A Newly Found Love of Podcasts - June 11, 2015

I brushed off the idea of listening to podcasts over and over and over. People would suggest them to me - usually specific episodes - and I'd come across interesting-sounding concepts here and there. I'd download one...two...and I'd put them on and realize, 15 minutes later, that I hadn't heard a single word. I have the same problem with audiobooks - my short attention span and insistence on multitasking, even when it's not the best choice for the situation, just made listening to long-form stories impossible for me.

But then, along came Fitbit, of all things. When I first got my Fitbit - on super sale on Black Friday, bought by combining Ebates [referral link!] and Kohls cash and sales and rebates and on and on - I lamented that it was OMG SIMPLY IMPOSSIBLE for anyone to ever get 10,000 steps a day. And by "anyone," I meant me. I'd hit a wall with my Weight Watchers Activelink - I no longer cared if it lit up all the way around, I'd just laugh at it. It would nag me and I'd roll my eyes. So I wanted the Fitbit to get me active again - and at first it didn't work that way. I'd get to about 4,000 steps and sit back down. I needed a bit more motivation.

Enter Serial.

"You HAVE to listen to it!" every single person I knew (or, well, at least five) chanted. "No, really. It's amazing!"

"I don't do podcasts," I insisted. And again, I put one episode on my computer, put on headphones, and listened-not-listening and rewound, relistened, and gave up. And yet - I caught just enough to be intrigued and then the obvious solution hit. I loaded Serial onto my phone, stuck my headphones into my ears, and went for a walk. And walked and walked and and walked and listened - intently, catching every detail. As you probably know, Serial was pretty amazing. It kept me walking - I paced the halls during my daughter's physical therapy appointment. I walked around my little city. I walked and I listened. I hit my goal of 10,000 steps. One day. Two days in a row. Every day.

And after that, there was no stopping me. I finally gave in to Welcome to Night Vale, which started out slowly but picked up for me at about episode 8 and from there....I was hooked. I pulled Wait Wait Don't Tell Me and This American Life because those were easy, but I wanted MORE. I started asking around and paying more attention to mentions of podcasts. My subscription list grew. My playlist grew. And I'm still walking and listening and looking for excuses to walk and listen a little more. (Podcasts are also great for long, boring periodontist appointments, by the way.)

I've learned that what I like is long-form, engaging storytelling (fiction or not). I don't usually like random roundtables of people yelling at one another or discussing a single topic. I like in-depth interviews. I like advice shows, even if - this surprised me - I cannot identify with the question at all. And I like a peek into celebrity lives.

Podcasts. The new blog. The new zine. The new it thing. And finally I'm into them too, perhaps a bit late but here at the party.

Because I have an Android phone and can't use OMGITUNES, I settled on managing my podcasts with Podcast Republic.

Here's what's currently on my subscription list - the serious, the silly, the frivolous:

• AJC Breakdown - the AJC's answer to Serial. It's a little clunky but the story itself is engaging and there is all sorts of tangential information about how Georgia runs its legal system that I've found even more fascinating than the core story itself. (You have to subscribe to the AJC to get the extras though, which is both a smart business strategy and annoying as hell.)
• Dear Sugar Radio - Cheryl Strayed, what can I say? Love her. Love her. Love her. Perhaps not as enamored when Steve starts talking (though I loved Candyfreak!) but overall, a good listen.
• Invisibilia - I tore through season 1 and am anxiously awaiting the start of season 2.
• Let's Talk TJs! - I'm a fan of the blog "What's Good at Trader Joe's" so I figured I'd check out this brand new podcast from those folks. I was worried it would be more random roundtable and less discussion but the first episode was fun and friendly. I'm giving it a go.
• Love + Radio - Inconsistent but when it hits the mark, it's just so good. 
• Radiolab - My current favorite. When my playlist is empty I go download back episodes (there are many - I'll never catch up). While I walk and listen, I find myself laughing, crying, gasping, and perhaps muttering (hey, it keeps people from bugging me!). This podcast is everything I want.
• RuPaul What's the Tee with Michelle Visage - Light and fun. These two are a hoot and I feel like a fly on the wall listening to two pals chat. 
• Savage Lovecast - It amuses me greatly to listen to this one on my walks. I'm very tempted to spend the money for the magnum episodes.
• The Sporkful - Another new one for me, found due to a mention in Death, Sex and Money (which is not on my subscription list, I just realized, but probably should be - UPDATE: It is! And it's rapidly becoming a favorite. But I digress.). Food talk - dovetails with my love of food writing. I skipped the one about sausage (hi, vegetarian here) but devoured (ha) the one about marijuana edibles. I probably will be delving into the back episodes deeply in the coming weeks.
• This American Life - You know what it is.
• Welcome to Night Vale - My other favorite. I binge-listened to every single episode of this one over the course of several weeks and felt a pang when I finally caught up and now have to wait two whole weeks between every episode. I haven't yet bought the bonus live shows (nor could I afford to go to the recent tour, boo hiss) but I probably will. 

Other podcasts in my playlist that I haven't yet hit subscribe on (I found several of these from a Facebook thread and haven't listened to all of them yet) include Freakonomics, Call Your Girlfriend, How Did This Get Made?, KLAM Radio, Mystery Show (A new favorite!!!! And through this I now am also a big fan of Reply All), Black Girls Talking, Longform, 99% Invisible, and Gravy. And with all of that said, I think it's time for another walk...

Thrifting - My love and my not-so-love of the game - September 3, 2012

A while back I took you on a tour of the thrift stores in the Atlanta, Georgia, area. I gave you my thoughts on the pros and cons of the major chains. Now I want to talk to you about why I thrift and my thoughts about that.

Awesome things about thrifting

+ The bottom line is that I can get an entire wardrobe for about $50. And by entire wardrobe I mean multiple jeans, pants, skirts, and tops. You know those commercials for that discount clothing chain that say you should totally brag about how little you spend? (I love those ads.) Yeah, I think the end result in those ads is WAY overpriced. Ha.
+ Within spending that $50 (or sometimes more ahem ahem), I can get high-quality clothing for myself. Name brands and even designer brands. Yes, I've gotten brand new clothing at thrift store prices, but it's usually clearanced/heavily couponed/sale-caught Target or Old Navy or the like. And I wear that all quite happily. But through thrifting I've found nicer, higher-end, better-made clothing for the same price or less. And sometimes it even has the tags still on it - or a dry cleaner's tag, which means at least it's recently been cleaned! (Usually if I am wiling to buy a dry clean only piece, it means it's amazing and/or that I'll just use an at-home kit on it. Usually.)
+ I find very unique items when I'm thrifting. Perhaps at one time the shirt or pants I buy from a Goodwill or Value Village was in fact hanging on a rack with 100 other similar items in all the sizes and colors one could create. But that's not the case anymore. And often I've found things that clearly were limited runs. And perhaps this isn't as great, but I find things that were brand new 10+ years ago and either are still in style, are about to come back in style, are timeless, or...are cute on me so I don't actually give a fuck. Not many people will be wearing what I'm wearing.
+ I have the chance to find stuff that fits me that was from a certain time period. For example, I know that a certain specific year/make/model of Old Navy jeans fits me very well and that perhaps the jeans that are in the store right now aren't the same. I can look for that specific year/make/model and scoop the jeans up when I find them - for $7 or less!
+ The thrill of the hunt. I just love digging through books, housewares, and - this is more recent - clothing to find treasures. The clothing love is really relatively recent. For most of my life I've felt awkward and, quite frankly, ugly. So I've been afraid to accentuate any of that and as a result I'd paw at the clothing briefly and then wander off to look at books or dishes or clothes for my kid. I feel like in the past year or two (yes, the weight loss helped, but that wasn't everything) I've figured out more of what I like and what I want to wear (skirts, in particular). So now that's fun too. Even if I walk out of a store with no purchases at all, I usually have had a good time with the process.
+ Kid clothes! Sure, I occasionally find grown-up clothing in high-end brands. But I find fancy kid clothes ALL THE TIME. Hanna! Mini Boden! Tea! Boutique brands! (And then a lot of Target/Old Navy/Gap/Children's Place/Carters - I buy that all too as long as it's not pilly or faded.) My kid is very well dressed - and I'm quite proud of that!

Not-so-awesome things

- I can't rely on thrifting for everything I wear. I personally don't thrift undergarments. I look at the shoes but unless they're OMG amazing (that hasn't happened yet but I haven't given up hope!), I don't buy thrifted shoes because my feet fit things funny. On the other hand, thrifting does free up my clothing budget so I can spend more on these things.
- Two words: Vanity Sizing. I am intimately familiar with that now. The range of sizes in which I fit is wide and I can no longer trust labels, just use them as a guide. I have to try pretty much everything on - even in clothing that I know fits me in a similar style/make/model. While this is true with all clothing, if you're buying new you can start to figure out how a brand's sizing runs - harder to do with older styles, random brands I've never heard of, and so on. I recently had two almost identical skirts from an identical brand in an identical size in the fitting room with me - the only thing different was the color. One color fit beautifully. The other was too small, tight, and short. So when a store doesn't have fitting rooms, I have to take big risks - sometimes that pays off, sometimes it doesn't, and long ago I used to wear black tights under long skirts and pull things on in the aisles...
- If I find that one perfect item that fits like a dream in the perfect color, well, that's pretty much it. I can't buy five of that thing in case I stain or rip it - and, er, I do both things ALL THE TIME. That whole one-of-a-kind thing isn't always ideal.
- So I have this whole....issue with driving. I plan to blog about that in depth very soon. But in any case, I have limited my ability to go shopping, which is both great (I could be VERY DANGEROUS if I went thrifting as often as I'd like to) and also really shitty (I can't go most of the time unless someone goes with me). On the other hand, I LOVE shopping with friends and HATE going alone - when I go alone into a store I usually leave it again very quickly - so it's not all bad, but it does mean that I've relinquished control.

One thing I'm neutral on is the desire to have new things. Having a brand new item of clothing is nice and fun but it's not something I crave or need or feel sad about when I don't have it. I usually find much more of a selection of Things I'd Actually Wear at a thrift store than a mall store anyway. Plus I'm being all green and stuff, saving clothes from the landfill, reusing, recycling, all that jazz. SEE MY HALO?

Oh and I do periodically clear out my closet/drawers and re-donate (or occasionally re-sell, depending on the situation). When I lost all the weight, I had a lot of fun doing both things. I am not a hoarder, I promise. I swear! I'm not! For realsies! And so on.

I think the pros far outweigh the cons. Do you thrift? What do you think? What are your personal pros and cons? And do you want to go shopping with me sometime?

Spring Break recap, Instagram, Pinterest, and beyond - April 9, 2012

Last week was very very difficult. Luckily we managed to have plans for at least part of most of the days off from preschool, but my daughter is going through some amazing moves forward and so her behavior has taken a dive. Saying more words/sounds = having more tantrums. Standing unassisted for longer and longer periods of time = having more tantrums.

But in the middle of it all, Instagram was released for Android and I did a little happy dance. Look, I'm pretty much an Apple fangirl. I have a MacBook that is now held together with spit, twine, and hope (anyone who wants to buy me a new or new-to-me one, please feel free-and no, I am not joking). I have an iPod Touch (sadly, a generation or two before a camera was added, but I still use it pretty much daily). My daughter has an iPad2. If I could afford to have an iPhone, I very likely would strongly consider it. I can't. I couldn't figure out how to make that work at all budget-wise. But I could afford an inexpensive ($50 on Black Friday!) Android phone (an LG Optimus V) on a pay-as-you-go plan (Virgin Mobile - $45/month for 1200 minutes - which I never come close to using, so might drop this plan down to a cheaper one - plus unlimited everything else). (I like parentheses.) (A lot.) (I'm sorry.) In any case, I have been intrigued by Instagram for forever and even installed it on the iPad but didn't really use it there - now that it's on Android (AND can move to the SD card - my little phone doesn't have much internal memory but I have an 8 gig card...) I'm using it daily.

You can add me on Instagram - I'm marlatiara. You can also follow me at ink361.com/marlatiara. At the moment I'm using it mostly to be silly and to try things out and play around. I confess, I've always wished to be a great photographer. I don't know why I didn't pursue it further - perhaps my short attention span headed me off at the pass. I am NOT going to become a great photographer using Instagram, but I can pretend.

ETA: Me and my big mouth. Facebook bought Instagram. I really believe that's why the Android app finally appeared - it likely was the final piece of the acquisition puzzle. We'll see what happens now. PicPlz is almost identical (I like some of the filters better, actually) so feel free to find me there too (marlatiara) and I'll see what I do with what I do.

Other Android apps I like for photo editing and/or photo manipulation: Pixlr-o-matic, ActionSnap, FxCamera, Vignette, Retouch, Photo Grid. All are free, all can move to the SD card, and all seem to work well with Instamatic. I also bought IncrediBooth for the iPad (using an iTunes gift card I earned from one of my various earning sites) and ADORE it - that app makes me wish for an iPhone again...or a phone with a front-facing camera.

(And for some speech therapy needs, I just bought an inexpensive laminator, but I'm already also plotting to make things with these new filtered, tweaked, silly pictures too.)

(And speaking of SD card, yes now the ENORMOUS Weight Watchers app can supposedly move there, but I attempted it and it was fail fail fail. I'll have to continue to use the mobile web version on my phone and the far-superior app on my iPod until WW moves into 2012 with the rest of us. Ahem. Streamline that app and make it actually WORK when it moves to the card, would ya?)

Oh and I'm now two months into being a Lifetime member and things are going swimmingly, though Passover has been challenging so far. I'm almost eating too little in fear of eating too much, but I have a whole week to navigate this challenge and then to move on. I have a list of recipes and a fridge full of fresh fruits and vegetables, I'm OK. BUT I DIGRESS.

I'm also on Pinterest, if I haven't mentioned it yet - I'm marlatiara there too (notice a theme?) and you are welcome to add and follow me. Alas, the influx of ridiculous spambots over there (WHY? WHAT IS YOUR POINT, SPAMMERS?) has made me wary of following back, but I'm pretty good at spotting a real person from a fake one so go for it. I pin recipes (healthy-ish, vegetarian, low calorie, some indulgences), DIY projects, fitness tips and inspiration, and more.

Are you on Instagram? Are you on Pinterest? Any other sites/apps that you want me to check out?

It's been a long week - February 17, 2012

This past week is one big blur - because preschool has been out all week.

Look, I absolutely adore my daughter. I think she's stunningly gorgeous and extremely brilliant. I also find her emotionally and physically draining so much of the time, and preschool gives me a bit of a break. I can get work done. I can get play done. I can read a book or catch up on TV. I can do...something. I can't do anything when she's home. She won't play independently, she has attention-seeking behaviors that are dangerous (and infuriating), she won't sit and watch a TV show or a movie with me. It's just a fact of our lives and I hope someday she'll grow out of this. We had fun some of the time - she demonstrated to me that she can read, which was something I knew but it was so cool to see, and we played and we sang songs. We also had...a really hard time.

This week was Valentine's Day. Nobody in my household particularly cared. We used a Scoutmob deal to get a half-price lunch at a fun restaurant. A certain someone (not me. not my husband.) had a whiny flinging tantrum while we were waiting for our food. (The restaurant was crowded but the waiter brought her a special extra treat while we waited. It didn't help.) Once she calmed down, we actually had a nice time.

This week I also accepted a giant copyediting project. Next week is going to be busy, but that's a good thing.

This week I also became a Lifetime Member of Weight Watchers. This means that I maintained my weight loss for six weeks (I actually lost a bit more within those six weeks, but that was while following the program and not doing anything extra, I promise - I'm very happy where I am and have no desire to go further in a deliberate way) and now I can go to meetings for free and use the online tools for free as long as I maintain and weigh in once a month. I'm so proud of myself. (I am also annoyed with myself that I let things get to the point where I needed to join Weight Watchers, but life happened.) My husband and kid came to the meeting at which I got my tiny gold key charm (squee!) and everyone clapped. Plus I wore a dress I bought when I was in college, studying abroad in London. In 1994. A dress I held onto because it is a classic style and because I loved it so much even though I was sure I'd never fit into it again. It fits now. I hope to find many occasions to wear it.

I have been thinking about what I eat now. I still go out. I still eat cupcakes. I still frequent food trucks. I still eat chocolate (too much, probably). I just manage my portions. I don't always order dessert even if I'm full to bursting. I don't order appetizers either. I drink water. (These things save me money too. Win!) I don't buy ice cream to have in the house. Beyond that? I'm just going along eating normally, I think. I've never really felt like I was on a OMG DIET. And I never had a backslide. The only time I gained any weight was during maintenance, when I was already below my goal and was messing around with eating. I think I was lucky in that regard. And with that, I'm done talking about it (probably) except for checking in on occasion to tell you that I'm maintaining. Not if. That I am.

This week I completed the third week of the Couch to 5K program and I am getting a tiny glimmer of understanding why people think it's fun to run. I couldn't run the full three minute stretch any of these days, but I also kept moving through the entire workout no matter what. Today as I ran/walked, I'd set goals - I just have to run to that mailbox and then I can walk. I can walk for the count of 20 but then I have to run until I pass that parked car. That sort of thing. Having good music has helped (someone pointed me to pre-made, timed podcasts so I use those and it's fun to have surprises come up as I run). My first 5K is in March and I'm going to plug my donation page in just about every post until then because I'm raising money for my kid's school and because I'm very close to my fundraising goal.

And finally, my husband lost our Ekobrew this week. My post about the Ekobrew is the most-read post of all my blog, but I also...adore that little gadget. (It's a reusable cup for my Keurig - I have almost completely stopped buying K-cups at this point because while they are fun and easy, they are just too expensive to justify anymore. Boo.) Today we replaced it - I was going to buy my replacement Ekobrew from Amazon (where they are inexpensive! and in any case I got my original for free for review purposes...) but I found them at Whole Foods and decided to just buy it when I saw it rather than ordering...waiting...etc. Hooray. For the record, I used my Solofill while deciding how best to replace the Ekobrew. It's just fine, it does absolutely what it needs to. I just prefer the Ekobrew. (Both the Solofill and the Ekobrew cost about as much as one box of K-cups, FYI.)

Coming next week: A product review of something kind of interesting I was sent by a company. I love when that happens. COMPANIES SHOULD SEND ME STUFF TO REVIEW. AND STUFF TO GIVE AWAY. Yup.

New phone, Black Friday musings, and more - November 26, 2011

It's time for another rambly post that isn't an endorsement or a contest or anything of that sort. (Note - while I never intended for this blog to be a review/contest blog, I do enjoy doing those things and some more are in the pipeline. I still think it's funny which pages on my blog are the most popular....)

So here's a story.

I got my first cell phone in about 2000, which is later than a lot of people. I hemmed and hawed and picked a plain black phone, and it did what it needed to do for years. I then upgraded to a camera phone (I think it was either free or ridiculously cheap) and paid the extra fee to be able to send pictures - mostly to another friend with a similar phone, occasionally to various online forums/blogs.

I jumped ship from that provider (no, I won't name names - ahem, the synonym for running quickly for a short distance - after it pissed me off royally, but in doing so I gave up on the data plan and the camera phone. For six years I've had a phone that did little more than make calls - I even paid per text (did I only text on rare occasion because I had to pay or because I genuinely didn't care about texting? we shall see.) It sounds funny to even lament that by the way. The provider was fine, but service was spotty and I was sick of dropped calls - ahem, a letter and a word that means something can move.

I bought myself an iPod Touch a few years ago (using Swagbucks-earned Amazon credit and birthday money) and that mostly scratched the want-a-smartphone itch. Mostly. I still use my Touch daily but it doesn't have a camera and, of course, it requires WiFi to do most things. But it can make calls, I've been using it for free texting for almost as long as I have had it, and it has LOTS of music on it.

But my phone was crapping out after all these years (it was the freebie, after all). And my husband's had already died a painful death in the ocean, and his replacement phone was also crappy. When a fancy smartphone was on sale at Target a few weeks ago, we got all excited and went to see it. Yeah, except that the monthly plans for the phone were exorbitant. I checked other providers - same thing. I asked around - same thing. $150-ish on average for two people to have smart phones. I couldn't swing that. I couldn't justify that. Nope. When I looked into pay-as-you-go plans, I saw that I could either get a REALLY crappy cheap phone or have to pay for a decent phone so that the monthly plan + the cost of the phone averaged out was...pretty much the same thing. It was a kick in the gut. I wasn't sure what would happen, since our phones really were about to die and our provider was having merger drama with an uncertain future.

Then I saw a leaked Black Friday deal for a smartphone that was $70-ish less than it usually sold for - I couldn't find a price close to the BF price anywhere - with a pay-as-you-go service. I couldn't stop thinking about it. The phone had the basic features I wanted (Droid, camera, ability to run apps, not a crappy flip phone) and the plan included unlimited texting and data (and an option for unlimited talk but a slightly less expensive option for a reasonable amount of minutes). If we canceled our landline, we could totally swing this deal.

And so on Friday we ventured out...to a nearly empty store (we went at around 11am). The shelves were stocked with the phone, the phone was exactly as promised, and we bought. HOORAY. The switch from the old provider (we were off contract already) to the new one was seamless. And now I have a phone that I can use to take stupid pictures and cute videos and that I can text with.

One thing that was eerie and sad was that as I transferred over the numbers (not done yet), I didn't transfer over my grandmother's number. She passed away two years ago. I kept her number on my old phone. This phone doesn't have it on there. I had to let that go. I also let go a few numbers for people I no longer speak with for various reasons. New phone, new life. Some choices hurt my heart, some just made it lighter.

The phone is definitely on the lower end of the smartphone spectrum, but I figure that for the small investment we made in these phones plus a month-to-month plan with no contract, there is plenty of room to, at any time, jump ship again, buy the high-end deliciously wonderful phones and pay that high monthly premium. I don't really see that happening any time soon, but it's nice to know we didn't lock into anything right now. This is a good stopgap, I think. Do I want the phone fairy to grant me an iPhone or a high-end Droid with many long years of paid monthly fees? I sure do. Feel free to leap in at any time and offer to do that for me, by the way...

I would normally end a post like this with "what's your favorite app?" but...the phone seriously has a VERY limited amount of internal memory. Micro SD cards happened to also be on sale, so I have 8 gigs of expanded memory, but if you have a Droid you may know that you can't put just anything on the card, appwise. So...my space is limited and I have to make some choices. Happily I still have my darling iPod, so most of my apps and all of my music will live on it. Sure, it's a bit clumsy dragging around TWO tabletty tiny things, but I still see it as the best of both worlds.

The apps I have so far are mostly practical - Google Docs, Google Voice, Scoutmob, Groupon - with a few fun ones thrown in like FxCamera (love it!). I don't even have a Facebook app at the moment (accessing it via browser seems just as fine and doesn't eat space) and the Twitter app the phone came with is...well, it's fine. (Frustratingly, the phone came with several social-based apps that are both redundant to one another and not useful to me - and that can't be deleted. I hate that bit.) I had to remove the Weight Watchers app because it was just SO HUGE (no jokes, please!) - I'll continue to use the Touch for that one.

[I've lost about 17 pounds now since starting WW by the way. My jeans no longer fit. I have cheekbones. I can wear cute shirts again. My goal is on the horizon. I still was able to eat things I liked on Thanksgiving. I *LOVE* WEIGHT WATCHERS!]

This concludes my rambly post. *curtsey*

Random Roundup - August 3, 2011

• I won a two-week subscription to stock photo/image site Fotolia from Freebie Finding Mom. It entitles me to three downloads a day. Exciting! I haven't had time to activate it yet, but I'm hoping to use it next week. More images for my Etsy business, hooray!
• Speaking of Etsy, I've started really playing with fabric-covered (but still mylar-covered) pocket mirrors, bottle openers, and even one-inch buttons. A friend of mine gave me a bag of her quilting scraps and she has the CUTEST taste in fabric. Tikis! Cupcakes! Oranges! Kitties! My new circle cutter works well and I can see this all becoming very addictive. I actually can't decide between putting the stuff in my Etsy store and giving it to my offline vendors. 
• I would love to break off from Etsy, finally, and make buttonbabeboutique.com (which currently redirects to my shop) into a real, live store. I know a tiny bit of HTML (long ago I made marlatiara.com look all fancy, though I have no clue HOW anymore) but mostly I need some help. So if you want to trade web design for buttony things, let me know. 
• The kid has been back to preschool for two whole days. Last year, she went five days a week but only for four hours a day - attempts to extend that were made of fail for many reasons. This year, she's there 6.5 hours a day and so far, so good. That's the longest she's ever been away from both me and my husband, but her tantrums are more about how they don't let her eat crayons or she doesn't want to nap rather than about missing us. The teacher described one thing she was signing on the first day and we think it was "Daddy" and that she was saying that she wanted Daddy/was ready to go home now please. But I'm not sure. 
• She is on the cusp of walking, and I think school is going to push her to do it. She still can stand unassisted for seconds at a time, both with and without the SMOs. She can take a step or two. And she both loves using her walker - she seems to really be happy about the independence - and hates it, feels it's constraining. She also DESPISES the stroller now, so more often she uses her tricycle. It's interesting. I wish she'd still just go in the Ergo on my back.
• Pssst. I am fairly certain she has weaned. Four years of breastfeeding a child with cerebral palsy - not bad, if I do say so myself.
• I invented an awesome dessert. Take one 100-calorie pack of Trader Joe's chocolate chip cookies (they have actual ingredients AND they're delicious). Dump in bowl. Cover with lots of whipped cream (which honestly isn't that high in calories. mostly.). Sprinkle with TJs grinder of chocolate-sugar-coffee, which is my new obsession of deliciousness. Eat. Nom.
• I am currently reading the Wilder Life by Wendy McClure and I already sent her several tweets that were like "OMG I LOVE YOU SO MUCH" or something. The book really is that good though. The whole Laura Ingalls Wilder love? I get that. My beat-up many-times-read copies of the books are easily accessible, and I still re-read the Long Winter every so often. Also, I will put it here to avoid tweeting her again, but she remembers THAT Twilight Zone episode - the one I too remember about the boy who forges the psychic link with the girl who lived 100ish years ago. She notes the orange juice scene! I was THINKING about this episode in the first few pages of her book. Yeah, that's awesome.
• (I want to write a similar book about A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - except that was really really fiction and there's not much to do but say "Um, so I went to Brooklyn and there were trees, but no junk shop and no school with women who spank kids.")
• I am also reading Forever by Maggie Stiefvater. I got to see her speak the other night at my favorite little bookstore. She's funny and charming. The book...is slow going for me. I keep putting it down. I keep peeking a few pages ahead. I am antsy. This is why I rarely read fiction though.
• America's Got Talent is not inspiring me to blog this season. I'm sorry. I really like some of the acts but I am not in love with everything like last time around. I am obsessively watching though, and sometimes I tweet at Howie Mandel because, you know, I'm a dork.
• And finally, I wish I was fancy enough to go to BlogHer. Maybe someday it will be in Atlanta. I did make buttons for Special Needs Bloggers. I wish I could be there to see them being worn on lapels and shirts and purses. 

Thursday Rambles - May 12, 2011

• I have discovered banana "ice cream" and I think I am addicted - in the way that I get addicted and obsessed about something and make it 20 times in 2 weeks and then never again. Frozen bananas + Vitamix = a cold, creamy, delicious thing. I plan on adding chocolate next time. Or peanut butter. Or both. It's good. If you don't have a Vitamix, I'd cut the banana in small pieces before freezing, but my wonderblender did power through frozen halves with some sad sounds and then a triumphant whirr. I did add a bit of almond milk to help it along but I don't think it was necessary. I'll take a picture next time - I have one banana in the freezer right now but the rest that were in the house were not quite ripe enough. 
• This week Kroger had another "buy 10, get $5 off" sale that I both loved and hated. Loved because there was the potential for free+overage, hated because...10? Really? Just make everything be on sale, please. So first I drove to nearby Big Kroger. They didn't have any of the overage stuff - just empty sad gaps on the shelves. Next my entire family went on an adventure to Collegey Kroger (I just named it that, I'm sure the locals have a name for it). It had free WiFi and it stocked some faux seafood by Yves that I'd never seen before (verdict: good but pricey, I preferred the "shrimp" to the "tuna" and I'd buy again but I'd love if it was on sale/coupon when I did) but it didn't even have spaces on the shelves for the superdealios. Sigh. Today I walked to Baby Kroger for one last shot - no spaces on the shelves there either, but I bought 6 packages of Laughing Cow cheese and 4 boxes of Garden Delight pasta - the pasta was free after the deal and the Cow was $1.50/package - my favorite price to pay is $1/package but between the fact that this year they've only released $1/2 coupons and the sales haven't been as awesome, I figured $1.50 was pretty great. I wish the store stocked more flavors but I took what I could get. I also grabbed another container of almond milk - $1.99, found a bunch of 55 cent coupons at Big Kroger so yay - but I got unflavored, not vanilla. I'm sure I can manage to find many uses for it though.
• It's already in the 90s here. The NINETIES. It will cool off by the weekend but for now...too hot for May. Hrmph. But I'm trying to enjoy it. And to be happy that I have central A/C, a luxury I did not grow up with.
• I have actual paid work coming in now - writing AND editing. Hooray!
• I really don't like who wound up in the ANTM finals. I am ignoring AI almost completely. I read about the Voice but don't have time for it (am rooting for Frenchie and for a local-area woman who a friend sort of knows). Mostly my TV watching has slowed dramatically - which means my Internet surfing has increased. Ah well. 
• I'm reading Love You to Pieces right now. It's no My Baby Rides the Short Bus but it's OK.
• I've had moments of feeling alienated, again, from the special needs community, the CP community, and the parents-of-neurotypical-kids community lately, but I shall not dwell. I also have moments where I'm surrounded by good people, so it evens out. Sort of.
• My kid is kicking ass and taking names with her SMOs. That light twinkles at the end of that tunnel. I know she will stand and walk more soon. 5 seconds here, 10 seconds there, 2 steps, 3 steps. She's a determined kid. 
• Happy Thursday. 

Hushing that damn stupid voice - April 28, 2011

I know I'm not the first person to talk about that stupid little voice that chirps in my ear. "You suck. You're not good enough. You can't write. You're a failure. Why bother? Ugh, that sentence was terrible. Delete delete delete." But I think lately I'd let it take over - I'd let it be more than chirping, I'd let it be squawking, yelling, screaming. I kind of gave in to it.

My background is in writing. I knew I wanted to be a poet or writer when I was in fourth grade - I remember it so clearly. My BA is in English, with a focus on creative writing. My MA is in writing, literature, and publishing.

But what I love writing is not what pays the bills. I've always understood that but I hate it. I like writing...this. I like writing blogs, first-person accounts, poetry. I'm not good at fiction (and forever envious at my friends and peers who dash off book after book after book) although I think that goes back to a very specific period when I was a kid that kind of crushed that drive. Maybe it can be uncrushed, I don't know.

So when I do write for money, which can mean anything from a search-optimized webpage to a fun and interesting piece that I'm excited about but that also will be read by more than ten people, that voice just ROARS AT ME.

In the past few weeks I got two amazing emails. One was from my new editor/friend for whom I'm writing a weekly column (about coupons!) and another weekly roundup about real estate (mostly just a list, not really anything to write). She sent me an unsolicited pep talk. She told me that she doesn't have to edit what I write, and she told me I'm a good writer. It feels funny even writing that here - like...I'm bragging? I don't know. But it's one of those frameable emails, seriously. And then one of my dearest, most beloved friends, someone whose opinion I totally trust and who I know will be honest with me, sent me the most amazing words about a short piece I wrote for potential inclusion in a book. A piece that was totally out of my comfort zone - sort of a prosey poem, definitely longer than I usually write (and 1/3 the length of what it should be, but I think we'll just go with it).

I can write. I can. It's my passion. It's what I do. I'm hoping that starting in August, when my kid goes to school for a very full day, I can write write write and get paid for it again. I can also do editing and proofreading - things I don't love but that I also know I'm good at (although thanks to a bitchy boss, I definitely lost my way on those talents as well).

I'm rambling. Even this blog entry isn't exactly what I want to say. I think I need to go re-read Bird by Bird and Writing Down the Bones and a few other you-can-do-it-just-do-it books. I need to find my way again. I hope that that prosey piece and the column I write will help.

Also you're reading this blog. And that's nice.

I Hab a Code in By Doze - March 21, 2011

I feel icky and sleepy thanks to the kid bringing home a lovely cold from preschool. And yet I have so much to write about...

• I need to write a full, well-thought-out review of the book Home/Birth by Arielle Greenberg and Rachel Zucker. It was a beautiful book about birth, homebirth, motherhood, and more. I owe you a better writeup than that.
• I'm the new sponsor at Blacktating! Well, my Etsy store/button biz is.  Elita is fantastic and she's bringing issues of race and breastfeeding to light when not many other sources are. Plus she's funny and bad-ass.
• I bought some adorable new art for buttons, mirrors, necklaces...I can't wait to make new things!
• I'm incredibly angry at the website Franklin Goose for ripping the rug out from under me and many other mamas who were expecting the credit we earned in the promotion last year. The promotion was poorly handled and the customer service has been terrible throughout this fiasco. Learn more here. My personal experience? I wrote a few reviews for products I knew about. I then, on their suggestion, banked the credit I accrued figuring I'd earn a bit extra and that I'd use it when the big rush for products had died down (and when more things were in stock). Just as my credit matured, I was told that all credit would be banked for the near future while FG figured out what to do. And then...poof, I was told that I couldn't use it at all. Disappointing.
• My kid is driving me crazy. Perhaps sometime this week I'll have time for a real, non-bulleted-list entry.

So It's Monday Again - March 14, 2011

• I finished two books over the weekend - Matched and On a Dollar a Day. One I liked until about 3/4 of the way through, one I didn't much like at all. I am trying to get up the passion and energy to actually write a review of one or both. In the meantime, can you guess which one I give a solid B+ to and which one was a disappointing C-/D+?
• Daylight Savings Time has begun. Surprisingly, the kid went to sleep very easily at her regular bedtime according to the clock. Well, maybe not that big of a surprise - she skipped her nap. I still haven't decided if I like that tradeoff. People keep telling me that she'll give up her nap completely soon but I don't see that happening - if nothing else, she'll be expected to "nap" or at least rest at preschool for another two years. If she does stop napping, though, that means that she'll be pretty much almost completely but not quite weaned. And I'm so OK with that. 
• I had a long to-do list for today and did...some of it. One big thing I did was toss out all my expired coupon circulars. I had a lot. A lot lot. Nothing to do with hoarding, I'm just lazy. I'm going to try to do this every three months from now on. I waited quite a bit longer than that between the last cleanout and today and it was not pretty. 
• I also broke my "no international sales" rule for my Etsy store and set up a listing for someone in Australia. This is a test. If it goes smoothly, I may consider doing more international sales. The trickiest part is getting to the post office, which can be a giant pain in the ass. The shipping cost isn't as much as I thought it would be - or at least, that's how it appears on the USPS website - so it's more of the hassle factor. We'll see. This person ordered ten breastfeeding buttons - so basically they played to my softer side. 
• I didn't make it to a blogging meetup on Saturday because I just couldn't figure out the logistics. Instead, there was lots of time at the park - it was in the high 60s and low 70s - and walking around outside. Disappointingly, we ran into a mother who could not understand why I might not like her son climbing a swingset (not a climbing structure) and then dangling right near my child's face. I thought that it was a universal understanding that if one mother is uncomfortable/feels that her child is in danger, particularly if she expresses it in a as-polite-as-possible-while-being-concerned manner, other people back off. Alas, no, apparently sometimes it leads to a lecture instead. 
• I also got to go to an art gallery to see an incredibly provocative installation/show called My Sweet, Sweet at Agnes Scott College. (It closed yesterday - we saw it in the final half hour of it being up.) It felt good to look at art, take in meaning, and even talk to one of the artists himself. Go me, doing a not-mommy thing.
• So now it's almost time for lunch and then preschool pickup. I've got to find my groove for the week. Today it feels very elusive.

Friday Random Roundup - February 18, 2011

• I have the new Radiohead. YAY.
• I also am liking the new Adele (what I've heard of it) and the new PJ Harvey (ditto). I cannot WAIT for the new Lamb.
• I've decided to keep track of what I get with the $20 Kroger gift card I won on Facebook - thus far, I got one double Sunday paper (coupons!), 1 jug of white vinegar (I use it for laundry, and it was on sale), and 2 containers of shelf-stable unsweetened vanilla Almond Breeze (on sale + coupon - and I use it daily). Meanwhile, my dad just won and then gave me another $20 gift card. Yay.
• However, I had a terrible experience at my local Kroger (this is not unusual, sadly). They change their minds about their coupon policy from day to day, person to person. On Wednesday, the new rule was no Internet coupons at all. Except if they're printed from the Kroger.com website. Except never. Depended on the person. All I wanted to do was use one coupon for 50 cents off a bottle of "Honest Tea." Not even something I needed; I was going to buy it as a treat with my packed lunch. You would've thought I had a coupon that said "Give this lady $5,000 worth of free groceries" the way the manager treated me and the way he read EVERY WORD on the coupon, all while ignoring my questions. I called corporate and was told the policy changes from store to store. I not only think this is ridiculous but also wonder why a mere few months ago I was emailed the CORPORATE COUPON POLICY for my region. Figure it out, Kroger. 
• Yesterday I had an epic outing with my daughter, a friend, and my friend's daughter. We not only had a great time at the Atlanta children's museum, but we also had a picnic, went to Ikea AND went to Trader Joe's. The meltdowns were few and minor. It was grand. 
• And thanks to that pleasant Ikea trip, I now I own Produkt, which is a $2.99 milk frother. It may change my life. (It was $1.99 a few months ago, I swear. But $3 for a milk frother is still amazing.) I also got an ice cube tray that makes little flowers (for my iced coffee), a laundry basket (since we tend to just toss my daughter's dirty clothes in a corner), and a tiny stuffed moose. 
• Also thanks to yesterday...I'm going on a diet. For real. Committed. Yes. I saw a picture of myself and was very unhappy. I'm thinking of joining Weight Watchers - there are a few meetings nearby. Sparkpeople, which I love, isn't doing enough for me. I need accountability.
• Another new favorite thing - roasted wasabi-flavored seaweed in little single-serve packs. It's about 40 cents a pack at YDFM and I plan on stocking up for the summer.
• The summer. It's almost the summer. It's 70 degrees here and looks like that will hold for a few more weeks. I expect one more cold snap and then 90 degrees for months.
• We survived a week without preschool. 
• I'm still reading The False Friend by Myla Goldberg. I need to take more time out of my day to read read read because I have a giant "to read" pile going on right now. I think I'll probably write out a review of The False Friend though - because it's fascinating and good.
• I'm looking for paid writing gigs. But who isn't, these days? 
• I have an Etsy store - check it out in my sidebar, and then go buy things. I also love doing custom work. 1" pinback buttons make great giveaways for indie businesses - they get your name and logo out there and customers love freebies.
• I am sure I had more to say on this lovely Friday but I've run out of steam for now.

Random Roundup - February 10, 2011

• I won a $20 Kroger gift card on Facebook. Hooray! Money is a bit tight right now (as it usually is in January/February) so the timing of this win was excellent.
• My daughter is amazing me with her progress toward potty training. Look, I am not one of those "I make Facebook status updates about potty training every 5 minutes" parents. I'm not even someone who wants to talk about this type of thing. But at the same time, my kid has CP and although I was constantly assured that she would be able to potty train, I still wasn't entirely sure she physically could. And yet, she's training herself with little help from me. I suspect once she can walk she will just...do it. We're going to buy her underwear this weekend, I think (we cloth diaper most of the time so pull-ups would, to me, be regressing), and give it a shot. She signs "potty," and she says a form of "potty," and at school she's been so consistent with going that she got a shout-out in her regular classroom's newsletter for her progress. So yay for potty training.
• She also has started doing downward-facing dog all the time. This is the precursor to standing up. I don't know if she's doing it because she does yoga at preschool (once a week!) or if she just wants to stand, but she's doing it. If I hold her by the hips, she can continue the process and stand. We're on our way!
• I applied for my blog to be a part of a "Natural Parenting" blogroll. I think that parents of special-needs kids are underrepresented in that universe and I hope I'm accepted. 
• I find more and more that I bristle when someone expresses a concern about his/her child's development on a message board or forum and the chorus loudly shouts "late bloomer!" "don't worry!" It implies that it's a terrible, awful, unredeemable thing to have a child who may need a bit of therapy (or more than a bit). It's not as supportive as it sounds on the surface - because while sometimes, yes, someone's cousin's hairdresser's best friend's neighbor's kid didn't walk until he turned three and then stood up and ran a marathon or didn't talk until she was two and then opened her mouth and said "Mother, I would like biscuits instead of pancakes this morning, if that is acceptable to you," that just doesn't always happen. It feels like it means if the questioner's kid doesn't do such things, there's a failure somewhere in there. I remember reaching out in the early days and asking in general parenting communities for others with children doing PT. I got a few good answers and then a few "just wait it out, she'll do it!" and even "I think you're overreacting! I would never start PT/OT/Speech that early!" If I had waited, I believe that we absolutely would have lost time and progress. And I did think for those first few months before she got her diagnosis that maybe she would simply start doing everything on a later timeline. And when that didn't happen, when we got confirmation that my daughter had cerebral palsy and that there was an actual underlying reason why she wasn't meeting her milestones, it hurt until I shook myself off and accepted that she just needed some help and it would be OK. All of those "she's totally fine, it's early days yet" responses just weren't helpful to me. I don't know if any of that makes any sort of sense, but I wanted to get it out of my system. And as always, do note that not everyone is me - shocker, I know! - and that others may feel that comments like that are helpful. 
• That got long. I think I'm going to drive out to the farmer's market today and buy some veggies and clear my head.

Tuesday rambles - October 26, 2010

• Today I drove to Kroger again. It's only the second time I've done that particular drive, but it was actually really easy. 
• I'm pleased that I'm getting better about driving. I've done things like drive to a friend's house, gone to the farmer's market in the late afternoon, and the aforementioned Kroger trip.
• I saved about 54% at Kroger today, but the entire trip was frustrating. The cereal deal I wanted to do wasn't clearly marked. I tried guessing and doing the whole thing at self checkout, but I guessed wrong and had to void the whole transaction. I found a manager helping another woman with the same deal - he too was stumped. It just wasn't worth the hassle, so I skipped it. Then the cashier forgot to scan one of my coupons and another e-coupon didn't come off. I've written the company about all of this. We'll see what happens.
• I did get my favorite soup - Campbell's tomato - for a great price. I also got very cheap hand soap (in fun holiday scents) and 9 cent bags of rice to donate to the food pantry. But the deals and the service at Publix are both consistently better and I'll probably stick to them instead.
• My bottle openers, mirrors, interchangeable necklaces, and buttons are all now for sale at HomeGrown Decatur. I'm excited about this new development.
• I am going to a Halloween party where the theme is to dress as a rock star. I realized *I* am a rock star and therefore I think I may just dress up in my funkiest outfit.
• I sold the following bottle opener this morning on Etsy and it is now relisted: