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The War on Girly
Recently, in a conversation with my daughter’s sister’s mother (trust me, this is not the most confusing relationship you can get when you adopt), I made the comment that if I had had control over the situation, there would be a lot less Barbie in my daughter’s life. But, she arrived at my house with a number of Barbies and a love of playing with them, so, short of taking away some of her favorite toys for no reason beyond the fact that I am not a huge fan, I had no control in the matter. I do not hate Barbie. I just think there are better toys out there,…
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Quantity vs Quality
I recently attended a training on Liberating Structures. These are simple tools that can be used in meetings/large group events to accomplish more in less time. One of the Liberating Structures is called Wicked Questions. These are questions you ask that seem contradictory. For me, the Wicked Question as it relates to this blog is “How can I maintain a semi-regular posting schedule so that there is new content for the readers while still only publishing posts that I believe are interesting to my audience and of the quality that I want?” I realize that this may not seem like that difficult to others, but as someone who previously blogged…
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House Hunting for Fun
So even though we are happily in our house, I still love looking at houses. And this weekend, a house literally just down the street from us had an open house, so we popped in. Neighborhood House: $405,000, 3 bedrooms, 2.25 bathrooms (1 full, 1 half, 1 three-quarter), 1,860sqft, 8,063 sqft lot, 2 car garage The Good: The house has a nice large, one level, fully fenced back yard. There are some holes in the fence here and there, but those are easily fixed. It has a true two car garage with some extra storage space. The downstairs is finished, but not so finished that you could not do something…
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Learning Lessons from Being Wrong
Every once in a while, I realize exactly how lucky Pop Tart is to have C. I do not mean in a way that she is lucky to have been adopted (because if she were truly lucky, she never would have ended up in the foster system to begin with). I mean that there is C to balance me out. I am the bad parent. I am the unsympathetic parent. I am the parent who does not naturally react in the way her therapist thinks we should, because it goes against my grain. Tonight, C kicked me out of the house. I was planning on going out to write anyway,…
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Sacrificing a Dream
Not too long ago, Elle Décor published a personal essay from a woman who said she and her husband sacrificed having a third child in order to have their dream home. The article received a lot of back lash. And while my opinion is that they chose NOT to sacrifice their dream home/her ability to be a stay at home parent to have a third child, the point of this post is not to bash this woman further. She and her husband made a difficult choice. To her, it feels like she has given up something important, even if that something was just a dream, in order to have something…
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Book Review: Wonder by R.J. Palacio
When I was searching for books to read, I came across this great review of Wonder by R J Palacio from my friend Jana at JanaSays. Jana and I do not always share the same taste in books, but I trust her opinion enough that if she says everyone should read a book, I should probably read it. And when it comes to Wonder, I have to say, I agree with her. Wonder is the story of August, and his first year in “regular” school, after being home schooled kindergarten through 4th grade. Oh, and Auggie, as he is known, happens to have a facial deformity. He is not disabled,…
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Book Review: SEVENEVES by Neal Stephenson
On some levels, I am still processing Neal Stephenson’s Seveneves, despite the fact that I finished it almost a week ago, and have read another book and a half (granted much shorter books than Seveneves) since then. I think this is because I have, in essence, two different reactions. Reaction one is the simplest. Stephenson remains a wonderful story teller. And the story of the survival of humans after a disaster that should have destroyed the entire species is one fitting to the scope of his talents. (Readme, on the other hand, while a very long book, felt like too small a story, no matter how great the characters were.)…
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I Think I am Having a Mid-Life Crisis
I think I am having a mid-life crisis, perhaps an early mid-life crisis, as I am still a few months away from turning 40, but one none the less. I have noticed recently that I seem to have a strong desire for something, anything, new in my life – 2nd child, 3rd dog, new car… Now, before anyone panics, let me say very clearly that I am perfectly happy both with my husband and my job. Those parts of my life, I do not want to change. Outside of those two things, though. it is like I am looking to fill some sort of gap with something new, reminiscent of…
