Live and Let Di

Why Haven't You Written?

My friend Vicky just shared her new blog with me, Mom of Merrill Manor. Her decision to write, the quality of her writing and the diversity of her subject matter inspired me to get my fingers back to the keyboard, writing something more than once a week and more than 420 characters long. (That's the space limit on Facebook statuses...you can find me here for those.)

For the past 2+ years, I have been writing a weekly blog for the Raleigh News & Observer's TriangleMom2Mom page. I love it and it does give me some structure having a weekly deadline instead of this blog's "whenever I feel like it" deadline. But, I am somewhat topically limited since I have to make my posts at least remotely related to motherhood. I'm proud of my work there, love my editor and love the other bloggers. We get lots of traffic, so I know I'm being read. Plus, we just started up a Book Club and we're fiddling with it to see how it goes, who is interested, what kinds of books we should choose, etc. This month, we are reading Celia Rivenbark's We're Just Like You, Only Prettier: Confessions of a Tarnished Southern Belle. What is REALLY cool is that Celia Rivenbark is somewhat of a local here and has participated in the discussion, once referring to me as "the fabulous Di." I told my friends they could just call me TFD.

I'm hoping to use some self-imposed structure to get this old site back up and running and reconnect with some readers with whom I've lost touch. Here I can explore riveting subjects such as:

OMG...you are seriously going to be able to PAY SOMEONE your part of the lunch tab just by touching phones.

The pretend stock portfolio I am going to start with my pretend $10,000.

Why I'm going to watch Oprah today.

How Facebook may have sucked the life out of my writing.

So, tune in...and if you don't hear from me for a few days, get on me...don't let me get away with it! No excuses.

Di

How to embarrass your kids

Embarrass is one of those words that I have to look up every time I use it. The two double-letters just confuse me.

Embarrassing your children is an innate skill that actualizes when your kids become teenagers. It's surprisingly effortless as most parents can tell you. I remember embarrassing my son once when I took out my laptop while waiting in the orthodontist's office.

Do you think my son will be embarrassed by what we posted on the billboard we paid for to sponsor his baseball team?

Go to PhotoFunia. You will have so much fun. Thanks to Karen from verbatim for unknowingly granting me permission to shamelessly steal this idea from her blog.

Di

Tired of Dealing with Morons?

I rage about the despicable quality of service in our country, oh, about every three weeks or so. I have often posited that if every organization in our country had the quality of service of Apple and Starbucks, it would be a MUCH better place...AND, who knows, maybe our economy wouldn't suck as bad as it does.

Finally, there is a somewhat passive-aggressive solution to my retail raging...trust me on this.

I'll Take a Case, Please

Would this face lie to you?

 

That's not me, by the way, but the person to whom I am linking you!

Di

And now, introducing...

As a veteran blogger, 2nd 5,492,832nd only to...well, I can't really name them all...I feel it is my duty to give a boost to new bloggers who are trying to build their readership to the 78 or so readers I get each day. So, in combination with my recent fawningly positive review of Wishful Drinking, I would like to introduce:

Carrie Fisher

Carrie probably doesn't know it yet, but she is my soul sister. Yes, we are so much alike that it's scary. Except for the fact that when she and I were in our teens, I was hanging with my friends drinking warm beer from Matt's Beer Balls and she was starring in a revolutionary and now iconic movie. (We both made questionable hairstyle choices at the time.) Oh, and her mother is Debbie Reynolds. And she was smoking pot with Harrison Ford when I was...yup, back to the warm beer.

When I heard that she was going to start a blog, I hoped that it wouldn't be just another self-serving, ghost-written celebrity blog used to promote her latest book. What a pleasant surprise! It's not!

Here at Live and Let Di, you can read about the silly exploits of Marcy, Kim, Pilar, Tony, etc., at the Cantina. On Carrie's site you can read about the silly exploits at one of her recent parties...only her friends are people like Sean Penn, Ewan McGregor, Gus Van Sant and Bruce Cohen. And, like Kim, proprietress of the Cantina, her door is open to the random people who drop in unannounced, like Mick Jagger and Paris Hilton.

And Carrie doesn't think she's too cool to accept comments! Take that Dooce!

So, my loyal readers, let's give Carrie a big welcome to the blog world (don't you kind of hate the "word" blogosphere?) and click here now!

Di

Don't Mess with the First Mom

Besides re-introducing chartreuse (while looking fabulous in it, I might add), what were we expecting of our new First Lady during her first week? While every First Lady seems to pick various causes to support, Michelle Obama's first action was to align herself with mothers everywhere by extending her Mama Bear claws to protect her children.

TY is the company which was known for introducing Beanie Babies. Beanie Babies turned into collectors' items which left generous aunts aghast as their nieces immediately ripped the tags off their Princess Diana Beanies. (Can you tell that this actually happened in my family, my daughter being the ungrateful wretch who was more interested in playing with her toy than eventually profiting from it?) Collectors, determined to profit from their perfectly preserved, originally tagged, cutely named beanbags, were eventually left with tons of inventory and no demand.

TY has now decided to introduce its newest Girlz, "Marvelous Malia" and "Sweet Sasha." But Maternal Michelle isn't going for it! (If I were to become First Lady, my cause would be to eradicate the use of  "Z" as a letter with which to make words plural in an effort to add a little "gangsta" panache to any word.)

Okay...maybe most of us don't have to worry about someone taking our children's names and likenesses and trying to profit from them. But we share a discomfort when someone we don't know is taking pictures at a kids' park. We cringe when we see 5-year olds made up like Vegas showgirls to compete in "Little Miss" pageants. Many bloggers use pseudonyms for their children for fear that using their real names might somehow allow them to be exploited. And many Moms avoid potentially limiting adjectives to describe their daughters, hoping that they don't miss the opportunity to be "marvelous" because they have been labeled "sweet."

Michelle, I'm sure that during your term(s) as First Lady you will make us proud by adopting issues and causes that are critical to our country and complementary to your husband's agenda. But I, for one, applaud your first action...to protect your family. Yes, you can! And yes, you will! And yes, we all can.

Di

Evolution of a Blogger

I forgot to mention that my weekly blog for the News & Observer's Triangle Mom2Mom site has now moved to Wednesdays. I'm excited about it because I think Wednesday probably gets a little more traffic than Saturday...because people will read it while they are goofing off at work!

Click on the fine piece of writing below to learn more about what it is to be a mother from my 3rd grade perspective.

I'm rethinking the second to last line now as I ponder how long it takes my husband to get ready to go out!

Di

Dooce Busted!

A grammatical error on Dooce. My day is officially made.

Anyone care to identify it?

But, Heather, you can relax. You know I'm not going to stop reading and that I sit in awe of you. I'm sure with your kazillions of readers and $40K a month, you would freak out if I stopped reading. I will be first in line to buy your book, It Sucked and Then I Cried, because I admire your willingness to be candid about pregnancy, motherhood and post-partum depression. Parenting books typically make Moms feel inferior. Oh, if I only had the discipline of Dr. Rosemont. Oh, if I could only do the Ferber method without standing outside my kid's room in tears. We need more Moms telling us that in our inferiority, we might just be...normal?

Di

P.S. Thanks go out to JoAnn for noticing my busted link to Dooce. How ironic! I get busted by JoAnn for a broken link in the post I wrote about busting Dooce for a grammatical error!

New Year, New Me

What do you think of my new photo? Sorry to my sister Linda who was left on the cutting room floor. But look how I smile when I'm with her!

I think the other photo was about 6 months old and I feel like it would be false advertising to keep the same picture when I've aged so much!!!

Look at that...another non-resolution completed!

Di

Doing Resolutions the Right Way

I refuse to do New Year's Resolutions. I've never seen anyone really stick to one, so why set myself up to fail?

But I think that what I will do is congratulate myself for doing things I've been meaning to do. And for the first couple of months of the year, I'll tell myself that I have accomplished a resolution.

I have recently had a bad habit of not categorizing my blog posts. Categories mean nothing to some blog readers. But if someone comes upon my blog and really likes a post I wrote about Grammar Rants or Depression, it is nice for that person to be able to easily find other posts on the same subject.

So...this morning I updated my categories, removing the ones I'll never use and adding some that are essential. (I decided that the Cantina deserved its own category.) Then I went back to all of my uncategorized posts and categorized them!!!

Yay Di!!!

Di

Karma in the Triangle

Stuff like this just blows me away. My blog from last week about the magical bookseller ran in the paper today. It happened that my editor met a woman who had read my blog and referenced it in her blog!

So, if you get a chance, read MojoMom, and especially today's post:

Be good neighbor to your local merchants this holiday

To Amy, author of MojoMom, thank you for reading and sharing with your readers. And I just added your book, Mojo Mom, to my Christmas List. I hope whoever gets it for me gets it at Market Street Books or Quail Ridge Books. Support our local bookstores.

Di