As we turn the corner into the last few days before Christmas, it feels like this hush has come over the blogosphere.  People are still posting somewhat — though that has slowed down — and commenting here and there, but it feels very quiet.

Barring duplicates, 271 posts should be on the Creme de la Creme when it goes up on January 1st.  Just to give you a sense of proportion; last year’s Creme had 288 posts total, and on the 15th, when the soft deadline fell, there were 187 posts.  So almost 100 posts more this time.  Gulp.

Yes, I am seriously worried that I won’t finish in time.

But I’m up for the challenge.

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While I am reading and writing about your posts, you could read my new book (hint, hint), Life from Scratch.  Lori from Write Mind Open Heart is throwing an online book tour for the book.  For those who have been missing the Barren Bitches Book Brigade, here is your chance to march again.  Everyone is welcome (and begged) to participate.  And it would make my weekend if you joined along.

If you would like to join along (and I really really hope you’ll join along.  How many times can I say that?), please visit Lori’s post to see how to sign up.  In brief, you sign up, read the book, send one question in February that  you’d propose to the group (Lori will collect these), and then she’ll send you the list of questions that you can choose from to answer in a blog post.  Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

So … this is my begging you to join along.

Pretty please?

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Three things that caught my attention this week:

1. I wrote a post about why I’ve written for BlogHer for the last four years over at The Field Trip.

That obviously caught my attention because I wrote it.

2. Anna Olswanger has started a new site called Yerusha for older, child-free Jews (in other words, Jewish men and women who are child-free not by choice).  It has forums and advice.  I know it only services a specific niche, but since there are people who read this blog who fit that specific niche, I thought I’d throw it out there.  I love how Julia Child is what kicked off the whole idea.

3. 16th and Q created a video for the It Gets Better Project.  And it’s clever because Chanukkah was about the ultimate bully (King Antiochus) telling people that they couldn’t be themselves, and the point of the chanukkiah is to shine light in the world so intolerance has no place to hide.  This video also passed the “Does it Make Melissa Cry” test, though I’d like it noted that I lasted almost 7/8ths of the way through the video before I started wailing.

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The Weekly What If: What if you could time travel and be physically present to witness one moment in history.  You’d be perfectly safe regardless of the situation, and you’d only be standing witness.  What moment would you choose?

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And now, the blogs…

Riding the IVF Roller Coaster has a post about the emotional roller coaster of being pregnant again after a loss.  She writes of her first pregnancy: “When Blobby died I felt so much guilt for not having celebrated and accepted his life while he was alive. ”  And now, back in the same position again, she is struggling to apply the lessons she learned the first time around.  Because it is just so damn hard.  She finds the root of her fears, but it is the last few lines that are so lovely that you need to click over and read the whole post just for that ending.

Many Many Moons has a post that includes Ally McBeal’s dancing baby … sort of.  She was attending a party at a restaurant and she had one of those evenings that was so ridiculous that she couldn’t actually get upset from it.  One after the other, people asked her if she was pregnant yet, that is, until she got to the final moment: “I was standing there barely recovered from the firing squad that had just accosted me, when in walks (and I’m not kidding when I say this) a string of 5 women marching military style as if reporting for duty.  They came to rest almost right in front of me, Ver.a Brad.ley bags in hand, and turn to face me almost in unison.”  Oooh, you’ll have to click over and read the end of the post to hear where they were from.

This is why I’m thrilled that Infertile Fantasies is back to posting on a public blog.  She has a wonderfully terrible post about worst case scenarios, nodding to the actualities of life (“‘Pre-eclampsia can be serious. Worst case scenario, you might even start having seizures and we’ll have to admit you.’ Uh, no… worst case scenario, you die and your baby dies, too.  But, see, it’s awkward to bring that sort of thing up.”) and mixing it with the absurd.  But it’s the stark truth in the fact that the birth is such a small part of the whole, as well as the fact that it’s just as easy to say “shut up now” as it is to say, “take deep cleansing breaths.”

The roundup to the Roundup: good lord there are a lot of Creme posts.  Please join along for the blog tour of Life from Scratch.  Three things that caught my attention this week.  Answer the Weekly What If.  And lots of great posts to read.

Cream-based drinks on special at the virtual bar today: Baileys and Mudslides and … whatever else is milky and sweet because it is the final day to submit a post to the Creme de la Creme and ensure that it’s on the list when it goes up January 1st.

Sure, you could always submit your post on December 16th, and plenty of people do, but I can’t promise those posts will go up in the first round.  They’ll probably be added to the list some time in early January.

So what are you waiting for?

While we all drink and go through our archives and ask the other patrons at the bar what our best post of the year was (and I’m sorry, but everyone has a best post.  Or a best of the worst if you’re going to put yourself down and want to look at it that way), I’d also like to thank you for all the good wishes and book purchases for Life from Scratch.

Even though I’m completely sober (look, I’m pouring drinks with a steady hand), I got very weepy-in-my-beer reading through the comments and seeing the book sale rankings on Amazon.  Thank you.  I really can’t thank you enough.  And I can’t wait to hear what you think.

Deep breath.

It has been almost two months since we met, bitched, cried, comforted, and caught up each other on our cycles and lives. Pull up a seat and I’ll pour you a drink. Let everyone know what is happening in your life. The good, the bad, the ugly. My only request is that if a story catches your eye, you follow it back to the person’s blog and start reading their posts. Give some love, give some support, or laugh with someone until your drink comes out of your nose.

I have a ton of assvice in my back pocket and as a virtual bartender, I will give it to you unless you specifically tell me that this is simply a vent and you do not want to receive anything more than a hug.

So if you have been a lurker for a while (or if this is your first open bar), sit down and tell us about yourself. Remember to provide a link or a way for people to continue reading your story (or if you don’t have a blog–gasp!–you can always leave an email address if you’re looking for advice or support. If not, people can leave messages for that person here in the comments section too). If you’re a regular at the bar, I’ll get out your engraved martini glass while you make yourself comfortable. And anyone new, welcome. I’m glad you found this virtual bar.

For those who have no clue what I’m talking about when I say that the bar is open, click here to catch up and then jump into the conversation back on this current post.

So have an imaginary cocktail and tell us what is up with your life.

Mary Alice from Ace of Cakes (on Food Network) says, “Life from Scratch and its plucky heroine, Rachel Goldman, is just the right amount of smart and clever with a healthy dose of self-doubt, humor and sass thrown in. This is chick lit for smarter than the average chicks. Melissa Ford has created a clan of characters I can relate to, who make me laugh out loud and hungry for dinner.”

Stephanie Klein, author of Straight Up And Dirty and Moose says, “All journeys worthy of anything begin with wine and end with a meal. Life From Scratch does just that, adding heart and laughter to the recipe.”

And Sarah Pekkanen, author of The Opposite of Me says, “Melissa Ford’s debut is a thoughtful, sensitive examination of the choices that give shape to our lives – and how sometimes, the happiest endings can be found in the most unexpected of places.”

Which is just a long and immodest way of saying that Life From Scratch goes on sale this week.  In fact, you can order it right now and people already have.  The image is currently botched on Amazon, and please don’t believe the incorrect delivery estimation on the paperback entry (it will ship pretty much instantly, and yes, you will have it before Christmas), but who cares because damn it, my book is on sale.

So imagine having box after box come for everyone else in the house, and then one day, a box arrives and you think that it’s for someone else, but then you see your name on it.  And then you see it’s from your publisher.  So you open it and see a big stack of your book.

And you stand there, reading your own words and think about how at one point, the book was just an idea you had back in December 2008 while you were walking across a parking lot.  And now it’s December 2010, and a publisher liked your book enough that they invested in it, and cultivate it and brought it to life.

So, anyone want to read my new book, Life from Scratch?  You can also get it on Kindle.  And on various other sites and e-book options rolling out soon.  If you do read it, please leave your thoughts in a review on the Amazon page.

I cannot thank you all enough for (1) reading it and (2) being with me — start to finish — through the whole journey.  There is a character in the book, Arianna — a single mother by choice whose son came after years of IVF and loss — and the way she’s there for Rachel; that’s the way y’all are there for me.  So consider her an amalgamation of all of you.

If you never read Coraline and don’t want to know one smidgen about the book (I am being careful not to spoil it), don’t read these posts.  They are about infertility, but they springboard off the book.

It’s not only the creepy other parents that are hitting close to home as I read Neil Gaiman’s Coraline.  When she needs to gather courage to go find her real parents, Coraline tells a story about a day when she went with her real father to explore a dump area.

While they were there, her father screamed at her to run and she ran up the hill.  Her father stayed behind for a moment.  It turned out that they had disturbed a wasp’s nest and the wasps had come out to sting.  Her father told her to run and then stood there, making sure that the wasps were attracted to his body rather than hers, and only ran when there was space between them so that the father was stung instead of his daughter.  She received one sting and he took almost 40.

During the escape, he dropped his glasses and needed to return to get them.  He explained that bravery wasn’t standing there and taking the stings in the first place, because that was simply an instinct.  An animal reaction of a parent protecting his child.  He made that decision on auto-pilot, therefore, it wasn’t bravery — it was just a person doing what he needed to do in the moment.

What was brave was returning to the hill to get his glasses when he knew the danger there.  That he was scared and went back for his glasses anyway because it was what he had to do.

Chew on that for a moment through the lens of failed treatments or trying again after a loss or continuing with the adoption process.

There is a Hebrew song — Kol Ha’olam Kulo — which is one of those songs that every child knows from camp that comes from a Nachman of Breslov quote and is translated as:

The whole world is a very narrow foot bridge, and the main thing is walking across it without being afraid.

I’d like to amend that by saying that it is totally fine to be afraid — it is healthy to be afraid — but it is incredible what we can do even while terrified.

Disclaimer: I am midway through the book, and these are my thoughts midway through the book.  I may have a very different reaction to the book once I get to the last page.

Had a most annoying experience this week when I needed to get a new cell phone (I wrote about it over on BlogHer if you want to hear the whole sordid tale) — a cell phone which I love and have named Pippa.  At least, I think she’s a Pippa.  The name sort of came to me on Thursday and my first thought was, “oh, is that supposed to be the name of a character in a future book?” and then my second thought was, “no, that should be the name of my cell phone.”

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You know those places where you have 3000 things to say, but you don’t really know what to say about them?  I’m in one of those places.  I had this crazy week, but I don’t really need to talk about it.  I’m days away from having a new manuscript finished and edited.  And I’m absolutely mentally obsessed with it, thinking about little else.  But that’s not really interesting to talk about.  I walked into school one day and the Wolvog was crying and I couldn’t comfort him because it would have been inappropriate to jump in and give him a hug because it was during a lesson.  And seeing him cry without being able to bend down and hug him was one of the hardest things I’ve done in a while.  But there’s not much more I can say about that.  I mean, it just is.  That moment just is and the new manuscript just is and my crazy week just isn’t that comment-worthy.

I have read a bunch of posts and comments lately around the Internet that have annoyed the crap out of me — none, thankfully in our community (just wanted to add that before y’all get all paranoid).  Most of them were of the my-way-is-the-only-right-way-to-do-something-and-everyone-who-doesn’t-do-it-my-way-is-WRONG ilk.  When I start thinking about how much I want to reach through the screen and throttle the writer, it makes me think that it’s time to step away from the Internet.  Or at least stick with the Creme de la Creme posts.  I have never gotten cranky reading those.

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Instead of the Weekly What If: what are you not talking about?  What subjects in your life are only worthy of a sentence and not much more?

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This is the last weekend before the December 15th deadline for the Creme de la Creme.  Just saying.

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And now, the blogs…

Exploring Chaos has a very raw post about what was said mid-cycle.  I can’t lie to you — it’s a hard post to read.  It’s a painful post to read.  But I’m glad she wrote it because as I read it, all I could think was that there was someone else right now who is going to read this post and feel less alone.

Flotsam has a post about the way the blogosphere has changed.  And even though the woman ends the post mid-thought; leaves us hanging until part two with literally the thought unfinished, I still found the post gripping.

A Little Pregnant has a post on TodayMoms responding to a psychologist’s comment about why people experiencing infertility should adopt which came from another TodayMoms article which already starts with an offensive title: “IVF vs Adoption: Which is Better?” (Did your head just explode as mine did?  Wait — did you want to crawl through the screen and throttle someone?  Step away from the computer!)  Back to Julie’s response: I thought it was level-headed and well-written, making the point that family building — like so many things in life — needs to be a personal decision and stating that one way of doing things as “best” often makes people want to kick you.  Hard.

Lastly, I end the Roundup with a post by Awful But Functioning saying goodbye to Elizabeth Edwards.  You will not be able to read this post without crying, especially when she admits: “A week or so after that post I went to my first candlelight ceremony at Children’s, and perhaps it was presumptuous of me, but on one of my scraps I wrote “Wade.” Elizabeth Edwards would never know, but I figured she took time to write my daughter’s name, the least I could do was the act of writing out her son’s.”  Seriously, read Tash’s whole post.

Goodbye Elizabeth.

[a moment of silence]

The roundup to the Roundup: I have a telephone named Pippa.  There are a lot of things in my week only worthy of a single sentence.  What in your week is only worthy of a single sentence?  Last weekend before the Creme de la Creme deadline.  And lots of great posts to read.