that listening to an Australian woman talking about waves rolling gently on a beach for thirty minutes would be ample pain relief, but every film and TV show that has ever shown childbirth is similarly ridiculous, my personal favourite being Phoebe’s quick natural birth of triplets in Friends.  Friends, you are not my Friend anymore.

5.) Mouse, Moo and Me Too.  I recently wrote about how much I love Mouse, Moo etc’s writing, and her post about garden centres, All Hail Wyevale, is a particular favourite, mainly because I love a good garden centre myself and this just sums up how I feel about them.  I need to get myself to a garden centre sharpish….

6.) Lastly, I have to mention one of my favourite writers, Jade from The Parenting Jungle.  Jade always writes the most heartfelt and beautifully written posts, and her post on Solo and Duo Parenting was no exception.  As someone who has been a single parent, and is now happily coupled, she a) gives me hope that I am not forever condemned to a life of M&S meals for one, and b) understands exactly what being a single parent is like.  I just love this quote, “there is no gold standard in parenting, in families, there is just parenting. Good or bad, relationship status is not a determinant of either.”

So there we go, hopefully for any bloggers who read my posts and haven’t read any of the above, you will find something to inspire you and possibly even make you flourish, and for any non-bloggers who read my posts (hello Mum!) sorry again for bleating on about blogging about blogging bloggy blog stuff and being all self-referential and weird again.