I have always had a challenge with getting myself ready on time to leave so that I won’t be late upon arrival. I am not often a late person but the whole “get up really early and do what you have to” never worked well for me. Instead, as much as I hated being frazzled, I seemed to excel with the whole concept of getting up too late, getting sidetracked by something shiny, jumping in and out of the shower, cursing my very thick hair for taking so long to dry, pulling on pants while shoving a bagel down my throat, and then running out the door with a cloud of debris flying behind me. Still, I was usually at least on time, if not early.

Then I had kids and oh my lord. Time shifts in strange ways when you have kids.

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Okay everyone, it’s time to de-lurk for a minute because I need to discuss something. Are you using a feed reader to read my site? If so, I would love to know which one. What made you choose that particular reader over another? I see in my referral stats that people are most often using Google Reader, Bloglines, or Livejournal’s syndication. I’m sure there are others that just aren’t showing up.

I’ve long resisted readers. The reason for that is that I like to see everyone’s designs and sidebars and whatnot. I can’t see someone’s flickr photos unless I also subscribe to that particular RSS too. I don’t get to see someone’s new layout unless they specifically mention it and I click over. By visiting each site separately via my blogroll I can see all those things, I can see new buttons and doo-hickeys that they’ve added to their sidebars, and I get the full experience.

On the other hand, enough people mention that they’re using one feed reader or another that I’m starting to wonder if I’m missing out on something. I wonder if maybe it would be faster to read things through feeds because I wouldn’t have to click through and wait for things to load.

What are the pros and cons of using a reader for your favorite blogs? Do you still take the time to comment on entries or is it too much hassle to bother clicking through for that? Does it speed up the time it takes to read all the blogs you want to read? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

I can not stop laughing about this blog I just discovered, called Bridehood Revisited: The decline of civilization at $250 a plate. Written anonymously (for the sake of still being able to work) by a wedding planner, it’s a look at the utter insanity of bridezillas and the strange need to have ridiculously overblown and overpriced weddings. I have laughed out loud more than once.

If you’ve been dying to go to BlogHer this year but couldn’t afford all the costs, try to take part in this Friday’s Parent Bloggers Network Blog Blast. The topic is “Where does my time go?” and you can post it at any time on Friday, June 8th. Up for grabs is a two-day pass worth over $200 for the BlogHer conference.

I’ll be playing along but even if I win the pass I can’t go because I looked – just for fun – at the airfare from Montreal to Chicago round-trip and holy crap is it expensive, plus I’d still have to pay for accommodations and food, so there’s just no way. Maybe next year they can have BlogHer up here!

Some of my strongest high school memories revolve around lunch time. And why wouldn’t they? As a teenager I only cared about remembering the school-based things for as long as I needed them until an exam was done and then I could file it away. Lunch time though, well that was a whole hour to socialize!

I remember the funny things like the occasional food fight or when someone would drop their fully loaded tray in the middle of the cafeteria (which is only funny when it’s not you and thank goodness I never did it). I remember sad moments like fights with friends (god we were all so dramatic back then; hell hath no fury like a drama queen teen scorned) or crying because so-and-so liked some other girl and never even looked my way.

And I remember the occasional embarrassing moment.

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Holy crap, why didn’t anyone ever tell me that there is an entire blog devoted to handbags and purses?! Did I ever mention I am a purse ho? Seriously, even though I haven’t been able to buy one for a couple of years, I still have tons of them in my cupboard. I try to pack them to give away to the Salvation Army and then I panic a bit and put them back in my cupboard. I alternate between them every couple of weeks. When I pass the handbag aisle in stores I slow down, drool a little bit, and mumble stuff about the mothership calling me home. Addict, yes I am. If I was rich I would need a whole walk-in closet for all my purses. This site will make me lose hours and hours out of my days. Excuse me, I must go browse now, and perhaps stroke the pictures lovingly.

George and I have an interesting history. We “hooked up” (as they say in the hip young lingo) when we worked at the studio together. We started a relationship in between song recordings and press kit designs. We stayed late at the office listening to music that had been recorded during the day (and uh, making out a lot). Long story short, we were already in a relationship for almost a month before we had our first date. Continue reading →

When I’m in bathroom, often Breanna will grab the roll of toilet paper and tear a square or two off the roll. Then she smiles at me and reaches behind her and pretends to wipe her bum. Which is cute!

And then she wads it up a bit in her hand, looks at it, and holds it up to her face and pretends to blow her nose with it before she either tosses it in the garbage pail or forces it between my butt and the seat so that she can get it in the toilet.

Clearly, although we are still miles away from using the potty, we first need to work on the concept of basic hygiene.

I can use all the help I can get in my endless quest to get organized.

No, really. I’m not trying to be rude. You should get a hobby!

Everyone has a hobby of some sort, whether they use that actual term or not. But if your only hobby is watching television in the evening, you might want to see if you can find something else to do that will bring you a less passive form of enjoyment. If you’re looking for a way to fill up some of your free time with something fun, I was asked to review a complimentary copy of Get a Hobby!” by Tina Barseghian, and I can tell you right now that it is a great resource manual if you feel like you want to do *something* but don’t know exactly what that might be.

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