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Friday Blog Roundup

Um…grrr…gah…(blushes and stares down at the ground)…I was nominated for a Weblog Award for Best Medical/Health Issues Blog. And…um…if you like me (if you really really like me), you can vote for me by clicking here. You can vote once a day until November 8th so I put a link in the top post until then. And…if you could vote daily, I would really appreciate it and it would make me feel really good and…um…that’s it.

Actually, you don’t even have to really really like me. You could just mildly like me. Or feel like this space is worth a click over and vote every day for the next 6 days or so. Or not even really like my blog, per se, but want an infertility blog to win. Or simply take pity on a woman having a low self-esteem day who would like you to leave her a vote so she can feel loved. So… If any of these descriptions ring true, click here and give me a vote. Once a day. Until November 8. And once this post gets buried, you can use the link I left in the top post. Truly shameless, but low self-esteem will do that to you.

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There is a Blog Fair going on today at Lost and Found. What is a Blog Fair? Well, think of it as the same way you would a job fair. It acquaints you with blogs you may not find otherwise just as a job fair acquaints you with jobs you may not have found otherwise. Today’s theme is password-protected blogs. Pick up a new blog to read or discover how to get in to some of your old favourites.

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International Infertility Film Festival starts today. My entry is below this post. See other films at the IIFF website. And thank you, Bea, for setting up another cool festival.

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There seemed to be an inordinately high number of people not celebrating Halloween in our neighbourhood this year. Some posted “no candy” signs on their door (Josh commented, “in my day, a ‘no candy’ sign meant ‘please throw rotten eggs at my house.'”). We actually saw kids playing outside who informed us that they don’t celebrate Halloween.

Best House: Mr. Britain-Down-the-Street who claimed that children don’t celebrate Halloween in England (this smelled awfully suspicious to me, but he said it in such a jolly accent) so he had no clue what to give us and had prepared enormous goody bags FULL of candy.

Worst House: It’s a tie between the LBWWMTDASADFFIHAOTAC‘s family and the elderly neighbour we call Mr. McStickystein who is not only creepy beyond all get out, but gave the children wet, sticky hard candies. Just touching the outside wrappers made me gag and I made the kids throw out every piece of candy that had even touched Mr. McStickystein’s vomit-inducing offering.

In a strange turn of events considering the fact that I was plotting the worst Halloween candy offering in the world to the LBWWMTDASADFFIHAOTAC just last year, when we got to his house, his father informed us that they never got candy. But they had a cookie for us instead. We brought the cookie home and it was smothered in some sort of black seed. Or were those maggots? Regardless, it joined Mr. McStickystein’s offerings in the trash can.

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Continuing with the theme of this roundup–inordinate–I spent an excessively long time (you might say, an inordinately long time) trying to get the Wolvog to sigh with ennui saying, “I’m just a Washingtron” a la Tru Fax and the Insaniacs. Does anyone else remember this movement in the 80’s to create a gender neutral alternative using the -tron ending? Instead of “waiter” or “waitress”, all waitstaff would be referred to as waitrons. Tru Fax and the Insaniacs had a single that went:

I used to work as a waitron in the lounge of the Hiltron
And now I work for my senatron and I live in Arlingtron

I live in Arlingtron

I’m just a Washingtron

The Wolvog didn’t master this, but in the same evening, he discovered Billy Corgan and fell in love. “I love him,” the Wolvog told me with the serious intensity usually utilized by someone having their love challenge. “I love this,” he announced when “Disarm” came on.

My little rocker.

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I was bloody awful with the second Happiness Challenge. It doesn’t even warrant its own post. Let’s just say this, I sucked at meditation. And you know what, perhaps sitting still and not thinking and not doing just isn’t me. Am I constantly stressed out and run ragged? Yes. Do I wish I could slow down? Yes. But slowing down didn’t bring me internal peace and happiness. It brought me more anxiety.

I think baking and cooking are, for me, a more calming version of zoning out and zooming in. And baking bread can be a form of meditation. At least it is under my definition of meditation…

How did you fare? Did anyone gain great success from the meditation challenge?

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And now the blogs:

Mama at Three Under Two has a final post before the birth of her child (which happened, by the way, on Thursday. She had a little girl!). I really loved this post not only because we’ve been looking forward to the birth, but because it has a wistfulness to the writing. It aches with the knowledge of how hard those first days can be. How hard change can feel when you’re the one facing it. But mostly, what I took away was how valid all of our feelings are because we own them. The reality is that though most of us would do anything to be on the eve of giving birth and many of us would insist that we’d never be feeling these things, I think Mama has a very honest and thoughtful reaction to the enormity of having a child. Her fears do not dismiss the gratitude she feels, but those fears are important to face as well.

I loved this snarky post at Futility Treatment. Laughed for a long time after reading every time I thought about it again. I think I loved the final line the best: “Thanks for not-asking how I’m doing. It really touched me.”

Sharah at Outlandish Notions ran down the cost of happiness this week. She may not be able to buy the thing that would make her heart explode open in joy, but she can purchase the small moments that bring a smile to her day and she lists them and their price tag. The post brought a close focus on reality. Even in the middle of a crisis, happiness can be found in small oases. I love going through used book stores to find those small minutes of happiness. The hunt, the found book in great condition, the novel you never thought they would have. Regular bookstores are nice and I love new books. I love to sit at Politics and Prose and read a new book and drink coffee. But there is excitement built into trips to the used bookstore. LJ and I use the used bookstore run as our pick-me-up, and as you read this, two girls in shitty moods just returned from hunting down fiction (no books were purchased. Saved money going towards the Girl Blogger’s Night In). Thank you, Sharah, for the reminder that while you may not be able to buy Happiness, you can certainly buy happiness. Little h.

M at My Sanctuary had a sad little post this week, almost a shuddering sigh of a post, as she tries to organize the thoughts in her mind. It begins: “At a time in my life when it seems things may be on the upswing, I am miserable. Outwardly I’m a fabulous actress, but inside I’m just all mixed up and all over the place. I can barely muster up any enthusiasm or excitement about our new house, or going home next week for a wedding and holiday with my family, or our adoption plans. Usually I like my mind to be like a neat filing cabinet, all my thoughts and ideas and plans compartmentalised and organised – but some bastard has ransacked my filing cabinet and strewn shit everywhere and I can’t cope. ” The fears and worries are all very tangible and clear. Perhaps they’re scattered across the floor right now, but I hope writing them out brought some peace. The one that I wanted to respond to is this one: “Lately, I’ve become anxious about my blog. This is a relatively new one for me. I read so many other blogs, and they’re so damn good. Funny, honest, raw, warm and sometimes sad, but mostly beautifully written. I just write. I don’t draft (sometimes if I get an idea I will, but otherwise I don’t) – and everyone becomes all involved with different blog occasions and I just can’t keep up. I’d love to, but I can’t. Sometimes I wish I didn’t have people read this, my diary, but then I don’t know what I’d do without you.” I knew I wanted to put this post in the Roundup prior to getting to this paragraph. This paragraph simply gives me a chance to very publicly say that your writing and your blog is damn good. It is funny, honest, raw, warm, and sad. It is beautifully written. The words that you “just write” touch me incredibly and though I may not comment as often as I wish, I wanted you to know how much reading your sanctuary means to me.

That is the week for me. To wrap up–let me know if meditation worked for you, go check out the Blog Fair, and um…vote for me. Please?

0 comments

1 Rebecca { 11.02.07 at 12:47 pm }

Aww, yay, she had a girl!

In Britain, Halloween’s only been around since the mid 80s, so if your British neighbour is older than me, he probably won’t be that familiar with it. I did Trick or Treating a bit growing up… probably from ages 9-12?

2 Ellen K. { 11.02.07 at 1:26 pm }

Yeah, I had a hard time with the meditation challenge too. I think I get better results with guided relaxation techniques, like on the Anji infertility CDs.

3 Celeste (onelongyarn) { 11.02.07 at 4:52 pm }

Draft? Do you guys all draft before posting? Geez, I would never get one done if I had to. I also get self conscious about my writing, but whatever. I hope M feels comforted by your true words and by all of us who will be enveloping her and her upturned filing cabinet in our hearts.

As for meditation, I’m not sure what the challenge was, but your experience was not unique! Here’s my shaky attempt at explaining my understanding of meditiation: all day long while you’re running around here there and everywhere, your mind is chattering away at you in the background. The first part of meditation is quieting oneself physically, so of course you’re then going to encounter your chattering mind… and she tends to be great at anxiety-provoking thoughts. The actual practice of meditation is so beneficial because you learn to see beyond that chatter. As with anything else, it takes a lot of practice, and is especially challenging because you have to get past being sucked in by your own “Swamp of Sadness.”

Happy weekend!

4 Beagle { 11.02.07 at 5:17 pm }

congrats on your nomination!!
Click, click, click!

5 M { 11.02.07 at 6:49 pm }

Congrats on your nom – clicking away!

And thank you, thank you so much for ‘getting’ it and giving me a boost when I really, really need it….

x

6 Beagle { 11.03.07 at 6:31 am }

Me again!

Please consider this post for next week’s roundup:

http://vacantuterus.typepad.com/vacantuterus/2007/11/you-should-see-.html

I think it’s great. What if we ALL did this? Could we change things?

7 Jen { 11.03.07 at 9:54 am }

I lived in England for 5 years in the early 90s. There was no trick-or-treating on any kind of waide scale. My (American) school put out a list of addresses of student’s houses you could trick-or-treat at. My very nice parents drove us around all night. The nice thing was that you got really nice candy because the parents knew you wouldn’t be going to a lot of houses.

We took our British neighbor friend trick-or-treating one year. She was about six. We told her to wear a costume. In England, bathing suits are called swimming costumes, so she walked around in her bathing suit all night.

8 Jen { 11.03.07 at 11:22 am }

By the way, I was able to vote for you twice today by using my home computer and then logging in remotely to my work computer. If everyone who can do that does, we might be able to swing the totals.

9 Bea { 11.03.07 at 9:42 pm }

I feel sorry for Mr. Britain-Down-the-Street. What a reputation to live up to! He’s going to have to scale down carefully, or take out shares in a lolly factory.

Bea

(c) 2006 Melissa S. Ford
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