Freshly Pressed, Part Deux

And the party continues after being Freshly Pressed…again! Image courtesy of lightfoot, Morguefile.

This time, I had some warning. When I got Freshly Pressed for my post about wacky word origins back in June 2012, I only found out about it when I logged into my WordPress account and saw an image of my own blog post staring back at me from my computer screen. I experienced the usual giddy reaction and celebrated with my trademark Diet Pepsi and packet of chocolate pretzel M&Ms. (Mmmmmm. Chocolate.)

When you get Freshly Pressed, WordPress sends you a “brace yourself, it’s coming” e-mail saying that your blog post will appear on Freshly Pressed in the near future. For some reason, I never saw this e-mail in June. Maybe it took a wrong turn and got lost in cyberspace or stopped off for a swim somewhere.

I almost missed the Freshly Pressed e-mail this time. It landed in my spam folder. I looked at it and wondered, “Is this for real?” I checked the sender’s address and it seemed to be legit, so I started glancing at the Freshly Pressed page whenever I logged in. It took a while; I read the e-mail late Tuesday night and my post about funny church stories didn’t appear until Thursday afternoon.

If you haven’t read it yet, please do. Readers contributed several funny church stories of their own, and I will never look at Babybel cheeses, test tubes, rocks or frankincense smoke in the same way. The cheese story is a classic.

It was great fun to be Freshly Pressed…again! I’m still in mild shock: I didn’t think it would happen to me again, so soon. And the interesting thing: three other talented bloggers that I know also appeared on Freshly Pressed recently. What are the odds?

Like the first time, the hits soared, the likes went up, somebody on Twitter sent out a tweet about my post and the number of blog followers rose. Thanks, new followers, for tuning in. I appreciate it!

I’m afraid to go near my e-mail box at the moment. It’s probably ready to explode (SWAT team: Where are you when I need you??!!!). During the June Freshly Pressed, it told me “You have 641 unread e-mails.” AAAHHHH! So I don’t know how many e-mails are sitting there, awaiting my attention, but I’ll get over there eventually. Maybe I need some M&Ms for courage. (*gallops to store to get more chocolate*)

I’m still partying somewhat, but it’s a calmer party this time around since there’s a lot going on in my real life right now. The June Freshly Pressed was more of a high-voltage celebration (think high-energy party with melt-the-walls rock), but the mood for the December Freshly Pressed is more like the gentle tempo of the Shakira video below. Somehow, it expresses perfectly how I feel right now.

Have a good weekend, everybody.