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In Case You Missed It, 8.20.2011

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Aug 212011

This was a crazy week. BigBrother started Kindergarten and we have apparently all survived. Despite the craziness, I still managed to read some great pieces on the web.

Here are a few of my favorites:

Two great pieces on racism: Parenting Tip – Open Up by Soulseeds and Parenting Challenges: Race, Color, Identity and the Need to Belong by Christy at QuirkyFusion. Both amazing pieces to read about race and family and parenting, even if you think that you don’t need to be concerned with such topics — because you do.

Just Another Night by The Kitchen Witch. I dare you to not be moved by this poignant post about aging, love and the compassion we can have for others. I cried just now, reading it for the third time. It is an amazing and powerful piece of writing.

I Support My School.. My Way… With Music by Greeblemonkey. Now that’s a school fundraiser I’d go to. But awesome music aside, it is so encouraging to see so many people willing to come together for the good of our kids’ education. High fives to Aimee and all who were involved: You inspire the rest of us to do more, be better.

About as Real as It Gets by Mandy at She Breathes Deeply, a blog I discovered earlier this summer and have fallen in love with for many reasons. This post, however, could have been written by me after BigBrother was born. I still grapple with my perfectionism, as I think many of us do. This was just a beautiful, raw piece.

I Won’t Photograph Ugly People by Jen McKen Photography. Read it, especially if you have teens online. She refused to take the senior portraits of a group of girls when she came across their hateful speech and postings on Facebook. I applaud this photographer as a photographer myself, as a girl who was bullied in high school, as a woman and as a mother.

In case you missed me elsewhere this week:

I wrote about the Guatemala kidnapping-adoption cluster on BlogHer

On Chronicles:

I wrote about postpartum depression clinics and relinquishment issues and how it gives me hope for our future;

I freaked out about school and adoption issues from the birth parent side of things.

And, lastly, my favorite picture from the week (other than, you know, these or these):

Here’s hoping for another week of survival!

In Case You Missed It, August 14th

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Aug 142011

I haven’t been able to do a weekly round-up post for months because of our crazy summer schedule. I thought I would give it a whirl again in a slightly different fashion. Just a few favorites (as before it was too many for me to keep up with!) and some links to stuff I wrote elsewhere this week.

An important post at Welcome to My Brain about both organ and bone marrow donation. Are you an organ donor? Are you on the marrow registry? Think about it; and think about how you’d want other people to be if it was someone in your family who needed bone marrow.

If you have fond memories of the 90′s, you need to read this post at House of Prince about Woodstock ’94. Complete with awesome 90′s pictures.

I really resonated with this post by zchamu about fear and BlogHer ’11. Not about BlogHer itself, but about writing and being and existing as I am. My favorite line:

“My entire life, I have been afraid of everything. Doing something wrong. Doing something right. Having it all be my fault. Having nothing to do with it being my fault whatsoever, but knowing if I had been involved then whatever went wrong would have by definition been my fault, so somehow magically shifting it in my brain to having me take the blame anyway. Saying the wrong thing. Being Too Dramatic. Being too goofy. Being too emotional. Being altogether too ME, which somewhere along the line became a Highly Objectionable thing, at least as far as I was concerned, and as far as those around me were concerned as well, or at least that’s what I believed.

And god, it’s tiring.”

A cute post on It’s not like a cat that involves police officers, firefighter helmets, overturned coffee tables and memories of a mother.

Rachel at A Southern Fairytale made me kind of weepy with her let me be enough post. I pray that everyday.

TW wrote a beautiful post about love and pie in honor of Jennifer Perillo’s husband Mikey. We’re making ours today. Don’t delay in making a pie — or whatever it is that you do — for your loved ones. You never know when it will be too late.

And if you’re considering starting your own blog, you need to read these tips for starting one by Musings of a Housewife.

As for me, here’s what I wrote elsewhere:

I shared what I learned about parenting at BlogHer ’11 at BlogHer.

I wrote four posts at The Chronicles of Munchkin Land this week:
- About the Hallmark card I sent to Munchkin from BlogHer ’11;
- About the card Robin Plemmons gave us at the Aiming Low party that made my day;
- About how I’m a bit overwhelmed at the speed of life as of late;
- And I shared a story of BigBrother sharing about his sister for the first time.
Also, I’m behind on telling you about book reviews due to my summer travels. So, here:

What Happened to Goodbye by Sarah Dessen is a great YA novel. I related to the frequent changing-of-names that Mclean went through as she tried to figure out who she was. I think it’s a pretty safe novel for tweens and teens. And adults! WOO!

The Beach Trees by Karen White gave me a new perspective on running away from problems. It’s kind of a mystery, kind of a romance and very deeply about rebuilding life after Katrina — and other life tragedies. I really recommend this one.

The Kid by Sapphire was, as most people have said, a hard read. I enjoyed it in the way that you enjoy a thought-provoking, hard-look at life type of a book. It also made me delve too far into the “what if’s” of my life, and once I let go of those, I was able to read without issue. My recommendation: Read after you’ve sorted through your personal issues with your therapist. Whoops?

And, because I can, my favorite photo I snapped this week.

I hope you had a great week. I also hope to do this again next Sunday as we now seem to be home until, well, PodCamp Pittsburgh, which really is still kinda “home” for me. So it doesn’t count! We’re home until October!

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