topblogmag

It's all happening!

2008-04-20T11:03:00.002-05:00

TopBlogMag is moving!
We are morphing!

We are becoming much much more about you and your own blogs!

Top Blog Mag is now...

Blog Nosh Magazine!

The new site is currently under construction, but will be up and running soon. Come over, check out the details that are posted so far, including the new theme behind the site, and let me know what you think!

Thank you for all of your support, your patience, and your enthusiasm.
Delicious things are in our future.
-Megan

Issue 29: Opportunity is a Bird That Never Perches

2007-10-28T22:14:00.000-05:00

Note from the Editor:

***TopBlogMag is under major renovation/ demolition/reconstruction. Bear with us.***

How often are we presented with an opportunity and we hesitate a moment too long? Poof. It vanishes before our eyes. It slips through our fingers.

Or we never even recognized it in the first place.

Are your eyes open to the opportunities around you? Are you waiting for them to fall into your lap or are you poised to pounce at the first, well, opportunity?

Here we are, two issues in from the point that I pounced on the opportunity to take over TopBlogMag and I am still scrambling to pull it together. So many ideas being fleshed out, so many designs being prepared to implement. I could have used two or three months between the moment I accepted the position and the moment in which I actually took over.

But that wasn't the choice I was given.
So here we are.

And I love it.
I am accepting the changes and embracing the opportunity. So are our writers.

Debbie from Missives from Suburbia offers a glimpse into the reality that is online dating and how being open to opportunities, no matter how unlikely they may first appear, can be the gateway to unexpected blessings.

John from altjiranga mitjina writes about an opportunity that he did embrace but that managed to slip away anyway.

Karen Rayne from Adolescent Sexuality finds herself given an opportunity that she didn't even realize she was looking for, but a valuable one worth exploring, nonetheless.

As our Featured Post and Blog of the Week, Amie from MammaLoves... sums up my feelings about opportunity precisely, with a bit of speculation about the paths opportunity leads us down... as well as those paths not taken.

Finally, I am seizing the opportunity myself to share with you a guest post I originally published as a spur-of-the-moment guest blogger on Queen of Spain. The Queen of Spain is a rock-solid blogger in Southern California... yeah, that Southern California. The one in the news all the time right now. The one on fire.

Along with hundreds of other families, the Queen of Spain recently had to evacuate her home. As I write this, her home has remained mostly unscathed, however hundreds of other families have not been so lucky.

This is our opportunity. It is our chance to lend a hand to those in need.

Below are a handful of links to relief agencies benefiting families that are suffering due to the fires in Southern California, courtesy of the Queen of Spain.

Additionally, I am linking to the American Red Cross, an organization my family accepted help from after Hurricane Katrina and to whom I will be eternally grateful. I saw firsthand how they use their funds. It was astonishingly comforting and effective.

Visit the links. See if there is anything you can do. You would be amazed at how far just a little help can go to comfort families who have lost everything. It is a wonderful opportunity to step up.

In the meantime, join in the conversation. Read this week's submissions, visit the author's blogs, then join in the discussion. Post on your own blog about this week's theme, send me the link, and we will feature it in the "Joining In..." feature at the bottom of the page. Be sure to check back often to see who has joined in. Opportunities abound this week, however...

Opportunity is a bird that never perches. ~Claude McDonald
************

Santa Clarita Valley Disaster Coalition

Southern California Wildfire Resource Page
(a comprehensive list of relief organizations in
the devastated Southern California area)

You did well in school to get into college. You tried to get
by well enough in college to be attractive to an employer or graduate program, and along the way you may have opened your heart a time or two. Maybe you even found true love.

With a foot in the door, the first years of work were the time to
prove your mettle once again. Promotions, raises all with the goal to
secure your future will allow you to settle down, buy a house, travel,
commit to a relationship, have kids or not. In what feels like a blink
of an eye, your future is here.

And now what?

All the decisions made to get to this point, all the paths considered
and discarded for what felt right--for what seemed the smartest move
at the time—they all brought you here. Or maybe, some decisions were made for you. A rejection
letter, a broken heart, an unintended pregnancy,
they were decisions taken from your hands but events that moved your life along
just the same.

Here you are.

Did the path you chose lead you to the destination you expected? Are
you looking back wondering what if? Is this life you have what you thought it
would be? Do you ever think you might have made different choices? Would you
have taken advantage of other opportunities? Created more?

Maybe some days it all seems exactly how it’s supposed to be, but then for no reason driving down the highway you catch a glimpse of how different it could have all been.

And you wonder.

This post submitted by Amie, a 37 year old woman who has reached one
peak and is looking ahead trying to envision the next. She blogs regularly at MammaLoves... and DC Metro Moms

Chance Favors Only Those Who Court Her

2007-10-28T21:58:00.000-05:00

by Debbie from Missives from Suburbia

After a less-than-friendly divorce, I was on the market again. Seizing the opportunity, my friends scoured their address books and Palm Pilots for single men and set me up on blind date after blind date. My reaction to most of those dates was, "I call these people my FRIENDS?" One of my real friends suggested Match.com, and given how much I love the Internet, I gave it a go.

A couple months of e-dating passed by in a blink. It was fun, but so far nothing meaningful had hit my radar, and my match inventory was starting to run low. You see, Match.com "matches" you to people based on a list of your requirements, and I'd pretty much run through all my existing matches who didn't seem psycho or stoned, based on their profiles.

Then, one day, I got an email from a guy who was not a match by my standards. He asked me out. I declined, although I tried to be funny about it. He asked again, because he found me amusing. He was funny, too, but once again I declined. He just wasn't my type. He pressed, listing attributes like a fervent love of movies and adoration of museums as reasons to go out with him. I replied that I hate the movies, and I never go to museums. But his persistence and wit convinced me to talk to him on the phone.

We talked for two hours that first time. I liked his voice, and he was just as funny and interesting over the phone, but he still wasn't my type.

I agreed to meet him for dinner. He had a nice smile, and he dressed well. He also had great taste in restaurants, and I am a foodie. Nonetheless, he was not my type.

Six weeks later, our friendship continued to deepen, and we agreed that since we both needed a vacation, we would go together. A platonic vacation. No, really. Platonic, because he still wasn't my type.

We returned from vacation, and we were still "just friends". Because – yes, you guessed it – he just wasn't my type.

A month after our vacation, I began dating this man who was not my type. Less than two years later, we were married. Two years after that, our beautiful son joined the family.

In a span of a few short years, an email in my inbox went from being an amusing distraction to becoming my life's love, teaching me that opportunity comes in many forms. Sometimes, they aren't even your type.

Debbie spends her days playing mommy to one human child and four large fur kids, and her nights hunched over her laptop, desperately trying to find the perfect shoes. She busily pursues life, liberty and happiness amidst the chaos of a home buried in diapers and dog hair located in the Twin Cities and believes that suburbia is not a location, but a state of mind. http://missivesfromsuburbia.blogspot.com

Jesus Toothpaste!

2007-10-28T21:50:00.000-05:00

by Karen Rayne from Adolescent Sexuality Today with Karen Rayne, Ph.D.

This weekend I went out of town, leaving my family to fend for themselves. On Saturday, my darling husband took my two darling daughters – 6 and 3 years old – to what he heard was a fun new toy store in town. Great, right?

They walk in the door, and the 6-year-old pipes up with “Look, Daddy! Jesus toothpaste!” He takes one look, puts one hand on each girl’s shoulder, and does a 180 out of the store. It may be a fun new toy store, but it’s intended clientele does not include the under-13 set.

When I got home on Sunday, the first thing the 6-year-old says to me was, “Guess what! We saw Jesus toothpaste!” I blinked, figuring I hadn’t heard her correctly. Regrettably, I had.

Now we have to decide. Is this an “opportunity” to talk with our daughter about Christianity? About irony? About inappropriate jokes? About the only son of the only God who died to keep our teeth clean? And if it is, what on earth do we say?

It seems we are faced with these “opportunities” almost daily. Most parents are.

Billboards, full of conversational opportunities, are everywhere:
“Microsurgical Vasectomy Reversal!”
“Find out who’s the Daddy!”
“Adult Videos! News! News! News!”
“ ‘Love thy neighbor.’ – God ”

As are grocery store tabloids:
“End of world predicted in 1000 BC!”
“Mother Mary seen in a Tortilla!”
“George Bush dines with aliens!”
“George Bush IS an alien!”

Perhaps even more insidious are the magazines:
“Bigger breasts!”
“100 ways to keep your man happy!”
“How to eat less!”
“How to be more!”

But a wise, anonymous person once said “Opportunities are never lost; someone will take the one you miss.” If we don’t take this chance to talk with the 6-year-old, she’ll continue thinking it’s fine and funny to use Jesus toothpaste. The toy store already took the opportunity to talk with her about it. And after all, was a toy store. And toy stores are for kids, so everything in there must be good for kids. Right?

So tonight I’m going to take the opportunity to sit the 6-year-old down and tell her what I think of Jesus toothpaste. That it’s something that some people would find offensive, that it would hurt them. That I’m sad that other people find that funny. And after that conversation has run it’s course, I’ll ask her what she knows about Jesus, and how she recognized a picture of him so quickly.

This will be a scary conversation for me. But I spend my life encouraging parents to have scary conversations with their children about sex, sexuality, and romance. I tell them that the conversation will happen, and that the only choice they have is whether it happens between them and their children or between someone else and their children. I ask them to realize that a forced opportunity is still an opportunity.

So this has become my forced opportunity – but my opportunity nevertheless.

Parents have to learn to talk about the hard topics. Sex, sexuality, porn, body image, romantic relationships, these are all topics I have thought through and I can talk easily and appropriately about with the 6-year-old. Religion? Not so much. This is one of my hard topics.

So I’m gathering my thoughts, preparing myself for the conversation tonight. But I know that the real learning will actually come during our conversation. After all, there’s no better way to learn than to do. Sometimes, actually, it’s the only way.

And later tonight, I will thank Jesus toothpaste for this forced opportunity, and I will have made sure someone else did not take it.

Karen Rayne teaches classes about sexuality to teenagers and about adolescent sexuality to parents. She also writes a blog on adolescent sexuality. She lives in Austin, TX with one fabulous husband, two amazing daughters, and two rambunctious dogs.

A Lost Opportunity

2007-10-28T21:43:00.000-05:00

by John from Altjiranga Mitjina

Trying to break in as a writer in the comic book industry can be a bit like the one legged man in a butt kicking contest. Every step forward you make means you land on your butt after your kick forward. Comic books are a visual medium. An artist can bring a portfolio to an editor at a convention and said editor can sit there and look at it within minutes and decide if this artist is worthy of working on the newest issue of Stupendous Man or not. Trying being a hopeful writer handing over a script to this same editor at a busy comic convention. You’ll be lucky if the editor agrees to take the script and promise that they’ll look at it later. Most times the hopeful writer is told to send for their submission guidelines and mail in their proposal.

The best way for a writer is to find an aspiring artist and hook up. (No, not that type of hook up, get your mind out of the gutter.) If the two can create a short story, combining art and words, than both have something to show. And maybe create something new between the two of them.

I’ve been writing and trying to break into the comic book industry for years. When I first started that was my method. Find some artists that were trying and hook up with them. And it’s worked. Finding Ron Wilber lead me to getting “Lizards” published in CRITTERS. Finding Dave Garcia lead me to getting some stories published in DEATH RATTLE. Finding Sam Kieth lead me….well, that’s a different story, a story of a missed opportunity.

When I “met” Sam neither of us had published anything. I say met, because I came across Sam in the mail, in a fanzine, and we didn’t actually meet for close to a year until we both made the trip to San Diego for the Comic Con. I knew when I saw Sam’s work that he was going to be a star. Even then I could see how good Sam was. We came up with some ideas and shopped a few around. We sold one or two to Kitchen Sink for their DEATH RATTLE comic.

Sam started doing inking work for Comico, then DC Comics. He got work on the SANDMAN. Sam was quickly becoming a hot name in the comic biz. We kept in touch. Sam is a nice guy and a very unassuming guy. Anyone that knows him will know what I mean. While Sam was becoming a star I was getting more work published. A few stories here, a few there, I felt like I was making headway.

When the Image creators broke away from Marvel and DC to form their own company they asked Sam to come along. All the Image guys were coming up with new characters and Sam was no exception. He created THE MAXX but didn’t feel comfortable enough with his writing skills yet to do the scripting chores on the book. He called and asked if I wanted to write it over his plots. Now does anyone need to know what I said?

I wasn’t Sam’s first choice. At that time Sam had been working with Bill Loebs on some other projects. Bill is a great writer (and artist as well) and Sam had asked him to do the MAXX project first. For reasons that are Bill’s own he bowed out. So Sam gave me a call.

I’m not sure of the timelines here so some of this may be a little off. MAXX was a ways off, so Sam and I would spend time on the phone talking about what he wanted. Sam kept telling me to let everyone know that I was working on an Image book, get my name out there. Somewhere around this time MTV approached Sam about turning THE MAXX into a cartoon series for their network.

Things were happening fast. And it was around this time that Sam called me up and told me that he had decided to go with Bill Loebs as the writer on THE MAXX. I couldn’t blame him too much, Bill was a much better writer than I was. I was and am a big fan of Bill’s work.

I bring this all up not to throw stones but as an opportunity lost. I’ve never really commented about the whole situation and do so now because it fits in the theme of this issue. I sometimes wonder what my life would be like if I had written Sam’s book. Things didn’t turn out that great for Bill, through no fault of Sam or his book. So I can’t say that if I had written this book I would now be a big name writer. I can look back and realize that if I had written that book I would have probably went to work writing full time for at least awhile and missed the chance of meeting a lot of the people I know now. My life would be different, I don’t know if it would have been better or worse, but I would be in a different place.

I continued to write for a few more years, publishing a few things here and there, but never being able to decide that I was going to do this full time. And then I quit. (That’s a story for another time.) But now I’m back, trying to write, trying to find more opportunities.

Check out John at his blog altjiranga mitjina and keep an ear out for more Voices to Hear music reviews in a new platform from John soon.

A biker, a green thumb, a cracked hand, and a Queen.

2007-10-28T21:15:00.000-05:00

by Megan from Velveteen Mind, originally guest posted at Queen of Spain

A random biker on a Harley-Davidson took my picture last week. What I wanted to do was take his picture, but I hesitated. Now, instead of a photo of some random biker holding an i am bossy.com bumper sticker, all I have is a lame photo of me holding the bumper sticker and the mental picture of him riding off into the sunset, never to be seen again.

Okay, it wasn’t as romantic or dramatic as that. It was nine in the morning and there was no sunset.

This is not the first time that I have hesitated to seize an opportunity. I don’t expect it will be the last. However, I hope with each lost chance for something intriguing, I will lose a shade of that hesitation for next time.

One of the last times I let an opportunity slip away was at the beginning of this summer, as I was planting my first flower garden. For some reason, I became simply obsessed with hydrangeas. It seemed like everywhere I turned, there was a beautiful hydrangea bush, bursting with full blooms. Certainly, these bushes must be a snap to grow, as even run-down houses seemed to boast the most gorgeous bushes of blue and pink hydrangea.

Snap my ass. Apparently I don’t understand much about gardening. Or acidity of the soil. Or watering needs. My hydrangea died. Quickly. As in, the next day. Impressive.

While driving home and mourning my poor dead hydrangea one day, I noticed the most impressive hydrangea bush I had ever seen. Blue hydrangea mop heads, weighing down a massive bush outside of an old shack of a house that I had driven by a million times. I was surprised that I had never noticed this bush before because there was an old man who sat outside of this house and waved at passing drivers, if you just took the time to notice him. I always took the time to notice him. But how had I never noticed his hydrangea?

That night, I read a post by Oh, The Joys! about a conversation she shared with a couple of strangers on a plane. She wrote about how she rarely took part in plane conversations, but found herself opening up to these strangers in the most unexpected ways.

“We were three strangers talking about love and loss…
It was nice.
As much as I appreciate the quiet time to read, perhaps I should reconsider my position on plane talking…”

I decided that the next time I passed the old man with the hydrangea bush, I would pull over and talk to him. Talk to him about his hydrangea and hopefully talk to him about his life.

Dangerous? Maybe. Naive? Probably. Hopeful? Absolutely.

Having grown up in a rural community in Southern Illinois, I miss the old couples sitting out on their front steps in the evening, watching traffic and waving at the drivers who take the time to nod their way. There was something about this man, sitting in his old folding chair, next to his lush blue hydrangea bush, in front of his dilapidated old home, that spoke to me. Something familiar that I recognized. Something familiar to which I wanted to be near, if only for a moment.

The next night, I drove by his house, saw him sitting out front, began to bully up the courage to stop… and then hesitated. I realized that I was not driving the car he usually waved at me in and was suddenly afraid that he wouldn’t recognize me. As I approached the intersection in front of his home, I found myself driving right on past.

I never did stop. Despite seeing him evening after evening, I never did stop. I hesitated and the moment past me by, never to return. And now I regret the missed opportunity. The unknown pesters me.

If I have learned anything, it is that opportunities surround us every day. We just have to have our eyes open to recognizing them. It also helps to have our guts fortified so we are ready to seize them when they present themselves.

Oh, what lives we can lead when we do. When we stop hesitating and just pounce.

I used to just pounce. I did some of my favorite pouncing in college. The fortification of my gut was courtesy of a camera lens. The result was memories I will remember long after those of late night college dorm parties fade.

While experimenting with contrast filters, I drove through the streets of Montgomery, Alabama, looking for a subject to capture that would allow me to make the most of my filters. A foreshadowing of my opportunity with the hydrangea man presented itself and this time I pounced.

Outside of the entrance to the local mall parking lot, you could always count on the boiled peanut man. A heavy man in his early forties, he boiled peanuts in a huge kettle on the side of the road. People would pull over, pay a couple of dollars, and he would dip out a fresh batch of boiled peanuts into a paper bag for you.

What began as an opportunity to play with filters capturing light colored peanuts against dark water turned into an afternoon learning about a life. His huge, rough, cracked hands could have spoken a thousand words as they moved in and out of the hot water, but something in the air of the moment allowed him to open up and tell me tales his hands never suggested.

I was open to the opportunity. And I did not hesitate.

Now that fortification of my gut is found, not in a camera lens, but rather in the endless appetite of my Velveteen Mind. Always hungry for another story. Always searching for a new ear to bend.

I just have to remember to never hesitate. To simply pounce.

Just a few hours ago, I noticed your lovely Queen post a Twitter calling for guest bloggers. Figuring she was looking for someone to post, say, next week or so, I threw my hat in the ring. Her readers have always struck me as my kind of people, so what better way to introduce myself and hopefully find a few new ears to bend.

Fifteen minutes later she emailed me back and said something along the lines of “Great. Write it right now and post it yesterday.”

Okay, it wasn’t as demanding or dramatic as that, either. She actually granted me an hour or two of breathing room and then threatened to sabotage my Technorati ranking through her magical Queenly blogging influence if I didn’t deliver ASAP.

No time for hesitation this time. Seize the blog, my brutha, seize the blog.

Before she saddles up her Harley and rides.

Megan usually writes on her personal blog, Velveteen Mind, however she has a tendency to wander all over the internet, sprinkling guest posts here and there... and dragging her fabulous readers with her.

Note from the Editor.

2007-10-21T23:52:00.000-05:00

If you want to truly understand something, try to change it.
~Kurt Lewin

We are one step closer to realizing my revamped version of Top Blog Magazine. You have all been very generous with your suggestions and comments, making some points crystal clear (see poll results below). To say the least, it is encouraging to see how invested you are in this process and the final product. Encouraging and exciting.

As we are still in transition, you will see very few of the proposed changes this week. Despite my lofty goals, it is apparently not possible to change everything right out of the gate. Believe me, I've tried. That's why I love that Kurt Lewin quote. This is absolutely a learning process. Apparently, I also have a bit of a learning curve...

It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.
~Epictetus

Miss smarty pants here has a few things to learn still. In the meantime, you'll have to make do with the ever-so-slight template change (bye, bye, yellow! we'll miss you!) and wait with baited breath for the new banner and other design element changes. All new buttons are on the way, as well. Who doesn't love some new blog bling?

Content changes will be more gradual. More than anything, you set the pace for that.

The poll results are split evenly between your wanting to submit content from your own blog's archives and wanting the challenge of themed creative writing submissions. I am hesitant to set hard and fast rules for content, so for now I'm going to keep it simple:

Consider this an open call for submissions from your personal blog's old archives. This call applies to current writers for TopBlogMag, as well as anyone else that would like to become a contributor. We'll iron out the guidelines more specifically later, but for now, please pull posts that are at least one month old. Do you have something you are particularly proud of or thought deserved more attention than it received at the time? Send it in.

Make your submissions strong, as they could determine the direction of an entire issue.

In short, the way the submission assignments have worked in the past is that an email is sent out to the current list of writers each week, usually assigning a particular theme to five or six writers on a rotating basis. From now on, regarding open submission calls versus assigned writers for each issue, that may fluctuate on an issue by issue basis. Depending on the backlog of republished archive submissions received, we may have some weeks where there is no open call and other weeks where there is nothing but assigned writers.

If you would like to be added to the writer's list for TopBlogMag and receive the weekly emails regarding submission calls, just send me your email address and link to your blog, along with a brief note detailing your interest. I am looking for fresh voices, men and women, all niches. If you think you wouldn't fit in, chances are you are exactly what I'm looking for right now.

And then I have to take a deep breath.

Change is risky. Growth is dangerous.

There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
~Anais Nin

Change. Risk. Growth. Our writers had plenty to say on this matter.

Read their stories. Visit their blogs. Along the way, if something inspires you to write, post it on your blog and send me the link to be added to the "Joining In" featured section at the bottom of the page. If the spotlight isn't shining on you this week, grab it and shine it on yourself.

Take the risk. Push your limits. Bloom. And please do let us watch.

***

Megan from Velveteen Mind

Beautiful Risk

2007-10-21T23:51:00.000-05:00

Feature Post and Blog of the Week
by Jenny from Mommin' It Up!

She’s sleeping soundly, and I pause to observe a rare moment of calm in my wild child, my crazy girl, my daring daughter. Her long, fine hair covers her thick eyelashes and rest on her plump, peaceful cheeks. She is, to me, simply amazing. But I am, of course, her mother.

Eleven months ago, I exhibited the opposite of the serenity she now sleepily displays. I was pregnant with her, and on the cusp of giving birth, rotund, uncomfortable, and scared. I was anxious, apprehensive, and fretful about my baby girl. My fears frustrated and confounded me. I already had a son, and he was healthy and strong. I had done this before, what was wrong with me? I just wanted her out, and as my pregnancy progressed I became more and more convinced she would be safer outside the womb than in.

A few days before my due date, after a doctor’s appointment where once again, everything looked fine, I sat down to try and analyze my fear, to seek to know the enemy that was taking the joy out of this pregnancy. What I came to realize after some careful, quiet thought, was this: because I already had one child, I knew what I had to lose if something went wrong with this pregnancy. I knew what it was like to hold my own child in my arms, to nurse it at my breast, to feel its breath on my cheek, to marvel at its first smile and revel in its first laugh. This baby already had my heart. Giving her life meant risking her life, and I already knew I couldn’t live without her.

A few days later, right on time, my risk, my beautiful risk paid off. My daughter came into my world healthy and strong, just like her brother. The last eleven months she has brought me joy upon joy, and looking at her now I don’t regret the risk for a minute. Still, knowing what I have to lose, I don’t think myself brave enough to take it on again.

Jenny Rapson lives in her hometown in Ohio with her high-school-sweetheart-turned-husband and her two fabulously funny kids. She is a stay-at-home-mom, avid book reader and voracious coffee drinker, and writes her blog about adventures in motherhood with her friend and cousin, Emily Berry, at Mommin’ It Up! (http://momminitup.com).

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes…

2007-10-21T23:50:00.000-05:00

by Sarah from In the Trenches of Mommyhood

I am contemplating a major life change. No, I’m not having another child,

or an affair,

or a sex-change operation…

I am thinking about a career choice that will thrust me back into full-time employment for the first time in 6 years (I currently work part-time).

Except now, unlike 6 years ago, I have 3 children.

You see, my husband and I have been fiscally irresponsible and immature. We have no savings, no retirement, no emergency fund. We live paycheck-to-paycheck.

Except now, we have 3 children.

We bought into society’s mania of instant gratification. Wholeheartedly. We have 4 televisions in our house, we drive 2 nice cars, our children are fed and nattily attired and we’ve wanted for nothing.

Neither have our 3 children.

But, it’s gotta stop.

Our financial situation right now is equivalent to a speeding train about to derail. We’re broke.

And we have 3 children.

So who will be affected when I start a new full-time job? Everyone in the family, of course.

Especially our 3 children.

****************************

(I confess, I am being a bit melodramatic. Though I am sad and angered, the timing of this is such that I will be able to accept a full-time offer knowing that my children are being very well cared for.)

***************************

Sarah had a mind once. Now she has children. She’s a Central Massachusetts mommy to three adorable, loving, loud, impatient, only angelic when sleeping, little boyz, ages 6, 3 and 2. And she’s a part-time (for now) corporate paralegal. Although life is hectic, demanding and downright crazy In the Trenches of Mommyhood, Sarah thinks that life is still good…especially after she’s had a few glasses of pinot grigio. http://sarahviz.blogspot.com/

The inevitable, Change

2007-10-21T23:49:00.000-05:00

by Prachi Jain from Random. And Then Some More =)

Change is to one man the death of a friend,
To another the birth of a child.
Change is the shifting of soft winds of spring,
to a hurricane deadly and wild.

Change is the moving of the hourglass sands,
It's the coming of dawn after dark.
Change is taking one step at a time,
The emotion in each persons heart.

But change in the end, will not change at all
The one constant in everyone's lives
Change is the light at the end of the tunnel
The healer who opens our eyes.

Prachi's journal blog.
The World as i see it.
join me at
nonstop-banter.blogspot.com

Plus ça change

2007-10-21T23:48:00.000-05:00

by Rainbow from New Marriages and Old Families

Elder daughter J celebrated her 18th birthday yesterday. She hates surprises, so she'd told me exactly what to buy her - I'd complied, with a couple of extras - but even though she knew what she was opening, she actually got up at 7.30 so she could open her pressies with me before I went to work. She was affecting the attitude of not feeling any different, it being just like any other day - but I did notice later that she was waiting rather impatiently for her friends to arrive, just like she used to when she was little.

I've know most of her friends since they were 3, all of them since they were 11, and it's been fascinating watching them grow into women and how they've changed along the way. You notice it more with other kids than your own, since you're not seeing them all the time. (Although in the days when mine used to go and stay with grandma or granddad for a week to give me a break - obviously no one thinks I need one any more, sniff; although on second thoughts now we just go off and leave them at home - they always seemed to have grown a few inches when they came back.) One of the girls is now so strikingly beautiful I wouldn't have recognised her if I hadn't known who it was.

But some things haven't changed a bit. We still had to have banners and balloons festooning the room. The drink may have been rosé rather than Ribena, but their choice of food (to accompany the obligatory gooey chocolate cake) was the very health-conscious crisps, Maltesers and Minstrels. They were dressed in their best (clubbing rather than party) frocks, and the sounds that came from the garden when they were larking about taking photos could have come from a bunch of toddlers. And they still sing Happy Birthday and J made a wish when blowing out the EIGHTEEN spelled out by the candles. She even managed to wake me up at 3 in the morning, although this time it was by closing the front door rather than having a bad dream. And instead of the shaky M u m x x she used to scrawl on her pictures, the message on my desk this morning was the slightly more sophisticated Had a great night. Met Stacey from East Enders and got a photo with her. Ring me in the AFTERNOON. Lots of love x x x.

This is a hiatus for her, waiting for her A level results on Thursday, going on holiday next week and only then having to deal with the realities of the adult world, like the small matter of getting a job. Hope she enjoys it - although I don't think any of us really ever grow up, life is rarely again as simple as it is for her now. I guess all we can ask is that she's got some good memories and a solid foundation to fall back on - and that in 18 or even 80 years time she can still enjoy her birthday like a child!

Rainbow is recently married for the second time around, and blogs about merging the couple's two families, their children and their joint search for their roots - as well as whatever else takes her fancy! New marriages and old families at http://newmarriagesandoldfamilies.blogspot.com/

A Clean Sweep

2007-10-21T23:47:00.000-05:00

by Meg Fitzpatrick from Simply Nutmeg

I could spend hours just staring at my feet. In fact, I often do. Why? Because my feet are the only part of me that look exactly as they did when I was sixteen years old. I can stare at my ankles, too. I'll even allow my eyes to move as far up as my shins before I have to stop. It's the knees; the knees have aged. They're not so bad in the prone position, but when I stand up, there's this little saggy pin-cushion that sort of drapes over the knee cap. That definitely wasn't there at sixteen.

I guess it's safe to say that we age from the top down-- it must be a gravity thing. I was in my thirties when my magnificent, red, curly hair started getting less magnificent. Pregnancy hormones seemed to be involved. During my first pregnancy, my hair stopped curling. During my second pregnancy it started looking more brown than red. After my third pregnancy, my hair as much as gave up and half of it fell out. Now I have nice, wavy, not so magnificent, brownish, short hair. Big blow to the ego!

From there it’s just the California mudslide of the face, breasts, stomach, and buttocks. Really, if you can handle that one sentence gracefully, aging is a piece of cake! I’ve watched victims of other natural disasters, in the world and in my own town, handle their losses with such faith and dignity – tsunamis, floods, brush fires, hurricanes. My thoughts (obsessions really) about Botox put me to shame. But my feet, my feet are lookin’ good! I’m too sexy for my feet!

I miss the days of driving around town in my little blue Nissan coup when men’s heads would turn and road workers would whistle. It was the magnificent hair mostly. Why is it that nobody seems to wrench their necks when my fifteen-year-old mini-van tools by with the four car seats? Maybe I should try driving it with my feet!

So, how do I deal with my own natural disaster further developing as I write? I paint my toenails sparkly bubble-gum pink, I wear sandals whenever possible, and I marvel at how beautiful my inside is becoming. Actually, when I think back to the sixteen-year-old me, the one with the hair and the breasts that had yet to spend eight years nursing babies, and the pin-cushionless kneecaps, I was a train wreck! All that sheer beauty wasted on insecurities, inflated expectations, jerky guys, and fair-weather friends.

Some foreign alien seemed to enter my head in my late thirties and decided to clean out and organize. The alien made three piles on my front lawn: throw away, keep, and sell. These are the things the alien threw away: out went the worn out anxieties – anxiety that I wasn’t good enough, smart enough, thin enough, sexy enough; out went the over-used fears – fear that there will never be such a thing as their college funds, fear that we’ll end up in the poor house, fear that I’ll screw up these four blessed children, fear that I’ll never have a flat stomach again; out went the inflated expectations – the expectation that my house will always be clean, the expectation that my children will always be well behaved and dressed in color coordinated clothes, the expectation that I will meet every want and need of every human being who casts their eyes my way. All of this stuff got put on the curb by the alien and, early one morning was picked up by a garbage truck. I’ve yet to miss any of it.

Here are the things the alien let me keep: in went my endless, unabashed love for my amazing husband and four beautiful children. In went a newfound desire to give, to share a little bit of myself every day. In went my unwavering spirituality and a willingness to allow it to lead me down the path of my life. And, in went my sense of humor, my constant ability to laugh at myself and my talent for making others laugh too. My alien put all of this stuff in see-through, labeled, plastic containers, so I can find them easily and use them often because really, what more do I need in life?

What went into the sell pile? Absolutely nothing! I think the alien was disappointed but I’m just not selling myself any more. I am finished trying to convince the people around me that I am worthy of their company, that I should be a member of their club. Here I am, take me or leave me, I’ll survive either way. If you decide to take me you will find that I make a terrific wife, mother, daughter, sister, and friend. And look down because I have really beautiful feet.

A writer, editor, teacher, and mom to four little menches, Meg takes life with a grain of salt and a little vodka. You can tune into her cyber sitcom at Simply Nutmeg.

Metamorphosis.

2007-10-14T23:01:00.000-05:00

When I first heard of TopBlogMag, I thought it would be an online magazine of the top blog posts out there. I pictured a sort of culling of the best of the best of contributing blogs. A virtual one-stop-shop for new blog finds.

In some sense, that is exactly what I found. However, rather than republished posts from blogger's archives, I found creative writing challenges. Daring bloggers to be writers. Daring writers to step out of the comfort zones of their usual content.

I immediately signed on.

My name is Megan Jordan, from Velveteen Mind, and I'm your new editor, as well as the new owner of TopBlogMag. I am endlessly grateful to Heather for handing me the reigns of her work. She will be missed as editor, but will be enthusiastically welcomed as a frequent contributor. An understatement, indeed.

This week's issue is more or less a pseudo-issue. An un-issue. Or, more precisely, a call for more issues. We are in transition and I am calling on you to speak up, step up, and tell me where you would like to see TopBlogMag go from here. Heather has done a fabulous job, so I'd hate to let her down. Let's make her proud. Even better, let's make her totally jealous of the amazing heights we can take TopBlogMag to in the days to come.

TopBlogMag is a magazine written by you.

Now is your opportunity to make it a magazine designed by you, as well.

What new features would you like to see? What are your favorite current features? Anything you'd like to see go? Content changes? Style changes? Rather see me leave it just as Heather has it now? Well, uh, good luck with that last one. I'm a tweaker.

In the feature boxes below, I'm going to launch a running poll offering up some of the top suggestions. Play along. Vote for what you would like to see added and what you would like to see discontinued. This is absolutely unofficial, but it will be fun and truly helpful to gather an idea of what direction you would like to take.

Don't see your idea listed? Leave a comment or send me an email and I'll add it to the "Brainstorming" feature.

I'll start. That's my job now, right?

The biggest content change I hope to make is that I would like to open up the submission process to allow you all to submit posts from your personal blogs' old archives. Have a solid post you were particularly proud of but that didn't garner the attention you felt it deserved? Now is the time to dust that baby off and give it new life at TopBlogMag.

Opening submissions to include republished content will be the boldest step toward my original impression of what an online magazine titled "TopBlogMag" must be.

At its most simple, I would love to see TopBlogMag as a magazine of the top blog posts available. Stumble across a powerful post in someone else's archive and think, "More people should read this!"? Encourage that blogger to send it our way. Building your own "favorite posts" page for your blog and want a more powerful way to highlight your true favorite? This is your platform.

At the core, I would like TopBlogMag to reward bloggers for
writing their best content on their own blogs.

So many of us spread our writing out among several different sites, frequently farming out our best work to what we perceive as more popular sites, all in a hope to find new readers. Unfortunately, that means that we occasionally neglect our current readers. We drag them all over the internet to read our brilliant musings, when all they want is to cozy up in a familiar place where they can count on the good stuff to be delivered.

If we can create a magazine that highlights both creative writing challenges and our own best work from our own best damn blogs, then we'll have something. Something collaborative. Something beneficial. Something dynamic.

So, tell me, what is TopBlogMag to you?

And it’s goodbye from me…

2007-10-07T00:31:00.000-05:00

Today is a rather bitter sweet day for me.

It is a relief to have the weight of TopBlogMag taken off my already excessively weighed down shoulders and yet it is with a deep sadness and a weird feeling of jealously and protectiveness towards this place that I hand over the reins to Megan from Velveteen Mind.

I would like to thank you all for your help, support and friendship over the last few months, it really has been a pleasure to get to know so many of you, and I want you to know that despite the need I have to free up this extra time in my life, you and TopBlogMag will be sorely missed.

I wish all the best of luck and hope that you keep reading and keep writing as I am sure this place is going to be taken to new and exciting heights under the guidance of Megan.

Goodbye and thank you once again,

Heather.

Note From the Editor

2007-10-01T04:31:00.000-05:00

Secrets, love them or hate them we all have them, but the question today is should they be used as blog fodder or not? We all know it is easier to tell things to people you don't know, people whose reactions don't affect your immediate life, but where does the moral line stand with blogs? Is it the same as telling a stranger in a bar?

Should you reveal your secrets, things that you wouldn't tell the real people in your life for fear of hurting them or embarrassing yourself, to your readers? And can they ever be truly anonymous secrets?

If I was to create a blog with no pictures, no real names or real places, wouldn't the people that knew me know it was really me anyway?

Should a friend or family member stumble across your blog and recognise you do they have the right to be upset about what you have written or should blogs come under the same rules as diaries - ie if you read it you have no right to be upset about what you find in it?

Let me know what you think and don't forget, if you have an idea for a blog post on this weeks theme, secrets, simply email me the url and I shall put a link to your blog in the joining in box below.

Feature Post

2007-10-01T04:28:00.000-05:00

Confessions of a Multitasking Mom

Oops, I Did it Again.

2007-10-01T04:21:00.000-05:00

Written by: BetteJo from A Bead a Day

My dad came into my darkened room and quietly sat on the edge of my bed. He spoke to me but I kept my back to him and refused to acknowledge him.

“I will still be your father. I will come and get you and we will go places and do things together.”

He may have said more but that is all I would remember. I would remember it always as a promise, as the promise. It may as well have floated in sparkly gold letters above my head – it was the promise my dad made me, it would be the promise he would break over and over again.

I loved climbing into my dad’s lap, asking him for bone jarring pony rides or trying to pull out the gray whiskers he would let grow on the weekends. I would sit on the toilet seat and watch him shave at the bathroom sink with something akin to adoration, thrilling in the chase when he would try to gently slap a little of his spicy aftershave onto my cheeks.

My daughter had games she played with her daddy, and many naps taken in his arms. He would take her shopping or on errands with him, or swing her up onto his shoulders so she could be so-o-o-o tall. Saturday morning cartoons were a shared treat for all of them, Daddy and his son and his daughter. They would pile together on the couch and laugh at Pee Wee’s playhouse and tickle and giggle.

I worked the night shift at the time so weekend mornings were Daddy time, as were weeknights. For a few years he was the one to bathe them and spend that snuggly, warm, sleepy time with them before tucking them into bed each night. It seemed ideal that my kids were having so much of their dad’s influence and hands on parenting instead of getting almost all of their nurturing from me. Mom is great after all, but Mom and Dad is better.

There were spaces of time after my parent’s divorce where my dad would call and come by and take me to a picnic, or back to his house for the day. Mostly though, I saw him on weekend mornings when he would come by and hand me the check for my Mom through the screen door. He wouldn’t stay, wouldn’t come in, just give me the check and leave. It didn’t take long for the checks to start coming in the mail and the calls to be fewer and farther between.

It also didn’t take long for the knowledge to settle deep in my heart that I didn’t really matter to my dad. I did not recognize the knowledge, certainly did not verbalize it, but lived with the certainty of it as if that was the logical result of my not being good enough. Because I must not have been good enough if even my daddy couldn’t love me, right?

I married a man who was nothing like my father. I wanted to spare my children the pain and anguish of an absentee dad who was not about to take responsibility for any emotional wounds he may inflict upon my kids. Our kids. Right?

I asked my 21 year old daughter yesterday, whether or not she had responded to her father’s invitation to his upcoming wedding. In her completely logical but heartbreakingly accurate assessment she said;

“I feel no pressure, socially or otherwise, to RSVP to my father’s wedding invitation.”

She continued in her matter of fact way.

“I can’t feel pressure to do something considered to be polite and proper etiquette when he couldn’t be bothered to do something as correct and basic as - to parent.”

I can only hope she will not continue the cycle and unknowingly marry a man just like her father, like I did, after all. And I hope she can forgive me for it.

~*~

BetteJo is a single mom of 2 grown kids who beads and blogs and tries to keep putting one foot in front of the other on a daily basis. She usually succeeds at this. Doing it well, not so much.

Confessions of a Multitasking Mom

2007-10-01T04:19:00.000-05:00

Written by Mama Zen from The Zen of Motherhood

When I hear the phrase “multitasking mom,” I get an instant mental picture. I picture a smiling, put-together woman exercising on the treadmill, working her Blackberry, and effortlessly wrangling her children, all at the same time. If only I were that cool! Oh, don’t get me wrong; I can multitask like the most Alpha of moms if I have to. It’s just that my best multitasking takes place . . . on the toilet.

That’s right, on the toilet. Since I became a mom, I have learned how to fully utilize my time on the throne. Here are my secrets for making the most out of one’s potty breaks.

• Think deep thoughts. When else will you have the chance?
“Why can’t there be an end to conflict in the Middle East?”
“Why does the girl at the grocery store keep charging me for zucchini when I’ve clearly got cucumbers?”
“Why didn’t I realize that there was no toilet paper before I sat down?”

• Negotiate peace. This will require you to yell at top volume, so it is also fine exercise for the lungs.
“Baby Puppy, mind your Daddy.”
“Tell Daddy I said it’s OK.”
“I said it’s OK!”

• Direct all household activities. Take a moment to bask in the glow of being needed.
“The Shrek Baby is on top of your dresser. Next to the penguin!”
“There’s a new bag of Cheetos in the pantry.”
“Would one of you, please, let the dog out!”

• Tend to personal grooming.
Clip toenails.
Measure your leg hair (ok, that’s just for fun).
Examine that weird mole thingy on your calf.

• Talk on the phone.
Um, yeah. That “whoosh” sound you heard last time you called? Well, now you know.

These are just a few of the tricks that I use to maximize my “potty productivity.” Finding time to pee? Well, if anyone knows that secret, please clue me in!

When she’s not servicing her man or caring for her four-year-old daughter, Mama Zen can be found blogging at The Zen of Motherhood. That is, if she’s not hiding in the bathroom!

My Uncle Jim

2007-10-01T04:16:00.000-05:00

By Omega Mom from 3KidsNoJob

Uncle Jim was a much-loved presence in my childhood. He had a double-honorary title. For a start, he wasn’t a blood relative nor an uncle, but a great-uncle by marriage.

There’d been one child, a little girl called Phoebe, who’d died when she was four. She had fits. She was a little odd. You could see it in the old family photographs where she’d be eyeing the camera doubtfully while her cousins beamed and showed off, big, cartwheeling blurs off to one side.

Uncle Jim and my great-aunt, Mary were devastated. The more so when they became close to a sick neighbour’s little girl and offered to adopt her. At the last moment, the mother recovered and decided to take her back.

But there was no sense of life lived under the shadow of grief. It must have been there, but perhaps they made a conscious effort to pack it away when we came to visit.

They loved us unconditionally, just as they’d loved my mother and her brother when they were growing up. We loved them back. For several years, I’d wake up, go to their room, climb into bed with them and share tea and biscuits with them. Then, one summer, my mother suggested that I was getting a little too big for ‘that sort of thing’.

She said it very gently, but I still felt a sudden pang of what felt very like shame, sensing that I’d been betrayed by my size. Too big and too innocent. I never got into bed with them again.

Uncle Jim had an orchard. I’d ride on the bonnet of his tractor, pick the apples, help load them onto the ancient, creaking conveyor belt that circled the big packing room and dropped them with a gentle flump into the padded compartments, big, medium and small, reading for crating up. It was safe, fun, idyllic, a job description of a child’s perfect holiday.

When I came back from the orchard, I’d often read. There was no shortage of choice. There were antique children’s stories in one bookshelf; my great aunt’s detective and ghost tales next to them and, upstairs, Uncle Jim’s small library.

It was here, one day, that I encountered a small volume I’d never seen before. It seemed to be about children, so I started to read it.

It didn’t take long before it dawned on me that it was not quite what I was expecting. It did feature children having exciting adventures but ones which required adult help of a rather peculiar variety.

I stopped reading and put it back. I felt just as I had done when my mother talked to me about getting into bed with Uncle Jim and Aunt Mary. Shamed. As though reading the book had in some way made me a bad person.

It was this sense of being somehow to blame that made me bury the whole event. I didn’t remember it again until years later, when Uncle Jim was dead and the orchard long since grubbed up to make way for a fine crop of executive houses.

It wasn’t a secret I kept deliberately. And I’ll never now know what lay behind it, if anything. All I do know, though, is that my beloved Uncle Jim remained just that, all the time I knew him – beloved. And I can’t help feeling glad.

Written by Omega Mum. Her blog, 3kidsnojob, takes a mainly wry and optimistic but occasionally bitter and twisted look at life without an income.

Catch Me If You Can

2007-10-01T04:11:00.000-05:00

Written by Megan Jordan from Velveteen Mind

You don’t know me. You think you do, but you don’t. And, no, I’m not saying this as I throw a z-snap in an oh-so-Ricki Lake talk show guest kind of way. Rather, simply, you don’t know me.

Sometimes I think you do. But then I surprise you, and your surprise even takes me by surprise. And I realize that you don’t know me.

And I like it that way.

I am full of surprises. I am full of secrets. I am full of mystery.

Okay, maybe I’m not full of mystery, but it’s romantic to think of myself as mysterious. To picture you reading my words and saying to yourself, “I can’t figure her out. I think I have her pegged, but then she brings this to the table.” I adore imagining that I leave you wanting more.

It is my romantic version of myself. And we all need one of those. Just as you think you are about to get your hands on who I really am, just as you think you know all there is to know... I slip away into the mist that is my secrets. That which you don’t know.

Secrets are the spark of life. They are the fuel of the complex character. They are exhilarating and incendiary. They keep you moving, keep you on your toes, as you surreptitiously work to keep them under wraps or drive yourself to resolve them through revelation.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s book, Love in the Time of Cholera, is one of my favorites. A story of unrequited love, it is timeless and passionate and disturbing. The idea that someone could harbor an unreciprocated love for another, for a lifetime, is fascinating. It drove the story in an almost intoxicating manner. In the end, the only way that the love of these two characters could be realized was under secret. Flown under the flag of a feigned cholera epidemic.

Secrets can destroy lives. Secrets can give you reason to live.

My secrets are not as dramatic as that, despite my romantic notions. However, I like to think of them as just as provocative. I recently wrote my 100^th post at Velveteen Mind, acknowledging the milestone with the obligatory 100 Things. I wrote it in a flash, trying to beat the clock before I had to pick up my son from school, publishing it without proofreading and without a second thought. Perhaps I should have thought about it for a second more, because I had surprises of my own waiting for me in my inbox when I returned to my computer.

Comments and emails came trickling in, mostly to the effect of, “I had no idea...” and “I can’t believe you posted that.” My own husband remarked, “Um, you were awfully, well, revealing in that post.”

It was both a thrill to be able to elicit surprise from friends that have known me for years and also a little unsettling that perhaps I had revealed too much. My point, however, was not to write another hum-drum 100 Things detailing my favorite colors and movies, but rather to write something worth reading through 100 lines.

Ultimately, I did not find it particularly controversial, myself, but maybe that is because I was comparing it to what I could reveal to you, but have not. Yet.

I am full of surprises. I am full of secrets. I am full of mystery. If you want more of me, come and touch me, grab my hand, take hold of my heart, my mind, my self... if you can hold me. If you can keep me. If you can catch me.

Megan reveals her secrets, one post at a time, at Velveteen Mind. She’s always up for a game of truth or dare, so throw yourself in the game and see what you can get her to let slip. Given the option, she would always prefer revealing a truth rather than, say, mooning her old lady neighbor.

39 happy years

2007-10-01T04:00:00.000-05:00

Written by Sally Osborn from New Marriages and Old Families

On my grandparents’ 40th wedding anniversary my parents decided to throw them a surprise party. They used to visit us quite often for Sunday lunch anyway, although it was difficult to vary the standard fare of roast meat, roast potatoes and vegetables, since the only other main course my grandfather would countenance eating was shepherd’s pie. None of this curry stuff or any other new-fangled rubbish.

We invited all the aunts, uncles and cousins, and they were hiding in the dining room when my grandparents drove up in their Hillman Hunter, and there was much merriment at the expression on my grandmother’s face when she realised what was happening. But she turned the tables on us a bit later when we were about to toast their 40 happy years. ‘Um, we really need to tell you all something,’ she started, unusually hesitantly. ‘We’ve kept it a secret all this time, but it’s actually only 39 years…’ You could see the cogs turning as all the adults worked out there were then only six months between their actual wedding date and my mother’s birth.

Every family has secrets, but I hadn’t realised quite how many my grandparents had until I started researching my mother’s side of the family tree. My mum’s paternal grandmother had always maintained an air of absolute propriety and starched linen, but it turns out that her husband was born illegitimate, to a mother who had the temerity to have another son on the wrong side of the blanket before she actually got married. And what’s more, said grandmother was housekeeper for the widowed local vicar for years, who on his death left her, by then also a widow, his sizeable house and all its contents. I’m sure we can all draw our own conclusions.

On my grandma’s side, we knew her father was somewhat feckless but mum had always been told he was a schoolteacher and a methodist preacher, so reasonably respectable. Turns out he was really a jobbing gardener, and while he probably was a lay preacher he was also a wife-beating alcoholic who was inconsiderate enough to die at 52, leaving said much younger wife with nine children under ten, including twin girls born after his death. The older children, including my grandmother, were put into service as soon as they were old enough, which in those days was about 11 or 12, otherwise the family wouldn’t have survived.

And my embarrassed grandparents? My mum told me very recently that not only had they obviously slept together before the wedding, he’d also had a roll in the hay with one of grandma’s sisters. Not that she took that kind of misdemeanour lying down, if you’ll forgive the pun – on one occasion she came across him sitting with another girl on the river bank, presumably up to no good, and she pushed him in the water!

Sally Osborn is a writer and publisher from London, recently married for the second time around. Her blog is about the ups and downs of merging two families, as well as her and her husband’s search for the roots in their families’ histories.

Music Review: Song of America

2007-09-29T21:29:00.000-05:00

This week’s Voices to Hear is going to be a bit different than pervious ones. Instead of one voice to highlight in this week’s column we’re going to talk about an entire album’s worth of voices. The album is Song of America and it features 50 artists different artists. (What? You didn’t think an album would have a MySpace page? Everyone and everything has a MySpace page nowdays.)

If you’ve heard of this album at all it’s due to the identity of the executive producer of the record, Janet Reno. Yes, that Janet Reno, the former Attorney General of the United States. Most of the press has focused on that point, which at least gives it a chance to get out there and maybe be heard.

The genesis of the album started ten years ago when Ed Petterson, a singer-songwriter from Brooklyn New York wrote a song about the American cowboy. He brought the song to his Aunt to listen to. His Aunt just happened to be Janet Reno. She liked the song, but suggested that he should go farther than just one song about one point in America’s history. She suggested that he record a collection of songs that would reflect American’s history.

What they ended up envisioning was a collection of songs that would trace the events that shaped our nation’s history. The album became a collection that could be used as a tool to help teach the youth of our country about their history through song. The album was divided into five broad themes from America’s history:
United We Stand, Divided We Fall
War and Peace
Work
Families at Home and on the Move
Faith and Ideals

The performers interpreted these songs in their own style for the listeners of today. In some ways it was the same idea that was behind Wilco and Billy Bragg’s updating of Woody Guthrie song’s from Mermaid Avenue. They took the words but made the music their own.

The performers came from all sorts of musical genres. The album opens with a Lakota Indian song and ends with a Woody Guthrie song. To list all the performers on this album would stretch this column out too long, but such performers as The Blind Boys of Alabama, John Wesley Harding, Freedy Johnston, Marah, Janis Ian, Elizabeth Cook, John Mellencamp, Old Crow Medicine Show and a host of others. In keeping with the theme of this column almost all of the performers were not well known. John Mellencamp is probably the biggest name on the album.

The album is divided into three cds: red, white and blue. The red disc starts with songs from the American Revolution and each disc moves the songs through the history of our country. Some of the songs on these two discs you’ve probably heard a million times and may not have thought of since you were in school. Harper Simon (Paul Simon’s son) does a version of Yankee Doodle, The Mavericks do Dixie, Joni Harms does Home On The Range. The blue disc brings us up to the modern era and has songs that most listeners will be more familiar with, at least from radio. This disc has Kim Richey doing the Rascals “Get Together,” Anthony David doing Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On?” Martha Wainwright doing Helen Reddy’s “I Am Woman.” Only one artist is represented by two songs on the album, Bruce Springsteen: Matthew Ryan does “Youngstown” and Bettye LaVette does “Streets of Philadelphia.”

This is one of those albums that I was absolutely fascinated with, after listening to it it will make you proud to be an American. And it does it without resorting to the sort of jingo posturing you usually find in these type of projects.

As one final note, with the kind permission of Miss Heather, I’m going to include two songs with this column. There was so much great stuff to chose from it was a really tough decision, but I went with both ends of the timeline. The first song is Harper Simon’s “Yankee Doodle” and the second song is a heart breaking rendition of Bruce Springsteen’s “Streets of Philadelphia” by Bettye LaVette. But I could have easily picked any of the other forty eight songs to showcase, they’re all that good.

Harper Simon "Yankee Doodle"

Bettye LaVette "Streets of Philadelphia"

Note From The Editor

2007-09-17T01:57:00.000-05:00

The 7 deadly sins:

Lust? Check.
Gluttony? Check.
Greed? Check.
Sloth? Check.
Wrath? Check.
Envy? Check.
Pride? Check.

What can I say? I'm a sinner.

Or at least I would be if I believed in God.

I think it would be fair to say that I have committed every single one of these sins and then some at one time or another (possibly 2 already this morning) and might even have made up a few more to add to the list, but what does this say about me? Are these sins really relevant in the modern world? Are they still considered deadly sins? Does the fact that I have committed them make me a bad person destined for the gates of hell?

Personally, I believe not (especially the gates of hell thing being an atheist), I think we all have a little anger, envy and pride in us. I would hope so at least, these things are what make us human. Would we rather be perfect, flawless specimens of humanity? Wouldn't the smugness and do-goodness of it all drive you insane? Make you want to drive sharp, pointy implements into the eyes of the next person you witnessed being oh so good? I think it probably would me.

What about you, are you a sinner? Do you find yourself committing one or more of these on a regular basis?

Feature Post

2007-09-17T01:30:00.000-05:00

Written by Beth from Sense & Sensibilities

Anger Management

As is typical in religious or moral theology, what we are taught to believe often differs greatly from what is actually written in the Bible. Almost every list of vices, whether it be classic literary works, such as Dante and Chaucer, or modern day films like Se7en, contains wrath or anger as a sin. Yet, when we refer to Proverbs 6, the origin of the now infamous Seven Deadly Sins, neither are mentioned.

16 These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him:

17 a proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood,

18 an heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief,

19 a false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.

This prompts the question: Is anger a sin?

More...

Anger Management

2007-09-17T01:11:00.000-05:00

by Beth from Sense & Sensibilities

16 These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him:

17 a proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood,

18 an heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief,

19 a false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.

This prompts the question: Is anger a sin?

No matter how much we try to control it, every person on the planet has a temper. Why is that? Did the devil create anger? I don’t believe so. He doesn't have the power to create. All he does is pervert the godly things God created.

It's God who gave us the capacity to get angry. Anger has a godly function.

There is a righteous use of anger. Not understanding this has rendered many of us so passive, we don't get mad at the evil in this world. After all, it’s not politically correct! Therefore, Satan is having a free shot at everything we hold dear and holy. Our society is under attack, and our righteous anger that God has given us as a weapon is kept in its sheath and not used. This needs to change.

So what is a proper use of anger?

"Ye that love the LORD hate evil". (Psalm 97:10)

"The fear of the LORD [is] to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate". (Prov. 8:13)

"The fear of the LORD [is] the beginning of wisdom". (Psalm 111:10)

"The fear of the LORD [is] the beginning of knowledge". (Prov. 1:7)

"Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good". (Rom. 12:9)

“Hate” is a pretty strong word, yet it is clearly stated that there are things in this world that we should hate. Note that I said things, not people.

Jesus was sinless, but He had hate and anger. In John 2:14-17, which took place at the beginning of Jesus' earthly ministry, and then in Mark 11:15-17, which took place the last week of Jesus' earthly ministry, Jesus drove the money changers out of the temple. He didn't approach them calmly and say, "Guys, I'm sorry. I don't want to hurt or offend any of you, but I have to do this to obey my Father." Not quite. He made a whip and beat the people and animals and turned over their tables. He was mad.

So, if God is perfect and there are things that He hates, and if Jesus was sinless but had anger, I ask again: Is anger really a sin?

To truly answer this, we need to examine what makes us angry.

We can't always change circumstances, and we don’t have the authority to control others, but we can control what's inside of us that makes us angry. The key is found in Proverbs 13:10:

"Only by pride cometh contention".

It's not what others do to us that makes us angry; it's the pride inside of us that causes us to get mad. That’s probably not what most people believe, but that's what the Bible says. This verse doesn't say that pride is one of the major reasons for anger — it's the only reason.

Pride is not only thinking we are better than others; pride can be thinking we are worse than others or just being self-conscious. It doesn't matter if the self is always exalting or debasing. It's all self-centeredness, which is pride. Like it or not, understand it or not, pride is the source of all of our anger. As we deal with our own self-love, anger toward others will be defused.

Anger itself is not wrong, but rather the pride behind it. Humility is truly the best anger management. Next time you find yourself feeling anger, look deeper and find out why.

Beth is the author of Sense & Sensibilities, where she writes about her life with her family, her dog, hormones and stalkers. She also turns the Big Four-Oh today, giving her all sorts of new bloggity goodness!

How to Achieve The 7 Deadly Sins in One Day

2007-09-17T01:08:00.000-05:00

By Pickle from My Two boys.

Ahh....but this can be done, especially if one is a stay at home mom.

Pride is excessive belief in one's own abilities, that interferes with the individual's recognition of the grace of God. It has been called the sin from which all others arise. Pride is also known as Vanity. I, myself, scurry from vanity, being the dowdy housewife that I have become (quick, hide!). However, check this post out from Silicon Valley Moms and you'll see how my summer at the pool was. (Yes, on the opposite side of the vanity mamas!) Yet, despite trying to stay clear from Ms. I Lost All My Baby Weight and Mrs. I've Got to Hire a Nanny, I found myself making sure I showered, applied my make-up, and even attempted to shave my legs (although that is hard when showering with a toddler at your feet).

Envy is the desire for others' traits, status, abilities, or situation. Have you never coveted your neighbors sleek and spankin' new Saab, retro coffee maker, or better yet...Prada? Come on, don't lie. Everyone keeps up with the Joneses.

Gluttony is an inordinate desire to consume more than that which one requires. One word...Chocolate.

Lust is an inordinate craving for the pleasures of the body. hmmmm....can you say McDreamy, McSteamy, McLowe? McSeeley? hmmmmmm...

Anger is manifested in the individual who spurns love and opts instead for fury. It is also known as Wrath. And this Blogging Mom has a mighty good reason to be angry. Personally, I think you rock.

Greed is the desire for material wealth or gain, ignoring the realm of the spiritual. Yes, we have all done this at some point or another. Why else would we buy a lottery ticket or ask for that raise?

Sloth is the avoidance of physical or spiritual work. Yes, I admit it...I DON'T EXERCISE and I avoid it at all cost. I do, however, carry laundry up and down stairs, chase a toddler 24 hours a day (he sleepwalks too), walk around the block about 50 times a day (Diet Coke in hand) while said toddler rides bike, do keyboard finger plays (does that count? uh-oh), mow the lawn, spy on the Joneses new possessions, and some days I even try to find the vacuum.

Thanks to The Seven Deadly Sins for the definitions.

Lust: "Just Looking"

2007-09-17T01:05:00.000-05:00

by John of altjiranga mitjina

It was one of those parties where Lisa knew almost no one. They were there because Jason said it was good for his job. She was on her second rum and coke while Jason was across the room talking with some bleach bottle blonde with a top that was cut too low for Lisa’s tastes. Jason said something that caused the girl to laugh and Lisa watched as her breasts jiggled in reaction to her husband’s words.

Jason arrived with a fresh refill for Lisa, which was the purpose of his trip in the first place. “A new friend?” Lisa tried to keep the sarcasm out of her voice, but failed.

Her husband handed her the drink, ignoring her tone. “She works for Tuttle, she was giving me some pointers on how to handle the new presentation I have to go over with him next week.”

Lisa sighed, but Jason was already turning away from her. He watched as another woman walked by.

A voice called out Jason’s name and he waved at the man calling him. “Look, Honey, I gotta go talk to Henderson. I’ll only be a few minutes, ok?” He left before waiting for her response.

She stood on the side of the room and watched her husband talk to Henderson. They were deep in conversation when a young woman in a short dress walked by. The two men stopped talking and Lisa watched as their eyes ranged up and down the woman’s body as she moved away from them. They laughed and looked one final time at the retreating form of the young woman. Lisa could feel the heat from the two men all the way over on her side of the room.

Another woman, slightly older than the one that had just walked past them, joined Henderson and her husband. She was dressed in slacks and a blouse. The two men said something to her and while she answered them their eyes dropped to her blouse. Replying to whatever she said Jason reached out and gently took ahold of her arm, giving it a slight squeeze. Moving his hand away he gently grazed her breast.

By the time Jason rejoined her Lisa was finishing up her drink. He asked if she wanted a refill but she declined. He knew she was mad at him but the look in her eyes and the angle of her shoulders. “What’s wrong, Honey?”

She turned away from him. He really had no idea what she was pissed about. Well, he had an idea, but to him it was silly. “I’m only looking, Lisa. Would you rather I do something?”

To him that was the answer. As long as all he was doing was “just looking” it was okay. He wasn’t acting out on his lusts, just drooling whenever he got the chance. “Do you have to act like such a school boy when I’m around, Jason? Couldn’t you at least rein it in when I’m with you?”

Jason laughed, a little louder than he meant to. A few people turned towards them, but he just smiled and they went about their business. “I’m sorry, Lisa, but do we have to get into this now. These people are people I work with, people I do business with. It doesn’t look good if I’m having a fight with the wife in front of them.”

Lisa smiled at him and kept her voice calm and level. “But looking down a colleague’s shirt is acceptable behavior. I guess as long as she has a good set of tits it’s alright.”

A few heads turned on Lisa’s words, but she just smiled at them like her husband had and they went back to their conversations.

Lisa handed Jason her empty glass. “Get me a refill, please.”

_____________________________________________________________
While he was at the Shannon McNally concert tonight John discovered he couldn’t escape the theme of this week’s issue. The concert was at the Parish at the House of Blues. The Parish is a smaller venue upstairs that the HOB uses for acts that couldn’t sell out the main hall. While waiting for Shannon to come on he noticed seven paintings around the room. Guess what they were paintings of? The Seven Deadly Sins. Read more about Shannon and other things at altjiranga mitjina.

Superbia in the Suburbs

2007-09-16T23:54:00.000-05:00

Written by Liz from Three Bright Stars

I'm loath to identify myself with any particular Cardinal Sin. I'm pretty much Condemned, with all sins attaching themselves to me like flamboyant alphabet fridge magnets. I'm atheist. It has to work that way.

However, if you wanted to know which sin best fits me as a mother, it must be Superbia, pride. Isn't that a great new Latin word to add to your vocabulary? I plan to replace "excellent" with it, in the sense of tapping my fingertips together consecutively repeating, "Su-per-bia" as Mr. Burns says "Eg-cellent." To honour it as a sin, I suppose I'll have to fill my heart with the pitch of evil first, and on second thought, that sounds like entirely too much work. (Oh dear, I've just qualified for Acedia, sloth. Sins like fridge magnets.)

Daniel never fails to amaze me, and it does fill me with Superbia. His brain is so big! He is constantly trying new things - new sounds, new combinations, new actions – all on his own. About a week ago, he was drinking water from one of our Tupperware cups with lids and straws, which are pretty leak-proof unless you shake them upside down over your face, which Daniel was doing while Husband was changing him. Of course he soaked himself, but when he realized what had happened, he looked up at Husband and said, "Uh oh," so perfectly.

He's suddenly so good at negotiating stairs that he brings your heart into your mouth, partly from Superbia, and partly fear that you've let him go too soon. At the bottom, he sits on the stairs so nicely, patting it as though to say, "This is the perfect size for a new chair." I broke out the foam toddler chairs, and he practices backing up into them, learning spatial judgement right in front of me.

And I must not omit the continued fastidiousness of replacing fallen petals on the correct flowers, applying my used Breathe Right strip to Husband's nose, putting toys and plastic containers back where they belong, and helping me empty the dishwasher. These actions imply a superb level of intelligence.

So sue me, I'm proud. I'm proud of Daniel, for the tiniest of accomplishments, of Husband, for working so hard and being such a great dad, and of myself, for (apparently) doing a good job as a mom.

Surely, I'm misinterpreting the sin, but really, what did you expect from a heathen? I would offer to eat humble pie, but then I couldn’t help exclaiming, “I make the best humble pie!” Not humble, Liz. Try again.

Liz will include a recipe for the Best Humble Pie, which her family can’t get enough of, on her Monday Cooking Blog at Three Bright Stars.

Beautiful Boy

2007-09-16T23:37:00.000-05:00

Beautiful Boy

It seems, according to All Things Blog, that mommy bloggers must write Birthday Letters. (Dooce, we all bow down to you in unison!) As Finn, my fourth baby and only boy, was born a year ago this week, here goes:

Dear Finnian Jude Badru Zen,

I'm sorry. Right after I give birth I'm tired and more interested in getting to know the creature who, only hours earlier, was cradled in the confines of my body. I give in to his Madness, and thus you will spend the rest of your life explaining four names, especially the last one, which is not a name but an entire philosophy. No pressure.

I'm sorry. They were just so crazy about you, and every time I turned my back, one of them was sitting on you, carrying you by your neck, biting you (with love), or feeding you a lollipop. I tried to keep them away in the beginning, but you were just so damn cute! I checked with the pediatrician -- no permanent damage from sucking lollipops in the first week of life, and your neck was most likely that long before the incident. We just hadn't noticed.

I'm sorry. I didn't mean for you to spend so much of your first year in a shopping cart; it just happened. There's a whole lot of stuff you need when there's six of you who all insist on eating three times a day, who lose shoes on a daily basis, and also go through approximately six rolls of toilet paper in twelve hours. I'm sure I've read that the mall is a very stimulating environment for babies and that shoe stores are mostly decorated in colors that infants can see!

I'm sorry. I didn't actually take you out in dresses, or the pink onesies, or the lace socks, or the flowered bonnets, at least not when you started looking like a boy! It's just that baby clothes are so expensive, and I already had so many, and I didn't want you to spend any more time in the shopping cart. I've also read that it's okay for boys to play with dolls, and believe it or not, those floozy hooker figures count as dolls! It allows you to express your inner female. I'm sure any day now we'll get you some cars and trucks.

I'm sorry. That whole sanitizing and boiling stuff is really over-rated. They say dogs have cleaner mouths than humans anyway. I probably should have never given you a pacifier or a bottle or a teething ring seeing how Ezra is so crazy about them. And I promise I only mixed your formula with Sprite once! I was desperate!

I'm sorry. I never really let the others cry it out, but I'm tired, Man! I'm just over the sleep deprivation! How was I supposed to know your knee was stuck between the crib slats? You have to parent boys differently, you know! You have to teach them to work out their issues themselves, to problem solve. Buck up, Soldier!

I'm sorry. I wish this year could stretch on forever. A day will come in the not distant enough future when I will forget the precise weight of your fuzzy head on my shoulder, the smell of your milky breath on my neck, the feel of your tiny fingers twisting in the curls at the nape of my neck. In place of my arms, those little feet will have carried you down a road less traveled by me, and I will be sorry, very, very sorry.

"Before you cross the street
Take my hand
Life is what happens to you
While you're busy making other plans

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful
Beautiful boy
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful
Beautiful boy

Before you go to sleep
Say a little prayer
Every day in every way
It's getting better and better

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful
Beautiful boy
Darling, darling, darling
Darling [Finn.]"
(John Lennon)
Love,

Mama

Written by Meg Fitzpatrick

Meg is a writer, editor, teacher, and mom to four little menches. You can tune into her cyber sitcom at www.simplynutmeg.com.

Blog Review: Live.Awake

2007-09-16T23:21:00.000-05:00

The Blog: Live.Awake

The Reviewer: Sarah from In The Trenches of Mommyhood

The blog I’m reviewing this week is called “Live. Awake” written by married couple Ben and Heather Cotton.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS:
I could immediately sense this was a Christian-living/family blog. My assumption was confirmed as soon as I clicked on the “About” button. Ben, a Pastor, and Heather, his wife are keeping this blog as a reminder for them, and all of us, to LIVE, not just sail through LIFE.

DESIGN:
The design of this blog is pretty plain. That is, no bells and whistles or frills. Simple, basic, to-the-point. Very easy on the eyes, but certainly not containing any sort of “WOW” factor.

CONTENT:
Heather seems like a down-to-earth mother. Some of her tips and ideas are useful (see Job Jar entry) and it’s interesting to read about her childhood growing up in a family with six (!) children.

Ben’s written sermons and Bible teachings were a little dry. They’re not something I would choose to read. That being said though, all his entries are clear, concise and well-written.

BEST AND WORST:
Best—The Cottens are a typical American family raising 3 children in North Carolina. They are truthful, honest and real. And not too preachy, for a Christian-centered blog. I got quite a kick out of Ben’s post titled Reconnecting With Family. He’s so down-to-earth.

Worst—There’s too much mouse-clicking to do to read the posts! A reader can’t get a feel for what a post is about until they actually click on it, which takes them to the entire post, including comments. I’m a skimmer. Give me a little bit on the main page, and let me decide whether I’m going to click for more…

BLOGROLL-WORTHY:
I have a feeling that the Cottens have a following from their families and Ben’s congregation. Again, this blog didn’t have that “wow” factor for me to include them on my blogroll.

SCORE:

SUMMARY:
A Christian family’s blog about “living life with eyes wide open.”

Music Review

2007-09-16T03:28:00.001-05:00

Written by John from Altjiranga Mitjina

You know those times when you hear a voice that you don’t recognize but it reaches out and just grabs a hold of you. One of those voices that you can’t get out of your head. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does it’s magic. Sometimes when I’m shopping, checking out the music bins and I don’t have any particular cd or person or group that I’m looking for, I’ll just stroll through the bins, skipping around and looking through names that I don’t recognize or sometimes finding a name that I vaguely remember reading something about. I was at Borders one day, doing just this, when I came across a cd by a group called the Waifs. No idea who they were. Now I do a lot of reading about music and musicians, so I generally have some clue to a lot of names in the record bins, but there are still some out there that for one reason or another has escaped my eye. This group called the Waifs was one of them.

I was looking at a double album, a live album by them called “A Brief History.” They got marks for having a Dylan song on the album. The price was good for a double album. I didn’t have anything else to buy, nothing else reached out and spoke to me, so I decided to give this album a chance. After getting in my car and fighting with the packaging (why do they make cds so hard to open?) I finally managed to get the cd out and in the player. The last time I was so moved by a new voice that I didn’t know was when I heard Joss Stone. The sound coming out of my car stereo captivated me. The voices did more than just reach out to me, they reached out and shook me. I didn’t just like this cd, I feel in love with it. There was something in the music, something in the voices that sang it, that just made me want to listen to it over and over.

The Waifs are Donna and Vikki Simpson and Josh Cunningham. They are from Australia and sing folk rock. The two sisters started singing as a group called Colours. After they met Josh and he joined the duo they changed their name to the Waifs.

In Australia they built up their fan base until the release of their fourth album Up All Night in 2003 which debuted at number 3 in Australia and went double platinum in their home country. Later that year Bob Dylan toured Australia and the band opened for him. Dylan was so impressed by the band that he offered them the opening spot for them on his U.S. tour.

The single for this week is “Bridal Train” and tells the story of Vikki and Donna’s Grandmother, a war-bride of a U.S. sailor during World War II.

After the release of their double live album in 2004 the Waifs have been quiet on the album front. The two sisters have been busy having children and getting on with their lives. But this month so the group releasing a new album entitled Sun, Dirt, Water.

____________________________________________________________
These words are being typed just hours after coming back from a concert by Shannon McNally that was just as good as expected. Shannon was one of the first voices to hear, back before this column had a name. Check out John’s altjiranga mitjina this month for more about Shannon.

Note From The Editor

2007-09-10T02:08:00.000-05:00

Change. It happens to us all whether we yearn for it or fight it every step of the way. We see it in our reflection in the mirror, in the colour of the leaves on the trees and the number of outgrown clothes in our children's wardrobes. Changes happen in our lives everyday, many progressing so slowly that they go by unnoticed and others so monumental that things will never be the same again.

How has change affected your life?

Has it brought with it wisdom and clarity or has the passage of time only brought a sense of confusion and a feeling of getting old? Do you feel lost in the sea of new music that only sounds like noise to you now? Confused by the tiny silver gadgets that do things you didn't even know you needed doing? Or do you ride the wave of change reveling in all that is new and different, refusing to let it make you grow old and rising to each new challenge it brings?

Tell us your story of change.

Our Editor, The Farmers Wife can be found at her blog Running In Wellies where she talks about her new life on foreign shores, embarrassing tales of new and old and other miscellaneous nonsense.

Feature Post

2007-09-10T02:02:00.000-05:00

Romantic Illusions

2007-09-10T01:43:00.000-05:00

by Emma Kaufmann
http://www.mommyhasaheadache.blogspot.com/

I sometimes feel like marriage as it is today is some
sort of anachronism from the past. It seems like
feminism should have changed it all for the better,
and it did change it, certainly, but whether it was
for the better, I'm not so sure. Firstly, sexual
pleasure got all mixed up into it. Now women are
expected to demand sexual pleasure in marriage and if,
after working at the sex by reading countless articles
on 'How to Spice up Your Marriage,' things are still
rather poor on the bedroom front, then one should
simply cut one's losses and head for the door.

It is a well documented fact that sexual disgust for women in marriage was
once part and parcel of the marriage contract, and a very useful one at that.
In the eighteenth century, when marriages were still made as business
arrangements, it was necessary, nay even desirable, to make your wife think
sex was an unbearable chore so that she would never even consider leaving.
Since many women probably didn't have any lovers before marriage and
consequently had no point of comparison, once they got married and found the
marital sex to be awful (as I would guess it usually was, seeing as people did
not choose each other on the basis of sexual attraction), sex became linked in the
wife's mind with disgust, and she didn't crave physical relations with someone
else outside of the marriage.

Women throw up their hands at how in the old days, men and women made
marriages based on pragmatic choices that had little or nothing to do with love.
Apart from the fact that women no longer become the legal property of men
when they marry, however, we still choose partners in the same old ways. Most
people marry others of a similar or higher social status, calculating their long
term earning and investment potential. Women and men also usually marry
partners of equal physical attractiveness. Physical attractiveness and good
education/job are the reasons people choose their partners and yet, who would
admit it? It is always dressed up as, 'I fell in love with him', or 'our eyes met
across a crowded room'.

But falling in love is so natural, you may reply, it's as natural as breathing.
But is it? Is it really? Is there any evidence that people en masse 'fell in love'
with each other in the past? Some did, but passionate love tended to be
an unstabling influence on society and was not encouraged. Happy love
did not even enter the vocabulary of romance until the seventeeth century,
and many historians believe that romantic love is a learned behavior that
became fashionable in the late eighteenth century, along with the new
fashion for reading novels - the novel itself being a radical cultural form that
explored 'individuality' for the first time.

For the Greeks, passionate love was a disordering and thus preferably
brief experience, in opposition to the goal of marriage, which was to
create a well-balanced household. Marriage was certainly never the journey
towards self-fulfillment that it has become today.

The mixing of romantic love with marriage is, I would say, the fundamental
problem in today's marriages. On the one hand, you are told to ‘work’ at
your marriage and to suppress desires to have affairs, yet, on the other hand,
you are told that falling in love is the greatest thing that can happen between
two people. And once the buzz is gone from your relationship, what to do?
No wonder, I think, that so many people are having affairs and the divorce
rate is so high. There seems to be a fundamental flaw in the concept of
marriage today. It is meant to give so much to people, yet gives so little.
And with so many now playing away, or, more commonly, reaching
for the Prozac, I wonder if this is progress? What do you say?

Turn and Face the Strange

2007-09-10T01:41:00.001-05:00

by Lara David of Life: The Ongoing Education

I was 19, and he was 20. We were dating casually for the summer while I was home from college – having fun, but nothing serious. But he had known me for years, from before the death of my father. And so one night, in a particularly pensive mood, I asked him: “Have I changed very much since then?”

He thought quietly for a moment. “You don’t smile as much now,” he said. “But when you do, it’s real.” I asked what he meant, and he said, “You used to be happy all the time, but it was always superficial. Now, when you’re happy, it’s more genuine.” He shrugged, not sure how else to explain. “It’s more real.”

I was surprised by the depth of his attention, to have noticed something so small. And I was even more surprised to realize that it was something that I actually hadn’t noticed. How could this boy, who knew so little of me in most ways, see that when I couldn’t?

I’ve come to realize, in the years since that night, that the most important changes in my life are the ones that happen slowly over time, day by day, until one day I’m a new person, with new dreams and new problems, with new hopes and new fears. I see myself every morning, in the bathroom mirror spotted with toothpaste, and I miss the tiny differences that happen every night. I miss all the small things that add up to a big change.

I wonder, in my more whimsical moments, if this is what caterpillars feel. For months they wait in their cocoons, changing moment by moment, without notice. And in the end, they emerge, a beautiful butterfly, with bright colors and patterns and powerful wings. And the world gasps with wonder, to see such splendor, while the caterpillar merely cocks his head and tries to understand what’s happened.

Recently I looked at myself closely for the first time and was surprised to find a stranger. When did I become this woman I see, and where is the girl that I was? I am stronger than I used to be – tried by fire with freedom on the other side. I am beautiful now, in a way I could never be before, if only for my own acceptance of it. I live more in the world and less in myself, and I see other things and other people in a way I never could before.

And I find that the greatest surprise of all is that, just as it did once before, my smile has again settled into something deeper, softer, and more real.

Lara David is a twenty-something California girl, writing and photographing her way through life – and its changes! – one day at a time. Depending on the hat of the day, she is a preschool teacher, a dancer, a nanny, an artist, and a drama queen. She loves new friends, so follow along with the ups and downs of her life lessons at Life: The Ongoing Education. You never know – if you stick around long enough, you just might learn something.

Turn and Face the Stranger

2007-09-10T01:36:00.000-05:00

by Desert Songbird of The Ice Box.

She married her soul mate February 28, 1985.

She cried over the body of mother March 3, 1985.

She pried the gun out of her soul mate’s hand September 1985.

Her soul mate walked out on her December 12, 1986.

She clasped the hand of her father December 25, 1986 as he lay dying.

Too many changes, too little time. Defeated. Closed and withdrawn, she retreated.

Slowly, ever so slowly she emerged from her cocoon, poking her head out occasionally to test the waters. Timid. Fearful.

A few years passed. She met a nice man - a steady, smart, and funny companion. They married, settled down, had kids. Cute, funny, smart kids. Healthy kids. Things stayed the same for a long while. She grew content.

July 13, 2005, they told her it would kill her – an incurable disease. “Take your medicine and hope for the best.”

She smiled wryly. “Just another change,” she thought.

No cocoon for her this time. No hiding, no fear. Look the monster in the face.

And laugh.

Desert Songbird lives in the American Southwest desert with her steady, smart, and funny husband and her two cute, funny, smart kids. Life’s flavors, changes, and challenges are pondered at The Ice Box.

Ready?

2007-09-10T01:34:00.000-05:00

By Michele Wilcox from Sparks and Butterflies

Change is difficult. Almost everyone knows that, but it doesn’t make it any easier when it happens.

I’ve been through a lot of changes of the past couple of years… I won’t bore you with my sob story, but I’ve certainly become very familiar with the word and its consequences. And yet – I know one of my biggest experiences with the dreaded word is coming soon.

My mother is dying. Slowly. Painfully. She’s not my biological mother – no. She died last year. This is the mother that raised me. So far this year we’ve had three close calls. Too close. Those dreaded words, “won’t last the night,” have indeed been spoken. She’s come back each time so far. But one day, and one day soon I fear, those prophetic words will be proven true.

I’ve tried to prepare myself. Doesn’t everyone when change blows on the wind? But I cannot fathom or be fully prepared for the loss of my mother. I’ve tried to prepare my children. But really? I don’t think I can. They’re small and know she’s been sick. I don’t want to ruin what little time they have with their grandmother.

My question to you, dear reader, is this: Does knowing change is coming make it any easier? My guess at the answer is no. But I’m about to find out for sure.

Michele is a working married mom of two special needs kids in Southern California. She writes at Sparks and Butterflies about her trials and tribulations – and sanity. “But aside from that – she’s still completely normal.”

I WILL

2007-09-10T01:25:00.000-05:00

by Wendy of Things in Your Head.

The ocean always seemed to me to be a perfect metaphor for life. It is so vast and overwhelming, that while looking at it from a minute patch of shore, you are made to feel the smallness of yourself in relation. Which, I believe, is a good thing – especially when we, as children, tend to think of ourselves as the entire world. You can get anything out of the ocean that you wish; food, sport, relaxation, commerce, inspiration. It is up to you to carve out the meaning and use, much like life.

When we talked about taking my son to the beach for the first time, it was no big deal to my husband, since he had grown up with the ocean in his backyard. For me, living 3 hours away from the sea, it was an event, not merely happenstance. You planned for a viewing of the ocean; you did not simply glimpse it on your way about life. So we went into this day with different histories and different memories. And yet, when we saw the ocean through our son's eyes, we both felt the same moment in its enormity. I saw my husband take my son in his arms and look out and in that look, a million silent promises went forth: I will protect you; I will be there for you; I will never let you down; I will always love you; the world is out there – your family will always be behind you; I was so happy that I was able to capture that moment in this photograph; the digital equivalent of an old family story that no amount of words can properly relate as much as the image itself.

I have always loved the ocean. When my husband and I were first married, the ocean was fifteen minutes from our home. My favorite thing was to sit on the sand at dusk with a notebook in hand, listening to the wind, smelling the perfect perfume that only sand, salt and air can create, willing the moment to continue. It never did. As much as I begged the sun not to bend over the horizon, move out of sight, take its stunning pink-and-purple sky swirling out of view, it did and I mourned that moment, the end of a brilliance unable to be duplicated.

I no longer live near the ocean. I do not miss it the same way that my husband does but I do miss it. I know that I need the water to write and to feel and to create but I know that I will find my way back to it. From the time I was small, whenever anyone asked me where I thought I would wind up, I always answered: in a house by the sea. Whenever my creativity flags and I feel that I will never again have anything relevant to say or monumental to write about, I think to the beach. I feel it waits for me; that it knows the time is not right but we will meet up eventually.

My son looks at that picture now, framed in my study and he says 'Me and Daddy at the beach.' I am happy he has that memory since it seems, for now, that the ocean and he will not be frequent companions. But I do love that the ocean is something different for everyone who encounters it. There are no two ways to swallow the experience. It is a unique endeavor for all that feel that seductive sea air lift the hair off their face and sniff the unmistakable signature that is saltwater.

We will get back there one day. But for now, I am glad to have my son's first acquaintance with the ocean frozen in a combination of pixels and binary data for eternity.

Wendy

Wendy writes about matters small and insignificant with brazen authority at Things in Your Head. She loves music, books, candy corn and the word ‘consortium’. She hates boa constrictors and mean people.

Blog Review: The Misssy M Misssives

2007-09-10T01:18:00.000-05:00

The blog: The Misssy M Misssives

The Reviewer: Nutmeg from Simply Nutmeg

FIRST IMPRESSIONS:
Stick with me on this one because we all know we should never judge a book by its cover, and first impressions are often wrong. This said, my first impression of this blog was, "YAWN!" The design is one I've seen frequently -- a standard Blogspot theme with no header and a slightly confusing sidebar. I found the lack of "about me" information very frustrating. Flying Martinis? Is this a bartending blog? Misssy M Misssives? The most I could glean at a glance about her was, "That's me." Nothing informed me that the blogger was from Scotland, and why the extra letters everywhere? If I had found this blog by surfing, I would have clicked off quickly, never to return.

DESIGN:
Enough said. Here's my advice: Customize the blog just a bit with a clear header and more defined sidebar. Give us a much more thorough "about Misssy" even if we have to open up a new page. Maximize the potential of your exotic location (exotic to me and hordes of others); tell the reader upfront where you live. Please tell me why there are so many extra letters; do you lisp?

CONTENT:
Here's the thing: the day I landed on Misssy's missssssives, she had posted 1001 words about ketchup. If you've read my reviews or my own blog, you most likely know that I have a problem with long blog posts. This position is an educated one. A very large body of research on internet reading points overwhelmingly to the fact that we read differently on the web than we do when reading a print document. When we read print, more than fifty percent of the time we will flip to the rest of a story or article continued on a later page IF the writer has done a good job of hooking us and building the momentum to the continued part of the article. When we read on the web, rarely are we willing to page down for content. Web readers seek short, well-written, concise bites of information. We look for interaction on the page: links, internal pages, comment sections. We do not want to read 1000 words about ketchup. Missy posts regularly, on average, every other day. She does not link often.

That said, because I was reviewing, I read through a ton of Misssy's content, and slowly, very slowly, found myself getting hooked! Misssy writes extremely well and nothing pleases me more as a reviewer. She is clearly intelligent, has a droll sense of humor, and, best of all, her content is extremely varied. You can't predict what Misssy will tackle from day to day. She may reflect on her exotic travel, old lovers, Madonna, ketchup, a Yeats poem, her work, or the telly. You can predict that she will use a lot of words in her reflections.

BEST AND WORST:

Best: I came to thoroughly enjoy Misssy's writing and I loved the glimpse into life in Scotland. She has a bright and quirky brain and sees things in ways differently from me. I love her turn of phrase, subtle sarcasm, and perfect grammar!

Worst: I have read Faulkner; I like Faulkner; but I would not read a blog written by Faulkner. Blog readers tend to be people who work for long hours at a computer, like myself, and break up the day with quick blog reads. Misssy is rarely a quick read. My mind wanders. I start to skim. I start to obsess over those extra s's...

BLOGROLLWORTHY:

With only a few design changes, more links, and more condensed posts, I think Misssy would really fly. I'm sure I'll come back to her blog regularly now that I've gotten to know the Martini's. Will I finish every post? That remains to be seen!

SCORE:

I'm going with 7 with the disclaimer that this blog has great potential to be a Bo Derrik. There's proof of it in Misssy's TOPBLOGMAG piece from last week. It's a must-read!

Note From The Editor

2007-09-03T01:03:00.000-05:00

The crazy state of constant daytime, with 24 hours of daylight throughout the summer have come to an end and the temperatures are dropping below freezing in the early hours out here on the farm. Summer is most definitely over.

With the harvesting of the potato crop and storing of wood for the long winter months, autumn also brings with it a time of introspection and contemplation. A time for remembering the year gone by and looking forward to what is still to come. A time to sit and organise one's thoughts so tell us, dear readers, what have you been thinking of this week? What is on your mind?

Write your post, post it on your blog and email me the url, and I shall add it to the list of posts below. Don't forget to include a link back to us here at TopBlogMag.

Feature Post

2007-09-03T00:52:00.000-05:00

A Nation of Eclectics

by Liz Easterly of Spoonfed

In the Wall Street Journal this weekend, there was a story about a woman who discovers another side of her mother, after her mother's death from lung cancer, through her passion for collecting art glass on eBay. During her mother's final months, she would beg her daughter, from her hospital bed, to check her eBay account and make sure any auctions she had won were paid promptly. She had to safeguard her eBay reputation.

"How could that have been her foremost concern?" Her daughter wondered.

She discovered her mother had spent over $30,000 in three years buying Venetian, Steuben and Depression era glass tsotchkes. In her daughter’s opinion, these were worthless trinkets. Had the cancer consumed her mother's sanity?

Read more...

A Nation of Eclectics

2007-09-03T00:49:00.000-05:00

by Liz Easterly of Spoonfed

In the Wall Street Journal this weekend, there was a story about a woman who discovers another side of her mother, after her mother's death from lung cancer, through her passion for collecting art glass on eBay. During her mother's final months, she would beg her daughter, from her hospital bed, to check her eBay account and make sure any auctions she had won were paid promptly. She had to safeguard her eBay reputation.

"How could that have been her foremost concern?" Her daughter wondered.

She discovered her mother had spent over $30,000 in three years buying Venetian, Steuben and Depression era glass tsotchkes. In her daughter’s opinion, these were worthless trinkets. Had the cancer consumed her mother's sanity?

After her mother's death, she began to wonder about all those glass pieces, and started to contact her mother's eBay friends.

She discovered that each of her mother's purchases corresponded to an event in her illness: the day she was diagnosed with lung cancer, her mother purchased a light green bud vase and sent it to her daughter. Her daughter promptly put the odd little vase in a cupboard and forgot about it. Another time, she purchased a cut-glass set of port glasses, after her son-in-law had ordered port at the restaurant the night before. She told the seller that she wanted a complete set of glasses to entertain her family.

Another man, her mother's "mentor" in the art glass world, gave her more insight. Her mother, he said, had bought each piece with her two daughters in mind; she was creating a legacy for her girls.

This story got me thinking about the worlds we can create for ourselves, outside of our normal lives, and how technology is affecting that. Are we using technology to isolate ourselves, creating virtual friendships and relationships that cut out the daily human contact with our loved ones? Worse, are we turning into a nation of eclectics?

We can find groups with any and all obscure interests online. Into Barbie dolls? There’s a huge group of those folks. Orchid and bromeliad collectors, Conspiracy theorists. Grobanites. Geyser Gazers, who are into the geysers of Yellowstone. Furries – folks who like to dress up as their favorite stuffed animal.

I saw Bill Gates the other night on “The Big Idea.” Host Donny Deutsch asked whether he was fearful of technology serving to isolate us. Gates seemed surprised by the question.

Technology, he said, allows us even greater access to finding others with interests like our own. Technology just adds to the richness of personal experience, giving us access to people all over the world we otherwise would never have met. It doesn’t take away our need for face to face relationships, and it can never replace human contact, but can only add to it.

There is something compelling in this utopian view of technology. After all, the Grobanites may unite online, but they meet face to face at Josh Groban concerts across the country. Geyser gazers keep in contact online, but they meet up on the boardwalks of Yellowstone National Park. And who can forget the Entourage episode where Turtle and Drama meet up with a furry?

And yet there is something heartbreaking about the woman who kept her passion for collecting art glass a secret from her family. Because they didn’t share her passion? Because they couldn’t understand it? Because they thought her a little crazy? (And let’s face it: $30,000 in art glass is a little excessive.)

In the end, the daughter went home, took out the step-ladder, and pulled the little green bud vase out of her cupboard. She poured in some water, put five pink roses in it, and set it in the living room.

Liz Easterly lives in Denver. Between her one year old son and black lab, there is no time for eclectic interests or collecting, although she does find the occasional chance to write about motherhood, marketing, and writing over at Spoonfed.

How Easy We Forget

2007-09-03T00:46:00.000-05:00

Written by Feener over at Mommyvents

The other day I was reading Megan’s blog, Velveteen Mind. The post was dated August 29th. Now to me that date only means 2 days after my firstborn’s birthday. However, after reading Megan’s blog I realized it meant a whole lot more to people in the Gulf Coast area.

As I read this post, it made me realize how little I know about the lasting damage of Hurricane Katrina. I was not directly effected by this hurricane, nor was anyone close to me. I live in the Northeast. Although we saw the damage, heard the tragedies, we did not live through it, nor do we have to recover from it. How easy we forget.

I lived in NYC during 911. My father is a NYC police officer and at the time was headquartered in Police Plaza, which has a view of the towers. I was at my office in the east 50’s. I was watching the TV in the conference room, but running back to my office to make phone calls. I finally got through to my Dad. While I was talking to him, begging him NOT to go over to the towers, he made a groan. He watched in horror as the building fell down. I was crying for him to let the young guys go and that he needed to stay.

Little did I know my Father was already aware of friends and colleagues he was watching perish. My Father did not make it over there, he was spared, THANK GOD. However, many friends of friends, college friends, fiancées were not spared. Living in New York during that time made me feel detached from the rest of the world, because the rest of the world did not live through it. Yes people saw the horror, over and over, on the TV. But to live it, to breathe it, to search for friends, to see the flyers with all the missing people. It was heartbreaking beyond belief.

Friends who did not live in NYC called me, but it wasn’t comfort they offered. Sometimes it was more curiosity that they meet me with. I was hurt. It almost felt like it was gossip for some. I know that might sound rude, but it was just so hard.

The other evening I attended my book club. There is a new woman who joined, she is a 911 widow. Her story is tragic, and I leave it for her to share, not me. However, she is remarried and pregnant with her second child from her recent marriage. She has 2 kids from her first marriage. I left book club thinking about how hard this month coming up must be for her, and for so many. I realized that I, who felt so close to it all had forgotten. September 11th for me is my daughter’s first day of preschool.

It made me think of how easy we forget tragedy unless it was very close to you. I hope we can all take a minute to think of the folks that went through Hurricane Katrina, and to realize that they still need help. I also hope that we NEVER EVER FORGET what happened on 911.

Feener is a stay at home Mom to 2 beautiful girls, Sass n Frass. Sass is 3 and Frass is 1. She started blogging so she could vent away without annoying her Husband, D.

Paper, Pregnancy and the Princess

2007-09-03T00:42:00.000-05:00

Written by Misssy M of The Misssy M Misssives

31st August 1997, 1am (Paris time): A Mercedes-Benz drives at speed through Pont de l'Alma tunnel. The inhabitants of the car are contract driver, Henri Paul; Emad El-Din Mohamed Abdel Moneim Fayed,also known as Dodi; Trevor Rees Jones, a body guard and Diana Princess of Wales, an icon.

In Aberdeen, Scotland a 28 year old woman lies awake next to her sleeping husband, Meeester.

The Mercedes crashes.

Misssy M is preoccupied.

1.30am: Ambulances arrive. The driver is dead. Dodi Fayed shows no sign of life but a resuscitation attempt is made. Trevor Rees Jones and Diana Princes of Wales are alive. Rees has facial injuries and is rushed to Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital. Diana is crouched on the rear passenger floor with her back to the road. Ambulance crews cannot remove her.

Misssy thinks she might be pregnant.

1.45am: News breaks of a serious accident involving royalty. Journalists everywhere are called into work.

2am: Diana is freed from the wreckage and is rushed to Pitié-Salpêtrière. She is alive.

Misssy wonders if she is ready. What time can she get a test? Do all night garages sell pregnancy tests?

2.15am: Surgeons discover that Diana’s heart has been displaced to the right side of her chest. Her pulmonary vein and the pericardium are torn. They operate immediately.

3.30am: Meeester gets up for his early morning shift.

Surgeons struggle to repair the damage in Diana’s chest cavity.

Meeester goes out the front door being careful not to waken his wife.

4am: Doctors pronounce Diana dead.

Meeester arrives at work at the same time as James Naughtie of the Radio 4 Today Programme arrives at his. The Radio 4 schedule is abandoned. Naughtie delivers news of a terrible accident.

4.30: Jean-Pierre Chevènement France's Interior Minister and Sir Michael Jay, British Ambassador meet with police to discuss the press release.

5am: Meeester phones Misssy.

“Put the telly on. Something has happened. I’m sorry. Happy Paper Anniversary by the way.”

Peter Sissons is on the BBC. Sissons on a Sunday? Diana has been injured. Dark footage at a tunnel shows chaos. It is light outside in Aberdeen. What is going on? What time is it?

Calls are placed to next of kin by police and diplomats.

5.10am: Misssy thinks about chemist opening hours, but sits glued to the television. Journalists interview other journalists. Misssy clicks on Radio 4. Naughtie? On a Sunday? She puts the kettle on, then switches it off again. It’s too early for tea.

Sissons is interviewing Jennie Bond, the BBC’s Royal Correspondent. She knows nothing and is talking about Diana and Dodi’s recent holiday in the South of France.

5.20am: Misssy turns the TV up as she puts the kettle on again.

5.30am: Diana’s death is announced to the world’s press. The BBC are still saying Diana is seriously injured.

6am: Misssy gets dressed in front of the television. Diana’s death is announced. Half dressed, Misssy sits down.

More journalists interview other journalists. Paparazzi apparently ran the car off the road. Stock footage of Diana is shown being hounded by press when she was nineteen, holidaying with her children and getting married to Prince Charles. Sissons is looking tired and upset.

9.30am: Misssy leaves the house. The streets are empty.

Tony Blair is interviewed outside his local church.

9.40am: Safeway is open. There are six cars in the car park. Misssy feels weird. Oh my god, her kids. She is not a royalist, but she might be a mum. She starts to cry in the car.

Finding out about new life doesn’t seem right today.

10.15: Misssy returns home and turns on the television once again. She reads the instructions on her pregnancy test and pees on a stick.

10.25: Sissons is speculating about the Royal Household. The Queen is believed to be in Balmoral.

Thirty miles from Balmoral, Misssy looks at two little purple lines side by side. On the television people talk of nothing ever being the same again.

Misssy starts to cry with happiness.

It’s a strange day.

******************
Every year, this is what I think about this week.

Blog Blurb: I am Misssy M of the Flying Martinis. I write true stories.

Think: Now.

2007-09-03T00:38:00.000-05:00

Written by Lavender of The Birds & The Beads

I never thought Id leave the United States. I loved everything about the Northeast, especially the land itself and its seasons. Lush green mountain forest filled with the scent of pine needles crushed underfoot. The hush that falls with a heavy snow, so nearly silent that the beating of a birds wings overhead seems nearly a roar. The way a tree trunks’ bark becomes so dramatically dark when soaked with rain, as if only to better show off its wonderful canopy of leaves. Springs’ perfect glory, a miracle which my words could never hope to adequately express. Many little things like these, I quietly observed and hoarded in my mind as treasures.

Then it came to pass, that I met and fell in love with a man from Australia. In time we married and the decision was made that we would reside in Australia. As in ten-thousand miles away. A twenty-one hour plane ride. In other words: Australia - its on the other side of the planet, Mate!

I knew Id likely be homesick from time to time. But having found my one true love, I buoyantly dismissed it as something Id “get over“. Talk about your “famous last words“. I had no idea that homesickness could feel so much like having your heart broken. More than once over the years I have sobbed myself to sleep, wishing I could “go home” like a child at their first slumber party. And I am so past childhood. The depth of the loss truly surprised me.

Its not that Australia or her people were mean to me, well, except maybe the people at the Immigration Department, but that’s their job. It’s a wonderful place to live, with exciting places to see and exotic flora and fauna to marvel at. And I do marvel at them, every single day.

But it wasn’t home. For example: birds here don’t sing as sweetly. In fact, the Little Wattle Bird that “sings” outside the bedroom window (just before dawn) doesn’t sound like a bird at all, but rather like a Volkswagon Bug refusing to start. In autumn, the leaves stay on the trees, while the bark falls off. Weeds sprout in the garden all year round. Roses blooming in summer are dried on the bush before midday. When you walk across your lawn, a thorny weed stabs the sole of your foot. The grass makes crunching noises as you hop on one foot off the grass and onto the searing hot concrete footpath. When in the summer you dry your laundry on the outside line, bring it in and take a great big sniff. Mmmmmmmm, Bush Fire Fresh!

Now, I’m the kind of gal that likes to use logic to solve problems. This constant comparing of ‘home of old’ to ‘home of new’ was making me miserable. There was only one real solution. I needed to change my thinking and find acceptance within myself that Australia is now my home.
It didn’t happen overnight, and I still catch myself comparing and judging from time to time. I try to be gentle with myself. (Slow and steady, wins the race!) But by being aware of my thoughts, I have been able to allow myself to love Australia just as much as my original home land.

Yes, they are different, completely different. But how lucky have I been! I’ve hand fed wild parrots and wild kangaroos. Spent days being tumbled in the sea, roasted in the sun, and then slept on the beach beneath a blanket of stars. Every time we venture out of the suburbs, my husband has something new to show me about this land, and it is as if we are discovering it together. And all I have to do, to enjoy every moment of My New World, is think about where I am NOW.

Now enjoying her life in Australia, Lavender share her photos of the interesting animals and plants from the land ‘down under’ in her blog, The Birds & The Beads.

What Exactly Are You Watering?

2007-09-03T00:31:00.000-05:00

Written by Sarah from In the Trenches of Mommyhood

Dear Homeowner:

I admit. I am jealous of your lush, green lawn. I admire the fact that you take such good care of your property by fertilizing, weeding, and most importantly, watering your tropical paradise.

But I have a question for you. Why are you watering the sidewalk and road with your complex irrigation/lawn sprinkler system? Now, I’m no professional, but I would think that the spray would be better served on your grass instead of concrete. Just a hunch.

You see, I run. At 6a.m. ~~Because it’s the only frickin’ time I have alone to do so.~~ I enjoy the serenity at that hour. However, your sprinklers? Are on. And are spraying me. As I run past your house IN THE ROAD.

So could you do a little maneuvering maybe? Save yourself a little money and have your sprinklers actually water your grass?

This ~~cranky~~ soaked ~~wanna-be~~ runner would sure appreciate it.

Sarah knows she had a mind once. Now she has children. She’s a mommy to 3 adorable, loving, loud, impatient, only angelic when sleeping, little boyz. And a wife. And a part-time corporate paralegal. Although life is hectic, demanding and downright crazy In the Trenches of Mommyhood, Sarah thinks that life is still good…Especially after she’s had a few glasses of pinot grigio.

Just Yesterday

2007-09-03T00:27:00.000-05:00

Written by: Jen E of Sunny With A Chance of Clo uds

Just yesterday I held her in my arms for the very first time. I touched her tiny hands and counted her tiny toes. Just yesterday she was at my breast, nursing and falling blissfully asleep. I cherished that time. I could have held her forever. Just yesterday she was scooting across the floor, exploring her world on her own for the first time. Then came her first steps. Watch out world, here she comes!!! She was sneaky too. I watched her during one particularly tempestuous tantrum where she would calm only to rev it back up again when she caught me looking. This one was almost too smart for Mama! Back then I knew what to do. I could hold her, walk her, nurse her and all would be alright. It all came naturally.

Just yesterday, she quietly clung to my leg as we entered new places—timid and shy, afraid of new experiences. She never liked to get involved—no sports, no dance, no gymnastics—a total wallflower. Even in school, she was very reserved. But each year brings her a tiny bit more out of her shell. As she grows and matures, I find myself less confident. The times of being able to hold her close and make everything alright are slipping away.

Time flies so quickly. Today, she is nearly 7 years old going on 17 with hair of fire and a temper to match. She’s quite the drama queen. The tiniest scratch is tantamount to a mortal gaping wound and unmelted butter on her waffle is a disaster! But she’s blossoming, too. I love to hear her sing and watch her dance around the living room. I cheer as she steps out of her comfort zone and tries T-ball and takes swimming lessons. I envy her love of roller coasters as I won’t set foot on one. I love watching her “mother” her little brother and hope that I’ve made an impact on her as a mother.

When I see this picture, I see my baby girl emerging into an independent young woman. Seeing her peeking out from behind the cap shows me she is beginning to be more confident. She’s ready to start stepping out. She also doesn’t need me like she used to. Yes, just yesterday, she was my baby girl. Today she still is—and will always be—my baby girl. But watch out world, here she comes!!!

Jen E is the author of Sunny With A Chance of Clouds where she tries to juggle 2 typical kids, a busy husband, a crazy dog and a wild job while maintaining some sense of sanity and sharing it all with you.

Blog Review: Thinks By Me

2007-09-03T00:16:00.000-05:00

The Blog: Thinks by me

The Reviewer: Omega mom from 3 kids No Job

First impressions:

It took a while to load so I had to time to ponder the enigmatic title. A song, maybe? Then I got to the profile. “A kickboxing Mum of 2”? “Recovering Type A personality”? Wow! Blog as energy bar. I’m interested.

Design:

What a nice, easy design to follow. There was a good, clear layout and excellent, and restrained, use of graphics. She is somebody who clearly has a strong visual sense and it really shows. There was only one small disappointment: that relaxing picture of a coffee cup suggested a mid-morning break while the kids are at school, rather than manic, kickboxing energy.

Content:

She’s a regular blogger – 25 posts in August – not easy with the summer holidays, so well done. Posts go up every couple of days, so lots of fresh content. That coffee cup visual is an accurate reflection of the content. I was imagining a manic, Type A blog kick-boxing its way through cyberspace. In fact, it’s essentially a ‘What I did’ diary that records the everyday niggles and triumphs that characterise life with children: vans that break down just as you’re planning a holiday; the trial of back to school shopping expeditions and so on. It’s all pleasant stuff, if undemanding.

Depending on where she wants to go with her blog, something to consider might be a bit more development of some of the themes she raises. For example, http://jjecolsen.blogspot.com/2007/08/different-looks.html tackles a subject of great interest to a lot of women – why men on the whole prefer their partners to have long hair. Judging by the comments she got for this post – the ‘stinking men’ one made me chuckle - the topic arouses strong feelings. She could do a lot more with it.

Similarly I was intrigued to note that she really enjoys shopping with the children for their school uniforms. http://jjecolsen.blogspot.com/2007/08/school-shopping-ya-poo.html If I told friends I enjoyed shopping with my children for their school stuff, they’d lynch me and it’s something I’d simply assumed was universally loathed by everyone. Again, it’s a topic that might be worth developing because she has a different take on the subject.

Best and worst:

Super design. No real worst. At a personal level, the Christianity, though prominent in the sidebars, didn’t dominate the content, which I find a comfortable arrangement.

Music Review: Carrie Rodriquez

2007-08-31T20:03:00.000-05:00

Written by John from Altjiranga Mitjina

This week’s voice to hear hails from the state of Texas. Carrie Rodriquezwas born in Austin and started playing the violin at the age of five. By the age of ten she had already played Carnegie Hall in New York City. At this point she was playing classical music, a far cry from what she is currently playing. In her teens she started playing with her father, singer-songwriter David Rodriquez, in clubs around Austin.

In 1996 Carrie went to college to study classical music, but soon discovered that she wanted to stretch her playing abilities to other styles of music. She decided to drop the violin and pick up the fiddle. She quite the college she was going to and enrolled in Berklee College of Music in Boston and studied bluegrass, jazz, swing and everything else she could.

During a South by Southwest show with another band Carrie was seen by Chip Taylor, writer of “Wild Thing” and “Angel of the Morning.” He was knocked out by her fiddle playing and invited her to tour with him in Europe. It was during their touring in Europe that Chip convinced Carrie to sing. Up to this time Carrie had considered herself a fiddle player and not a singer.

Before long the two found themselves in the studio recording a duet album. Their album Let’s Leave This Town was met with great critical acclaim. Their second album The Trouble With Humans went to number one on the Americana charts. After their third album Red Dog Tracks Carrie decided it was time to do a solo album.

Last year she recorded and released her first solo album Seven Angels On A Bicycle. The new album ranges wide in style, from Americana to Jazz to Folk. Her old partner Chip Taylor doesn’t abandon her for her solo outing. He helped co write many of the tunes and produced the album with her. Carrie’s voice is tender and seductive and flirty, sometimes all in the same song.

Carrie Rodriquez is a voice that is going to go far, she is still young, in her twenties and has the talent to carry her far.

If you're reading this it can only mean one thing, that John from altjiranga mitjina has once again forgotten to provide a blurb after whatever it is he wrote for this issue and Heather is quietly cursing him whilst cutting and pasting this from last weeks review. All he can say is that a mind is a terrible thing to waste. He'd write more but he'd just forget whatever it was he wrote.

Note From The Editor

2007-08-27T03:28:00.000-05:00

When I say the word 'colour' to you what do you think of? Do you think of skin colour and race? Of the bright gaudy colours of the carnival? Of the emotions different colours provoke or represent?

If you were to choose a colour to base a post on which colour would it be and what would you write about? Would it be memories of that colour in your childhood, the feelings that colour brings with it or something completely different that would be the topic of your post?

Let us know by writing the post, link it to us and email me the URL and I'll add it to the list at the bottom of posts based on this weeks theme: Colours.

A Heart to Laugh With, a Hand to Hold

2007-08-27T02:35:00.000-05:00

Written by Beth at Sense & Sensibilities

It starts with a finger, that little tiny fist clenched around my finger, my hand in his. It’s instinctual, I’m sure – a sweet reminder – an “I am here.” A contradiction to an idea I can’t even wrap my mind around. This beautiful creature is entirely in my hands, a part of me forever.

A chubby fist, in his mouth one minute and grabbing my hair the next, carefully and thoughtfully attempts to manipulate the Cheerio on his tray. Like a claw in an arcade game, the fingers slowly close around the cereal and then raise … success! Today it is cereal; tomorrow’s quest may be a bug in the yard.

The steps are hesitant but eager, a little hand holding tightly to mine for reassurance. First two hands, then one, then he’s on his own. A few steps, then down, then off we go again. And again. Freedom for him brings worries for me. Please, hold my hand a little longer.

One finger in his mouth to calm his nerves is quickly replaced by a happy wave. A “bye mom!” and his hand is holding the teacher’s as he starts a life without me there by his side. Excited hands quickly pull art projects from his bag as he relates his day to me, stories of new friends, new experiences and the occasional new hurt.

My hand firmly rests upon his as he clutches the handlebars. “Don’t let go,” he says. Never, I think. Pedal, pedal, pedal … and I let go.

“Slide! Slide!” the base coach shouts. A cloud of dust, then “safe!” The mitt comes off as his sweaty hand reaches for a drink on the bench. Thinking he is oblivious to my presence, I continue to cheer his team. A quick glance my way, a wink, a wave.

After a hastily muttered goodbye, he shuts the car door behind him. His saunter up the school steps is confident and easy. The girl waits for him inside, flips her hair over her shoulder with one hand, and slips her other hand into his.

The car keys jingle as he pulls them off the hook. One hand reaches for his wallet, the other grabs a Pepsi, and the door closes behind him. I smile as the door opens once again only to show his crooked grin, a wink and a wave – “bye mom.”

He takes her hand softly as she reaches the altar. To have and to hold …

“Isn’t she beautiful mom?” His hands look so big holding that tiny bundle, wrapped snugly in a blanket. As he gently strokes her face, a little fist grabs his finger and he smiles. Just as he has had my heart all of these years, she now has his – forever in his hands.

Beth is the author of Sense & Sensibilities, where she relates stories of her life with a Sensible husband, two not-so-Sensible boys, hormones and stalkers.

It's Not Easy Being Green

2007-08-27T01:53:00.000-05:00

Written by Nutmeg from Simply Nutmeg

I recently attended an afternoon party with a group of young urban professionals, metrosexuals, and snobs, none of whom had children. Although the hosts were childless, the invitation clearly said “Bring the kids!” I knew I was in trouble when I joined the small crowd arriving on the front porch. Everyone looked so chic, with their high heels, beautiful little gift bags, and envelope-sized designer purses. I made my entrance lugging a diaper bag, a sack of toys, an art kit, a collapsible scooter, and four small, hungry, and uncooperative children. Was I supposed to bring a gift too?

The hostess looked at our entourage with real fear in her eyes and began lifting all her breakables to higher ground. Did she not read the invitation she sent out?

To say I felt out of place at this party, where I only knew the hostess, is akin to saying water is wet. Everybody had tasteful piercings and trendy Celtic ankle tattoos, while the coolest thing I was sporting was my new Velcro nursing bra. It was like an Abercrombie and Fitch fashion show only I looked more like I belonged on a Gap runway. In 1998.

You know it's bad when someone says," What's that smell?" and everyone looks straight at you. What? It’s not me! It’s him! Give me a break, he’s a baby and he tried sour kraut last night!

Whenever I attempted to mingle with a group, the intellectual conversation seemed to grind to a stop. You'd think I was wearing overalls with hay sticking out of my hair and a monkey slung on my hip. Why is it that people see a mother with more than two children and automatically assume that she is of one dimension? Is it impossible to believe that I may also be colorful - intelligent, modern, witty, even hip? I mean, I know Billy Holiday was a woman! I vote! I listen to Modest Mouse! I've inhaled!! And yes, I have heard of birth control, thank you!

There was a time when I would have tried to justify myself to this crowd, to point out that while I manage four children and run a house, I also hold down a job, freelance write, and have my own blog. That Bossy reads. But somehow I would have only ended up sounding like the porn star calling herself an actress, or worse, like one of them.

I realized as I stood in that crowd, that I no longer have a need to justify myself to anybody. I stand out like flashy sparkles in the water because I'm happy, authentic, and finally comfortable in my own skin, even if, on occasion, it might look a little green.

I'm Blue

2007-08-27T01:50:00.000-05:00

By Jennifer Magnuson of Get In the Car!

I’ve always wondered why the color blue is associated with such conflicting ideas. On the one hand, you have melancholy, sadness, even death. On the other, serenity, calm, peacefulness and baby boys. I’m not sure if there is another color out there that is so bifurcated.

Maybe that’s why I love it so much. As a mom, I write about the facets of motherhood that are often at variance with one another. Blue seems the perfect tangible expression of my emotions as a mom, and the color with which I hold the most positive associations.

My first recollection of actually linking the color blue with a feeling of sublime tranquility dates back to kindergarten. My great-aunt had a basket of polished rocks in a basket on a lacquered table near the entrance of her kitchen. Her house was stately, and to enter the kitchen, one had to go down a set of stairs into a separate part of the home altogether. Her home was set in a large wooded area of town, with gardens that were somewhere between manicured and gone to seed. Her backyard held an enormous structured pond with ducks and lilies; the rectangular pond was walled in cement and could have easily been a pool. My aunt was eccentric and noisy, and let me have ginger ale in champagne flutes at her parties. She wore loud prints and blousy cuts and had a big gap between her teeth that was always visible, since she was usually laughing, smoking or drinking. She also had those rocks. My favorite, probably not even a rock, was a hulking chunk of aquamarine; mostly clear with white bits seemingly holding it together. In retrospect, the rock was probably aged glass, held together with chunks of white cement. It didn’t matter. I thought that rock was the most beautiful thing, and when my aunt gave it to me, it quickly became my prized possession. I would gaze at it for long periods of time, lost in its color, the smooth glassy feel giving me a sense of well-being I couldn’t explain. Blue became the color I equated with peace.

In my early grade school years, I swam in our town’s large, Olympic-sized indoor pool. I remember the sunny winter days with the shafts of light streaming down from the skylights creating an underwater paradise for me and my imagination. The blue of the pool and the golden, flecked sunbeams underwater gave me such a feeling of bliss that I developed swimmer’s ear more than once as a child. I would dive under water, open my eyes, and take in the crystal blue silence, my body’s weightlessness, and the ease with which I was able to move. It felt like a blue, sky-filled heaven where I could move without care.

As an adult, my magic blue moments have been fewer, and I savor them when they come. Lying in a hammock slung between two palm trees with a good book, a slight breeze, and the sound of the ocean pounding the surf? Blue. Holding my babies for the first time, kissing their soft skin and taking in their smell? Blue. The smell of ponderosa and sage after a rainstorm? Blue. Hearing the belly laugh of a content baby? Blue.

My only wish, as far as my blue moments go, is that I still had that rock.

Jennifer Magnuson is a writer and a mother of four. She writes for the Viacom/Nickelodeon site, Parents Connect, and for other sites on the web as well as a freelance job for print magazines now and then. She spends too much of her time in her car, hence the name of her blog, Get In the Car!

They Call Me Mellow Yellow

2007-08-27T01:44:00.000-05:00

Written by Phara

Your Mirror or Mine

How ironic that this week's topic is a color since I'm an interior decorator. And since I was given the color yellow to write about I can't seem to get Donovan's song Mellow Yellow out of my head. What the heck does that song mean anyway? After doing some research on those song lyrics, I found out the supposed meaning…and that's a whole other type of post for a whole other type of blog. Who knew?

Anyway, I tried to think what the color yellow meant to me. Did I have an ugly dress as a child that was a hideous shade of 70's yellow? Not that I can recall or is documented by a Poloroid…which, unfortunately is not the case for a pair of patchwork bell bottom jeans I once wore. I do remember having a Scwhinn bicycle that had a banana seat…but that wasn't yellow. And I also vaguely remember being called a "yellowbelly" at one point growing up because I run from spiders. Then I thought of buttercream frosting, which I could eat a whole can of. I'm pretty sure there's butter in it according to my thighs…and butter is yellow. But bad memories aside, the only thing I kept coming back to was the actual color yellow and how it makes me feel.

As I sit here typing this, I look around my room at all the various shades of yellow. For me, I'm more of a warm gold shade of yellow gal instead of an in your face lemon shade of yellow gal. The color yellow can evoke feelings of joy and happiness, but at the same time can make people feel frustrated and angry. Babies tend to cry more in yellow rooms. But since it's a warm color, if you paint a north facing room a shade of yellow it will seem warmer (a little Decorating 101 – for those of you getting ready to paint). For me, it's relaxing. When I walk into my house it's like a blanket is wrapped around my shoulders and I instantly feel protected. When it's dreary and cloud filled outside, I still feel like there's some light in the room. And at the end of a long hectic day, I'm calmed by the glow of the color when illuminated by lamps. Everyone is different, and everyone sees color differently, but for me it truly is a mellow yellow.

Blog Review Sign Up

2007-08-27T01:42:00.000-05:00

Do you think your blog is up for a no-holds barred, completely honest review? Would you like to learn how to improve your blog to give your readers a better viewing experience?

If you answer is yes put your name on our list for a TopBlog Review. Simply leave us a comment with your blog URL but be warned, they are not going to be blowing rainbows and puppy dogs up anyone's ass. Unless of course you have the perfect blog...

Our reviewers are:

Omega mum from 3 kids no job
Nutmeg from Simply Nutmeg
Sarah from In the Trenches of Mommyhood
Liz from Three Bright Stars

and no, they can not be bribed. Although I don't think they would mind you trying ;)

Blogs will be given a rank out of 10 based on:

First impressions: self explanatory really, what feelings, thoughts, likes, dislikes the reviewers get in the first 5 seconds of opening your blog.
Design: Is it a good looking blog or does the design make them want to leave without stopping to read? Does the colour scheme work? Are the sidebars full of clutter and distracting flashing things? How easy is it to navigate around?
Content: Is it well written and interesting or boring and full of typos? Is it full of original, interesting writing or is every second post a meme, youtube video or sponsored post? How frequently is it updated?
Best and Worst: What does the reviewer like the most about this blog? What do they dislike the most (with constructive advice of how to change this)
Blogroll worthy? Is it somewhere our reviewers would want to come back to?

So do you think your blog is up to the test? Do you want a free blog review and link from the main page of TopBlogMag? Are you looking for ways to improve your blog but don't know what needs doing? Then leave us a comment with your blog url and your wish shall be our command, we will even give you a spiffy little brag button to put in your sidebar.

NB. As we are only completing one review per week at the moment, it will take a few weeks to get round you all but we shan't take any more requests until the ones left in this comment section are completed.

Type rest of the post here

Orange You Glad I Didn't Say Banana?

2007-08-27T01:38:00.000-05:00

written by Melody of Slurping Life

The color orange predisposes me to visions of fat, round pumpkins followed closely by thoughts of hag-like witches. Because of my prejudice against the color, I certainly have never worn orange clothing. Who wants to be viewed as a fat, orange hag. In my narrow vision the color orange has always been somewhat insipid and reserved only for the trimmings of Halloween and Thanksgiving. Thinking of myself as an open-minded person and not wanting to be considered narrow-minded, I did a little reading and contemplating about the color orange.

Being a citrus color, orange is associated with healthy food, but did you know it stimulates appetite? Orange is also the color of fall and harvest. It's one of those conspiracy things. You go to Fall festivals where there are tons of ~~greasy fried dough artery clogging look at me and gain weight~~ delicious food, and you gorge yourself on a delicacy called funnel cake (not that I've done this). The conversation goes, "Look at the beautiful arrangement of fall flowers and pumpkins? The fall colors are so pretty and....oh honey, let's each get a funnel cake." Orange's fault.

Orange is a very visible color used to catch attention and highlight important elements of design. Orange is a very effective color for marketing. Think about toys. The packaging is a virtual palette of circus colors with orange leading the ploy to suck a child into a hypnotic trance of drooling desire. This trance is broken only by the stern parental voice calmly stating no, which leads to wails of "I WANT THAT TOY!" as the child commences head banging against the nearest firm surface followed by writhing in the aisle. Thereby, orange is a highly effective marketing tool to increase pharmaceutical sales for Prozac.

Veering away from the negative aspects of orange, it turns out orange is a very hot color highly accepted among young people. Orange increases the oxygen supply to the brain producing an invigorating effect while stimulating mental energy. Team orange with a vibrant shade of pink, and you are mentally transported back to the psychedelic decade of the sixties. Hmmmmm. Orange is a stimulant...viewing the color orange gives a mental high, or at the very least produces a caffeine-like buzz. When worn with a vibrant shade of pink, orange makes you look like a hippie. Feeling groovy...make love not war...peace...cool.

It appears I haven't been completely justified in shunning the color orange. But when I see orange, it's so dang hard to get visions of pumpkins out of my head. Orange combines the energy of red and the happiness of yellow. It invokes thoughts of sunshine and the tropics. Orange symbolizes enthusiasm, fascination, happiness, creativity, determination, attraction, success, encouragement, and stimulation. Plus I found this. Some genius has developed a brief online quiz -What Color Orange Are You? Having come this far in my quest to vindicate orange I was not going to stop short. I completed the quiz. My results...I'm a true, bright orange...no variance in shade...

You Are Orange

Bright and intense, you embrace the world and all its opportunities.
Change does not intimidate you, even if it's a complete life overhaul.
You're a very real person. You aren't scared to show the world who you are.

Dare to find out...
What Color Orange Are You?

In light of my quiz results I'll bet you're asking, "Orange you glad you gave the color a chance?"

Melody embraces the thrills and chills of mothering four sons. She and her husband raised one son to the age of accountability, but the fun's not over. They adopted three more sons. The three younger boys with their zest for life promise to keep Melody busy until death...theirs or hers, whichever comes first. Visit Melody at Slurping Life.

Music Review: Alexa Ray Joel

2007-08-27T01:19:00.000-05:00

Written by John from Altjiranga Mitjina

Today’s voice to hear is probably the most famous name we’ve featured yet, but still is also one of the most unknown at the same time. Confused? It’s Alexa Ray Joel, the daughter of Billy Joel and Christie Brinkley. I have to admit when I first heard that she was trying to be a singer I wasn’t predisposed to like her, it was one of those gut things, she’s the daughter of one of the greatest singer/songwriters and most beautiful women in the world, what else does she want? You just know she’s going to be a prima donna with everything handed to her. Well, I learned that you shouldn’t jump to conclusions, because she’s nothing like that.

I saw Alexa Ray perform at the last Jazz Fest and she put on an incredible show. She has a very strong stage presence, talking inbetween the songs and making the audience feel comfortable. After the show she went to the side of the stage and stood there talking and taking pictures with every fan that came up to her. Listening to her talk she sounded very down to earth and nothing like what I would have expected. I even got a picture with her and she autographed my Jazz Fest hat.

Listening to her at Jazz Fest it is evident that her musical style is all over the place. She is willing to sing a pop song followed by a jazz number than a bluesy song to be followed by a country song. She is not going to be stuck in any specific genre. She even records a cover of a Neil Young song, the one featured for us today. The one constant in her music is the sound of the piano, which considering who’s daughter she is should be much a duh! thought.

Alexa was born January 1, 1986 and her middle name was given in honor to Ray Charles. She started to take classical piano training for a few years before moving on to a five week study program offered by the Berkley College of Music. She only lasted one year at the New York University’s Musical Program before deciding to try her skills on the open road as a performer.

You have to give her credit for not having her father pull strings for her and get her a recording contract. She has decided to hit the small clubs with her own band and build a following and get a recording contract on her own. Her first concert was at a club in Hoboken New Jersey. Afterwards she went on a tour of colleges on the east coast. Her next step was a Hard Rock tour of the East Coast. She has performed at Jazz Fest in New Orleans and the Bonnaroo Musical Festival in Tennessee.

Still not signed to any label Alexa has released an ep of music on her own. It became the first cd sold by Target that was not from a major label. Rolling Stone Magazine named her an up and coming artist in its year end issue. She’s been featured in People magazine and on the NBC Today show.

Alex is currently looking for a record label that will let her record the music she wants and not squeeze her into the style they want her to do. She is still touring and building her fan base the old fashioned way, one fan at a time. Her music is infectious, after one listen I was hooked and her ep soon became one of my favorite listens.

If you're reading this it can only mean one thing, that John from altjiranga mitjina has once again forgotten to provide a blurb after whatever it is he wrote for this issue. All he can say is that a mind is a terrible thing to waste. He'd write more but he'd just forget whatever it was he wrote.

Blog Review: The Birds and the Beads

2007-08-26T00:50:00.000-05:00

The Blog: The Birds and the Beads by Lavender

The Reviewer: Liz Medwid from ThreeBrightStars

First impressions: At first glance, The Birds and the Beads is a very girly, very artsy blog all about – you guessed it – birds and beads. The title is cleverly specific about the main topics of the blog, yet suggests adult naughtiness (generally not delivered in the content). The tagline, “It’s nice & light… so it’s fun to read,” defines the tone of the posts as well as the appropriate reader response: it’s a clever and effective technique to invite casual surfers to stay and read further.

Design: Pinks and purples signal a feminine personal blog, and if you like that, you’ll like this page. At the top of the page, the sidebars seem a little disorganized, but as you scroll down, you notice the posts are short, consistent, organized into tight paragraphs, and littered with gorgeous photographs, which, to the North American audience, are bound to have an exotic appeal. Overall, I think most of the target audience will hang out here long enough to check the content.

Content: Lavender offers advice about raising budgies and parakeets, and sells home-fired glass beadwork on a linked web page.

Although she has only been posting on Blogger since April of this year, with a total just topping 100 posts, she seems to generate significant discussion on many posts. One post hints that The Birds and the Beads gets a lot of traffic from Google and other searches on the main topics. When you delve into the posts, the content type and the page design actually diverge, in the sense that the content, being expert and business-related, could benefit from a more professional web-page design.

The rest of the content deals with photography and Lavender’s personal experiences living in Australia. A beautiful nature photograph accompanies almost every post. She does include some memes, such as Wordless Wednesdays, and in this case, they blend well enough into the rest of the photography content that they don’t detract from the overall experience of a casual surfer.

Blog writing is so often hit-and-miss that competence in this area must be mentioned: Lavender’s writing is concise, conversational, and generally error-free, which makes it a pleasant read.

Best and Worst: While the design is good enough to attract casual readers, the content actually rates an even better design. Lavender’s knowledge about birds and bead artwork provides a light and fun read, as the tagline promises, but it is also a great starting point to develop and maintain customer relations with that part of her audience wanting to take advantage of her expertise on these topics.

Improvement tips:

Improve design with a more professional color scheme. This doesn’t mean abandoning pinks altogether – but a little pink goes a long way on a page like this.
Tidy your widgets, especially at the top. The most important elements, your bead link and your profile, should appear at the top of each sidebar. Then, consider editing your other sidebar links to include the most usefulness with the least visual clutter. If possible, condense your topics list. Periodically cull some of your directory links: only maintain the ones that provide the most impact to your readership.

Blogroll worthy? Yes, for anyone who is interested in raising budgies and parakeets, and anyone who might want to collect handcrafted bead artwork.

Overall score:

Note from The Editor

2007-08-20T01:40:00.000-05:00

The fact that this weeks issue is a week late is a fine tribute to this week’s theme: Differences.

The differences between where I used to live and where I live now are huge and yet the longer I live here the less I notice them, until that is, something like a tree falling in the forest and knocking out the power and internet connection to the whole village happens.

My first reaction was one of horror. Whilst everyone else around me merely sighed, shrugged and changed their plans for the day, I was outraged.

“What do you mean the power won’t be back on until the evening? Don’t you realise I have things I need to be doing?!” Hours later, when the electricity came back on but the internet connection was still not working, I was even more outraged. Somehow being able to turn on the computer and not be able to use the internet was infinitely worse than not being able to turn it on at all.

After an hour of pacing around the house, sighing deeply, clicking the firefox icon, sighing, closing it and continuing pacing,

pace,
sigh,
click click,
sigh,
click,
sigh,
pace;

I had finally driven The Farmer nuts and I could tell from the look in his eye that I was in trouble.

When he yelled through the window for me to come outside I did so grudgingly, dragging my feet like a sulking school girl. He gave me a pair of wellies, a couple of buckets and sent me off to the bottom of the garden with strict instructions not to come back into the house until they were both full.

Four hours later I staggered home; back aching, arms bleeding, red sticky fingers clutching full buckets of strawberries and a deep sense of peace and tranquillity radiating from within.

Bemoaning the differences between here and there is all very well, but one must not forget that differences can also be good.

When the internet failed to work the next morning I simply shrugged and changed my plans and when it finally came back on line yesterday, after a week of berry picking, jam making and other rural housewife type activities the feeling was a strange mix of joy and disappointment.

Our Editor, The Farmers wife, can also be found at her blog Running in Wellies.

Two Nations

2007-08-20T01:10:00.000-05:00

Feature Post
by Around My kitchen Table

I'm a Brit so I know I'm treading on dodgy ground when I start talking about sport. The Aussies whip our asses regularly in rugby, the Kiwis whip our asses regularly in cricket, and the whole of the world whips our asses regularly in tennis, athletics and, our supposedly national game, football.

We don't mind too much; we have a culture which glorifies the "gallant loser" -

and we've had plenty of practice in that fixed "no, no it's perfectly OK that you've beaten our team (combined worth £300-million) 7-0, you part-time team of taxi drivers and plumbers" look.

For my American readers, by football I mean soccer. My friends across the pond, I understand, tend to think that soccer is a game for cissies, girls and little people under the age of 11.
Half a dozen of you may have heard of Pele and one or two of you may have heard of David Beckham, but only because he's the other half of a Spice Girl and is the new best friend of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes.

So forget about America and Britain being two nations divided by a common language (to coin a phrase from George Bernard Shaw), we are two nations divided by the shape of our balls. Yours are oval and ours are round.

Americans are under the misapprehension that there is only one type of football game which, as far as I have been able to ascertain, involves lots of men dressed in duvets, running around like rutting stags on speed trying to beat the crap out of each other. British football is based on the ability of over-paid prima donnas being able to fool a referee by falling over and feigning imminent death if an opposing player so much as looks at them funny.

Both games have their world cups. The "proper" World Cup involves teams from all over the world (the clue is in the name) - from Bolivia to Bulgaria, Nigeria to Norway and Ireland to Italy. The American World Cup, on the other hand, involves teams from, well, America. So, novel use of the word "world" there, guys.

America usually qualifies for the Proper World Cup and next time round (South Africa, 2010) I wish them the best of luck. Because when America starts doing really well on the world stage (rather than the 'my backyard' stage), maybe they will become as passionate as the rest of the world about this most beautiful of beautiful games.

This isn't what I was expecting

2007-08-20T01:04:00.000-05:00

by The Expectant Father

Oh fatherhood. It has finally arrived and how sweet and wondrous it is but...

“Waaaaaaahhhhh!!”.

Excuse me, I just have to go and see to a small, yet very loud, baby for the 50th time this morning.

Where was I? Oh yes, fatherhood, how sweet and wondrous it is but...

Whoops, someone's just been sick in their Moses basket. I'll just mop that up...

So, fatherhood sweet and wondrous it is but...

Blimey, what's that smell?

Oh dear, I only changed you 5 minutes ago. There's another dirty nappy in the eye for the environment.

Let me start again; fatherhood, is it what I expected?

I'll take you back 3 weeks, just before the tornado that is my son hit our lives with it's full force.

My wife and I were itching to finally become parents. Mrs C just wanted to not be punched and kicked from the inside any more. I wanted to start our new lives as a family. I'd spent the last 9 months thinking of us as a modern, scaled down version of the Waltons - so happy in our mountain homestead.

Yes, as the Expectant Father during pregnancy I had some very preconceived ideas about what fatherhood would be like. In quiet moments I would picture all the good times we'd have; the laughing, the playing, the cheeky grins after he's locked his Nana in the cellar.

Now, I'm not an idiot, I knew there would be hard times and some tears. I'll obviously have to tell him off every now and then - discipline is important - but I'd explain to him why he'd done wrong (“Nana's very old and she's afraid of the dark” etc.), he'd apologise and promise never to do it again. We'd hug as some heart warming and ever so slightly sentimental music plays in the background.

But mostly I focused on the good stuff.

I could see us at our first football match together and the pride I would feel as I watched him pull on his Everton shirt for the first time - “That's my boy” I'd think.

I could see him on stage as the Artful Dodger in his school play. Me wiping a tear away as he sings “I'd do anything” to the girl he's got his eye on from the lower-6th.

I could imagine my heart being wrenched from my chest as I drop him off for his first term at University (probably Oxford or Cambridge my dreams aren't too fussy) and the immense pride and satisfaction as I watch him collect his degree.

I think it's fair to say that I'd got great expectations for Peter's life.

Now, that Peter is nearly 3 weeks old, those expectations are all but out of the window. After the initial rush of excitement at being a new father (and at all the associated gifts and cards) I'm now firmly into the slog of parenting. In fact, it's such a slog at the moment that I don't have time for expectations. I'm too busy living in the real world.

Too busy putting dummy's in mouths.
Too busy cleaning up sick.
Too busy changing nappies.

And what I've discovered is that it was easy being an expectant father; being a real father is a different kettle of fish altogether. It's hard work and currently without much reward. I've discovered that newborn babies like to take but they don't really give much.

So now, when Peter does reward us with 5 minutes peace and quiet, when I can dream about those expectations, I' dream about my beautiful son giving me a smile for the first time.

Of Differences and Similarities

2007-08-20T01:02:00.000-05:00

by Keta K from Storybook

We differentiate ourSelves from others.
In ways arbitrary or concrete?

Two centuries ago it was simple:
deliniated by the rules of Society.

If one was African, or Irish
Catholic. Protestant. Or pagan.
If one spoke English, or something European.
Or not. Therefore heathen.

If heathen then exploitable,
and worthless.
In fact land itself carried more value,
than the humans working it.

If not Catholic, or worse Protestant,
deemed to have 'no God'
therefore expendable. Thus there being
no crime in using a person

for economic gain.

And today?

With no royalty, no noble class
the lines are blurred.
But for the weathly,
remain
firmly in place nonetheless.

Muted criteria and arbitrary
seperation
between 'Us' and 'Them'.
Those that have nothing,
but work for all.
And those that have all,
but work only for themselves.

We are all participants
even if not Wealthy.
By virtue of living in the
First World
and having easy access

to products of the labour
of the Very Very Poor.

Oh but it's so nice!
After a hard day's work in the city,
to have some good Chocolate
a nice Coffee
with Sugar.
In the morning
perhaps a Banana.

but a pittance from our wallet,
it costs a lifetime of work
from Some Faceless Soul
we will never see
or know.

Much less care about.

Were we to pay the true value
for these items
we consider ordinary;
those living below the equator
in the Southern Hemisphere

would not be so different,
after all
from We
ourSelves.

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Keta Kosman is Editor and Production Manager of Madison's Canadian Lumber Directory, in North Vancouver BC, Canada. When not mired down with the intricate workings of the North American lumber industry, she escapes to the beach to capture images of wild bald eagles in their daily lives.

Not Me…I’m Different

2007-08-20T01:00:00.000-05:00

by The Pawhealer

It seems to me that I am always defending my many personal differences to my friends...You see, I choose to hang out with my dog family rather than do almost anything else; and I like it that way. I guess it could be said that I am quirky, or that I could be described as somewhat "different".

Take for example the telephone conversation I had today with my friend Rebecca. First of all, she is four years older than I am, that's just enough of an age difference, so that we quite don't see things eye to eye.....Here we go:

Rebecca: "Hi Holly"

Me: "Hey Rebecca what’s going on?"

Rebecca: "Oh.... I just read your blog today" (silence)

Me: "Yea and..."

Me: "How did ya like it?"

Rebecca: "Well.....It seems like this blog thing ( not said in a complimentary tone) is a really good form of therapy for you. (silence)"

Me: (Oh brother, obviously she doesn't get it, my blogs are supposed to be clever and witty.) "Rebecca, there's all types of posts on my blog, not just the one about my mother (referring to to my blog called "Mama's Little Girl") There are all kinds of posts about my dogs and other fun stuff, have ya read em?"

Rebecca: "Yes, and I have to tell you that I'm really worried about you." (Her words are long and drawn out, as she speaks with her high pitched nasal twanged voice that always seems to annoy me.)

Me: "What are ya talking about? Why are you worried about me?"

Rebecca: "Because you don't seem at all interested in getting a man."

Me: "Rebecca, we've gone over this before, I don't feel like I need a guy. I am perfectly happy hanging out with my dogs, I love my life, it’s uncomplicated and I don't feel at all lonely. Let's do a reality check here....Lets see; I've had twenty two years of marriage, and then there was that five years of a long term relationship; Rebecca, I think I'm okay in this department; Been there and done that...."

Now the subject takes a different direction as we begin to start talking about my mother. The conversation went something like this:

"Geez, my mom is doing terrible...Her back is in really bad condition, 'cause she's now completely bent over in the shape of an L, and when she walks, she is shuffling like a little old lady."

I go onto to say:

"It’s terrible to watch your mother get old....and its even worse because she won't interact with anyone including her own family. She just stays in her house, never goes out anywhere, with only her dog for company, and she likes it that way..."

Then with an air of confidence and bravado as if I have a crystal ball looking into the future, I staunchly say;

"I'll never be like that"

Rebecca then gleefully jumps back into the conversation as if this is some kinda "Ahh Haa" gotcha type of moment; Voice cackling and with authority she says to me;

"Holly, don't you see? You're just like your mother!"

Ohh; I was utterly and totally offended at this observation! I of course then responded by offering a complete denial of the statement and then I said;

"Come on Rebecca, I am completely different from my mom, as I self righteously defended myself against such an awful allegation, the wind then began to slowly seep out of my sails."

As I was making the case that my own special dog loving ways, as well as my own particular anti-social tendencies, are indeed a much different baliwick than my mom's odd behavior; I began to notice, that my own argument did indeed seem to sound somewhat hollow; It was at that moment that a most disturbing thought dared to pass through my mind:

Wait a minute, could it be that just maybe; I'm really not so different after all?

Because when I think about it; I do sound a tad bit like my mother...

Plus I can't forget the fact (because I could hear my father's voice of the past, which was reverberating in the back of my head):

"You are your mother's daughter":

Then could it possibly really be?

That I'm really not so different after all,

Have I now become my mother?

Blog Review: The Life and Times of Gran

2007-08-20T00:45:00.000-05:00

The Blog: The Life and Times of Gran

The reviewer: Sarah from In The Trenches of Mommyhood

My latest assignment from TopBlogMag: to review a blog entitled “The Life and Times of Gran.” Great, I thought. It’s probably going to be something akin to what my own mother would write if she had a blog!

First Impression: My first impression was *yawwwwwwwwwn*. Not to be mean, but pics of the grandkids’ new school clothes (not even on the children) just didn’t lure me in. And right away my inner Grammar Police noticed an error with the word “brightens” on the right hand side introduction, although Gran warns that “this blog is far from perfection by the educational standards of writing.” She’s right.

Design: The blog is a basic Blogger template. The sparkly “Hello” in the corner is kind of distracting. Not a lot of originality here.

Content: What content? This is mostly a picture blog. There are a lot of “Photo Hunters” entries (whatever that is). Once in a while Gran gets reflective and philosophical, but those entries are few and far between.

Best and Worst:
Best: Gran definitely loves her children and grandchildren. This is evident in her writing. And I applaud her for taking the leap and starting her very own blog for “e-journaling randomly” (her words).
Worst: I’m thinking that this blog would only be interesting to the people in Gran’s life who actually know her.

Blogroll-worthy? This blog isn’t riveting by any means, so no, I wouldn’t add it to my own blogroll. But I’m sure Gran’s family loves to read it!

Rating Out of 10:
Gran is a Christian woman who loves God, her life and her family. This blog is definitely a reflection of that.

Immigrants R Us

2007-08-20T00:19:00.000-05:00

by Emma Kaufmann fromMommy Has A Headache,

Irish Immigrants arriving in the USA 1902

My husband has been out of town for the last week, and
before he left, he bunged me a load of cash, said au
revoir and left me to fend for myself. I don't mean to
imply that I am one of those followers of that weird
~~cult~~ book, The Surrendered Wife, which claims that
if a woman submits to her husband's will, her
marriage will be as fragrant as a basket of freshly
baked muffins. I just, oh God, this
is hard to say... I just don't carry credit cards,
because I am not safe with them. Giving me
credit cards would basically be like asking me to fly
a plane. Re the plane, don't be surprised if it
crashes and burns, and re the credit cards, don't be
surprised if I order a lot of lingerie, books and
expensive shampoos over the Internet. So, since I'm
not yet working (no green card), my husband doles me
out a certain amount of cash per week, and when I have
spent that, that is that. Additionally, he always goes
out and puts gas in my car, in essence, making him
more of a surrendered husband than me a surrendered
wife.

So basically, I had not put gas into my car by myself
for two years (please bear in mind that I've
only been driving for four years total). And so
yesterday, there I was, making a valiant attempt to
fill up my car, but however much I manhandled the
nozzle (no innuendo intended), no gas was forthcoming.
I simply could not remember how to do it.

Well, yes, this is a little embarrassing, I thought,
so I went into the gas station shop and talked to the
beautiful sari-clad woman behind the counter, who very
graciously offered to help me.

"You are a foreigner, from England?" she said.

"Yes."

"I think you have not been here long?"

I was going to say, "Actually it's been seven years,"
but it would have been too embarrassing to say that in
seven years I had not learnt how to pump gas, so
instead I said, "No, not long."

"You do not usually pump your own gas?" she said, as
she stuck the nozzle into my car.

"No, I don't."

"I know how you feel. Back in my country, Pakistan, I
had servants who did all that. When I came to America,
I said to my husband, 'What? You want me to fill up my
own gas tank? Are you crazy?'" She chuckled.

Oh goodness me, no. I didn't want her to think I was
some pampered little housewife who had a valet to pump
her gas for her. "I don't pump my own gas because,
well, because my husband does it for me. Not because I
have servants."

And then there was a brief moment of summing each
other up, as we tried to work out the other's social
status. I thought it was pretty obvious that back in
Pakistan, she had been of a higher social status than
me. But maybe she thought that I was of the higher
class. In any case, it mattered not a jot, because us
both being immigrants was the great class leveller.

And I thought of all the immigrants that have entered
this country, and for once I actually thought, I am
glad to be an immigrant. Because when you are a
foreigner, you are equal to all other foreigners. For
example, to some people here, I am as loathed as an
illegal Mexican immigrant (not that I am saying there
is anything wrong with Mexicans, illegal or
otherwise).

I didn't ask the woman why she had left her homeland
to come here. We all have our stories. We are all
running away from something when we come to a foreign
country, and we don't always find the welcome we
expected.

And for that moment, I felt more connected to her than
I have to any born and bred American, since I have
been in this country. It was a good feeling actually,
knowing that these were my people. That all American
immigrants, past and future, were my community.

Music Review: Lori McKenna

2007-08-19T21:28:00.000-05:00

Written by John from Altjiranga Mitjina

For once my timing is right on with this week’s voice to hear. I actually had decided on making this week’s voice Lori McKenna while I was listening to her most recent album in my car and when I went to her website to gather some information for this week’s column I discovered that her new cd Unglamorous will be released on August 14, the day after this column appears (or at least would have if Heather's internet connection hadn't gone down for the week).

You might not know who Lori is, but if you’re much of a country fan you’ve probably heard a few of her songs. Faith Hill recorded three of her songs for her most recent album, including the title song “Fireflies.” Faith says she heard Lori’s songs and fell in love with them. The other two songs Faith covers are “Stealing Kisses” and “If You Ask.” The added attention brought Lori’s last album to the attention of Warner Brothers and they re-released Bittertown on their Nashville label. Her newest album which comes out tomorrow if you’re reading this the day it pops up on the internet is produced by Tim McGraw and was recorded in Nashville with a session of studio musicians. Country singer Sara Evans has recorded the song “Bible Song” also.

Not bad for a woman who didn’t start singing until she was 27 and already married with three children. She made her professional debut at open mike nights in the clubs in Boston. At the age of 19 she married her high school sweetheart. Currently they have five children. She released her first album Paper Wings and Halos independently. A singer/songwriter friend of hers, Mary Gauthier (an upcoming Voice to Hear) gave her music to people she knew in Nashville and Lori signed a publishing deal with Harlan Howard’s music company.

Lori lives in Stoughton, Massachusetts with her husband and five children. Her husband is a plumber and she used to drive to gigs in her mini-van. Since the inclusion of her song’s on Faith’s last album Lori has appeared on Oprah and opened part of the Soul2Soul tour for Faith and Tim. (Unfortunately not the show I saw recently.) On her MySpace page she blogs about the tour and traveling the country with the two country music superstars. You can almost hear the awe in her words as she talks about things she never imagined happening to her, life on the road with two of country’s biggest stars and appearing before crowds that she never thought she would.

Lori writes about life in a small town and life as a Mother and Wife so convincingly because she lives the life she writes about. Her song are not strictly auto biographical, but she takes parts from her own life and mixes it with what she sees around her and creates songs that tell the truth of such living.

On Mandy Moore’s new album the former teen pop star was looking to become a more serious singer/songwriter and went to Lori to collaborate on three of the songs on the new album. This could be one of the voices that we hear now as a small, not well known singer that might be on the verge of breaking out into super stardom. Lori might be about to take that next step to becoming to a Star, but regardless of her status in the music field she will continue to release albums of heartfelt emotion and superb singing and that is enough.

If you're reading this it can only mean one thing, that John from altjiranga mitjina has once again forgotten to provide a blurb after whatever it is he wrote for this issue. All he can say is that a mind is a terrible thing to waste. He'd write more but he'd just forget whatever it was he wrote.

Issue 19: Note from The Editor

2007-08-06T02:45:00.000-05:00

Welcome to Issue 19 of TopBlogMag.

The sounds track to this weeks issue is Kelly Willis about whom you can read more in our Voices to Hear music review written by John from altjiranga Mitjina.

The theme for this week is Questions, a theme that many of us can relate to whether it is the constant barrage of questions from our little ones whose inquiring minds want to know everything but attention spans rarely last long enough to listen to the answer before the next question comes; the "where is my..." questions from the bigger kids and supposed grown ups who think we are responsible for finding things they have lost, or questions like the ones I find myself muttering (or shouting out loud depending on the number of times we have asked the same question in the last 20 minutes) daily, like "where the hell has my post just gone?", "why won't this stupid computer do what I tell it to?" or the ever present, even if only said in our heads "What the F@*&k?"

As some of the more observant of you may have noticed I have a new blogging name, The Farmers Wife. After the harrowing 'father finding my blog and not being particularly happy about it' episode I decided to move all of my posts and comments and set up a new blog over on Wordpress which means that this last week in the Farmers household has been spent mainly asking questions of the last kind as I set everything up, moved all the stuff to my new sidebar and spent a few frustrated hours fiddling with the Wordpress code to tweak my new blog to how I want it.

Now that it is up and running again you are all cordially invited to come for a chat over for a glass or two of wine after, of course, you have spent some time browsing through this weeks issue of TopBlogMag.

Speaking of code tweaking, I have spent some time this week developing a new template for TopBlogMag as I can't seem to fix the viewing problems in IE for this one; so if you have any ideas or suggestions, things you do or don't want to see in the next design please leave a comment letting me know.

The Farmers Wife.
Running In Wellies

Feature Post

2007-08-06T02:28:00.000-05:00

Is Sixty the New Forty?

Written by Lady MacLeod from Braveheart does the Maghreb

When I read this headline in the New York Times this week, my immediate reaction was to sit up, raise both my arms into the air and shout, "Yes!". I have been thinking it over however and I am put in mind of what Gloria Steinem said when she was told, “You don’t look thirty.”

She replied, “This is what thirty looks like now.” Perhaps this is what sixty looks like now. With a new emphasis on exercise and eating right more people are remaining very active for much longer. Sixty is not an outrageous age to begin a new career, a new romance, take up a sport, or move to a foreign country. We see actors like Bruce Willis (50’s) and Harrison Ford (60’s) star in action movies, and doing it well. Women like Catherine Deneuve (60’s) still setting fire to the big screen, give us with a smaller stage, ideas.

I am on the close side of sixty and lie about it to no one. In the past year I moved to a foreign country in which I do not speak either of the languages, and very few people speak English. I have begun a new career, and I have a romantic life as well.

Being the exception to the rule is not new to me, but in this case I don’t think it applies. My daughter’s grandmother is 75 years old and runs rings around men and women half her age. She and her husband who is the same age are presently in the Bering Sea in their sixty-four foot boat for four months – quite alone and very much capable of the physical and mental agility required for such a voyage.

The cultural permission and even encouragement, to get out and do more challenging activities as we age is contributing to a generation that is going to the barn much later than generations before, and liking it. We feel we still have much to contribute to the world at large and our own lives in particular.

One observes climbers going up Everest that are sixty and beyond, marathon runners are getting older by decades, and even baseball legends are remaining on the field long after their predecessors had gone. I think this is a trend that will continue. Who knows with the advances in medicine and research how long the life span can be extended.

This generation is also more interested in the development of a true spiritual life, not to be confused with a religious life, than their parents. There is no longer a stigma associated with meditation, yoga, and exercise that also centers the spirit such as Tai Chi.

Tales of study into the creation of human clones, growing new organs with stem cells, and the old standby of plastic surgery lend credence to the hopes of active and attractive centenarians. What was once science fiction may become the scientific truths of the near future.

I think in this day of longer and healthier lifespan we can ask ourselves the same questions we did at twenty. What do I want from this life? Who do I want to be? Do I want to coast along or have adventures, take some chances? It is easier this time ‘round I should think as we are not now encumbered with the responsibilities of parenting a young child, or starting a new career, or meeting our parents expectations. Take that trip you “always wanted to”. Learn to skydive. Flirt with a stranger. Close your eyes and point to a place on the map and then head out.

I think this is what sixty looks like and it looks damn good from here.

Lady Macleod at Braveheart does the Maghreb.
The daily tales of a western woman living in North Africa with the occasional political rant. Posting recently on heat, shopping, emergency medical care, and how to dress for a Moroccan wedding.

He Just Is.

2007-08-06T01:56:00.000-05:00

Written by BetteJo from A Bead A Day

“Sweetie I’ll be back in a minute, I need to keep an eye on the pizza.”

Y’know he didn’t even ask anything out loud. He just looked at me in horror. It took me a second and then I explained “Honey, I’m not actually putting my eye on the pizza. It just means I need to go into the kitchen to check on the pizza.” Relief flooded his face. My little literal boy was probably four-ish years old at the time.

He could read by then, which started when he was about two years old. There is something very startling about a boy that age in a diaper, actually reading. He would run from one end of the room to jump up on a chair, back down, across the room to the couch, up on that, back down again, only stopping when he would catch some text on the TV. He would stop, hopping from foot to foot never still, and would read whatever he saw.

“Oh he’s not really reading. He’s just memorized some words, or the commercials.” I got tired of saying “no, he is reading.” I would grab a magazine, a book, whatever was closest “Andy Honey, come here and tell me what this says, Sweetie.” He would stop what he was doing and look at what I was offering. And he would read it. Not always perfectly, but he would do it. And he understood it.

Hearing a pre-school teacher tell me that they didn’t think Andy would fit into their environment very well, maybe we should take him for testing, was frightening. Testing? What kind of testing. “Well” hemming and hawing, “we think he may be autistic.”

So there it was. Someone said it out loud. The precocious reading skills, the hyperactivity and the lack of eye contact, even the way he sat, were all indications that he truly was different. But autistic? There is no cure for autism! He is so smart – obviously I didn’t know anything about autism.

Having him tested just over twenty years ago, the diagnosis was hyperlexia with autistic tendencies. So what the hell did that mean?? I cried about it twice, once when I told my pediatrician the results of the testing and this tiny four foot ten inch Indian woman wrapped her arms around me and I bawled like a baby. Again that night in bed with my husbands back to me because he did not know how to comfort me. After that, we moved on.

There were no answers for anything I asked. Will he go to regular school? Will he be able to play and have friends and someday date and go to the prom and drive a car and get a job and do all the things I always thought my kids would do? Maybe, maybe not.

Oh my beautiful baby boy. So incredibly smart we never worried about his grades, mainstreamed in first grade, it was always the social skills and “normality” we worried about. He is twenty three years old now. We don’t talk about it as if he ever had any kind of diagnosis. He still learns things a bit differently than other people but he has his associate’s degree, a job, he drives a car, he has a website and moderates a second one. His sense of humor is wickedly dead on and quick and while it isn’t evident to the casual observer, he has a soft, sweet heart.

There were no answers to everything I asked. Only living, growing, learning with, and loving, my son Andy.

A Mom with two kids and a crazy amount of cats. New kid on the blogging block, selling jewelry online but more often, talking about whatever strikes me.

You can find me at http://bettejosbeadcreations.blogspot.com

Why I wish I’d Asked

2007-08-06T01:46:00.000-05:00

Written by Anthea Rowan from Reluctant Memsahib

My children’s questions – if you closed your eyes and disguised the tones of their voices so that there was absolutely nothing to give away who was saying what other than the words they spoke – are a dead give away anyway.

This is my youngest: ‘Can I make ice lollies?’

This is my beautiful angry-verging-on-womanhood middle daughter, ‘OK, whose got my bloody lipgloss?’

And my son - my eldest - tall, gawky, perpetually hungry, ‘What’s for lunch?’

All children ask questions. They start young. And ask a lot of really stupid, really irritating, really frustratingly difficult-to-answer ones.

What’s that?

It’s a rolling pin.

What’s a rolling pin?

This. The thing in my hand.

Oh. Why is it in your hand?

Because I’m going to roll out this dough and you’re going to cut it into shapes.

Why?

So we can make biscuits.

Why?

So we’ve got something nice to eat for tea.

Why?

But you have to keep trying to answer them don’t you. Even if they can’t see the point of having something nice to eat for tea themselves. Even if you can’t articulate a response that won’t just elicit another Why. Or What.

If you stop answering their questions, they’ll stop asking them and questions are how they navigate their world. Later, asking questions is what makes them nice people to know. Ask a person questions and you demonstrate an interest in them; your questions engage them. Think about people who never ask questions: they’re dull as hell.

Ever wished you hadn’t asked a question? Ever asked a question that changed your life? I have: I asked my husband to marry me. If I hadn’t, somebody else might have done. Or I might have been waiting forever.

Ever regretted not asking questions. Often. There are hundreds I ought to have asked.

Oddly the questions dry up somewhere between adolescence and your thirties. It’s because you think you know everything then. Well you do, don’t you? And by the time you’ve realized you actually know remarkably little and certainly not as much as your parents and grandparents, the opportunity to ask may have gone. Because they have.

There are a million questions I’d like to have asked my dad. He died when I was Know-It-All-Nineteen. And years later, years and years later, I found I needed answers. And they fell into a void. Why did I need answers then? Why? Because, said the kind counselor who listened to me ranting (and asking questions, of course, because recent history, and the knowledge I really didn’t know everything, had reminded me of their value) in our thirties we strive to connect with our parents. So we need answers. Is that what our three year olds are doing? Are their incessant, sometimes unanswerable, questions more than a navigational aid; are they a way to connect with us?

So I ask questions now. I ask my kids, ‘are you OK, you seem quiet?’, “I’m OK, Mum, really. Don’t nag’. And I ask my mum questions. A lot of questions. About her childhood. In India. About my grandmother. About dad.

Some people are like treasure troves. They store gems beneath tightly fitting lids which you need to prize off in order to enjoy their contents. That’s what questions do. They lever lids and draw more than just answers out of people, they yield stories, whole histories, they unwind the very fabric of a person so that you might know them better.

I think that’s why I wish I’d asked dad more questions most.

So that I might have known him better.

And could answer my children’s questions about a grandfather they never met.

Written by Anthea Rowan
Wife, mother, general dogsbody, sometime-writer living in Splendid Isolation in Africa.

Bambi Meets Warhol

2007-08-06T01:42:00.000-05:00

Written by The Good Woman from My Wee Scottish Blog

One, two three wheee!

I like to think Andy Warhol would have approved of Bambi's entrance at his exhibition in Edinburgh. But, as an artist who unashamedly was out to make money, the fact that we'd gleefully handed over the entrance fee would probably have been enough to get on his good side.

She briefly considered the portraits of Debby Harry, Liza Minnelli and James Dean and pronounced them happy (although not one had cracked a smile – such is the power of colour!). She accurately identified the entire 'Pictures for children' exhibit ('Aeroplane! Boat!, Robot!,'Doggy!') thoughtfully all hung at her eyeline. And then she spent an entire hour gently prodding at silver clouds. Literally hundreds of visitors to this exhibition now consider my daughter to be part of the installation.

And then we played together in the studio downstairs. We made stencil prints of butterflies, created dramatic tissue paper backdrops for stark black screens and made our very own time capsule with the contents of my handbag. I doubt the entire exhibition was deigned with children in mind, but children, including those of the 'inner' kind, were well catered for.

Did Bambi leave with an understanding of pop art? Probably not. But then that wasn't the point. This was an exhibition to enjoy. She experienced art and she had a brilliant time.

Later, when I showed her this portrait I made of her, she laughed and said, 'I match Andy Warhol!'. If that's not early art appreciation, I'll eat my easel!

The Good Woman is a South African expat wife, now living in Scotland. Read more of her adventures and thoughts at her wee Scottish Blog. Please drop by. She loves visitors.

News That Makes You Go "Ohh..."

2007-08-06T00:26:00.000-05:00

Brought to you by The Farmers Wife from Running In Wellies

Scientists claim a bowl of tomato soup every day can help boost fertility among men.

A new bra for men has been made by an Australian company that is designed to flatten man boobs.

70% of babies in Iran are born by caesarean section. Guess what Iranian hospitals are allowing for the first time to try to lower that figure .

Designed by Japanese toymaker Tomy, the Ombibot17u i-SOBOT is 6.5 inches (16.5 centimeters) tall and is listed by the Guinness Book of Records as the world's smallest humanoid robot.

An Italian writer decided to put his mobile phone to good use during his daily commute to and from work—by writing a book.

Wish you could get by on 3-4 hours of sleep per night? You can if you zap your brain with this electromagnet .

All links found via Clipmark

Type rest of the post here

Blog Review: Mommy Has A Headache

2007-08-05T21:14:00.000-05:00

The Blog: Mommy Has A Headache

The Reviewer: Nutmeg from Simply Nutm eg.

First Impressions: My first impressions of Mommy Has a Headache were not good. When I began reading the landing page, which consisted of about eight posts, I was actually offended. In the first few posts I read, the writer managed to deride fat people, ugly people, blacks, Hispanics, and even panda bears. Also a part of the landing page was a post in an advice column series called E-Spot in which readers write in with their sexual problems and receive advice from Emma. This particular 'letter' was from a swinging husband who didn't want his fat, ugly neighbor watching him having sex with another man on his back deck. I found it tasteless and not at all funny, but I'm a bit of a prude.

Emma and I did not start out on the best foot. Her posts also tend to be very long, and I found myself struggling to wade through the negativity.

Design: Again, the very first thing that caught my eye when I came to this site put me off. It was a request for a tip in the top left hand corner. This is something I had never seen before on a personal blog. I read many professional blogs in which you may find a small disclaimer toward the bottom that says something to the effect that if you have found this material helpful, feel free to donate to the site; but this was the first time a personal blogger had ever asked me to tuck a dollar in her garter belt. It felt wrong, because I'm cheap like that.

The rest of the design was clean and quite charming. The two-column theme with an original header and fabulous tag line (maybe it was one too many martinis) was refreshing. The left sidebar, (aside from the poll, which I find annoying,) was informative and easy to navigate.

Content: This woman can write, and she has a clearly defined voice. As a professional editor, I look for both. I found very few technical mistakes on this blog, and I read about 100 posts. After about ten or so, I could hear Emmak in my head, complete with accent. Her prose, despite the negativity and myriad references to shagging, is fluid and quite elegant. I think it helps that she's a Brit!

Let me make this perfectly clear: this is not a Mommy Blog, despite its title. There are very few references in her posts to her children or to her roll as a mother. She writes mostly about sex with an occasional post about how stupid or boring her friends' husbands are. This is a great site to visit if you are looking for a new sex toy or if you want to complain about your worst one-night-stand to a public internet audience. Emmak often asks her readers to share their own opinions and stories, which makes for a very lively comment section. She includes graphics and streams video that you would usually not want to view in the presence of children.

Reading this blog reminded me a lot of watching a Monty Python movie. I know it's supposed to be funny, and I can hear my own husband howling next to me, but I still don't get it! I started drinking beer after about twenty posts. By the thirtieth post I was smiling. By the fiftieth post I was laughing. By the eightieth post, I was considering driving to Baltimore to hang out with this chick! And by the next morning, this mommy had a headache!

Best and Worst: For me, the best part of this blog was Emma's intelligent, first-rate writing. It's a pleasure to read the way Emma puts thoughts together, even if I don't always care for the thoughts. As I continued to read Emma's content, I began to get a feel for her very dry and sarcastic sense of humor. This is one funny lady.

The downside of this blog was that after a bit, it was the same raunchy joke over and over. I also find cynicism a bit tiring after 40 or so posts. I think in smaller doses, Emmak would have a greater appeal to me.

Blogroll Worthy: I doubt Emma would feel at home in my blogroll. If your favorite comedy is Austin Powers, you might want to Blogroll Mommy Has a Headache. If your taste leans more toward Mrs. Doubtfire, you should probably take a pass. Although I probably wouldn't blogroll it, I can see myself stopping in to this blog on occasion when I'm in the mood for a little down and dirty humor.

Score:
I feel a little bad for this blogger because she got the repressed Catholic reviewer who loved Mrs. Doubtfire. Martini's just aren't my cup of tea! Nonetheless, this blogger has clearly carved out her niche; she is original and has a devoted readership. She is often very funny, if taken in small doses, and writes exceptionally well. I give this blog a 7.

Kelly Willis

2007-08-05T09:55:00.001-05:00

Written by john from Altjiranga Mitjina

I consider myself being pretty up-to-date on what new albums are coming out and when. I know when someone has something new coming out and when it’s coming out. So imagine my surprise when I went to the store a few weeks ago and saw a new album sitting on the rack by Kelly Willis. Somehow news of her upcoming album had slipped through my radar. I like being able to keep up-to-date on upcoming releases but it’s nice when I’m surprised by an album’s release. (The whole knowing so much versus being surprised is worthy of a whole column itself.)

So this long winded explanation brings me to this week’s voice to hear. Her name is Kelly Willis and she’s one of my favorite singers. (I know I probably say that about almost everyone that I present here, but it’s really true, I have a lot of favorite singers.) Kelly has a voice that expresses a longing in every word she sings.

Kelly was born in Oklahoma to a military family. She moved around the country quite a big as a child as her Father was transferred from base to base. In her teens she joined the band of her boyfriend and before long the band changed its name to Kelly Willis and the Fireballs. After graduating the band decided to move to Austin Texas and not long after the move the band broke up. In Austin Kelly attracted the notice of several well known singers such as Lyle Lovett and Nanci Griffith who ended up introducing the fledging singer to Tony Brown of MCA Records.

She was soon signed to MCA Records and her first album, Well Traveled Love, was released in 1990. MCA did a big publicity push for Kelly and the album, but it still did not do very well. The next year saw the break-up of Kelly’s marriage and the release of a new album Bang Bang. In 1993 a self titled album was released. Despite the push of MCA and good critical word none of the albums did very well.

If you're reading this it can only mean one thing, that John from altjiranga mitjina has once again forgotten to provide a blurb after whatever it is he wrote for this issue. All he can say is that a mind is a terrible thing to waste. He'd write more but he'd just forget whatever it was he wrote.

Issue 18

2007-07-30T00:12:00.000-05:00

Welcome to issue 18!

Issue 18 is packed full of good stuff so go and get yourself a cup of coffee, put you feet up and take a leisurely stroll through this weeks TopBlogMag.

As you may have noticed our layout has changed just a little and we now have the feature post of the week as a permanent element at the top of the page (Thank you Megan from Velveteen Mind for pointing out that problem - if there is anyway in any of you think I can improve TopBlogMag please don't hesitate to contact me) so that it will now show up on each and every page just like all the other entries.

This weeks feature post is an interesting article about the pressure on the prison system in The State of Hawaii written by Evelyn from Homespun Honolulu, we also bring you 2 more great themed posts from Simply Nutmeg and Thinking About.

John from Altranga Mitjina is unexpectedly back with us after a tragic and difficult week and his group of choice this week is a very interesting one, which you can here by licking (or hear by clicking, which ever works for you!) the play button on the music player below.

Omega Mum from 3kids no job is our blog reviewer this week getting her Agnostic teeth into the Christian blog Real Life.

This weeks theme: Stupidity

What Does it Take?

2007-07-30T00:00:00.000-05:00

Written by Evelyn at Homespun Honolulu

There’s no doubt that crime is a problem across the globe and it continues to increase as populations increase. What then will it take for people to see that a criminal justice system has to maintain a certain degree of reliability – has to provide a certain amount of security for its citizens? Instead of establishing anything like that, the State of Hawaii released what I would call a psychotic pervert hell bent on terrorizing young girls.

Convicted of the senseless and ruthless murder of a 17-year-old girl in 1979, Peter Bailey was sentenced to a minimum of 35 years in prison. Over time his sentence kept being shortened. He was released seven years too early and is now being held for the alleged rape of a juvenile. To top it all off, he is accused of raping her at an Assembly of God church. So, while he’s obviously hell bent on messing with our youngsters, he’s also hell bound!

Honolulu’s prosecuting attorney, Peter Carlisle, was quoted as saying, "We've got a system right now that is exerting pressure on everyone to release people,” said Carlisle during a press conference with reporters. “If you release the wrong people then somebody's going to get hurt and somebody has gotten hurt.” I have the highest respect for Mr. Carlisle but, while I agree with his statement, it still left me scratching my head.

Released because of pressure on the prison system? What?!? Is that because the prison system is overloaded? While I’m sure that it is, I wonder if that is the pressure that the prosecutor is talking about. If it is, I can understand it, but releasing a known felon back into the community is pretty risky business. It gets riskier when you release one that has been incarcerated for a senseless, violent act. Uh, I would say that Bailey was definitely one of “the wrong people!”

So, what does it take? A repeat offense enabled by releasing the wrong guy? I don’t know where the real stupidity crown goes. Is it with the offender who has gotten himself thrown back in jail, or is it with the judicial system of the State that let him loose? You can visit KHON2 News for the full story and some video coverage. Then you can tell me where the stupidity award goes!

Evelyn writes at Homespun Honolulu, trying to find the hidden charms of her city to share with readers who are tired of all the commercial hype.

topblogmag

It's all happening!

Issue 29: Opportunity is a Bird That Never Perches

You Are Here

Chance Favors Only Those Who Court Her

Jesus Toothpaste!

A Lost Opportunity

A biker, a green thumb, a cracked hand, and a Queen.

Note from the Editor.

Beautiful Risk

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes…

The inevitable, Change

Plus ça change

A Clean Sweep

Metamorphosis.

And it’s goodbye from me…

Note From the Editor

Feature Post

Oops, I Did it Again.

Confessions of a Multitasking Mom

My Uncle Jim

Catch Me If You Can

39 happy years

Music Review: Song of America

Note From The Editor

Feature Post

Anger Management

How to Achieve The 7 Deadly Sins in One Day

Lust: "Just Looking"

Superbia in the Suburbs

Beautiful Boy

Blog Review: Live.Awake

Music Review

Note From The Editor

Feature Post

Romantic Illusions

Turn and Face the Strange

Turn and Face the Stranger

Ready?

I WILL

Blog Review: The Misssy M Misssives

Note From The Editor

Feature Post

A Nation of Eclectics

How Easy We Forget

Paper, Pregnancy and the Princess

Think: Now.

What Exactly Are You Watering?

Just Yesterday

Blog Review: Thinks By Me

Music Review: Carrie Rodriquez

Note From The Editor

A Heart to Laugh With, a Hand to Hold

It's Not Easy Being Green

I'm Blue

They Call Me Mellow Yellow

Blog Review Sign Up

Orange You Glad I Didn't Say Banana?

Music Review: Alexa Ray Joel

Blog Review: The Birds and the Beads

Note from The Editor

Two Nations

This isn't what I was expecting

Of Differences and Similarities

Not Me…I’m Different

Blog Review: The Life and Times of Gran

Immigrants R Us

Music Review: Lori McKenna

Issue 19: Note from The Editor

Feature Post

He Just Is.

Why I wish I’d Asked

Bambi Meets Warhol

News That Makes You Go "Ohh..."

Blog Review: Mommy Has A Headache

Kelly Willis

Issue 18

What Does it Take?