Calling all Ravelers!

If any of you have gotten Ravelry invites and set up your profiles, please let me know so I can add you as a friend. My username is "daniinnc". Feel free to add me! I want to start out with people who read my blog or that I know through the blogging community before I start joining groups and meeting new people.

If you are a knitter or crocheter and haven't joined Ravelry yet, I shall join the crowd and say, "Get on the list!" I've discovered so many free patterns that I didn't know about. It is also pretty cool to see several different interpretations of the same pattern. Browsing on Ravelry is a cure for the knitting blahs. The waiting list is still a bit long, but the creators say that the site will be out of beta soon and they will be speeding up the sending of invitations.

Poetry Thursday: Cinquain

I've written free-form poetry all my life. In my youth, I was very attracted to the 1960s and so I tried to emulate poetry written in that era. Now that I am writing poetry again, I want to explore some of the closed forms. Today I offer you a cinquain inspired by this sight on my front porch:




Shoes

Scarlet, sassy
Strutting, prancing, posing
Much nicer than mine
Jealousy.

Start thinking about Black Friday now

ABM has gotten several Black Friday deals over the years. In fact, he and his relatives have turned Black Friday shopping into a team sport. Now that even the tech-challenged aunties have cell phones, they can stake out the different stores in the area and coordinate their game plan. If one Wal-Mart is sold out of DVD players, for instance, the person at that location can call the others to get in the DVD-player line in their locations. They come back home with stories of all the crazy antics of the other shoppers or how someone got lucky and grabbed the last of a prized item.

As everyone has gotten older, however, Black Friday shopping doesn't seem as much fun as it once was. ABM said to me last year that the few deals he got weren't worth braving all the crowds. That's why I think he will be interested in checking out blackfriday. Not only does this site give you information in advance about what items will be on sale at different stores, but closer to Thanksgiving they will also have links to the company sites so that you can get those savings online.

We have gotten the "top-secret" e-mail that gets passed around every year with the Wal-Mart deals, but that still didn't keep us from missing out on the $50 Gameboys last year. With this Black-Friday site, you can sign up to receive an e-mail alerting you to new ads and updates. No more paying $2 for the Sunday paper just to get the Best Buy specials when we can do it all online. Gotta love technology!

No more kids in my house!

The return to school has signaled a return to routine and order. Although I enjoy having my kids home during the summer, I was beginning to get tired of all the neighbor kids popping in and out of the house. We haven't had this problem in the past because we were very protective of our kids. Many of the other parents let their kids go running up and down the street when they were only 6, but we couldn't bring ourselves to do that. So the neighbor kids would whiz past the house, leaving my kids to play with each other.

Now that my kids are older (10, 10, and 9) and they have their teenage sister M (age 14) to look after them, we allow them to venture further afield. You would think that this would result in an empty house as my kids spend more time with the neighbors. Oh, no! Somehow our house has morphed into the cool place to be. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that we moved the Gamecube into the garage. I think it is more likely that they come here because of my infinite patience. There are a few little rugrats in the cul-de-sac are pretty annoying, and I seem to be the only parent that doesn't send them home. The days when my kids didn't have any playmates are still fresh in my memory, so I can't bring myself to send them home.

However, school is in session now so I have a good excuse. Having the kids' friends in the house on a school day makes it feel more chaotic. In the past when I allowed friends to come over, there was always a kid or two on the doorstep 10 minutes after the school bus dropped them off. It made it difficult to check homework and cook dinner with extra kids underfoot. I'm looking forward to quieter days.

We do more before 9a . . .

. . . or something like that. Today was the first day of school. Back to the 5:30a wake-up call! By 9a I had ironed clothes, got all 4 kids off to school, walked a mile on the treadmill, showered, dressed, and curled my hair. I had forgotten how alert I am right after the kids get on the bus in the morning, at least during the first few weeks of school.

The funny thing is that at 9a I was doing the same thing that I had been doing for the past few months at that time -- making coffee. The difference is that last week, I had just rolled out of bed at 8:45a to make that coffee. Today, I felt like the day was halfway over by the time I started sipping my first cup!

Sunday Scribblings: "I get that sinking feeling . . ."

I get that sinking feeling . . .

. . . when I think of being the mother of a teenager. Tomorrow is M's first day of high school. I worry about her being able to find her locker and get to class on time. I worry about her getting good grades. Some of the stuff she has to do scares me, like the big community service project she has to come up with for 10th grade and the project she has to present for senior year. I couldn't have done that when I was in high school; I probably couldn't even do it now!

I still have all these fears left over from my own high school years. I was a quirky kid with crooked teeth who didn't get asked out on dates. I ended up hanging out on the fringes of groups who just put up with me, but I don't think anybody really liked me. Even though I live in the same area I grew up in, I don't have a single friend from my high school days.

When we went to orientation last week, I watched M wave at people as we walked through the halls. She was oblivious to the fact that half of them barely gave her a nod. M goes on cheerfully without a thought that some of these people probably don't like her. High school can be a very cruel place. Knowing that someone is going to burst her happiness bubble soon makes my heart sink like a stone.

Not much of a blogging addiction

52%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

Mingle² - Dating Site

I'm more addicted to reading blogs than I am to writing one. Don't get me wrong -- I enjoy writing this blog. Heck, I enjoy it enough to start two others. I just don't feel that every single thought that comes into my head is worthy of being exposed on the internet. There are bloggers who can take a visit to the doctor with an ingrown toenail and turn it into a highly entertaining post. I'm still working on achieving that level of skill.

Why I don't clip coupons

The new neighbors came over to play cards (more on that later) and the wife Libby asked me to join her at a coupon swap. Apparently several ladies on the street are getting together and swapping coupons and info on the best places to get deals. I politely declined, but ABM wanted me to give it a second thought. So I sat down to sort through the coupons that Libby gave me to see if there were any I could use.

I used to cut coupons back before I had kids. The main strategy used in saving big bucks with coupons is to hit the stores on double coupon days. Fifteen years' ago, there were no stores here that doubled coupons. The only other way to save money is to use the coupons in combination with store sales. I did it for about six months but ultimately concluded that it wasn't worth my time. Keeping up with sales and what store has the best regular price on what item is a lot of work for someone who also has a job outside the home. It is almost a hobby in itself.

As I was looking through the coupons, I realized an even bigger reason why I don't clip coupons. Our shopping habits are different than that of most families. Other people buy the stuff they "need" and then moan about the cost of groceries. Coupons work for these people because they are looking for a way to spend less money on the stuff that they are going to buy, no matter what. With us, there are whole categories of items that we will not buy unless they are on sale.

For instance, I like body wash but I rarely buy it. I do without it until someone buys it for me as a gift or some store has it on clearance. We aren't brand-loyal, either. We will buy whatever brand is cheaper that week. That means some weeks we get store brand spaghetti sauce, other weeks it's Prego, and then there are times that there is no spaghetti sauce at all.

Since we have already trimmed our shopping list down to the bare necessities, it almost seems like we would be spending more money by shopping with coupons. However, Libby has told us about the great results that another neighbor has had ($160 worth of groceries for only $70) so ABM wants to give it a try. If using coupons will allow us to get more food for the same amount of money, then I am all for it.

YouTube to the rescue, yet again

I have failed as a mother. M is learning the song "Thriller" with her high school marching band, and she was the only one in the room who had never heard the song or seen the video. Now, I have a strong dislike for Michael Jackson that predates his recent legal troubles. However, as a person who places an importance on cultural literacy, I should have at least exposed her to some of his videos.

Enter YouTube. It only took a couple minutes for M to find the full 8-minute version of the Thriller video. I know that it is wrong to post copyrighted material, but if YouTube didn't have it then M wouldn't have been able to see it. MTV rarely shows videos any more. Even if they did, the chances of catching a 20-year-old video just when I need to see it would be slim. I say it again and again: the best-kept secret of YouTube is that it is helping to keep video ephemera alive.

Spammers have stolen all the good phrases

I like to send articles of interest to my friends from time to time. Most news-related websites make it easy for readers their favorites share with a form at the end of every article. The form includes a spot to send a comment along with the article link. This is where I get stuck. I like to write something short like, "This article made me think of you." Unfortunately, that sounds like the subject line of half the spam in my inbox. Spammers and virus spreaders try to make their emails look like they came from your friends so you will click on them. So now I have to spend extra time making my note personal so my friends know that it really came from me.

On a similar note, I can't wait until those Verizon "Can you hear me now?" commercials are erased from the general consciousness. I can't utter that phrase any more without someone making a lame joke. The commercials are funny because it is a phrase that cell phone owners actually use; I get that. That doesn't stop it from being annoying.

What I'd love to see come back

I've been watching a lot of TCM over the past couple weeks. One thing I miss that they don't do in modern movies is the fashion montage. There are movies where someone attends a fashion show, like Raising Helen, but it's not the same. In older movies like That Touch of Mink, there was usually a scene where the leading lady went shopping. All the latest fashions were paraded slowly in front of her. The viewer usually got a good look at five or ten outfits. The models all had such an elegant carriage about them. The few times I see a fashion show in a movie today, there is pulsing rock music and the models all have a dead-eyed gaze. Where's all the glamour?

Poetry Thursday: Where I'm From

I mentioned a few weeks' ago that one of the books I was reading was "Immersed in Verse: An Informative, Slightly Irreverent & Totally Tremendous Guide to Living the Poet's Life" by Allan Wolf. Nonfiction books aimed at preteens are among my favorites. As I get older, I don't want to work quite as hard to learn things. This book is helping me learn all the stuff about poetry that I imagine the rest of you learned in college.

Anyway, I am halfway through the book right now and the first exercise is to write my own "Where I'm From" poem, using George Ella Lyon's poem as inspiration. This was more difficult I thought it would be. I was a rather morose child and young adult, so every poem I started went in a dark direction. In keeping with my new vow to "just write something", I am sharing the least depressing verse I could come up with.

I'm from tiny dark spaces
That are far from the light.
I'm from energy that spikes
In the middle of the night.
I'm from glorious coffee
In all the ways that it's made.
I'm from all shades of green,
Especially emerald and jade.
This is my essence
So brilliant and bright,
Protected by thorns
And hidden from sight.

What I really want to write

You, my dear readers, are in luck. Today is the day that I reveal one of my guilty little secrets. You already know that I secretly harbor the wish to write a book. Nothing new there, but do you know what type of book I want to write? Once upon a time I wanted to pen The Great American Novel, but these days my aspirations are a bit more down-to-earth.



Yes, I want to write pulp series fiction. I want to write the kind of books that tween and teen girls devoured like popcorn. Penny Parrish, Trixie Belden, Nancy Drew, Beany Malone -- the best ones were written in the 1940s and 1950s, when a girl's biggest problem was whether she would have a date for the prom. Even the girl detectives were never in any real danger. These books were total escapism and I know that modern teenagers don't read them, but I would love to write a series of them. I admire authors like Rosamond du Jardin and Janet Lambert who wrote the kind of books they wanted their own daughters to read. I fantasize about doing the same thing.

Consequences of straddling the century line

When it comes to video games, we have always been a few consoles behind. It has never bothered my kids much; when a game was created before you were born, it looks new to you. On Saturday, however, DJ came face-to-face with the consequences of being behind the cultural curve.

DJ won a $25 Wal-Mart gift card through a contest at vacation Bible school. He couldn't wait to go spend it on a Game Cube game. Unfortunately, Wal-Mart has cleared out all of their Game Cube and Game Boy Advance games now that Wii and the Nintendo DS have been out for over a year. DJ managed to hold his head up until he got back home in his room, where he went to quietly shed some tears and pull himself together.

It is times like this that I understand why parents go broke providing their kids with everything they want. If DJ had thrown a tantrum, it would have hardened my heart. Watching him collapse in a corner under the weight of his disappointment made me want to sell something so I could go get him a Wii. Yes, I know that we could go on eBay or to a used game shop and get him some more Game Cube games. That's not the same as letting DJ go in the store with his own money and buy something shiny and new.

Sunday Scribblings: Decision

This week's one-word prompt is "decision". Methinks the word "indecision" would be more appropriate for me. I have the worst time making decisions, especially when it comes to spending money. Second-guessing would be a relief; I third-, fourth-, and fifth-guess myself. I'm so worried about making the wrong decision that I tend not to do anything at all.

Conventional wisdom suggests that there is never a perfect time to have a baby. For me, there is never a perfect time to spend money. If you could take a picture of me trying to decide when to buy something, it would look like a girl waiting for the right time to jump in on a turning double-dutch rope. I keep telling myself that I will do it after the next paycheck, then the next paycheck, then the next paycheck . . .

Once I talk myself into spending the money on an item, then I take days to research which model or brand of said item I want to get. Oftentimes I am still making the decision as I am walking up to the cash register. I do the same thing when I am ordering in a restaurant. Many times I don't know what I am going to order until the waitress gets to me and I blurt out something.

This paralyzing indecision isn't limited to spending money. When I set up my gaming and reading blogs, I spent so much time trying to pick templates and reading up on the best ad layout that I wasn't writing any content. I was so afraid of getting everything set up on Blogger and then realizing that I should have used Wordpress or TypePad.

Whether it comes to money or time, I want to get things right the first time. I look back at all the poor decisions I made in the past (some of which I am still living with the consequences of) and instead of learning from them, I have become afraid of making even more. No one can live an error-free life, but at least I can't be accused of deciding blindly.

My kids' latest TV obsession

For years, my kids have confined themselves to a small selection of TV channels without question. They didn't show the slightest interest in shows that were aimed at adults, or even teenagers. I didn't have to worry about them changing to an off-limits show while I was out of the room. They knew what they were allowed to watch and stayed within those guidelines.

Now that my kids are older (14, 10, 10, and 9), they are starting to broaden their horizons but not in the way that you would expect. What do I find my kids sneaking downstairs to watch late at night? GSN. Yes, my friends, the Game Show Network. Lingo, Chain Reaction, Camoflauge -- my kids love them all. They even like the old-school game shows like To Tell the Truth.

It is so sweet the way all four of them sit on the couch and try to solve the puzzles together. At a time when most parents are worried about shielding their kids from too much sex and violence on TV, my biggest TV concern is making sure they don't stay up too late watching QuizNation.

Padding the coffers a bit

If you have been reading my blog for a long time, you may have noticed some changes in my sidebar in recent weeks. I've added a couple affiliate badges as well as links to other blogs that I am writing. This is my attempt to bring in a little extra cash while I am looking for a full-time job.

I was rather hesitant about putting ads on this, my personal blog. I have visited blogs that were almost impossible to read with all the search engine optimization that had been done to them. My goal is to avoid alienating any of you. With that in mind, I promise this:

--I will make sure that any sponsored post is clearly labeled.
--I will only take ads that make sense with the content of this blog.
--I will do my best to avoid the "hard sell".

These guidelines will extend to my gaming blog and my reading blog, as well. So don't let the ads scare you off. Pull up a chair!

Save a little money online with CouponChief.com

This post is brought to you by CouponChief.com

Today I took a few moments to check out a site called CouponChief. It is one of those services that collects all the coupon codes and special deal announcements from various online retailers in one place. I'm not very familiar with coupon sites, but this one seems to be laid out nicely. They have listings for retailers that the average person would be familiar with, like Target, as well as online-only retailers like Overstock.

When you click on an offer that interests you, CouponChief takes you to the page on the merchant's site that shows details of the offer. This is helpful with big sites where you can get lost looking for a deal that someone told you about. CouponChief also opens a pop-up window with the information you need to get the discount, such as the coupon code. That way you don't have to write anything down.

In my brief survey of the site, I saw several interesting deals.

--Amazon has instant rebates on several different items in their grocery section.
--BiggerBras has a 20%-off coupon.
--Joann's has 20% off any single item. Today only!

This was just what I found when I look for stuff that I am in the market for right now. There are many, many more coupon codes and sales listed.

Like I said, I don't use sites like this much. Once a year, I look up the Wal-Mart sales that are leaked a week before Black Friday, but that's about it. However, I know these sites are very useful to those who do their homework before shopping. If I did a lot of online shopping, CouponChief is a site I would bookmark.