I’ve been thinking of my attention as of late in terms of money; in the sense that we all have a limited amount of time in our day and therefore, by default, a limited amount of attention.  We can spend our attention mindful of our attention budget, taking into consideration all that needs to get accomplished, or we can spend our attention freely, letting the day take us where it will and perhaps ending up at the end of the day with a long to-do list still incomplete.

The first way of spending my attention is pretty fucking boring, to be frank.  I mean, I need to be an adult and get my work done and get the laundry done and tick off all the tasks on my to-do list.  But it’s like exercise: I feel good after I’ve done it, but I don’t enjoy doing it.  It makes me feel virtuous, but it doesn’t feel creatively fulfilling.  And I usually get to the end of the day and feel like I spent all of my time on other people and not myself.  I can literally go through day after day of doing things for other people, placing myself second, and never getting to myself and my own wants at all.

The second way doesn’t work either.  It’s sort of like eating brownies for every meal.  The first one tastes great, but after a bit, you start to feel queasy from all of the fat and sugar, your body quite aware that there’s no substance to the food.  I’ll declare a mental health day from work and use it to read blogs, jumping into Facebook and Twitter, and I’ll look at the clock and realize that four hours have passed and I’ve enjoyed myself, but I don’t feel full.  My to-do list is still screaming at me.  And I generally feel like crap about myself when I don’t feel that I’ve been productive.

And at the same time, who defines productivity except myself?

I put a post-it note above my computer last week that reads:

Because I need that reminder.  I have a tendency to run instead of walk.  I have a tendency to feel panicked that I’m not doing enough when it’s quite clear that I’m stretched thin.  This race is entirely internal — I don’t feel like I’m racing other people.  I feel like I’m racing the universe itself; time itself.

I internalized Mr. Keating’s speeches in Dead Poets Society a bit too deeply — I feel like every moment of the day, I am screaming at myself to seize life (carpe diem!) and even if I’m holding it, I’m still screaming at myself to seize it harder.

*******

There’s another way to think about spending attention.  In the example above, it’s about being mindful of quantity.  I have 1440 minutes in my day.  How am I going to allot them to the various things I need to do and want to do?

The other side is quality.  Am I spending my attention on things of worth?  I’d argue that when I’m mindful of how much time I’m spending on it, reading blogs is a quality activity.  I learn something new; my world is expanded; and I connect with another human being.

That is, when the blog is worth reading.  Or when the news story is worth following.  It is too easy to get sucked into the outrage of the day.  It is too easy to waste hours of time over someone else pushing our buttons.  I felt that was last week with the whole Scott Adams misogynistic rant.  I could feel myself getting sucked into thinking about it, reading about it, talking about it.

What a waste of time.

Laurie’s point at the end of the Scott Adams post is what kicked off this idea — that I don’t need to give myself a Tiger Blood transfusion just because someone else is putting the bag on the IV pole (wait, what sort of analogy is that?  Why do I need a transfusion?)  It was further cemented by a brief email conversation with a friend who said that his blog traffic was high if he was talking about something controversial, weighing in on the big daily blogosphere brouhaha.  But his readership dropped considerably if he wrote a touching post about himself.

Personally, I skip over the posts about the big daily blogosphere brouhahas because it goes back to quality — and I don’t see drama as time well-spent.  But I love his quieter posts about himself.  Those are the ones that move me and make me feel as if I spent my attention wisely upon reading them.

It’s not that hard to turn down the Tiger Blood transfusion; to say “no thank you” to someone else’s drama when your peeking into their world.  But what about when they kick down your figurative door and drag you into the drama?  This happened recently to Flotsam and she wrote a long, albeit important (and worth reading!) piece about it.

She states about not interacting with people who are trying to provoke you:

Alas, Conventional Wisdom made contradictory demands upon me. One such set of demands goes like this: Do Not Acknowledge Internet Trolls/Do Not Let Internet Trolls Dictate Your Behavior. The idea is to proceed as if the incident never happened at all, so as not to give them the satisfaction of knowing that they “got to you.” Attention will only encourage them, because attention is what they want, so we mustn’t give it or The Terrorists Win.

Putting yourself out there means that people crash into you (some nicely, some not so nicely).  On one hand, you get the giant game of Marco Polo that Alexa mentions at the end of the post.  On the other hand, you get the email that she mentions at the beginning of the post.

I’m not even sure where I’m going with this beyond the fact that I have been acutely aware as of late of how I am spending time.  Of how much I spend on others and not on myself.  Of whether I’m buying quality moments with my attention or whether I’m buying garbage — and whether what I buy is totally in my control (I mean, if someone steals my wallet, the money is gone but I didn’t choose how I spent it.  When you get an email like Alexa received, you don’t necessarily choose how you spend your attention because you’re going to be affected emotionally).

How are you spending your attention?  Your daily 1440 minute allotment?

A few weeks ago, we went to a Star Wars event.  They had a band playing the score from the movies, props from the sets, and art projects.  Some kids came in costume.  (Our family phoned it in with Star Wars t-shirts.  By which I mean the Wolvog and I wore Star Wars t-shirts, and the ChickieNob and Josh said, “so, you’re going to wear that?”)

The crowning moment of the event was the parade of characters.  Unfortunately they skipped over providing ANY FEMALE CHARACTER despite the fact that probably 1/3rd of the crowd were girls.  We got a soft-spoken Obi Wan, some storm troopers, and various other minor characters.

Obi Wan mentioned that they were all members of a group who dress up and attend charity events or help out non-profits, or simply dress up and enjoy each other’s Star Wars company.  He then mentioned that the regional group has thousands of members, not to mention the fact that they are a drop in the bucket of the overall membership to the organization.  Across America, there are people slipping into Princess Leia’s white gown or Darth Vader’s heavy-breather mask AS YOU READ THIS.

This blew my mind for some reason.

I’m not sure I love Star Wars enough to hang out and chat about the Force with others, but I could think of plenty of well-loved movies or books I’d dedicate my time to recreating with costumes and accents and such.

I could see myself as a random Harry Potter character.  Or playacting as the member of a band (though I guess that’s a little bit what that Rock Band game is… right?).  And if there was ever a group of people dressing up and playing The Phantom Tollbooth, I’d slip myself into a big furry Tock costume.

What group would you join if it existed?

*******

I watch a lot of YouTube while I’m supposed to be writing.  In my defense, I write very quickly and I’m fairly prodigious in the amount of pages I churn out, therefore, I don’t feel badly that I use roughly half my writing time watching YouTube and surfing the Web.  I chalk it all up as idea-casting.

My favourite thing to watch beyond music videos and footage from old concerts is television clips — either things I remember or things I missed the first time around.  As of late, I’ve been on a comedian kick, my two favourites being Andy Kaufman and Gilda Radner.

I’m not sure how much either of them identified as Jewish in daily life, but it fills me with such nachas that I can list them as Jewish comedians.  There are a lot of Jewish comedians; a lot of Jewish writers and performers and actors.  And I don’t feel extreme pride over all of them.  For instance, it has never stirred me emotionally that Jerry Seinfeld is a member of the tribe.  I like his work and I’ve gone to see his stand-up routine, but it makes no difference to me whether he’s Jewish.

There is no rhyme or reason as to whether I feel that pride that we’re in the same group.  Gilda Radner, yes.  Andy Kaufman, yes.  Judd Apatow, no.  Eugene Levy, yes.  Jerry Seinfeld, no.  Andy Samberg and Akiva Schaffer, yes. (Sorry, Jorma Taccone, that we can’t claim you.)

The words are bleeped out, but I’m fairly certain that this isn’t the best thing to watch at work. But when you get home…

This, on the other hand, totally acceptable for the workplace.  Even if you don’t work in your living room like me.

*******

Sometimes I sit and think about all the names I’m never going to get to use.  I know most people have more names that they love than they could possibly have children — that isn’t unique.  But they also probably don’t give it as much thought as I do — and I chalk that up to the brick wall between myself and procreation.

If you are involved at all in NaBloPoMo, Eden Kennedy’s brain-child that involves posting daily for an entire month (a bloggy response to NaNoWriMo — National Novel Writing Month where you commit to writing a novel in the month of November), you know the news… I’m running it now.

NaBloPoMo merged with BlogHer, and BlogHer hired me to run it.  Apparently, being the most anal person on earth with colour-coded systems for everything in my life pays off every once in a while.  So I will now be organizing NaBloPoMo for BlogHer, and still running IComLeavWe (the commenting response to NaNoWriMo) for myself, and using my tremendous organizational powers for good instead of evil.

Because can you imagine the amount of evil I am capable of doing with this paper-filing brain?

It has sort of been a wonderful end of the week after the announcement because all these bloggers I knew from years past crawled out of the woodwork to reconnect.  They had closed one blog and opened a new one and were now living life, doing NaBloPoMo, and when they saw my name they thought — oh! the ALI community.  It felt like the email equivalent to Dan Fogelberg’s “Same Old Lang Syne.”  Except there was no snow falling because it wasn’t Christmas Eve.  It was more like the end of March.  So there was rain.

NaBloPoMo is also a good fit because it is now the receptacle of my daily, unending string of questions, which have now been shunted into daily writing prompts.  One of which I will offer each week in Roundup to entice you to one day commit to doing NaBloPoMo.  I’m calling it ComOnNaPro (Comment on NaBloPoMo Prompt) — a chance to test in a comment if you have the brain power to do a full month of NaBloPoMo.

So, to sum up, I’m the new face of NaBloPoMo.  I will continue to do good instead of evil with my incredible, Rolodex-like brain.  I will sometimes suggest a double helping of writing and commenting by begging you to give NaBloPoMo and IComLeavWe a chance at the very same time.  I need to grow at least five inches rather quickly so I can fill Eden Kennedy’s cool-ass shoes.

Josh wanted me to do an April Fools Day Roundup linking all the blog posts listed below to porn.  And I told him I wouldn’t.  Not because I love you and respect you, but because I hate April Fools Day.

After I wrote that paragraph, I read it aloud to Josh who commented that it made him sound like he knew anything about Internet porn.  In actuality as I write this, Josh is reading War and Peace on his blackberry. (His goal was to read the longest free book he could find on the smallest Kindle screen.)

I’m not sure I just elevated your opinion of Josh with that last thought.

*******

I’m just going to be honest here: I fucked up this entire week.  I didn’t get anything accomplished that I wanted to get accomplished.  The house is a wreck — piles of random papers on the kitchen table, toys across the living room floor, unfolded laundry.  I’m phoning it all in at the moment.  ChickieNob asked me if I wanted them to clean up the living room and I said, “nah.”  What sort of person tells other people not to clean up their clutter?

I didn’t practice guitar enough.  I got frustrated with the song I was working on and pretty much quit because it was making me feel like a loser.  I’m sure I’ll regret that action at my next guitar lesson.  I ate like shit when I ate at all.  I ate french fries for dinner one night.  I meant to make a protein with them, but I didn’t.  My email inbox is overflowing.  I didn’t replace guitar practice, cooking, or returning correspondence with anything amazing.  I couldn’t really tell you where this week went.

I don’t even know why I told you all of that except that it simply felt good to unload it.

*******

Most people know of my fear of mayonnaise — it is even part of my BlogHer profile because it felt like it was pretty much the most important thing someone should know about me.

Yesterday, I encountered a post on BlogHer about mayonnaise and I had to tweet about it.  So I closed my eyes and thought about England (isn’t that what you’re supposed to do during situations such as LH-surge sex and tweeting about mayo?) and wrote it.  And Lori saw and came back with this:

[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/LavLuz/status/53629223776169985″]

Could not stop laughing.

*******

Instead of the Weekly What If: what food item would you banish from this earth if given the power?

You might think I’d say mayo, but I’d actually choose chocolate-covered crickets because that would rid the world of crickets too.

*******

And now, the blogs…

Stumbling Gracefully has an interesting post about aging that gave a lot of food for thought.  In the first part of our life, we work towards all of these goals, and in the second part of life, we simply… well… live those goals.  It’s the ever after — whether it is happily or not.  And it’s her explanation at the end of how to relive the roller coaster or the forging of new roads (of creating your own new goals) that resonated with me.

Life of the Barely Sane has a post about open adoption and medical records.  About seeing your child ill and not having the answers to questions asked, and how that feels.  It is a post simply about the importance of knowledge — not just because it gives us information that can push us towards a solution, but because information can also make us feel settled.  And sometimes that is equally important — to know answers to yourself or to be able to provide them to a child.

CD1 Again has a post about defining family and a conversation she has with her step-daughter.  She explains that she needs to convey: “I’m her step-mom and I don’t want to take her mother’s place when she’s with us. I’m her friend, one of her parents, and someone who loves her very much. But at the same time, I have to make her understand that I would love to have been her mom, lest I make her think I don’t love her like a mom.”  I think what struck me is this idea of — within any relationship — wanting more.  I have certainly felt it as well as what she writes about how these relationships knock at the tender spot in an infertile woman’s heart.  It’s a post worth reading and thinking about.

Lastly, Empty Whole records the a-ha moments that took her out of mourning the end of the cycle.  The first is really interesting especially in regards to risk and what odds we would need to lay out that money on a cycle (vs. taking it to Vegas!).  But the second one just made me smile since I also read those signs and often hope they’ll somehow provide the answers I need.  And the one she passed is a damn good reminder.

The roundup to the Roundup: No April Fools joke here.  I really wasted this week.  I can’t believe I had to tweet about mayonnaise.  Answer the Weekly What If.  And lots of great posts to read.

Welcome back to IComLeavWe. It stands for International Comment Leaving Week, but if you say it aloud, doesn’t it sounds like “I come; [but] leave [as a] we”? And that’s sort of the point. Blogging is a conversation and comments should be honoured and encouraged. I like to say that comments are the new hug–a way of saying hello, giving comfort, leaving congratulations.

Here is the vital information, pure and simple (a more detailed set of rules follows below the list):

• The list opens the 1st of every month. It remains open until the 21st. You can add yourself at any point. The list is open to everyone in the blogosphere–blog writers and/or blog readers.
• Add yourself to the list by filling out this form: The list is now closed.  The May list will open 5/1.
• Click here to cut-and-paste this bit of code to add to your sidebar (if you have the old code from another month, remove it and replace it with this one). You need to add the icon or a link to the current list on your blog (see below) and will not be added until it’s up.
• Commenting kicks off every month on the 21st. Please mark it somewhere (calendar, post-it note taped to your computer…), though I will be sending out an email reminder on the 20th. Commenting week runs from the 21st to the 28th. Every day, leave 5 comments and return 1 comment for a total of 6 comments. You are highly encouraged to choose the blogs you comment on from the participants list below, but this is not required.
• I will send a second email on the 28th to remind you to remove the icon from your blog.
• Read below if you want to find out about Iron Commenters.
• The commenting ends on the 28th. We catch our breath and the whole thing starts again the next month on the 1st. Drop in and out according to what is happening in your life between the 21st and the 28th.

1. Stirrup Queens (twins, books, writing)
2. The Pursuit of Pregnancy (IUI, RPL, clotting disorder)
3. I Want to be a Daddy (male infertility experience)
4. Among the Blossoms (life, infertility, randomness)
5. The 2 Week Wait (TTC, humor, infertility)
6. Hannah Wept, Sarah Laughed (infertility, advocacy, hope)
7. Feeling Beachie (life, humor, family)
8. A Nuttier Life (PCOS, doxies, randomness)
9. CD1 Again (infertility, family)
10. Are We There Yet (parenting after IF)
11. Hausfrau (kids, crafts, cookery)
12. Balancing Act (parenting, military, multiples+1)
13. Cradles and Graves (2nd-tri losses, infertility, pregnant)
14. The Ladies in Waiting Book Club (book club, support, friendship)
15. Just us and the cat (fet, tubelessness, life)
16. Diary of taking small steps toward baby steps (IVF, FET, PCOS)
17. Your Great Life (infertility, emotional support, fertility health)
18. Dealing With DOR (high fsh, infertility)
19. Misconceptions About Conception (donor egg, feelings)
20. My Daily Mooosings in the Netherlands (simplifying life, culture, Netherlands)
21. Empty Whole (azoo, MFI, healing)
22. A Half Baked Life (parenting after loss, food, life)
23. Trying to conceive (IVF, support, ICSI)
24. Bio Girl (family, infertility, FET)
25. Reverie (adoption, parenting, infertility)
26. Babies, Balanced Translocations, and Being in my 30’s (IVF/PGD, miscarriage, ttc #1)
27. Will Train For Cream Cheese Icing (secondary infertility, being an athlete)
28. We Say IVF They Say FIV (infertility, IVF, parenting)
29. Pink In The Sheets (lesbian, love, lifestyle)
30. for all the things we hope for (infertility, nursing school, married life)
31. Somewhere In The Middle (infertility, adoption, waiting)
32. From Ms to Mrs…& back to Ms (canceled wedding, family)
33. Musings of a Hormonal Egg Basket (baby after IVF)
34. Mommy Odyssey (miscarriage, healing, humor when called for)
35. Chasing Our Stork: Our Journey with Infertility (ivf #1, unexplained infertility, graduate school)
36. The Road Less Traveled (pregnancy after loss, embryo donation)
37. Storm in My Teacup (FET#2, greyhound, VWbus)
38. Momsmith (parenting, infertility/PCOS, randomness)
39. A Field of Dreams (parenting, weight loss, humour)
40. Where’s Our Stork? (infertility, pcos, azoo)
41. Dragondreamer’s Lair (parenting, secondary infertility, crafts)
42. Aisha Iqbal (motherhood, parenting, life)
43. On Tap for Today (life, humor, Boston)
44. The Bushey Life (pregnancy after IF)
45. Coffee and Crafts (crafts, coffee, randomness)
46. Mephistos (green-living, alpha-geek, libertarian)
47. Failed Genetics (marriage, infertility, adoption)
48. Poor Lucky Me (neonatal loss, trying again)
49. As Good As It Gets (parenting after infertility)
50. InDueTime (life, infertility, pcos)
51. Baby Steps to Motherhood (ivf, MF, ttc)
52. The Stork Drop Zone (humor, infertility, positivity)
53. Our Stork Isn’t Great with Directions (infertility, parenting, work)
54. Eighteenyears (infertility, hopeful, psoriasis)
55. Joyous Birdie (de ivf, 49 years old, pregnant with twins)
56. Survive and Thrive (infertility, EFT, survival)
57. ReeWrite (breastfeeding, mommyhood, animals)
58. A Year On…. Our New Beginning (hopefully) (stillbirth, infertility, IVF)
59. The Daily Miracle (ivf, secondary if, humour)
60. Diary of a Mad Infertile Woman (injectables, infertility, coping)
61. Here We Go Again (dead baby, parenting, random)
62. Bodega Bliss (miscarriage, loss, grief)
63. My Hormonacoaster (ivf, mfi, pcos)
64. 2’s Company. 3’s a Family (female-factor infertility, loss, TTC)
65. The One in Eight Couple (unexplained infertility, family, life)
66. Stumbling Gracefully (parenting, photography, waxing philosophical)
67. Second Hand Happiness (buying nothing new for a year)
68. Broken Birds & Bees (infertility, humor, life)
69. Traditionally Nontraditional (family, TTC, infertility)
70. Palm Trees & Rainy Days (ivf, infertility, ttc)
71. Mission: Fertile Soul (fertility, joy, humor)
72. Searching for the Missing Piece (adoption, life, creativity)
73. MissConception (IVF, PCOS, TTC#1)
74. Whitney & Erick (miscarriage, IVF, cooking)
75. I’m Very Far Away (infertility, IUI, asia)
76. A Greater Yes (embryo adoption, parenting, infertility)
77. Elusive Take Home Baby (recurrent miscarriage, friendship, health)
78. One Wheeler’s World (life, love, parenting after if)
79. The Inadequate Conception (infertility, humor, new book)
80. My Daily Mooosings in the Netherlands (simplifying life, culture, Netherlands)
81. My Hopeful Journey (infertility app, hope, support)
82. Someday (pregnant, IVF, azoospermia)
83. Hearts Joined, Hands Fast (MFI, IUI, TTC)
84. The Journey Continues (kids, IVF, life)
85. Mommy In Waiting (pregnant from IVF#4)
86. This non-American Life (travel, expat life, Europe)
87. Flogging the Muse (art, painting, creativity)
88. Compromised Fertility (iui, two week wait, working with toddlers and preschoolers)
89. In Case You Need Proof (parenting, family, life)
90. Then Comes the Baby in the Baby Carriage (infertility, emotions, books)
91. Creating a Family (infertility, adoption, adoptive parenting)
92. Maternal Hope (pregnancy IVF twins)
93. The Panda Diaries (newborn, depression, life)
94. Exploring Chaos (IVF, parenting, TTC#2)
95. The Rocky Road to Motherhood (infertility, pregnancy, life)
96. It Is What It Is (Or Is It?) (domestic adoption, adult adoptee, life)
97. ~*Sam and Corey*~TTC #1 (infertility, pregnancy, me)
98. No Kidding in NZ (childless infertility survival)
99. Savor The Moment (pcos, life, love)
100. The Conceivable Future (RPL, infertility, life)
101. On the Road (vasectomy reversal, ttc, life)
102. Sunshine on Jupiter (IVF, pcos, loss)
103. I Believe In Miracles (RPL, motherhood after adoption)
104. Wistfulgirl’s World (infertility, life, A to Z blogging challenge)
105. Tippy and Tidy’s Tumultuous Trip to Toddlers (ttc#1, unexplained, multiple ivf)
106. Inconceivable! (ivf, step-parenting, life)
107. My Infertile Confessions (pregnant with twins after IVF)
108. One Wheeler’s World (infertility, parenting after if, life)
109. Grafting a Branch Onto the Family Tree (post attempted surrogacy, renewed TTC, weight loss)
110. Delayed in Dinkville (ttc#1, recurrent miscarriage, life)
111. Marriage 2.0 (marriage, infertility, life)
112. My Angel Baby…Aiden William (love, loss, hope)
113. IFSerenityNow (ivf, fet, loss)
114. A Woman My Age (adoption, infertility, parenting after 40)
115. More Room in my Heart (secondary infertility, diminished ovarian reserve, IVF#5)
116. Wonderfully Ordinary (parenting, infertility, life)
117. The Barreness’s Blog (parenting after infertility)
118. A peek into our Journey (infertility, waiting, IVF)
119. Ready Now to See it YOUR Way (ttc, god, life)
120. Lissie’s Luck (PCOS cautious hope)
121. Almost There (foster, adoption, secondary infertility)
122. Our Life Journey (infertility, life, faith)
123. Take Home Baby (pregnancy miscarriage infertility)
124. Uncommon Nonsense (infertility, pregnancy, advocacy)
125. Our New Plan A (life after ivf )
126. The Barreness (art infertility memories)
127. My Little Eye (art life craft)
128. Infertility in China… A Journey (ivf, infertility, expat)
129. Cinderella Wore Glass Slippers (IVF, coping, unexplained IF)
130. Everyone else but me (parenting after IVF, attic project, ectopic pregnancy)
131. Busted Plumbing (PCOS, parent after loss, awesomeness)
132. InfertilityUnexplained (unexplained infertility, iui, culture)
133. Not Exactly What I Had Planned (ivf, mfi)
134. For We Are Bound By Symmetry (ttc #1, unexplained infertility)
135. The (In)fertility Diaries (pregnancy, adoption, life)
136. Body Diaries by Lucy (family, pcos, if)
137. Infertilitee (secondary IF, 2yrs ttc, robot sex)
138. No Baby Ruth (3rd trimester, IUI, PCOS)
139. Diary of a Residency Widow (residency life, TTC#1, PCOS)
140. IUI to Roux-en-Y (surgery prep, weight loss, IF)
141. Pursuing Parenthood (Previously “Grafting a Branch onto the family Tree”) (post surrogacy attempt, resarting TTC, weight loss)
142. Raising Cain (someday) (IVF, infertility, waiting for #1)
143. My Rotten Eggs (repeat loss, idiots, everyday life)
144. Creating Our Miracle (IVF # 2, TTC # 1, MFI)
145. Watering Faith’s Seed (fet, faith, ttc)
146. Crazy [Beautiful] Dream (adoption, pregnant after infertility)
147. The Infertility Overachievers (pregnant after IVF)
148. Just Relax (humor, pregnancy, infertility)
149. Blawnde’s Blawg (pregnant after infertility)
150. The Unfair Struggle (mfi, speedskating, trying again?)
151. One day at a time (hypothyroidism, army, IF)
152. AFM (pregnancy after loss, RPL, parenthood)
153. Pontifications of a Twin Mom (twins, humor, parenting)
154. Getting There (adoption, life, settling in)
155. The Fertility Daily (infertility, coping, humor)
156. GoTeamBaby (ivf, infertility, forty-two)
157. Life’s everyday adventures! (life, randomness, volunteering)
158. It Is Tuesday, Right?? (ivf, motherhood, sarcasm)
159. Salvageable (motherhood, TTC, stress)
160. Just Us…For Now (FET, miscarriage, infertility)
161. Beyond the Wallpaper (infertility, balanced translocation, miscarriage)
162. That’s My Answer (question of the day, fun, life)
163. Outside My Head (marathon, running, life)
164. Family of Two: The Adoption Chronicles (adoption, life, marriage)
165. Trying not to scream (infertility, loss, trying again)
166. The Sun’ll Come Out Tomorrow (I Hope) (pregnant after RPL)
167. About My Uterus (PCOS, loss, TTC#2)
168. Created Family (infertility, life, social work)
169. This Is Mommyhood (motherhood, life, humor)
170. Weathering the Storm (international adoption, health, thoughts)
171. My Dusty Uterus (humor, pregnancy, eggs)
172. Infertile in a Fertile Land (infertility, india, hope)
173. Just Stop Trying and It Will Happen (infertility, life, snarkiness)
174. Hope Springs Infertile (de ivf, parenting, life)
175. The Life of Miss Conception (high fsh, ridiculosity)
176. Life As I Know It (twins, life, baby)
177. Life as I know it… (infertility, IVF, life)
178. The Great Big IF (parenting after infertility, infertility, IVF)
179. The list is now closed.  The May list will open 5/1.

Q: What if I miss a day?

A: Catch up the next day by doubling your comments–12 comments instead of 6.

Q: What if I have two blogs? Can I sign up twice, listing both blogs?

A: Yes, but you also need to double your comments. If you have two blogs listed, you should be leaving 12 comments per day.

Q: What is an Iron Commenter?

A: Not for the faint-of-heart. People who wish to be an Iron Commenter and be entered on the Iron Commenter honour roll need to leave a comment on every blog on the participants list (exceptions are blogs that require you to have a special log-in, such as some LiveJournal accounts or other similar situations). You can spread out this commenting any way you wish over the whole week, but the final comment needs to be left by midnight on the 28th (EST). Reaching Iron Commenter status is done on an honour system. Please email me if you earn Iron Commenter status so I can add you to the wall of honour.

Q: Why do I have to add that bit of code to my sidebar?

A: The code is the latest icon (the icon changes colour every month so you know that you’re on the right list). This month, the icon is blue, the next month it will be red, etc. The reason is two-fold: (1) it enables more people to find out about IComLeavWe and (2) it gives you easy access to the current list once the commenting week actually begins and better ensures that you’ll use it. Too many times, people sign up and forget to actually do IComLeavWe and this icon gives you a daily reminder (with the dates on it) every time you open your own blog. The icon is linked back to the current list. On the 28th, remove the icon from your blog. A new one will be created for the next month.

Q: It’s the 23rd and I just saw this for the first time on my friend’s blog! I want to join the list–why can’t I?

A: Because IComLeavWe happens every month, once the list is closed, it’s closed. If you’re finding out about this on the 23rd, you can’t join the current month. But leave yourself a note to check back in a week on the 1st and you can sign up for the next month.

Q: You said the list closes on the 21st. Well, it’s still the 21st where I am. Why aren’t you moving my information onto the list?

A: All dates and times are U.S. Eastern Standard Time (UTC/GMT -5 hours). The list closes around 11 p.m. EST on the 21st.

Q: What if no one comments on my blog and I have no comments to return?

A: Well, that really doesn’t happen for the most part, but in that case, simply choose another blog and add an additional comment. The goal is to hit 6 comments daily as a minimum. Going over that is fantastic and encouraged.

Q: Mel, my question wasn’t covered at all. What do I do?

A: Email me; I’m quite friendly. It helps to place “IComLeavWe” in the subject line. You could also check this post which contains the history of IComLeavWe and see if you can glean anything there.

Looking for the comment section? It has been closed on this post. Use the form in the directions to add yourself to the list.