Health, showers, friends and other joys

Dealing with pregnancy fatigue and still dealing with a head cold (week three -- this bug has stamina!), I have an embarrassing amount of e-mails to respond to and an obscene number of posts in my reader that I couldn't possibly catch up on. I haven't been on Twitter in about a week. I had great plans for the Ultimate Blog Party including daily visits to the chat room I set up and additional giveaways (Jodifur won the Mothers & Children book). But they went the way of good intentions.

Despite my sorry physical state, I'm thankful for good general health -- for me and my family. Sometimes, I think being sick really makes you appreciate your health.

I appreciate being able to take a shower. For some reason, it occurred to me this week that I'm fortunate because my simple, quick shower routine is probably like a spa treatment to many people in the world.

I'm thankful for my real-life friends and mom posse, and also for my blog buddies. They -- you -- really prop me up.

I'm relieved every time someone greets me and doesn't comment on my expanding body size.

These are just some of the simple joys I discovered this week.

There's a party going on right here

Hey. I heard there was a little party going on.

OK, a it's a pretty big weeklong party. Online. I think online parties are a tricky thing because you don't have the same, um, interpersonal dynamic. But the good thing is you don't have to worry about how to break the ice. Nope, you just jump right in. And it doesn't matter what you're wearing. It's totally come-as-you-are. When you're ready to leave, you don't have to come up with an awkward excuse to go.

So, welcome to my little corner of the party! If you're a regular, thanks for putting up with my insanity.

If you're stopping by here for the first time, thanks for the visit. I'm the mom of a toddler with a baby due in June. I keep a running list of expectant bloggers. (Wanna add yourself?) I write a style post on Wednesdays. Sometimes I'm sentimental. But sometimes I'm not.

I've set up a chat room for the duration of the party. Please stop by! I may or may not be around, but maybe you'll find others. If you come and chat, please leave the link to your blog so everyone can check it out! I will try to visit everyone who comes to the chat room and leaves a link, even if it's after your visit.

If this was a real-world party, everyone would get free drinks. Or a goody bag of some kind to take home. You know, some swag. I have a giveaway, but only one person can win, unfortunately. Today, I posted a review of a beautiful photo book by National Geographic, Mothers & Children, which just came out this week. Want to win it? Please read the review and come back here to comment. To make it interesting, comment on the most extraordinary thing your mother did for you, the best advice she gave you -- or on what you hope your children will learn from you. I'll randomly select a winner next Friday.

Have fun trolling the party circuit this week -- hope you'll stop by the chat room.

Getting ready for some fun

There's a little weeklong event coming up this week you've probably heard about. Please come back here tomorrow for the Ultimate Blog Party! I'll have a giveaway. There are also lots of other giveaways going on. I'm also going to have a chatroom open. I'll have all the details tomorrow!

Santa's lap, being drunk and other stories

I realized yesterday there are only 20 days until Thanksgiving! This is a perfect time to do Metropolitan Mama Stephanie's meme of posting seven things about you and holidays. Thanks for tagging me!

1. Some of you know my real name, and that's why sometimes I like to call them the Hollydays instead of the holidays. I can be cheesy like that.

2. I was born during this time of year, as my name suggests. So most of the time, I can't remember if a gift someone gave me a while back was for my birthday or for Christmas. And no wonder -- sometimes they're even the same gift!

3. The first time I remember sitting on Santa's lap, I was four years old. And I seriously freaked out! I didn't want to have anything to do with Santa. I didn't sit on Santa's lap again until I was 16 and with a group of friends at the mall doing some Christmas shopping together, and they wanted to have their picture taken with him. Against my better judgment, I went along with them. I'm not sure Santa enjoyed having a bunch of teenagers sitting on his lap -- or maybe he did, which makes it worse, now that I think about it.... I will never make Fly take a picture with Santa.

4. My parents divorced when I was little, so while growing up, I got to celebrate most holidays and birthdays twice. That was probably the only perk of that arrangement. Now, I am happy to celebrate the holidays just once. Mostly because I really don't need to gain twice the weight!

5. Have you ever been drunk on music? I have. The first time I experienced it was while singing at a candlelight Christmas Eve service. Mesmerizing....

6. I can't eat sweet potatoes. They kind of make me gag. But someone in my family makes a sweet potato casserole that I just can't get enough of. Go figure. When it comes to holiday meals, within my family, I'm known for my stuffing. But all I do is take Stove Top and add things to it. Too bad I can't be recognized for something more difficult and harder to cook!

7. In college, I was a waitress and loved working on New Year's Eve because of the happy atmosphere and the great tips. Later, JP and I used to host a New Year's Day brunch, which I loved cooking and having everyone over for. It rivaled Thanksgiving in the amount of food we served. Lately, though, we've taken New Year's Day to visit a national park or wildlife refuge. There are hardly any crowds!

Feel free to do the holiday meme if you like!

I'm a big wiener

First, I'm a big wiener for not posting as usual. I have just had no inspiration -- not for posting, not for reading blogs, not for doing craft projects -- none. Lately, I just want to veg. And sleep. I hope the dry spell will be over soon.

I'm also a big wiener winner because I won two giveaways! Stephanie at Adventures in Babywearing hosted a contest for a winter-themed plate designed and signed by Danny Seo and also the book Squeaky Green, the Method guide to detoxing your home, during last week's Bloggy Giveaways, and I won! I also won $50 from Tiny Revolutionary through Mrs. Mogul's new site, Mogul Baby! Thank you mahvelous bloggers and companies so much! I feel so lucky to win two fun, great contests.

What do you do when you need inspiration for blogging?

List of funny

Back in March, I took a blogging break. During that time, I declared that writing here and reading other blogs would only continue if it was fun. (And I changed the About Me profile. See? "A mama needs to have more fun.")

Now, blogging has gotten waaaay more fun because the ROFL Awards are back!



The fine Oh, The Joys and Chicky Chicky Baby stepped up to the task of organizing the nominations and spreading the laughter across this here Interweb.

I nominated Jenny The Bloggess' post The Fruit Test because this is the kind of thing that would happen to me. Only, if I wrote about it, my post would be all sad and whiny rather than hysterically funny. You must click over and read it if you weren't one of the 212 people who already did! Also, check out Oh, The Joys and Chicky Chicky Baby for the full list of funny!

A Tubby post

This blog has sunk to amazing new lows. I'm about to ramble about Teletubbies. If you don't want to read it, please scroll down and watch my video. Or don't. Thanks!

I've mentioned before that Fly loves Teletubbies.

I didn't mean for it to happen. It was an accident. One afternoon when he wouldn't sleep, I sat down in frustration and turned on PBS, for lack of anything better in mind to do with a cranky, non-sleeping child. Teletubbies happened to be on, and he laughed and jumped in glee like I had never seen him do before.

Huh? My kid loves Teletubbies?!

(My friend Guinevere said if I gave Fly a Teletubbies-themed birthday party, she would mock us for all eternity. But she didn't have to worry.)

Since then, I have seen enough Teletubbies to write a thesis on them. But don't worry -- I won't write the whole thing here. Basically, I believe there are four of them because personality type experts say there are four basic personality types, which the Teletubbies personify. There are two boys (Tinky Winky and Dipsy) and two girls (Laa Laa and Po). Tinky Winky and Laa Laa display more feminine traits; Dipsy and Po are portrayed as more masculine. They live together in a Uptopian community, but they don't have parents -- which is distressing -- anyway.... I'm still working on my thesis. But you get the idea. Or not.

It doesn't matter whether you get it, because after all, it is just Teletubbies, and they have gone off the air where we live as of three weeks ago, and who cares what I think anyway?

Because it's I See What You're Saying Day (which I have probably failed already by writing so much), here is a video for your entertainment.



I think I'm ready to enter the Sundance Film Festival now.

Family Circus Olympics

What's your favorite event in your own family's Family Circus Olympics?

Fear of weird plants and other stories

Maternal Mirth tagged me for a meme to list six unspectacular things about myself. We haven't known each other online for long, but she already knows me well enough to know I will have no problem reveling in my unspectacularness.

Let's see....

1. I have a bad habit of biting my left forefinger knuckle when I'm sitting and thinking. Seriously. I don't know where this came from. It's only been since Fly was born. I actually have a callous on that finger from the biting. Beautiful.

2. There are still wedding gifts JP and I haven't taken out of the boxes. We got married 13 years ago.

3. I have a fear of weird-looking plants. Bizzarobotanicaphobia? When JP and I (used to) hike, whenever we'd come across a plant I didn't know and that looked weird, I could swear my heart stopped beating for a second and I'd do a little jump before slowly backing away from the crazy-looking thing.

4. I am greatly annoyed I still have bad melasma on my face, which was supposed to lighten up/go away after Fly was born. That's what I get for going to the Bahamas on my baby moon.

5. Since Fly, I've gotten really bad about writing thank-you notes. I forget for weeks or even months. JP's parents went on vacation this spring and brought back some nice souvenirs for us, and I never thanked them in written, postal mail-able form (as I'm sure they expect).

6. As a kid, I once convinced a friend's classmate I had two birthdays just because I knew she was the gullible type. I also told her the older kids not only had to learn cursive writing, but cursive numbers, too.

I'm supposed to tag six people, but my meme MO is to open it up to anyone who wants to do the meme. If you do, let me know!

These are the days

Looking back at pictures and videos of Fly as a little baby, I get this woozy feeling that I didn't appreciate his little-babyness as I should have, that I missed out somehow. Maybe I was too busy taking care of him to enjoy him fully, I wonder. That makes me a little sad -- almost as though I lost a part of him.

But I am enjoying Fly now. And I hope two years from now, I won't look back, and think and feel I missed out on this time in Fly's life. Every day, I hold this munchkin-sized creature and try to savor everything that he is, in that moment.

This week, a friend and I are attempting to seize these moments with our kids and squeeze out the last bit of summer before school starts on Monday (for her). Today, we went to watch airplanes and to explore a beach we'd never been to. Tomorrow and the next day are surprise places she doesn't know about. Friday, we plan on going to the zoo. There is also a movie night and Pampered Chef party at her house thrown in for good measure. We are taking the bread and sopping up the broth the spoon can't reach -- a summer that's good to the last drop.

- - - - -

These are days you'll remember.
Never before and never since, I promise,
will the whole world be warm as this.
And as you feel it, you'll know
it's true that you are blessed and lucky.
It's true that you are touched by something
that will grow and bloom in you.

These are days you'll remember.
When May is rushing over you
with desire to be part of the miracles you see in every hour.
You'll know
it's true that you are blessed and lucky.
It's true that you are touched by something
that will grow and bloom in you.

These are days.

These are the days you might fill with laughter until you break.
These days you might feel a shaft of light make its way across your face.
And when you do you'll know how it was meant to be.
See the signs and know their meaning.
It's true, you'll know how it was meant to be.
Hear the signs and know they're speaking to you, to you.
--10,000 Maniacs

From my head, to my fingers, to the blogosphere and back again

I am probably the last person in the blogosphere to know about Wordle.

Here is my Wordle.

More non-BlogHer fun

Come on over and chat any time this weekend at the Second Annual Growing A Life I'm Not Going to BlogHer Chat. Hope to see you non-BlogHer-attending folks! With any luck, you'll find others in the chat room at the same time when you click on over.

I had a great chat earlier today with Guinevere, Gremlin Wrangler, Awesome Mom, Much More Than a Mom and Heather from Cool Zebras. (I hope I didn't forget anyone!) Maybe I'll catch more of you tomorrow or Sunday.

Also, I just found out Robin at Pensieve is hosting not just a chat, but a whole non-BlogHer party called BlogHop '08. Robin suggests writing a post to include your favorite party recipes, the best posts you've written or even a party favor (giveaway). Because I found out about this party only 2.8 seconds ago, I'm completely unprepared. A party?! Here?! But I didn't even clean house!

Nonetheless, here are five of my favorite posts, at least as I thought in January, when I posted a meme featuring such:

1. A baby's parting gift. Babyhood, toddlerhood, mamahood.

2. Weekend camping trip, Or, Lovebug orgy fest. This is what happens when you go camping with friends during lovebug season.

3. Where are you, Jamie Lynn Drury? Making friends, or not.

4. The greatest of these is love. Just love.

5. My dad can beat up your dad. For all those competitive fathers.

We may not all be at BlogHer (sniff sniff), but we can still hang out and have fun!

Please come to the I'm Not Going to BlogHer Chat

Tomorrow is the first day of BlogHer, and I will have the Second Annual Growing A Life I'm Not Going to BlogHer Chat (Sagaling-TBC, it turns out). I will leave the chat room open all day, so when you get a chance, please pop in and see who else is there and not going to BlogHer! I will try to be in the chat room whenever I can. We may not be in San Francisco this weekend, but we can still talk about blogging, or babies, or just have a little virtual party.

Just go here: Sagaling-TBC. That's our chat room. Feel free to tell your bloggy friends. The more, the -- you know....

Also, for more I'm-not-there fun, tonight at 8 pm Pacific time, the BlogHer People's Party is having a real-time chat and video here.

And there's a whole day of events tomorrow at BlogHer in Second Life, for those who are so inclined.

Hope to chat with you tomorrow!

Just phoning it in?

For the past week, I've gone without my usual hijinks partner, Guinevere, while she spends time with her family. Fly and I have had to try to have some fun without her and Lance, Fly's best little buddy. It's been hard, though.


Friends don't let friends near husbands with cameras


O how I miss my friend

While friendless, a funny thing has happened: Fly and I have found three new fun things to do that we might not have discovered if we hadn't been swimming in their pool while they're gone had to rely on our peeps' good will to hang out with us. And I can't wait to surprise them with these fun new places.

This only serves to make me ask whether I'm trying too hard to entertain Fly, or not trying hard enough when it comes to my friends!

Not that I'm calling anyone a cat....

Hey, I have a guest post at Jodifur today! When the cat's on vacation, the mice will, uh, staycation. Click on over for a little fun!

How do you judge Wonder Woman?

Guess what?! Michelle at Scribbit has announced her July Write-Away Contest, and asked me to be the judge this month! Whoa! I've never been the judge of anything before. This is going to be so much fun! And probably very hard to pick a winner.

All you have to do is write a post on this month's topic, Wonder Woman, and send Scribbit the link by July 16. The winner gets a Zune MP3 player from Best Buy! Even if you don't win, you might get an honorable mention as I once did in Scribbit's Write-Away contest and be able to place the cool Write-Away badge of honor on your blog.

You're all Wonder Women, so you should have no problem writing a great post for the contest. Get those fingers typing.

A-Starbucking I will go

Jodi at Jodilightful recently celebrated her 100th blog post and had a contest to give away a Starbucks gift card. Guess who won? C'est moi! Thank you, Jodi. Click on over to see pictures of her three adorable girls.

Kidvid

The right way to do adult music with children's programming:



And the wrong, not-for-the-easily-offended (but still sorta funny) way:

Looking at myself

Stephanie at Adventures in Babywearing is doing a self-portrait-in-your-sunshade-mirror meme, and I figured what the hey. I'm not sure why mine came out so small. But Stephanie, I agree -- sunshade mirror do make you look great!

You say tomato, I say what?

Have you taken a good look at the fresh vegetables being sold lately?



When you pick out produce, do you touch it, or smell it . . . .



Have you ever come nose to nose with your salad?

Genetically modified foods are really beginning to worry me . . . .