Addicted to Books

I’m addicted to books. I freely admit this. I have stacks and stacks of them in every room in the house. We have shelves filled with books. My bedside table has 6 books on it right now. There are more on the dresser, several in my car. Books are everywhere in my life.

It’s no wonder I’m a writer!

Several weeks ago, my husband and I went to a Valentine’s Day party where we played the “Not Quite Newlywed Game” (and came in 2nd place!). My husband had to fill in he blank for the following sentence:

My wife has more _______ than anyone I know.

I thought he’d say shoes.

Know what he put?

Books.  He was SO right!

I’m also addicted to the computer. I have my own web site, co-founded another site called The Naked Hero, write bi-monthly with The Stiletto Gang, and just launched two more sites called Books on the House and Books on the House for Kids and Teens.

What do they all have in common?

Books?  Ding ding ding...that’s right!

Of all my projects and blogging, I’m most excited about Books on the House and Books on the House for Kids and Teens. It launched on February 15th, and the response has been phenomenal! Turns out other people love books, too.

They love free books even more.

These two sites are all about building a community of readers. The goal is to bring great books to readers, and to help readers discover great books.

Every Sunday evening, a new book and author are featured. There are video interviews (our first week, we featured children’s author Jane Kurtz who talked about her upbringing in Ethiopia, her passion: Ethiopia Reads, and her new books, Lanie and Lanie’s Real Adventures, the 2010 American Girl Doll Lanie Holland books; 6 copies of her books were given away!, we’ve featured NY Times Best Seller Allison Brennan, YA author Suzanne Crowley, and now we have best selling children’s author Joan Holub!), Q & As with the authors, and more. Enter each week for a chance to win the featured book(s).

That’s all there is to it! What better way is there for a reader to discover a new-to-them -author, and what a great way for a writer to showcase their books to potential readers?

Susan McBride was the inaugural author on Books on the House.  This week, my new release, Hasta la Vista, Lola! is being featured.   I’m giving away 4 copies of  the second Lola Cruz myster.

As I said, Jane Kurtz was the inaugural author on the Kids and Teens site, and now we’re featuring Joan Holub and her books Twinkle, Star of the Week and Groundhog Weather School.  Her books are SO fun!!

I’m thrilled about Books on the House and Books on the House for Kids and Teens and the potential for the sites to really help build a community of readers. We have some fabulous authors and books lined up including:

NY Times Bestseller Jane Yolen with her new graphic novel
NY Times Bestseller Brenda Novak
Children’s author Joyce Stengel
Children’s author Debbie Dadey
and so many more!

I hope you’ll check out Books on the House and Books on the House for Kids and Teens and help build our community of readers. Tweet about it! Spread the word! Books are a good thing to be addicted to!

Tell me who your favorite authors are, both adult and children, so I can try to feature them on Books on the House!

Save the mommy, save the world

Constant mess, checkout line tantrums, ignore-mommyitis, and that dreadful babysitter biting episode aside, the Maiden is not a bad kid.  But sometimes– particularly when all the behaviors converge in the same forty-minute stretch– I get a little overwhelmed.  How can I raise her to be a productive member of society, when her devil horns are sometimes so realistic that I could hang laundry on them?

I recently read a quote that puts things into perspective:

“When I was a young man, I wanted to change the world. I found it was difficult to change the world, so I tried to change my nation. When I found I couldn’t change the nation, I began to focus on my town. I couldn’t change the town and as an older man, I tried to change my family. Now, as an old man, I realize the only thing I can change is myself, and suddenly I realize that if long ago I had changed myself, I could have made an impact on my family. My family and I could have made an impact on our town. Their impact could have changed the nation and I could indeed have changed the world.” ~Author Unknown

True indeed!  Society is made up of families; in fact, families function like miniature societies (sadly, though, we rulers can’t tax our residents.  Or can we?).  And families are made up of individuals with different needs, interests, and strengths.  Although we can raise our kids to the best of our ability, we can’t really control them any more than we can control our cities, our nations, or the world.  However, we can change ourselves.  If we want our family to go in a certain direction, maybe we’re the ones who need to start.

I can’t make the Maiden behave like a model citizen, although  I can encourage her (with positive reinforcement when she’s good, and threats of reform school when she’s bad) to behave in a certain way.  I can’t change the Man (and if I try, he tries to change me, and then we both change from happy to annoyed).

But I can change myself.  I can change my attitudes and reactions and responses.  I can change the way I deal with the people in my life.  How I choose to act and think and speak is up to me, but it’s going have an impact that reaches my family, and through them, society at large.

I can influence the direction of the world without leaving the sofa!

But for now, the world will have to wait– there’s a Maiden who needs a bedtime story.

I blame Steve Jobs…

My name is LaShawn and I am an iPhone addict.

Let’s start at the beginning. Last year my husband came into the possession of an old broken first generation iPhone. HE purchased the parts to fix it…soldered it back together. Viola!! It worked. I loved that iPhone.

I was one of those people who thought iPhone’s were really cool, but that they weren’t all that necessary. Then I got one.

Oh my!

So…this put back together iPhone died a slow and painful death. It started acting up, then with one final drop it stopped letting me make calls. Our cell phone plan allows for an upgrade in July of this year. Basically that just means I would be able to get a really cheap iPhone then. I thought…I can live without my iPhone until then. I really didn’t want to pay full price for the phone.

It lasted 3 days…

photo by Andie Smith

Making Every Day A Workout

No time to workout now that you’re a mom? Try turning every day activities in to a workout. Let me show you how to fit fitness in to your life!

• Walk – Yes you’ve heard it before but it’s true. Walking can be a workout, especially if you’re pushing a stroller or carrying a baby in a front pack carrier. Whenever possible, give yourself extra opportunities to walk to where you’re going, even if it means parking the car in the farthest parking spot from where you’re going.

• Take the stairs – I fully admit that carrying a diaper bag, a baby and even a stroller up the stairs is not going to work. But the more you carry your baby up your own home stairs (while using good posture of course), the more of a workout you will get. It’s a Stairmaster times two when you’re carrying the weight of your baby!

• Participate with your kids- Are your kids in soccer or ballet or some other physical activity? Find out if it’s ok if you walk around the field or even participate with your child rather than watching from the side lines with the other parents.

• Pick Up Those Toys – Of course we want our kids to do it, but picking up toys can be a great workout! Here’s how to do it…Stand in front of toy and bend down, lowering your bottom. Keep back and abs strong. Basically, squat down, squeeze up and pick up the next one!

• Tighten Up That Tummy – No matter where you are, no matter what you’re doing, tighten up that tummy. You can work your ab muscles when you drive, when you walk, when you pick up toys. Contract abdominal wall without holding in your breath. Imagine you’re trying to fit in to a really tight pair of jeans and if you let your tummy out, they will pop open!

Home “Gym” Workout

• Sit on a chair and place a pillow on your lap. Bend forward at the hips. Hold on to a can of soup or even a milk jug if you can do the weight and slowly raise arms. Squeeze shoulder blades together. This should focus on posterior deltoids (back of shoulders) and upper back.
• Sit on chair and do bicep curls with milk jugs. Don’t forget to put milk right back in the fridge so it doesn’t go bad! J
• Lay on back on floor. Hold a soup can in each hand and open arms wide (palms facing each other). Squeeze chest and bring arms together overhead. This exercise focuses on the pectoralis (chest) muscles. Of course, good old push ups do the trick too!
• Stand with your back against a wall in your home. Slide your body down until your legs reach a 90-degree angle. Thigh should be parallel to the ground and knees are right over your knees. Hold this position as long as you can! Work up to two minutes!
• Sit on a chair with legs about hips width apart and feet and knees facing forward. With arms in front of you, pull yourself up to a standing position. Use your glutes and thighs. Slowly squat back over chair as if you were about to sit down (but don’t really do it) and squeeze back up.

The list of exercises can go on and on. Think about traditional gym exercises and how to re-create them in your home using your environment.

The more you move, the more calories you burn. It’s consistency that counts; not where you do it. Try to be active in whatever you do. Instead of getting your car washed, do it yourself with your kids. Not only is it fun, but it’s a great workout. The same goes for cleaning the house, raking leaves, gardening and even shoveling snow!

Farrah is an instructor and Owner of Stroller Strides in Grapevine, Colleyville & Coppell.

When do you forgive and forget?

The Picture below is of me shortly after arriving at the hospital… in labor. That was 17 months ago. Time flies, and at this very moment the baby girl that was in my tummy in this picture, is now running back and forth across the living room babbling to herself on a play phone! I think she has a bad connection, because she keeps yelling “hi!… hi?…hi!!?!” into the receiver

The day this picture was taken was the best day of my life, because it brought me my sweet smelling, pink bundle of love. But there is something else about that day that leaves me with a pit in my stomach.

My husband and I had hired a birth doula to help me through my labor. I lost my mom when I was 16, and when I married my husband I moved to Texas far away from all my relatives and friends. My desire for a doula was for all usual reasons, but also because I knew in that pivotal moment of my life – I would be missing an older female to guide me. It was important to me that I have a “mother figure” with me when I got scared, or when the pain became too much for me. But, the doula that we hired to be there, took our money…and never came.

You may wonder if we did our research? We did. We interviewed several different doulas, we took notes, we made sure they were in good standing with DONA the most notable doula association, an agency that oversees doulas and certifies them, we even picked a doula that had been voted the best in our area by readers of local magazine. And we asked questions…lot’s of them. In the end they all seemed great, but I felt most drawn to the older woman, I was looking for a stand in for my own mom after all. The doula was on her way to becoming a midwife, and was a trainer to new doulas in our area. She seemed like a great choice, she seemed motherly. We paid her, and she agreed to keep the two weeks surrounding our due date free.

When I went into labor we called her right away. She advised us to go get something to eat, and to rest up. Productive labor she said, was still  far away. My water broke a short while later in the cosmetic aisle in Walgreens … so we knew our baby was on it’s way! We called the doula again, she suggested we continue stay at home as long as we could. But she kept giving us reasons she shouldn’t come to our house, help me with the labor. We were both excited and scared, and went along with what she said. We stayed home despite the fact that I had Meconium in my amniotic fluid. She advised us to not call our doctor, since he would likely say to come to the hospital, but she advised us that wasn’t necessary. But as the evening got later my husband and I both felt uncomfortable following that advice, and went to the hospital anyway. She explained that she didn’t need to meet us there yet, because “we would have so much paper work” to fill out  first. And when we called her after I was given a room – she felt it would be better for her to “nap, and then wake up later and have lot’s of coffee.” She said she would call us in a little while, and let us know she was on the way. I was in full labor, and being given Pitocin to increase the strength of my contractions all night. She never called. And she never came. I was in labor through the night, and in the morning it was finally decided I needed a C-section ASAP. My husband called the doula, and told her she had missed my labor.

After getting home from the hospital days later, my husband called the doula to see what happened. She had no explanation for why she never showed up, but did offer him a refund of the money she had taken from us. Months went by…no money. We e-mailed her, and could see she opened our e-mail, but she would not reply. Michael tried, I tried, at first saying perhaps she had misplaced our address, and later asking her why she was not responding. Eventually she e-mailed me, and acted like she didn’t know why we were asking for a refund! It was infuriating. We had a new baby at home and no time for her games. But eventually we saw we had been lied to a second time. She had no intention of following through. So we contacted DONA. I submitted a formal complaint, waited for them to get in touch with her, get her side, and then interview us both on the phone. After months of waiting, I received paper work from DONA letting me know they had found her at fault. And recommending she refund our money, and write us a letter of apology, along with other requirements. She never did. And when I let DONA know she hadn’t followed through on any of those requirements, they told me they were just “suggestions” and they could not make her do them, and that they would not be revoking her “good standing” with DONA! So if another person researches her, just like we did – they will never know her history. It remains hidden, and she can continue to do this.

My husband is a wise man, and he has often suggested that we try to forgive and forget what happened. That she was wrong, but we only poison ourselves by continuing to feel hurt by it. I understand his point of view. But I often wonder if we should continue to pursue the matter for the sake of other expectant parents who may hire this woman, and never know her history. I also wonder if letting her win, will only serve to show her that being a rotten person pays. That it’s ok for her to promise to be there for someone in a pivotal life moment, and take their money…but not respect that agreement enough to follow through. Or at the very least, to apologize if something came up, and refund their money. Not to mention her advice to stay at home when she knew we had Meconium in the amniotic fluid. That could have caused our daughter to have long term health problems had it gotten in her lungs. Which thank God it did not.

Readers, this is the abbreviated story. There are plenty of other details that eat away at me. And I feel like I need to make a decision about this – should I contact small claims court? Write the Attorney general? Or do I just walk away? I’d like to have some closure on the whole thing, but I don’t know if I’ll get it by being the “bigger person” or by standing up for myself.



Mommy Blogging 101

One weekend in the sixth month of my first pregnancy, I spent an entire weekend scrap-booking my soon-to-be-born child’s baby book. Despite a bulging belly and the need to get up and visit the ladies room every 12.4 minutes, I spent hours that weekend cutting and pasting, creating a beautiful work of art waiting to be filled with such important statistics of when baby slept through the night and the exact time and date of his first attempts of rolling over.

Then that little baby arrived.

I quickly realized I was doing good to get a shower each week. That beautifully scraped baby book collected dust on the shelf as I attempted to survive motherhood. The baby did roll over and he did (finally) sleep through the night. However, such events were recorded well after they happened. I realized I was simply too busy living motherhood to actually be able to record it.

That is, until I started blogging.

When my firstborn was three months old a friend said something about her blog. I smiled, not really knowing what a blog was. After our lunch date, I quickly went home and googled “What is a blog and how do I get one?”. I quickly discovered that mommies everywhere were banging out posts on their home computers about such important topics as Jr.’s first steps and Little Susie’s midnight feedings. Reading the tales of other moms, deep in the same parenting trenches with me, was soothing to my first-time mother’s soul. Then I decided to join them. That cute baby book I spent hours crafting sat abandoned on the shelf while I published post after post about all the highs and lows of being a mom.

Starting a mommy blog is a relatively easy process, one that most likely can be done start to finish during a productive nap time. Below are some steps that can help you create your very own Mommy blog.

1. Find a voice. Mommy blogs do not merely discuss the ins and outs of diapering a child and feeding a family. Mommy bloggers cover a variety of topics from parenting to saving money to political issues. In order to establish a blog others want to read (readership is one of the goals of a blog), one must first decide the voice that will be used. Draft a few blog posts, attempting to focus the writing on topics or subjects of personal interest.
2. Select a blog hosting site. The Internet is crawling with a variety of sites that will host a blog, many free of charge. Blogger and WordPress are two of the most popular and user-friendly blog providers. Examining a detailed comparison chart of these two hosts can aide in deciding between the two.
3. Choose a name. Give the name of a blog careful consideration. Before simply deciding on “Jo’s Journal” attempt to think of a creative title that will prick the curiosity of potential readers, wanting them to  peruse the content of the blog.
4. Consider design. Blogs come in a variety of designs, from simple free templates to expensive intricate designs. Take time to contemplate the look desired before jumping in feet first to a blog design. Remember that others will be reading the blog and attempt to make the site user-friendly and pleasing to the eye. The best thing about blog designs is that there is an array of possibilities, meaning that everyone can find something to match their personal taste.
5. Write…then write some more. The best way to enhance one’s writing abilities is to practice. Establish a goal for the blog, attempting to generate a particular number of posts each week. Although such an exercise, as with any exercise, can be difficult at first, it will eventually become easier with time.
6. Promote the blog. As mentioned earlier, one of the reasons for penning a blog is to gain readership and experience feedback via comments. List the blog at specific blog directories that match the content, leave comments on other blogs and tweet about recent posts.

Almost nine hundred posts and 4.5 years later, I am still blogging.

And that cutely crafted baby book is still sitting on a bookshelf in my house, waiting for the day that I fill its pages.

Do you have a mommy blog? Leave a comment telling why you choose to blog and a link to your site.

History Repeats Itself

History Repeats Itself

When I was in first grade, I went to a Catholic school where we had to wear uniforms every day. One precious day a year, all the kids were allowed to wear whatever they wanted for the grandest day of all…picture day. One boy? Got to wear a turtle neck and LOVE BEADS . He was totally the coolest 6 year old in all of 1971. But not me, nope….my mom put me in an itchy green dress with an ugly scarf to go with it. I did have some pretty rockin’ white patent boots though so it offset my otherwise middle aged attire just a little bit…but not much. It didn’t help that I was sort of a chubby kid with no athletic skills that people picked on.

I got to school on picture day and after enduring an awful lot of laughter over my stylish dress green polyester frock, I looked around and realized all the “popular girls” had bangs while I did not. My mom prided herself on not having given in to cutting my bangs despite my begging her…I had long wavy brown hair that she could do all sorts of things with to make me look even more like a middle aged 70’s housewife. (And not that there is anything wrong with housewives, but honestly, do any of you want to look like your Mom did then? Hip and cool were so not in vogue then in middle America…)

Well, I showed her a thing or two. Everyone, please meet Stiletto Mini, the 6 year old version of The Stiletto Mom.

See those crooked bangs? Yep, those were clipped by yours truly in Sister Mary Catherine Francis Angelica Margaret Elizabeth Anne Catherine’s (because you can’t have too many Catherine’s) class with a pair of little kid safety scissors. Look at that uneven line…but more importantly, look at that evil gleam in my eyes. VICTORY! I may be dressed all wrong but man…I showed her….I totally jacked my hair 5 minutes before pictures…take that! Also? While it looks like I have a missing tooth? I don’t…it’s a SPIT GAP. Ok, so let’s put all this together, chubby kid, dressed like a 1970’s polyester wearing forty year old, uncool hair plus spit gap equals??? You got it, six year old meltdown with safety scissors. Granted, it could look worse but there was a good four minutes spent trying to make them appear even for the picture with tremendous amounts of nun spit and I believe Elmer’s Glue…though I can’t be sure.

When my Mom came to pick me up that day, the nun stoically marched me out to the car and handed me over to my horrified Mother. I’m not sure, but I think they could hear her scream all the way up in Oklahoma, “OH HOLY MOTHER OF GOD AND ALL THAT IS HOLY!!!! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO YOUR HAIR????” And what did I say? “I fixthed it Mommy.”

So when Oklahoma heard these very words come out of my mouth some 37 years later this weekend, they should not have been surprised. None of this should be a shock to me either because Miss G is a carbon copy of me. (Wanna know what she looks like? The picture above, with blonde hair….evil gleam in eye is the same)

Keeping in mind that Miss G’s circumstances are totally different…she has a the tiniest bit of a spit gap, is very fit, wears super cool clothes and is generally popular, the thing I learned this weekend is bad hair happens to all of us.

Apparently, it went down like this. She had a headband and put it in her hair. Her hair, however, did not want to cooperate and would not form the perfect swoopy on her forehead. So doing what any logical 6 year old girl birthed by me would do…she got out the scissors and went to town. While she did not create the full bangs like I did, she managed to take a huge chunk of hair out of the middle of her face and elected not to tell me but to tuck it into the headband (you know, because I’d never figure it out right?)

Well I did figure it out. While I was on the phone with my cousin (who knew my mother all too well) all of a sudden Oklahoma heard from a crazed Catholic Mom from Texas one more time…“OH HOLY MOTHER OF GOD AND ALL THAT IS HOLY!!!! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO YOUR HAIR????” And what she say? “I fixthed it Mommy.”

Well, of course you did. And now, Miss G, you have bangs just like Mommy did in first grade. You enjoy growing those out honey.

Supermarket Spa

Who Needs a Massage When there’s a Grocery Aisle to Roam?

I recently spent 10 cold minutes huddled over a freezer full of turkeys probably left over from last Thanksgiving, agonizing over the merits of a 12- versus 18-pound bird.

I’d had my heart set on a 15-pound one, and choosing anything else was one more difficult decision at the end of a long day. Eighteen seemed so big; 12, so small. Which to choose?

My thoughts began to wander. Why on earth am I even buying a turkey after the holidays are over? Better still, why am I here at 9 p.m. instead of curled up on the couch with a mug of hot cocoa and the phone book open to “Pizza”?

The answer: I’m obsessed with grocery shopping.

I love comparing prices, carrying a grocery list and pen, thinking about menus, checking ingredient lists to see whether items contain anything my daughter is allergic to, and reading celebrity magazines while waiting at the checkout.

I still love shopping for clothes, shoes, and handbags, like normal people, but lately it seems that I get more enjoyment from pushing a cart around a grocery store. My first thought? I need a life! But then I began to realize just why grocery shopping has become my new favorite form of relaxation.

It makes me feel important

At home, I’m mom, and the cook—and a writer, but only when everyone’s asleep. But in the grocery store, I’m a woman with a purpose, carrying a list, expertly comparing unit prices and deftly transferring cans to my cart. My decisions will affect the future of the world—or at least, of the coming week’s menu!

It makes decision-making easy

Or easier. I’m the queen of indecision, and the clothing racks are where I particularly shine. At the grocery store, I’ll still spend far too long trying to decide between romaine and leaf lettuce. But at least there, the choices are refreshingly fewer than at the mall, where the possible combinations of sleeves, buttons, collars, necklines, and cuffs seems infinite. In the grocery aisle, there are only four types of lettuce available, and the color choice is easy: green.

There’s less guilt

We all secretly make the occasional splurge, a spontaneous purchase that we don’t need. Because the jar of fire-roasted red peppers is so much cheaper than that overpriced handbag, I don’t have to guilt myself too much when I sneak it into the cart. After all, I’m shopping for the family, right?

There’s no mirror

We’ve all had those depressing days at the mall, when nothing looks flattering, the mirror makes us look large and small in all the wrong places, and properly fitting jeans don’t seem to exist. It’s never a problem in the bread aisle, though.

It’s efficient

Trying on clothes and standing in denial in front of the mirror take time. Tossing spaghetti into the cart does not. Period.

You can take the family, if you want

It’s certainly simpler to take my two-year-old daughter to the grocery store than to the mall, and we do it often. In fact, I have been known to let her push the cart around the store on a rainy day when her only other game of choice is tearing apart the house.

However, I especially love grocery shopping alone—without having to rein in my family from the aisles of tantalizing but overpriced snacks, or without a child who insists on pushing the cart into the displays, starting conversations with shady strangers, and licking the meat freezer. It definitely cramps my style. How can I catch up on the latest antics of Brangelina’s kids while my own offspring is next to me screaming blue murder to be let out of the cart?

It’s open late

If it’s been one of those days, you can still head out for some retail therapy after the kids are finally in bed.

After ridiculously long reflection on turkey, bargain meats, and the Zen of grocery shopping, I ended up choosing the 18-pound bird. There really wasn’t a right or wrong decision (although the decision to make turkey dinner in mid-January might be questioned when we’re still working through the leftovers in April).

All that mattered was the relaxing time I spent in my new favorite hangout: the grocery store.

Behold! The Power of Two

Trials of Motherhood

I don’t know exactly how it started, but when Rhett was 2, he started associating gum with medicine.

When his older brothers ask for gum and I agree, Rhett starts pleading for medicine. I am sure at some point in the history of Rhett I must have doled out Tylenol for teething pain in the same hour that his brothers received gum. For some reason the connection stuck.

Really stuck.

Rhett has always had a complex about how mean I am for now allowing him gum at his tender age. In his mind he is five…so what is the big deal? I think that his revenge is this medicine plea which quite honestly may require my mental institutionalization in the near future.

This is a sample conversation. Please remember the child was 2:

Brothers: Mom can we have gum?

Me: yes.

Rhett: Gum?

Me: No.

Medicine?

No.

My mouth hurt. Medicine?

No.

My toe hurt. Medicine?

No.

My arm hurt. Medicine?

No sweetie, I am not giving you medicine today.

I fell at Target (points to head). Medicine?

No. We didn’t go to Target today.

I fell at Peter Piper Pizza (points to toe). Medicine?

No. We haven’t been to Peter Piper Pizza for a month.

I fell at Chuckeee-Cheeeeeee (points all over). Medicine?

No. I told you that I am not giving you medicine today. You are fine.

Ryan hit me (big blue eyes looking up with tears pooling). Medicine?

No. Your brothers are in the other room. No one hit you.

Reid kick me (lower lip trembles). Medicine?

NO! Rhett, your brothers haven’t hurt you. I repeat. I am not giving you medicine. For any reason. Anytime today. None.

*pause*

Gum?

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