Sneak Peek

I called home from Nashville, yesterday. Apparently the FedEx truck had just left and delivered the book!

Tim opened it up and took a few pictures for me.  Here you go, I’m so very excited. It looks like the release date has been moved up to early March.

I have a nine hour drive ahead of me today, but I’m quite excited.

Shameless Braggery

Two things I want to share.

1) I was listed on Problogger.net as one of 40 Bloggers to Watch in 2011

This made my week. Last Wednesday, I had escaped for a little while to stuff my face with fajitas while reading a book. That’s exactly what I was doing when my phone began to buzz and wouldn’t stop. It was a nice way to cap off an hour alone.

2) This was a nice write up by Srini Rao at The Skool of Life: The 5 Year Perspective

Currently I’m buried in tables, trying to get speaker names and bios sorted out for the Blissdom Conference next week. I’m just glad the new host seems to be working well.

I’m also working on two presentations. Throw in a deadline with the oldest’s virtual charter school and I’m near tears. Send coffee and babysitters, if you can.

I should probably shower, too, since I have to go out in public tonight.

Split Screen

On one screen I’m looking at Engadget, watching the Verizon iPhone announcement.
On the other. . .

I don’t even know how to process what went down in Arizona. It hurts my heart and while I joke about “the crazy” it’s out there and it hurts people. Sometimes in big ways, sometimes in small. Sometimes it creeps in when we just can’t manage to live up to what we think the standards are.

I can’t process it now, so I’m letting myself be distracted by the new and the shiny. Heck, I don’t even want an iphone.

I just don’t know how to even acknowledge things. Perhaps it’s ok for me to admit that I feel terribly for the families, but that I cannot focus on it. I don’t think the 24 hour news cycle of rehashing everything over and over is at all helpful. So for now, I am going to look at gadgets and maybe when heads are cooler it will be time to see what, if anything can be done.

What Is This

I usually take a very passive approach to composting, but this year the heap has gotten a little big.

So, I’m minding my own business, turning my compost pile when I find this:

So what is this other than the biggest grub I’ve ever seen? It has the legs of a palmetto bug, the face of who knows what. . . Did I stumble upon the baby Mothra of cicadas or what?

If I find things like this on a regular basis. . . I think I’ll go back to my lazy, passive composting ways and let those things nosh in peace.

It appears it might be a Herculean Beetle or a Rhinoceros Beetle which is actually kind of cool. Thanks Twitter!

I Should be Doing Other Things

Yet, I don’t feel good so Ellie and I are lounging in bed and watching stupid videos.

My favorite find this morning? Paul Klusman’s Dorky Cat Videos.  As most of you know, I have a thing for engineers, being married to one, it’s sort of a given. And cats? Well, I don’t mind them so much online where they can’t make me sneeze.

For those wondering why the recent rash (comparative) of posts? I’m trying to be better about keeping my life here. You know where I won’t lose it if Zuck and co have a bad day.

Other little updates:

Less than a month until my first conference of the year. I’ll be speaking on two topic.

I got a positive response from a HARO inquiry. Like a dumbarse, I forgot to save the original query, so I have no idea whether it was for a national publication or not. We’ll see what happens there and in the meantime I’ll keep plugging away and answering queries.

Last night’s first ever #homechat with Angela England went quite well.  She’s the founder of Untrained Housewife, we cover similar topics, but our audience is  little different. In the one hour chat, we had 53 participants and over 350 tweets. I’m looking forward to next week’s.

Despite our issues with Aidan’s charter school, we’re going to finish out the school year. Hopefully next year he’ll get into the local magnet school or perhaps other situations will change and we can swing private. Who knows.

I’ve been working with Mark on reading and he’s picking it up like a champ. School is going to be a piece of cake with him. Aidan is bright and curious -he digs science and history and picks up math like it’s his native tongue. However, he hates anything where there’s actual work involved (writing for example). I have the feeling once he can type there will be no stopping him. Mark? Well, he’s driven to be better than Aidan in everything and will pursue it no matter how much work is required. He’s taught himself to write, granted it’s often still a mirror image of regular writing (this happened after his cast came off and he switched back to his left hand) his letter formation is spot on.

Aidan recently announced to his violin teacher that he’s going to write a book on the Civil War and the Revolutionary War to help pay bills. Kids. What do you do?

Ellie? Well we have entered the bald Barbie stage of parenting. She has a stash of scissors somewhere and it frequently looks like it has snowed in our house from all the paper snips. She’s happy, it’s mostly harmless and supposedly good for fine motor skills. I let it go.

New Year, New Start

A few months ago, I came out of the closet. Literally, not metaphorically. Almost since I began working seriously on Home Ec 101, I’ve been hiding away in our master closet.  It really wasn’t the best solution.

I took over the spare / play / school / what the heck do we do with it room. It’s still dual purpose, used for school work, but I finally got around to hanging some things and making it my own.

The white board is actually just an old, framed poster. I just turned the print over so only the white showed. What do you know… it works perfectly. I swiped that idea from Make and Takes. I’ve been wanting one for a while, I just never remembered to pick one up while I was out. I figured, since I was already destroying the dry wall, what’s a couple more screws?

What started it? I was picking up a few things the kids had drug out, including that mobile hanging in the corner. We moved into this house, 6.5 years ago and I never got around to hanging it. Inertia kicks my butt every time.

Oh yeah, that is my coffee from this morning.

Outside that window there’s a big old oak, with lots of squirrels and those guys have been busy ensuring there are plenty of squirrels next year, too.  Oh, that? They’re just wrestling. . .

Blissdom 2011

It always feels a little odd to start a post without Heather says:. It’s total muscle memory. I open a post and my fingers start typing.

For the past few months I’ve been helping out the Blissdom Crew with the website. There hasn’t been anything crazy hard, but I’m actually quite proud of the layout for these two pages: Blissdom Conference Schedule and Blissdom Wisdom Workshops. Sure tables are old school, but sometimes they are the only real option for visually organizing the information. Megan is the speaker coordinator, she selected the speakers, figured out the schedule, and wrote the copy. I’m just happy with the final result.

I’ll be presenting at two Wisdom Workshops and naturally they are back to back, because I am some sort of pressure junkie. At first I could just get by with the pressure of one presentation, now there must be new and exciting twists in addition to the whole get up and talk in front of others pressure.

I’ll be presenting with Rachel Matthews of A Southern Fairytale, for the Food Niche workshop. If you’re heading to Blissdom and you write about food, you need to find and glom on to Rachel and me, we’re supposed to herd you into some sort of cohesive tribe by the end of the event. We’ll have a blast. We’re there to answer questions and help make you feel welcome. It’ll be fun.

I’m also joining Molly Thornberg of Digital Mom Blog on the Ultimate Toolkit presentation. I’m stoked as this is right up my alley. I love the tools that make online life easier.

I’ll be heading up to Nashville, probably with Kelby Carr and  Margo Millure, if our schedules all coordinate. Hopefully Margo won’t kick my seat the entire 9 hour drive, but you never know when you take on a virtual stranger.

The Opryland is a lovely hotel; it’s lush and beautiful, and balmy. The perfect humidity, but if you look closely, you may be reminded of the compounds in Oryx and Crake. After all, there are no bugs and it never storms.

I’m stoked and it’s over a month away.

Because this Is My Scrapbook

First of all, if you’re waiting for an email from me, here’s why it’s late. Thanks @rww

Really though, I just wanted to save this tweet from the iSocket team.

Thanks guys!

If you’re actually wondering what the heck is iSocket? They are an ad serving platform. They take care of all the piddly aspects of selling your own ads. It’s a monthly fee, not commission. You can also backfill what you haven’t sold (yet!) with AdSense or  something similar.

You can reclaim your self-worth and break up with your ad network, whenever you’re ready.

I’m happy with them.  If you do check them out, let them know I sent you. They don’t pay me, they just make and send pictures like the one above and that makes me happy.

You like it when I’m happy, right?

Perspective

My kids all have big personalities.

They are constantly on top of me.

In my face.

Demanding.

They need something.

They are hurt, they need fixing.

They need to be fed.

They need to be held.

They need to be wiped.

Then there’s their messes.

Their bickering.

Their noise.

I forget how small they are.

Until I see them as others do.

Let’s Talk About Me

That’s what this is for, right?

I was interviewed on Monday by Srini Rao of BlogCastFM. Feel free to check out the podcast.

Heather Solos on Book Deals, In-Person Events, and Building Your Speaking Resume.

I think it went decently, of course I can’t listen to it objectively. All I can do is cringe every time I say uh.