Introducing Justin

It is just over a year since I handed in my resignation. Of course, it took a little longer for me to actual leave, but still we’re heading up on a year, and what a year. Sometimes, I do miss the students I worked with. Mostly it was young adults just starting out, figuring out what they’re passionate about and pursuing those dreams. I got to help, just a little, but still.

I love running into my old students. Hearing what they’re up to and where they’re going. A few months ago I ran into Justin at a large warehouse store where he was stocking up on healthy foods. I was stocking up on healthy foods too, and not so healthy foods. We got to talking. He graduated this past year. His plan, to bike across the country, practically coast to coast. Why? To raise funds for the Make A Wish Foundation. Oh, and by bike I don’t mean motorbike, I mean road bike. Anyway, I’ve been reading along on his travels via his blog, Wish from Coast to Coast, and he is hysterical. I mean, the guy can tell a tale.

My phone was at 9% total battery life and my laptop was completely powerless… just as I was feeling. LIGHT BULB. I needed food yet didn’t want to move. Papa John’s delivery baby, directly to my tent! I used the last bit of charge on my cell phone to request a large cheese pizza and a Vitamin Water. The young lady at the other end of the phone paused for some time when I told her I was in a tent at Parrish Park and that I would be near the soccer goal to meet the driver.

The kid is smart, funny and good hearted, I promise fabulous travel tales of a lovely young man on his bike making friends as he helps kids in need. So go on, head over and say hi to Justin. See if he has been to your state. Help make a wish come true by donating to Make A Wish Foundation on his site. And please share.

Justin

Justin, I nicked your picture hope that is okay.

BlogLove X

Yep, it is about time again. It has been a while. It is a Thursday Friday and well I can’t hold needles right now, the book I’m reading is too big and the percocet makes me a little too groggy so I’m housebound with only one hand to type with. I should do away with all these superfluous words. I present to you BlogLove X. After several months away I’ve recently stumbled upon a number of blogs I want to share.

First up in the BlogLove Arizona category : Home is a Four-Letter Word

From Gillian's Blog. I hope it was okay to take.

I stumbled across Gillian’s blog about her adventures in home improvement  a couple of weeks ago when she sent an email that was then copied to all the kid’s parents at Bean’s preschool, and within the signature on that email was her blog. Wahoo! Thinks I. I don’t know this lady other than sweating together during Zumba a couple of times, and seeing her drop her offspring off at school, but that makes us tight right? She has a fabulous accent and I suspect a canny sense of humor. Wait, that should be humour. I was right. She may have inspired me enough to threaten Green that I will put the shelves up in the guest room myself  once this sling is off if he doesn’t get to it first. On that note I think we may have married twins separated at birth

Hubby: Dab hand at anything associated with DIY (the guy even designed and made our bed and kitchen table) and probably right when he says he can do a better job than any contractor. But he’s lacking in time and, apparently motivation. He’s a procrastinator and a perfectionist who takes so long when he does tackle a job, that fashions have changed, coastlines have eroded and several Presidents have come and gone in the meantime.

minus the bed and kitchen table add beerzebo and chicken palace, and I  actually think Green has motivation, but his time is very limited.
Anyway, check it out. Hopefully, Gillian doesn’t think I’m a complete weirdo more of a complete weirdo than she already suspects by linking to her here.

Adoption Blog: Adoption in the City -My experience as a new birthmother in New York

As you may have suspected I’ve really been struggling with the adoption thing enough that I haven’t done crap. And then I read something that gets me thinking again. Racilous of Adoption in the City is a thirty year old woman who made the incredibly hard decision to place her son J. for adoption within an open adoption with M & P. She talks frankly about the experience, her love for J., and where she is at now. Racilous writes beautiful, heartfelt words. Today’s post is about the process of picking the potential adoptive parents. Every PAP should read this, and for that matter every adoption agency staff member.

Miscellaneous Bloglove – Tales from the Hood Always good for a slam dunk of reality, this blog is the “rants, raves, and a few confessions about humanitarian aid work…from some of the worst neighborhoods in the global village.” This post is going out tonight for my favorite aid worker R who is in Indonesian. Miss you darlin’. It also goes out for a completely different reason to all those who wonder why I look askance when you suggest that I make pillowcase dresses for little girls in Africa or buy a pair of TOMS. I’m just not convinced that really is the best use of my time or money. Lets talk about other ways okay? This post is for you.

BlogLove IX

Oh, feeling the BlogLove today, but just sharing in two categories:

Local Arizona blog
Lindsey aka Otto’s Mom blogs at Tidsbits Parenting and is the lady that came up to me at a Crafternoon event to ask if I wrote Grow family. Grow! Lindsey, honey you read too many blogs! Just saying.
Lindsey is a social media queen, she is over on Twitter and on Facebook being witty, and light and funny just like she is in real life AND she lives here in Tucson.

Miscellaneous
I’ll be honest, I have a total internet crush on Emily of Little House on the Southern Prairie. I’m a wannabe Emily, see check it out:
career-questioning, minimalism-seeking, gardening, earth-saving, pregnancy, parenthood, and my pathological ability to make the same mistakes over and over again.
Yeah, I crossed out the pregnancy and the making the same mistakes over and over again as I don’t want to do either of those things.

BlogLove VIII

This is my first week I’m not working. At least, not working outside the home. I feel a few years younger I swear. I don’t seem to have got much done this week, but I’m still looking for my pace in this new environment.

Without further ado, BlogLove VIII

Local Arizona Blog – The Burrow by Ashleigh Burrow. I admit that I spend a not insignificant part of my time reading Ashleigh’s Blog wondering just what age she is. Yes, she has grown children, but I’m old enough to have grown kids too. It is just given the nature of human biology I can say for a fact that I don’t. Wow, no idea where that came from. Mostly, I read The Burrow for Ashleigh’s insight on everything from matters of the heart, parenting and family, explorations of intellect pursuits , local and national politics and of course Tucson. As with the Arizona Writer (who needs to post more) Ashleigh can turn a phrase beautifully and I long to be able to write which such grace and, of course, grammatical correctness.

Adoption Blog – Parenthood Path
Yes, we’re still talking about adoption and I’m still reading about experiences of adoption from the adoptee, first mother and adoptive parent perspective. Kristin of Parenthood Path, along with Bobby and the Mama have given me incredible support and I am very grateful. Kristin’s most recent post touches on one of the egregious aspects of adoption in this country, the birth certificate. Did you know that about adoption? How does your state handle the birth certificates of adopted children?

Miscellaneous Blog Love – Civil Eats
I discovered this blog recently and it is a wealth of information about where and how are food comes to us. They address issues that might be a little uncomfortable for us as we complain about the price of hand-picked fruit; opportunities to be local and sustainable and food politics. Read it. Tell me what you think.

BlogLove VII

I’m really loving the shortening of daylight right now. Actually, that isn’t quite accurate, what I’m really loving is that the later sunrise means that Bean is waking at a semi-decent time, 6:45am Wahoooooooooo! The temperatures have just dipped in Tucson in the past week or so, and if I was elsewhere in the country I’d be sharing pictures of pretty red leaves, children wrapped up in lovingly homemade sweaters, or a bowl of steaming soup. Alright, in my fantasy life I would be anyway. I’m here though, and so I’m going to share a picture of what I won’t be knitting for Green this year.

My mother-in-law picked up these three Make-It-Yourself books at the thrift store she volunteers at up in Northern NE. There are some cool things in it, but this man cardi isn’t one of them.

Okay BlogLove VII.
This week I am not short of local blogs to share, but I have to pick just one. Today’s local Arizona blog to send some love to: The Sweetness of Doing Nothing from Leah.

Part of what I love about local blogs is seeing the area from another’s perspective. In Leah’s case she is a transplant from Oregon, a state I dream about moving to. She has the whole Etsy thing going on too. Check out this great post about the history of aprons. I’d be all over her aprons if it wasn’t for the obscene amount of fabric in our home, some of which was bought specifically for the purpose of making aprons. Leah, how about selling that pattern on Etsy as a downloadable PDF? I’d be all over that.

Adoption Blog –Rage Against the Minivan
Today I can’t find the ‘about’ page for this blog, but what I roughly remember is, that she was an agnostic/republican that is now a christian/democrat. I’ve just found this blog, but I’m kind a digging it.

Miscellaneous Blog – Okay this is a bit of a different choice, ACAA Food Stamp Challenge Blog. I stumbled upon this while reading the Diaper Bank of Southern Arizona’s new Facebook page

The Arizona Community Action Association are just wrapping up a challenge where participants limit their total food budget to the weekly budget of a typical food stamp participant, $30. The participants get to share their experience on the blog.

We’re going to have to cut back once my income disappears, but eek! This would be tough. I admit I’m happy that the week challenge is over just as I’m finding the blog, I’m not sure I have the gumption for such a challenge. The information on the site though is fabulous, and watching the experience of the participants enlightening. Then, I think about how on earth actual families using Food Stamps would even begin to pay for diapers and my head just begins to hurt. Some of the personal accounts on the homepage are rather amusing, but a quick look over at the facts about SNAP & Hunger in AZ page are sobering. One in five Arizonan children live in poverty. So wrong.

BlogLove VI

Ah well, I never said I was perfect. Lets just say the BlogLove is going to be a semi-regular occurrence, but hey did you see the new spiffy page, BlogLove Arizona. Yes, that is right I’m coalescing all that great Arizona Bloglove onto one page so you don’t have to sift through mounds those whopping six posts called BlogLove to get to that link you saw once. OK, I admit it. I wanted to see what adding a page would look like.

Without further ado,

1. Local Arizona Blog –Tucson Food Dude This is another of those bizarre occurrences where you’re chugging along (or in this case checking out Twitter) and you stumble across a cool local blog AND then you realize you know the blogger. Kevin and I worked in the same area years back, which is completely different subject matter than his very fabulous food blog that is a must read for anyone seeking to venture out into the culinary Tucson night.  That isn’t to say Tucson is a dark abyss when it comes to gastronomic delights, far from it, unless you’re talking fish or tomatoes, but I’ve been spoiled.

2. Adoption Blog – ReadingWritingLiving is a blog about parenting, justice, on being an adoptee, adoptee rights (Did you know that adoptees in our state do not have the right to view their own original birth certificate?) and life. Susan is fierce. She is also a lifetime WW member so she has me beat on the control of food issues.

3. Miscellaneous –  I’m part of what feels some times to be a fairly exclusive club, except unfortunately it isn’t as exclusive as I’d like. I’d like to keep all you guys out of it. That’s right, bugger off. This is my club and I’d like out too, but only in a positive manner. My Heart Sisters is a fabulous blog written by Carolyn Thomas addressing the number one killer of women in the US, not breast cancer, heart disease. Carolyn and I belong to the society of women victorious over heart disease. (Victors? Survivors? Muddling throughers? I’m not sure the best term.) Given the state of affairs in our home the past few months, the following posts have been particularly apt. Now, before you run off thinking “Ahhh, yes poor Tepary. Her of the cardiac arrest.” Lets go back to that figure, #1 killer of women: heart disease. Often misdiagnosed or ignored in women, heart disease doesn’t only show up in the over 50, XY caucasian crowd. Oh no, heart disease is all about equal opportunities and sometimes it even plays favorites. It is a real piece of work like that. My Heart Sisters applies to you, whether you’re XX or XY. For those of you who don’t know me IRL, I was 28, in fabulous shape (130 pounds), active, no drugs, never smoked, and relatively okay on the alcohol consumption (the choice in men is a whole ‘nother story).  Go on, go check it out.

Oh and happy birthday to my awesome father-in-law. Your gift is held captive on my knitting needles. It will be ready before you get down here.

Grandpa and Bean earlier this year.

BlogLove V

Admit it, you didn’t think I could keep it up did you? Alright, maybe you had faith, but I did not. I’m not sure that I have enough blogs in my reader to keep going for a terribly long time. I’d love to hear from any one who actually reads my drivel. What are your favorite local blogs? Adoption blogs? Science blogs?

For BlogLove V in the category of local Arizona blog, I present to you Arizona Writer. Now this is someone who actually makes a living writing about science, nature and travel.
Kimberly, please don’t cringe too much as you read my blog. I was never taught how to diagram a sentence, and I get mixed up about adverbs and adjectives. Apparently, I’m too lazy to learn now.
In Kimberly’s blog she writes about nature and family and it makes me laugh, or smile, or sometimes just nod and sympathize. There are some pretty spiffy photographs on her site too, although I’m kind of digging the pencil and paper images. She is funny, irreverent and she doesn’t post enough, or maybe she posts enough that I’m always really pleased to see her posts.

Adoption Blog – The first adoption blog I really read, and then read again and again, and again was Peter’s Cross Station.
I interacted with Shannon a little (my guess is she has no idea who I am) within an online community a few years back. She was blogging here then. This site and the still earlier Waiting for Nat blog are great mines of information to get you thinking about what families look like, adoption, transracial adoption. She is sharp, she is insightful and she has her head screwed on right. When it comes to issues of ethics in adoption it is Shannon and several of the others mentioned previously in this spot that get me thinking. Most importantly though, Shannon and her partner Cole are moms to the very lovely, Nat and Selina.

Have you ever stumbled across someone’s blog and thought, ‘Hmmmm this sounds familiar? Wait! This is so and so.’ Well, the blogger in this week’s BlogLove Miscellaneous Category, is The Dragonfly Woman aka my awesome aquatic entomology TA. I didn’t know it was her until I hit the About page. The Dragonfly Woman shares her obsession with insects in a way that is relevant and accessible. A better read than my old ento texts, nicer pictures too, you don’t have to be a scientist to appreciate this blog, just willing to fall deeply and passionately in love with insects. Okay, maybe not deeply and passionately, but at least harbor some reverence for our animal cousins of the insect variety. Check out this post about click beetles, unless you’re more into reading about entomophagy.

Share some of your favs in the comments would you?

BlogLove IV

T.I.R.E.D. So tired. Twenty five hours of traveling with a 3.5 year old who doesn’t go to sleep easily on a plane is not my idea of a good time, nor is the way to recover to go into work then next day, albeit at noon, after said child woke at 1am and stayed awake until 9:30am. This morning she woke around 3am.

Given my lack of sleep it is with no further ado I present BlogLove IV –

1. Local Arizona Blog Blog for Arizona is a great political blog that takes a long hard look at all sorts of political antics in Arizona and they have lots to look at. I’m not sure I always agree, but to answer a comment that ended up in the spam filter, something along the lines “Admit it, you voted for Obama”, more evidence that I am a left wing liberal whose politics is way to the left of Obama. Yes, I voted for him, but if it was between him and Raul Grijalva I’d be voting for Raul.

2. Adoption Blog – Those Two Daddies. Bobby is fraking hilarious. The blog documents the path traveled by Bobby and his partner Greg in the adoption and now parenting of their daughter, the very lovely Sabrina. Many blogs, especially adoption blogs, make multiple references to their faith and belief in a supernatural higher being, it can be a little daunting for the humanist/atheists among us, we are in the minority. Bobby’s blog lets me know you can have humor, political savvy, atheism, and be part of a same-sex couple while adopting and parenting in what may be one of the most right wing areas of the country. I’m planning on inviting myself over when we make it up to the Phoenix area. I’ll bring chocolate and wine Bobby!

3. Miscellaneous Blog – Science-Based Parenting
As referred to in the adoption blog category, being an atheist mama who blogs can feel a little isolating. The secular humanism view of the world does impact my parenting and yet I feel hesitant to mention it out in public. I can still hear the involuntary gasp of horror echoing when I responded that we were both atheists to a question at a baby shower about religious leanings. There are a few (emphasis on few) blogs out there actively addressing the atheist, secular humanist, science geek parents audience. I dig Science-based parenting. Check out this old post.

Bloglove III

Dear God, two weeks in a row and I’m actually on top of this. Alright, I admit I almost forgot today, but I have an excuse! We’re in the Netherlands visiting the fabulous Fishboy, J.and Baby A.

Tonight J and I have been biking and drinking. It was lovely. Pictures to follow of the Netherlands. Right now? Bloglove III.

1. In the category numero uno, Local Arizona Blog, I present to you Little Homestead in the Desert by Kappachi.

Kappachi and I met in SAS fabrics down on Speedway. We were both digging through the jumbled boxes of scraps to find the cool stuff. Luckily, she had the beautiful baby Sofia with her so I didn’t attempt to wrestle her to the ground for that decent piece of Amy Butler, or whatever it was that she had in her hands. We got talking, as you do, and the rest is history. I’ve been enjoying insights into her life ever since. I must admit, I’m a wee bit intimidated by her suburban homesteading prowess! I’m not sure I could go all out like Kappachi does, but I am impressed and like to take some inspiration. Check out these homemade corn tortillas, I think even I could manage that.

2. Adoption Blog This Woman’s Work
Dawn stopped by early on here and shared words of great wisdom. Dawn and her husband have two children Noah and Maddie. Maddie was brought into their family through an open, domestic adoption. Dawn writes about their family’s experience as well as larger adoption issues. She doesn’t shy away from uncomfortable topics. She is also the owner and operator of Open Adoption Support, a social networking site for families and individuals who support openness in adoption.

3. Miscellaneous BlogLove
I did mention there might be a strong bent toward science in this category, right? Check this out, Not So Humble Pie does a Science Cookie Roundup every so often. I want science cookies. Actually, I’m not fussy. I’ll eat pretty much any cookies, but these do look mighty tasty. Not so Humble Pie is a biological anthropologist which is enough to give me an instant crush on her.

BlogLove II

I know, only one post in between, but who really cares if I post once a week or once a month? I don’t think you sit on the edge of your chairs waiting with baited breath. Alright mum, maybe you do, but we’re with you right now so that doesn’t count.

Before we hit the BlogLove, I want to show you that not only did I stir the pot, but I also wrote the labels

Forget domestic diva, I’m a domestic goddess. Those of you who know my home can now get off the floor and stop laughing. It isn’t that funny.

I’m not just sitting on my arse and eating digestives, homemade pie and the like I actually accompanied my mum for a 6 mile walk this morning. She does this twice a bloody day. No wonder she is in great shape. Anyway, we got the pretty horse picture in.

BlogLove I
It was great to find out one of my favorite Arizona bloggers actually checks in here occasionally. Kimberly of Arizona Writer left a comment. I also really appreciated Chantelle and Cyndi leaving a couple of names of blogs to check out and I am of Statistically Impossible taking the BlogLove idea and sharing it along on his blog. Please feel free to share some of the blogs you love, be they local to you, adoption or something that fits in that weeks type of miscellaneous category or if like commenter Tammy of agrigirl you fall into those groups yourself, introduce yourself. I’m planning on adding a page just for Arizona Blogs that I dig.

Alright, this week’s BlogLove or BlogLove II
1. The Local (AZ) Blog
This weeks Local AZ Blog is a shout out to TucsonMama. I must share that I’m TucsonMama’s sidekick and so I very occasionally post on there, but not enough not to share this. TucsonMama is a great resource for Tucson parents. Obviously, I also like her bent on life, the stories and the articles she picks out to read too. If you haven’t checked it out already you should.

2. Adoption Blog
Whether you’ve ever given a second thought to adoption or not, please go check out The Chronicles of Munchkin Land this week. The Chronicles are written by a mother of three children, including her daughter who she placed for adoption. It isn’t always easy reading, but it always strikes me as honest and I like that. As a potential adoptive parent reading insights from those who have placed children for adoption, as well as people who are adopted is important. The post I link to above is about the absolutely disgusting behavior of the Adoption Network Legal Center. They’re not an official agency, but some other form of adoption industry. The Chronicles really highlight why we, we as a country, need national adoption reform. I need to write more that this, but not today.

3. Miscellaneous BlogLove
This might be a little intense for some, but Skeptical Science is an awesome resource for both understanding climate change and larger critical nature of science issues. It floats my boat anyway, although I actually have to pay attention as I read it. They had a great guest post recently about the importance of the peer review method. Sigh. Science geekdom.