Fabulous Miss S.

Cluttercasting: Piggybank Giveaway

When pigs fly, right?  I know!

Have your own Flying Pig!  I am giving away this (I think) bronze PIG with wings piggy-bank which also functions beautifully as a decorative doorstop.  This would be an ideal gift for any pig lover!  It's metal. It's heavy, about ten pounds.  It stands about five inches tall and is about eight inches, snout to tail.

I'm offering this pig to the world in the way of CLUTTERCASTING.

If you would like to be the next lucky owner of this fabulous little piece of artwork and decor, leave a comment telling me why you'd like to have it. 

A winner will be chosen from the comments submitted and you will be asked to pay for shipping costs.(According to the rules of Cluttercast, as detailed here.)

Submissions accepted until 9pm EST on Wednesday May 6, 2009.

Much To Your Chagrin

Silicon Valley Moms Book Club:
Much to Your Chagrin, A Memoir of Embarrassment

We've all be embarrassed a time or two, or maybe even three.  Sweat stains, asking strangers for Tampons, baby-diaper explosions that render your clothes unwearable just as you are about to board an airplane for a three-hour trip.  It happens. To us all.

Who doesn't recall saying the wrong thing on a first date, telling a joke that others found offensive or repeating something just ONE TOO MANY TIMES. 

Confessions are *IN* now that Suzanne Guillette has declared some her best gaffes.  Of course, there was the time in the seventh grade,the absolute pinnacle of self-loathing, geeky awkwardness back when my mother told me tampons were reserved for those "having intercourse and I was not to go doing that at the age of 13" (Gee, thanks Mom, it was totally THAT conversation that made me wait another FOUR AND A HALF YEARS, not my own CHOICES and BETTER JUDGMENT.) when for the second time THAT WEEK a stupid effing maxi pad LEAKED and I had the dreaded SPOT ON THE ASS. 

I have successfully repressed my most embarrassing stories which is more than I can say for Suzanne Guillette who filled her first novel, Much to Your Chagrin, A Memoir of Embarrassment with her own moments of Oops! and Oh, Shit!, and DOH!  She recovers well from those moments which is more than I can say for myself.  

Written in the second person, (ie: "You wake up and find yourself alone. You are hungry.") is perhaps the best suited for this kind of put-yourself-in-my-place type memoir but it takes the reader a few chapters to get used to the choppiness and reverse references.  Overall, it doesn't effect the story line much.

Click here to see what the other SV Moms are saying about Chagrin:

Grace in small things, 24 of 365

1. Meeting new bloggers and realizing, remembering I have a great network of friends and mothers.

2. SUNSHINE. 80 Degrees. ON A FRIDAY!!

3. Updating ALL OF MY blogs in one day. 

4. The smell of cut grass and cool air wafting in through the open windows.

5. Looking ahead to a weekend of rest and fun family activities.

Crabbycakes

When I first read what Jodifur wrote about needing a break or maybe not a break but something, and feeling that the blog was just one more unreachable chore on the to-do list, I gasped gah because I could have written it myself. 

Sometimes I wonder what I'm really getting out of this blaaawging thing.  I like the writing and the documenting. I like to entertain and make people laugh.  Negatively speaking, because, come on, we all know I do that very well, it takes time.  Time that I do not really have.  I give up sleep, television, relaxing time, exercise time, time with my husband and time with my son.  This would all be different if I made a little money from it, but, alas, I make nothing.

I have trouble with the notion of taking a break because my readership is low, dangerously low.  While no one would miss me, it would break my heart to watch my stats drop into the single digits, like they were in those first days.

I have drastically cut back on my use of Twitter.

If I didn't have this blog my evenings would not consist of surfing through free stock images trying to find the exact right image for my DC Metro Moms postings or tapping out something so that my sites don't go unupdated for too long (Ahem! Review Site).  

Then I remember that without this blog I would have TWO FRIENDS.  Two friends, also mothers, with kids Noah's age-ish.  They are not bloggers. They don't read blogs.  I don't think they know about this site.  Because of this blog I can easily, without hesitation name FIVE MORE amazing, great, talented, humorous women who have befriended me, trusted me, given me advice, support, love and friendship.  

So, I think I need to reorganize.  CLOSE THE LAPTOP for a few hours each night.  Not check my stats hourly.  Withdrawal from Twitter.  Maybe even stop watching designer jeans on Ebay.  I need to carve out some time for writing so I'm not working in bits and pieces but rather I need HOURS, dude, like, a chunk of time you know, what's that? 

Sorry for the excessive whining here ... perhaps I've just been listening to Noah for too long. 

(Sorry Noah, I love you, but some days are WHINE fests and I often just give you cheese because, ya know, WINE. Heh.)

I'm not fishing for comments about how it's okay to take a break, but I'd be curious to know how YOU manage to work in time for blogging.  Is your house filthy?  Do you wear clean underwear?  Seriously, how many hours a night do you sleep?  THOSE ARE THE ANSWERS I NEED IN MY COMMENTS.

Earth Day, everyday?

Totally in sync with the rest of my life, my Earth Day posting is getting in just under the wire.

I recycle, I reuse but I have most certainly not reduced at all.  But that isn't for lack of trying.  It's hard to siplify. I turn off lights when I leave a room and I even keep the thermostat a few degrees below the *ideal* comfort level because a sweater is cheaper than gas heat.  I combine trips in the car and avoid driving on super hot days but beyond that, I don't have much to be proud of, particularly my gross over-use of plastic bags.  I do reuse them at home for trash, counts? No?

I'm constantly trying to be a better citizen of our planet.  I want my kids to learn by doing, not by rhetoric and radical thought.  We recycle because we care not because it a law in out county.  In the next year I want my family to take a look at the products we use to clean and the items we consume in mass and consider ways to reduce our footprint. 

 This season, however, I'm stretching the bounds of townhome living further than they've ever been stretched and I'm attempting to grow a massive amount of vegetables right here in my own back yard in containers, window boxes, and inverted planters.  As we move into summer and I cook with my produce, I will write entries under the GROW YOUR OWN title.  Stay tuned for the goodness!

Here is our beginning.

Please to enjoy my lettuce, spinach, parsley, basil, bell peppers, jalapenos, tomatoes, zucchini and green beans.

And because they are pretty ....

Flowers. Eventually.

Also on the level with earthy goodness, I am using a worm composter!  Pictures of my little worms coming soon.  They are busy setting up house in the Can o' Worms composter and eating themselves silly with all the kitchen scrapes I provide them.