Search Results for "2013 creme"

So I didn’t really have a vacation.  Whatever the opposite of a vacation is, that’s what I had.  I had a work-a-thon.

Yes, we saw the Hobbit and Frozen (and Josh and I sneaked out to see American Hustle one night).  I managed to build a farm on Hay Day and run it like a boss.  But mostly, I finished Apart at the Seams, prepped the Creme de la Creme, and wrote 22 articles.  It was a lot of writing; a lot of really long days.  I was writing 12 – 15 hours per day, day after day after day.

And it only stopped right when it was time to send the kids back to school.

So I lost it after drop off.  I cried for a half hour because I had missed their vacation.  I’m aware that I will not be working through spring break, so we have another break down the road to play.  But that break wasn’t this break.  I missed this break.  And I sort of needed a break myself.

I’ve decided not to take a break in one clump once work calms in mid-January.  Instead, I have a bunch of books stacked up (and a freakin’ farm to run and candy to crush), and I’m going to take my break in tiny sips: one day a week for four or five weeks.  Or maybe take half days once a week and spread it out over 10 weeks.  I don’t need to lounge about for five straight days; in fact, that may be a bit much for me since I’m on my own.  But a day here and there sounds really good.

The other benefit to the break-here-and-there idea is that I never have to go through that hard landing of returning to work after being out.  It’s easier to deal with a day’s worth of stuff piling up than a week’s worth (as well as getting out of my writing rhythm).  Thinking of making my off-day on Wednesdays to break up the week.

Would you rather have a lot of spread out, tiny breaks (like an extra day off per week for many weeks) or one big break running on consecutive days?

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Looking for the Creme de la Creme of 2013?  It’s right there.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Birth Story” (A Glimpse Inside)
• “The Breast is Best Campaign is Evil” (Too Many Fish to Fry)
• “Moms Who Look Good” (Teach Me to Braid)
• “You are Not Alone” (No Kidding in NZ)

Okay, now my choices this week.

I read Andmom’s post about Christmas fantasies after the Roundup last week, so I’m including it here.  It’s a wonderful post that I think touches on so many times where our fantasies don’t match up with our realities — not just Christmas.  Such as the vision we have of ourselves holding a sweet, cooing baby (and the reality of a squalling infant while you’re sleep deprived and smelling like shit after having not showered for 4 days).  I love, love, love this post.  Especially the ending.

I also read Our Crazy Ever After after last week’s roundup, so her post on Christmas is here as well.  She admits: “Perhaps I am breaking an infertile cardinal sin….but I actually enjoyed my quiet time at home sans the pitter patter of footie-pajama’d feet.”  It’s a post about not looking at what she doesn’t have, but accepting and enjoying the Christmas she got.  And her final line amused me.

Lastly, Wee Hermione has a thought-provoking post about religion.  The meat of the post begins: “Do you ever mull things over in your mind for so long that you just want to get it all down in one long explanation and ramble, just to have the peace of mind that there, you put it down?”  Uh… yes.  1000 times yes.  It’s an interesting post detailing a life very different from my own, so I loved her story.  She writes about not feeling G-d while growing up in a religious household.  And just as her parents were black sheeps with their families, she became the black sheep of her family when it came to religion.  It’s about the communities that spring up around the spiritual.  It’s about discovering where you belong.  Wonderful post.

The roundup to the Roundup: Would you rather have your break in tiny sips of days over a long period of time or a break from work all in one clump?  The Creme de la Creme of 2013 is up.  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between December 27th and January 3rd) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.

I got nominated for my first Liebster Award.  I’ve seen this on a bunch of blogs, but I’ve never been picked. (Unless you count the times someone says, “I don’t know who to tag.  If you’re reading this, you’re tagged.”)  But this week, Em-i-lis picked me.  ME!

So thank you, Em-i-lis!

And I apologize if you did pick me, and I have completely blanked on that experience.

These are her questions and my answers:

What is your favorite nickname, bestowed by another or self-inflicted?

I was called Mickey back in middle school/high school.  And I really loved that nickname because the cutest boy in Hebrew school gave it to me.  That really cute boy didn’t age very well.  I am basing that on a Google search I just did.  I’m now highly disappointed.  But he was really cute when we were twelve.

With whom would you most like to have dinner (that you’ve not yet)?

I have a long lost family member that I connected with due to the family tree I’m making, and I would love to fly out to the West Coast and meet her.

Why do you blog?

Mostly because Josh would like other people to help carry the burden of listening to my thoughts.  Since I started blogging, I have mostly stopped bringing up huge topics at midnight when he’s trying to fall asleep.

What’s your favorite way to spend an afternoon?

Reading on the sofa next to Truman’s cage.  With hot chocolate.  And fuzzy socks.

What have you learned about yourself and/or your interests via blogging/writing?

I learned what it feels like to belong.  To fit somewhere.  For so much of my life, I didn’t have a place I fit.  And then I found writing and it was like slipping into an almost finished puzzle.  Then I would forget how I fit in writing and struggle in other places.  But every time I returned to writing, I would think, “oh yes!  I belong here.”

Let’s break for an easy one: Sweet or salty?

Sweet.  All the way.

Off the top of your mind, what are your favorite three books that aren’t your own (for you pubbed authors)?

• Harry Potter heptalogy (I know it is cheating to put 7 books but I need to break the rules)
• The Phantom Tollbooth
• Handmaid’s Tale

What’s some of the best advice you’ve ever received?

Always shit before making a big decision.  Or… maybe less disgustingly, make decisions on a relaxed body.  Before you hit send, before you make up your mind, before you take any steps that are no-going-back points, make sure that nothing physical is goading you to make up your mind faster than you wish.  Also, Carla Cohen’s advice to “just wing it.”

If you love to cook, what’s your favorite utensil? If you hate to cook, what’s your favorite dish prepared by others?

A solid spatula.  Like a pancake turner?  I use it for stirring, all the time.

What’s one of your favorite destinations (you could have gone once or many times)?

We go to Chincoteague a lot, so that’s up there as a favourite destination.  But I equally have a lot of love for the Book Mill in Montague, MA.

Who am I tagging?

• Loribeth from The Road Less Traveled
• Luna from Life from Here
• Justine from A Half Baked Life
• Lori from Lavender Luz
• Karen from River Run Dry

Consider yourself lucky that you were the first five people who popped into my brain!

Your questions:

1. Longest you’ve ever gone without a shower.
2. Tell us about a recent disappointment.
3. Tell us the person you’d most like in the car with you for a road trip.
4. Which do you like better: goats or sheep?
5. Do you like to watch scary movies?
6. What do you call yourself when you’re talking to yourself inside your head?
7. Name someone from your kindergarten class that you wonder about to this day.
8. What is the best song for picking up your mood?
9. How do you organize your socks?
10. When no one is home, do you close the bathroom door?

Everyone else, feel free to answer these too.  By the way, Josh contributed #9 and #10.

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Thank you for weighing in about the Creme de la Creme.  Sounds like there is a critical mass of people so… onward!  The list will open for submissions on the 15th next week.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “I Didn’t Make it Into the Newspaper” (Little Chicken Nuggets)
• “I Took a Walk” (Too Many Fish to Fry)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Wordgirl’s “Self Contained” is a post that I read a bit late, but I’m including it this week because it blew my mind.  You will cry reading it.  You will probably recognize something of yourself within it.  It was simply the most beautiful thing I’ve read in a while.

Misfit Mrs. also had a post about an anniversary that I was late to read that really belonged in last week’s roundup.  Can you tell that I’m behind on my reader?  Read it for that ending: “I feel like the patron saint of improbable, though. Or at least I owe a small corner of my home to building an alter to that currently undetermined saint. The savior of lost causes, the champion of losers, or the queens of epic failures are all in my court.”  But really, the entire thing is just lovely.

And the Vial Makes Three has a post about which one will carry the child that made me laugh.  It was, by far, amongst some actual heartfelt content, the best use of hashtags ever: “I am delighted to celebrate vicariously with these wonderful women, but (in all honesty) it makes me jealous. I know when it does happen for us it’s gonna be swell… it’ll be great… we’re gonna have the whole world on a plate.  #musicaltheaterref #merman #gaybies.”

Lastly, Andmom has a post about the word “just” — a word I’m guilty of using in a post this week.  It’s about needing more than and less than, and trying to fit into a system that is clearly not designed with her child in mind.  The frustration comes through every word of the post, and I hope that they find a solution that works.

The roundup to the Roundup: Get to know me… and I’d like to get to know you.  Eighth Creme de la Creme is starting next week.  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between October 4th and October 11th) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.

The calendar has flipped over to October… at least we still have one of those paper, flippable calendars on our wall.  It’s a freebie from a funeral home, which feels a little macabre (remember that time is passing, people!) but their squares are so big and empty.  Anyway, back to the original thought: October.

October is traditionally the kick-off for the annual Creme de la Creme list.  This will be the eighth list in existence.  (You can peruse old lists: such as 2006 or 2007 or 2008 or 2009 or 2010 or 2011, or last year’s, 2012.)  As always, I like to give people a heads up that I’m going to open the list on October 15th because I know there are those who like to get high up on the list.  The list is posted in the order in which the entries are received.  In other words, if you want your post to be the first one everyone reads, make sure you submit it right as the list opens on October 15th.

Submission collection will end again on December 15th.  Which means you have two months to choose a post.

Can I get a show of hands to gauge how many people plan to submit this year?  Want to make sure we have a critical mass before I plow ahead with plans.

In other words, now would be a good time to speak up and say hells yeah to an 8th year.  A simple “yes” or “me” is enough to let me know that you’re planning to submit.  A “reading but not submitting” is enough to let me know that there are additionally those out there who will read/support the list if I put in the work.

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Thank you to all who suggested the friendship pin as a good alternative.  Don’t get me wrong; we’re mastering that rubber band loom since I shelled out the money for it.  But I also dug out my old seed beads and some safety pins.

Want to be my friend?  I’ll trade you…

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “On Scars and Healing by Kathy Benson” (Exhale Literary Magazine)
• “The Dining Room Table” (Mrs. Spit… Still Spouting Off)
• “Faith and Fertility Treatments” (Genuine Greavu)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Tales of a Batty Nurse has a post about being a homebody that struck home for me (pun intended).  I could have written this line: “as much as there are places I’d like to see, I’m also very content to spend the majority of my time at home.”  I also just like being at home.  Which is a problem for someone who also likes to travel.  But there is something so nice about being in my own space.  I related to this post a lot.

The Maybe Baby (Babies) has a gorgeous post about a friend who has aged with her over the years, and they shared a “can you believe this really happened” moment bringing together their children.  Perhaps it’s knowing how long in the making this moment took.  Perhaps it was just the happiness the post contained.  It’s knowing that the next generation is finally here to carry on the troublemaking.

Lastly, From IF to When has a post about becoming unstuck.  It’s about that adult tendency to worry about change rather than embracing it.  It’s about the safety in the monotony of everyday life.  She’s pushing herself outside her comfort zone at least once per day.  Safety is in numbers, so if you want to join her in shaking things up, raise your hand in her comment section.

The roundup to the Roundup: Eighth Creme de la Creme is starting soon… right?  Bring back the friendship pin.  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between September 27th and October 4th) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.

Image: inajeep via Flickr

I read a post last week in HuffPo that the lost time capsule buried on the grounds of the Aspen Institute during the International Design Conference in 1983 had been unearthed, 13 years later than expected.  It had gotten lost in the ground when markers disappeared.  Steve Jobs — who had been at the conference — contributed a mouse from the Lisa computer.

The rest of the listed contents were all things you think of when you think 1983 (sort of): “a Rubik’s Cube, an eight-track recording of The Moody Blues, a June 1983 copy of Vogue magazine and a six-pack of Balantine beer meant for whoever dug up the capsule’s contents.”

The mouse was sort of the remarkable item in the set.

I guess the largest problem with time capsules is that you have no clue what people will be nostalgic about by the time they’re opened.  Things we take advantage of today and largely ignore could become elements that define the era.  For instance, after the zombies come and we’re all living in below-ground caves (in order to avoid the zombies roaming earth’s surface and living in our abandoned houses), we may feel nostalgic about things such as kitchen sponges.  Or paint samples.  Things we used back when we were above ground and had more light and our eyes could discern colour.  And we actually obsessed over the which shade of brown to paint our walls.

Or we could go with the items that clearly define this moment in time: an iPhone, dirt from Ground Zero, a bottle of Viagra.  But the things that have sticking power — such as the Rubik’s Cube — will most likely still be around either in use or in museums.  And the things that don’t have sticking power will become these things we sort of shake our head and laugh at, saying, “I have no clue why we thought that was important.”

I always wanted to plant a time capsule growing up, but I was really impatient AND I didn’t want to bury any cherished items in the ground.  But if I wasn’t going to bury cherished items, there didn’t seem a point.  Instead, every New Year’s Eve from age 8 until college, I copied over the same poem (one I wrote at age 8, so you can imagine…) and the alphabet, so I could see how my handwriting changed each year.  Those papers are somewhat buried at the moment in our storage room, which is sort of like having a huge time capsule in your house if you never deal with that room.  And I never deal with the storage room, hence why it’s like geek hoarders in there.

I guess I am interested in the idea of time capsules but have no desire to bury things that actually mean anything to me in this time period. (What a waste!)  And the reality is that it’s the intangible that means more to me overall.

In the interest of not actually burying anything, I propose a verbal time capsule post to be returned to in a set amount of years down the road.  In this comment section, I’d like to bury the blog posts and the header images and the site titles that mean a lot to you from the last ten years or so of the ALI community’s existence.  All you have to do is list them, though if you could provide a link, it would be even better.  Feel free to put in anything that means a lot to you; that will be something you’ll remember when you look back at the ALI community many years from now.

I’ll kick off the box with these items:

• The old sperm nudging header of A Little Pregnant
• Chez Miscarriage and Getupgrrl (as a whole)
• The very first Creme de la Creme
• Cyclesista
• The post “Returning to the Well” by Lavender Luz

What are you adding?  Since we have infinite space in which to contain them, which whole blogs, posts, headers, memes, ongoing projects, wise words, or videos from the ALI community should go in our virtual time capsule to remember the first ten years?

The ChickieNob and her friend have branched out from their original magazine idea to include a bunch of book spinoffs that they work on after school.  They use up a lot of my staples.  And a lot of paper.  It’s almost as if they hate trees and are attempting to single-handedly fell an entire forest-worth of trees by consuming more paper than thought humanly possible.  But this is not a post about how trees are clearly not the ChickieNob’s valentine. (Of course not; she also sent out dozens of paper valentines to friends.  And beyond that, it would be cruel to send a paper valentine to a tree, you know…)

It’s about how much she loves her work.

It is amazing to watch someone who is unabashedly in love with their work.  She should be in love with her work.  She has invested care and time and energy into producing these stapled-together books, and they are the best ChickieNob-produced stapled books.  She doesn’t look at them and say, “they don’t look like the books on our shelves.” She isn’t comparing because there is no comparison: only the ChickieNob can make a ChickieNob-like book, just as whoever writes the Magic Tree House books is the only person who can write Magic Tree House books in the way that she writes Magic Tree House books. The ChickieNob brings her stapled-together books into the kitchen where I’m baking and tells me that they’ve made yet another fabulous book, and I may want to get an envelope ready so we can send it out to publishers.

It is very easy to be someone else’s valentine.  It is easy to see their good qualities and want that person in our life.  It is easy to describe why I love Josh or the twins.

It is much harder to be my own valentine.  To see my good qualities and want to celebrate them.  It is hard to describe why I love myself, if I love myself at all.  Maybe it’s more like than love.  Or maybe, on some days, I just endure myself.

It is very easy to be impressed by the way another person does whatever they do that you do too: say they are a great doctor, rock climber, wife, student.  It is easy to see where someone else excels in their work or the way they lead their life.  Frankly, it’s easy to see it because we look for it, trying to find the comparisons to ourselves.  Sometimes we notice these things and feel like the other person deserves more accolades because they have something we don’t have, and sometimes we are confused as to why that paper got an A when ours only got a B.

An aside: I love the way A Half Baked Life says it: “I can do this when people experience joy in things that I don’t want; now it’s up to me to practice joy even when the achievement is something I would have wanted, too.” (See, easy to be a valentine to AHBL’s words.)

It is much harder to be impressed with your own work, to say that I’m a great doctor, rock climber, wife, student. (By the way, I’m expecting in this space that you are filling in whatever actions or roles are important to you.)  It is sometimes hard to write a resume without wondering if you’re boasting; if everything you’re saying is true.  I mean, yes, you know you can lead a team because you’ve done it before… but… are you really a good leader?  See, it’s easy to second-guess yourself.

It is very easy to love someone else’s blog posts.  To highlight a turn-of-phrase or suck in your breath over an a-ha moment of having similar thoughts explained in a perfect way.  To state all the reasons why you love someone else’s writing. I’ve done it every week for almost seven years with the Friday Blog Roundup.

It is much harder to love your own blog posts.  To sit back after you write something and say, “well that sure as hell is perfect.”  To state all the reasons why millions should check in daily to see your thoughts.  To state why you love the way you write.

So.

I’m going to ask you to do something hard today.  I’m going to ask you to look at your space and say, “hey, I wrote something worth reading this week.”  Because I promise you; you did.  It may not be the most fantastic thing you’ve ever written; it may not be the post you’ll pick next winter for the Creme de la Creme, but there was something you said this week that is worth a person’s time to look at.  Because they were your thoughts; just that.  And your thoughts have value, even when they’re not perfectly polished.

I’m going to ask you to be your own valentine and choose one of your posts written between February 8th and February 14th (and if you haven’t written this week, it’s fine to whip something up, post it, and submit that).  I’ve already picked my posts for the Roundup tomorrow, but this list will take the last slot; a collective effort of the ALI blogosphere for a week when more than one person has said they feel disconnected.

A catch: so that the list can go up on the Roundup tomorrow, it will close to submissions at 10 pm EST tonight.

So fill out the form below (don’t leave the post name and URL in the comment section) and check back tomorrow to see the list.

The submission form is now closed. Check here tomorrow to see the list.

Happy Valentine’s Day.