Mixed Feelings

They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right?

So why, when someone imitates, or it appears that they have, do I get that “Eew, copy-cat copy-cat” feeling?

And just to toss out how big of a hypocrite I can be, it’s entirely possible that I accidentally did it to Mom101 when Ivy and I first started Home Ec 101.

Standards, People, Standards

I don’t talk about faith too often. I’m not ashamed of who I am or what I believe, I just try really hard to live a quote I’ve heard attributed to St. Francis of Assisi:

Preach the gospel always. Use words when necessary.

Am I good at that? Probably not, but I hear effort counts for something.

Why do we hold Christian media producers to a different set of standards than secular?

Could we please start at least judging Christian art, in whatever form takes, on its actual merit and not its intentions. This is something I see a lot with my more evangelical friends. If a movie is labelled Christian, then no matter how bad the acting is, you’d think it was the best thing since sliced bread.

It’s not.

No matter what the intentions, bad movies are still lame.

Bad acting is bad acting.

Every time someone creates a bad movie and promotes it on the Christian platform, they really aren’t doing the rest of us any favors.

Plenty of people I know immediately knock IQ points off of anyone who claims to be Christian. It’s an obnoxious and cruel assumption, but it’s out there. In that light, I believe excusing bad media for its intentions or message does Christianity and faith a huge disservice. It’s one thing to be mocked for your beliefs and it’s another to embarrass yourself.

Knock it off.

It is a beautiful thing to create to glorify Him, it’s another to expect others to glorify you for the effort.

Having faith in God does not make a person an artist.

Michaelangelo was not commissioned to paint the Sistine Chapel because of his faith, I’m not even sure he was Christian, I think I remember hearing he was Humanist or Platonist, but I could be wrong. He was chosen because his art would best glorify God.

Menu Monday 10/4/2010

I’m moving my weekly menu from Home Ec 101 to here. It just feels more appropriate. Posting them helps keep me accountable. Bold items are recipes I hope to post on HE101.

Monday – Chicken soup for Tim and I, & dumplings for the kids, coleslaw

Tuesday – Tuna melts – in cabbage leaves for Tim and I- celery, carrots, broccoli + ranch

Wednesday – Beef stew with zucchini and pan roasted rutabaga –I also plan on retaking pics of the stew-

Thursday – Clean out refrigerator night

Friday – Salmon or steelhead trout with pecan crust, steamed vegetables (cheese sauce for the kids), sauteed cabbage

Saturday  – Pizza night. The kids miss it. (Pizza crust recipe, pizza sauce recipe)

Sunday – Roast chicken with chili honey glaze, Brussels sprouts, roast cauliflower

Do you menu plan? What’s on yours? Are you trying anything special this week?

Coming Home Again

I had an amazing time in Asheville. It wasn’t the not cooking or cleaning, having my work already done. Those things were nice, but that wasn’t what made my time there as great as it was.

I learned something this trip.

It’s not really the kids that get me down.

It’s those stretches of time where I don’t talk to intelligent people for days on end. Tim comes home from work and falls into bed. By that time, I’m also too tired to articulate anything coherent, but at least he has co-workers. This isn’t a post about my marriage, don’t try to read between the lines, there’s nothing there to see. We have our ups and downs, we’re human, fallible, but generally forgiving.

I miss people outside of this house.

I’m tired of fact families and phonics, where saying, “wipe your nose”, and “flush the toilet” are the bulk of my human interaction.

My sanity is held in check by a few Skype contacts and the promise that it’ll get better. I know I’m not the only one and I know my situation isn’t at all dire. It’s just frustrating. I hate that I hang on hoping for an hour or two where I might get to see adults where the conversation moves past the social niceties.

So many of my local friends have left, if not physically in practicality: Jared, Janet, Dan, Don. It’s like one by one the people are packing up and moving on. The ones that haven’t left yet, seem to be making plans, Nathan, Chris, Greg, Matthew -see above about fallible- is it true?

If I’m down, it’s because coming home means heading back into the isolation I accidentally created for myself. I’m trying to break free of it, I’m just not sure where to start.

For now I escape into podcasts. I think it’s because I can at least fool myself for a little while that my world isn’t really as quiet as it has become.

Over the weekend I got to spend time with women I consider my mentors: Aliza Sherman, Wendy Scherer, Kelby Carr, Deb Ng, Alli Worthington, Megan Jordan, just to name a few.

Each one is a bit farther down the road than I am.

I’m trying to be brave.

A few years ago, I wouldn’t have even tried.

Photo Credit: Alli Worthington

I thank you for the example.

I’ll get there and maybe, just maybe I’ll learn that choosing to be remarkable is a good thing.

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31 Days to Build a Better Blog Project part 1

With blogging, as with anything I try, I picked it up toyed around with the idea for a moment, and jumped right in. Back in January, Problogger, Darren Rowse, offered his ebook / workbook 31 Days to Build a Better Blog at a decent discount. I picked it up, having no idea how overwhelming writing my own book while running Home Ec 101 solo would become.

Since that time, the pdf file lingered on my cluttered desktop, reminding me of money I threw away.

I’ll get to it, really. At least that’s what I’ve been telling the guilt inducing gif.

About a month ago Srini Rao of The Skool of Life and BlogcastFM mentioned he was looking for some partners to work through the program. As there’s nothing like accountability to get my butt in gear,  I jumped at the chance. Ami Kim of 40 Days to Change also joined in the project. Aside from the accountability, I thought it would be a great opportunity to work with people outside of my usual circle.

Life being what it is, Srini became busy with BlogcastFM, so Ami and I are joining in with Angela England for the Build a Better Blog Challenge.

There’s always room for improvement, right? Not every day is going to be relevant to my work on Home Ec 101 and some days are skills and tips I’ve already put into practice over the years. The project will still help me find areas I need to strengthen. My goal isn’t to turn Home Ec 101 into a cookie cutter site, rather it’s an exercise to determine where I need to focus.

Here’s the rundown of my first week with the project.

Day 1 – Elevator pitch

I worked on this a few months ago when I redesigned the header of the site. While “What you wish your mama taught you” captures the essence of what I’ve been doing, I feel like a fool saying it out loud. After mulling it over I came up with Real skills for real people with real lives. Repetitive? Of course, it emphasizes that I want Home Ec 101 to stay grounded and focus on people who have to worry about their budgets and can’t spend $14 lb on Wild Alaskan Salmon twice a week. Those people have Martha and those people can have set designers and food artists. I’ll continue to do the best I can with what is available.

Day 2 – Write a List Post

I write list posts all the time, I had a little fun with this one. There’s some twisted part of me that enjoys working in random geek culture references wherever possible. Let’s face it, home economics is not the most riveting of topics, if I get bored, I can’t expect anyone else to hang around and read it.

Day 3 – Promote a Post

I’ve installed YOURLS to create a url shortener with the my domain, but I’m having trouble getting it to work. Until that happens I have disabled automatic tweeting of posts upon publishing. Instead I’m doing it manually and trying to maintain that balance of promotion with actual conversation. I enjoy Twitter too much to only use it for self-promotion.

Day4 – Analyze a Top Blog

(or 2, ’cause that’s how I roll)
Did you know Smitten Kitchen and I have similar counters? From there I get a reminder to focus on the technical aspect of good photography. I’m learning. With every meal I learn a little more, even if it does become tedious. I could slow posting to increase interaction in the comments, but I’m not sure that’s a direction I want to take. My site isn’t solely focused on one topic. Perhaps, I should look into better content navigation through subdomains. It’s something I’m rolling around.
Lifehacker gives me the urge to jump all in, to go big or go home. It makes me want to bring on more writers, like Brian and grow through pure content creation. Is it doable? Yes, but the workload is hugely intimidating.

Day 5 – Email a Blog Reader

Easy peasy. Definitely a reminder that I need to do this more often. Heck, I just need to be more responsive period.

Day 6 – Learn from Top Bloggers

Excellent reading and a reminder to never stop learning.

Day 7 –  Write a Link Post

I will schedule one for later this week.

A Good Year

31 was amazing.

There were low points. Can you say strep three times?

How about having the tonsils yanked?

There were amazing highs, flying to New York City and back in a day. Spending three days in New Orleans for Jazz Fest.

Nashville, Asheville, Minnesota, too.

Blissdom, TypeA, CREATESouth, I don’t know that I could have been any busier.

But I was.

In April of 2009, just after CREATESouth I told Dan Conover, that it would be the year of the book, but then Ivy hit bottom and took her leave. She’s 10 months clean and that is worth more than anything, but as her world crumbled. I set the book idea aside, I was just going to dig in and try to make Home Ec 101 work or find out if it was time to let go.

Just before I threw in the towel, I received an email, the one I thought was a scam, only it wasn’t.

Now the book is done, it’s all in my editor’s hands. All I can do is wait. I’ve closed the chapter on writing a book, as well as another year. I have no idea what’s in store, but I can’t wait to see.

A Venting of Sorts

We all get a little crotchety, right? A year in the blogworld is 7 years in real life, right? This makes me old and gives me the ability to randomly vent.

There are a few things that immediately turn me off of any website:

  1. Bug-eyed cartoon women – I find them infantalyzing and as I often have a hard enough time being taken seriously. It may be irrational, so be it. Don’t worry if this works for you, there are plenty of people out there who find the drawings cute and endearing. You can’t please everyone.
  2. Auto-play music or video. ‘Nuff Said.
  3. Sparkles, unless they are ironic sparkles.
  4. Content comprised solely of useless memes that require one word answers or no effort.
    Participation in memes doesn’t bother me, it just annoys me when there is never any original content. (For the record I love memes where people show off projects, so I’m biased in that regard).
  5. People who take themselves too seriously.
    Yes, yes, I’m a hypocrite. Noted.
  6. Blogs that only exist to talk about rebating and couponing. This one is another it’s not you, it’s me.
  7. Slow page loads (I can say that now that I fixed my own. Thanks Jared.

Now #getoffmylawn unless you have a few peeves of your own.

Also, thank you  Malia for the inspiration, not for being guilty of the offenses.

Happy Independence Day

Updating

The rough draft of the book is done. I still don’t know how I feel about the prospect of actually having the book printed. It scares the pants off me to actually put it out there where it’ll be judged as is.

That said, I sit down to start officially working through the editing on Monday.

I gave a presentation at the Charleston County Library on Thursday, the turnout was light, but I think it went well. The people seemed to have a lot of questions and I believe some of them walked away with useful information.

Other than that, it’s business as usual here.  Busy.

The Boys’ Music Recital June ’10

Another family post.

Here is the video from the boys’ violin recital.