Five Star Friday's 175th Edition Is Brought to You By Septima Clark

This week's Five Star Friday is brought to you by a cat, postpartum depression, a Christmas story, incorrect use of the word "retarded", a really weird turn of events, adoption by same-sex parents, the possibility of a revolution of contentment, the loss of a daughter, worrying about the future, the annual celebration of Christmahanukwanzaakah, a piece of fiction, remembering, and Septima Clark:

I have great belief in the fact that whenever there is chaos, it creates wonderful thinking. I consider chaos a gift.

     — Septima Clark

This is the last Five Star Friday of 2011, and I am happy to report that we are definitely continuing through 2012. I've been sharing the good work this old internet has been offering up since I started this project back in April of 2008, and I want to thank all of you for helping spread the word of blogging done well. Thank you.

Happy Friday! And happy New Year!

"Being Retarded" from Herding Cats:

This is Maura. Her diagnosis? Cognitively disabled. Which means retarded. When you call yourself retarded, you're also calling my child stupid. Because you use the word as just that — another form of stupid.

"Farewell, My Friend" from Wendi Aarons

"Lost In the Supermarket" from The Vault of Buncheness

"Love and the law: An Adoption Story." from Be Gay About It:

Such strange bedfellows, love and the law.

Both are needed for any family to make it, but only one is present when I lean over to pull up their covers, kissing their hair before I tiptoe back to my room.

"Enter the Story" from The Dramatic

"Patchwork" from Seeking Elevation

"Quashing the Self-Improvement Urge" from zenhabits:

Maybe 2012 will be the year we reach perfection.

Or maybe it will never stop, until we die, and that’s a part of life — life is a constant striving for improvement, and we’d hate to ever stop wanting to improve, because that means we’re dead, right? Even if that means that as we die, we wonder if we could have been better, and our last thought is, “Am I adequate as a person?” Even if that means we are never happy with ourselves, at least we are striving to be happy with ourselves, right?

What if instead, we learned to be happy with ourselves?

What would happen?

"Her Name" by Angie from Glow In the Woods

"Why Internet Commenters Will Eventually End The World" by Justin Halpern at Funny or Die

"The Sixth Annual Blogger Christmahanukwanzaakah Online Holiday Concert!" from Citizen of the Month:

Welcome to the The 2011 Blogger Christmahanukwanzaakah Online Holiday Concert! This is the sixth year of this concert, and each year it gets better.

How time flies. Six years! The first year of the concert, all the songs were in mp3 audio. Now 95% of the songs are on video. Next year, maybe we can do it LIVE ON SKYPE!

Enjoy. Happy Holidays. And to good blogging in 2012!

Another celebration of good weblog writing:
"The Top 20 Writers on Postpartum Depression in 2011" from Postpartum Progress

"Silent Night — Writing Challenge Piece" from Last Mom On Earth


Please come back and share good writing with us over the coming week to be featured on the next Five Star Friday. If you have read a really good piece on someone else's weblog, submit it by Thursday at midnight CST to have it featured on Five Star Friday.

And because you are a fan of finding good new writing on the internet:

Subscribe — Subscribe to this website to keep up with us every week.

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Comments

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Thanks for the mention!