Surviving At Home

As promised in this post, I’m sharing some link love with two awesome work at home moms who were kind enough to help me reach my Top Spots threshold so I can get paid!

Nell Taliercio is the awesome mom behind Causal Friday Everyday. This is Nell’s “mom blog” where she shares her tales of motherhood in her very beautiful style of writing. Visiting her blog is a real treat because not only do I love the colors of her theme but every post she writes is so heartfelt.

Mama’s Time Out is a support community and social network for mothers of all ages. They have a weekly internet radio show about motherhood topics on Sunday afternoons and each member gets their own web page and is able to write blog posts. You can also go visiting other pages, make friends, and post pictures.

Thanks so much for helping me get paid, ladies! I’ll be stopping by soon

You see that list of Top Spot advertisers in the right sidebar? Well, it was a fun little widget to fool around with but I really want to take it off my site.

But I need just one more person to purchase a link to get my payout.

If you decide to help me out, I will post your link permanently in my blogroll (family friendly sites only, please!) and I will do a special post all about your site with another link.

So, mom bloggers or those with a mom- or kid-related business, please consider spending $2.00 for a permanent inbound link and website review.

Thanks a bunch

Good grief…school no sooner started then the supermarket shelves were stocked with trick or treating candy. Come to think of it, we received our first costume catalogs in the mail before school even started!

I know full well that Halloween planning starts right after school starts but I’m still surprised by it every year. My oldest started 6th grade and has decided not to dress up this year. I guess it’s not cool, although I’m sure she’ll be raiding her little sister’s candy bag when the day comes! Or will go scurrying around the house trying to put something together if she’s invited to a costume party at school.

My little one wants to be Hannah Montana AGAIN. Except she doesn’t just want to resurrect last year’s costume. Oh no! She wants the new Hannah costume that we found online!

It’s always been fun for me to see the girls being creative, thinking about what costumes they wanted to wear or what character they wanted to be. Sometimes my mom would sew the costumes and other times we would shop online for inspiration.

Of course, shopping online sometimes backfired because there are always more costumes online than in any printed catalog! Buy Costumes.com has 18 pages of Halloween costumes for girls and 20 pages of boys’ costumes. Yes, it will be many hours of fun for your kids to surf, looking for just the right costume!

Even though I hated the thought of buying new costumes each year, we usually got our money’s worth because the kids were allowed to bring costumes to school and they loved to dress up in the costumes straight through til Thanksgiving, so I really can’t complain about the cost.

But they were also incredibly spoiled, getting a new costume every year. When I was little, it seemed like I alternated between being a gypsy (with my mom’s costume jewelry and scarves) and a hobo (with my dad’s clothes and burnt cork on my face so I looked dirty).

Now that I’m older, I much prefer just sneaking the kids’ chocolate eating the leftover candy bars.

photo credit: Paul-W

And when did we Americans get so judgemental?

I absolutely hate to talk politics but every time I hear somebody passing judgement on Sarah Palin I just cringe and think, “Where do we get off criticizing her?” Who are WE to say whether she has made a good decision by accepting the VP nomination?

As an American woman (and my party affiliation is of no matter), I am insulted to my bones at the scrutiny Sarah Palin has endured. Sure, she is a public figure, an elected official, so she opened herself up for this. I guess I can understand that we the people need to know more about her if she’s going to hold the 2nd highest elected position in the country. I get that.

But these are the things that are driving me absolutely bonkers whenever I hear a news program or a supposedly intelligent reporter spouting words of opinion rather than of objectivity…

• Palin’s daughter is pregnant. OK…so what? It’s by no means an ideal situation and her life will forever be changed but what does that have to do with Palin’s ability to serve as VP? It doesn’t. Her daughter is the one who made that decision and now has to live with the consequences. And this situation is difficult enough without the media speculating whether it’s good or bad for her to marry her boyfriend. Let it be her decision!

• Many people are also appalled that Palin’s pregnant daughter attended the convention. So? Why deprive her daughter of witnessing history and sharing this remarkable event with her mother and family? We are far past the days of shipping our pregnant teens off to a “long lost relative,” only to have them return from their “vacation” after a few months, seemingly unchanged. If anything, teen pregnancy is often glorified or made to seem easier than it actually is. Why was the movie Juno such a huge hit?

• Many people also claim that Palin shoved her daughter into the spotlight because of this issue. Well, if she didn’t make the announcement, certainly the Democrats would have found great pride in announcing it and shoving her into the spotlight. I’m still not sure why this is news but better to be acknowledged than hidden away like a deep, dark secret.

• Just how many reporters and columnists are going to write that Palin is a bad role model or a neglectful mother for accepting this position? Hello??? What better role model could you get of a strong, intelligent woman who has been married for a long time, seems to have a happy and supportive family, and who is eager to accept this chance of a lifetime to serve her country?

Last I heard Palin’s husband was quitting his job to be a stay at home dad if McCain/Palin win the election. How awesome!! How wonderful to see the gender roles changed! So Mr. Palin will become the primary caregiver; how fabulous that he will get to forge a closer relationship with all of his children.

And I won’t even pretend to fully understand just how busy Sarah Palin will be if they win this election but I highly doubt she’ll be MIA from her family’s lives for four years. Yes, she’ll travel a lot more but so long as her kids are with her husband or grandparents instead of a slew of uncaring nannies, so what? With the current internet technologies she can easily call them or set up a webcam to say goodnight. Is that ideal? No, nothing will replace the feel of hugging your children tightly, but she’s also not getting shipped off to Siberia for four years.

John F. Kennedy had two small children when he was elected into office. Was he criticized just as badly? Was he considered a bad role model because he would be too busy being President to be a good father? I don’t know the answer but something tells me those questions never arose. Why not? Because he was a man and had his wife to take care of the kids?

The biggest puzzlement to me is why no women’s groups or feminist groups have stepped up in defense of Palin. Isn’t Palin the epitomy of what the women’s movement was all about? Women are just as good and qualified as men in all jobs; women can have both family and career. Hello? Don’t these groups see that the media is helping to take us back to a time where women were supposed to be barefoot and pregnant? Or are they willing to accept this setback because Palin is not a liberal Democrat? Because she’s not Hillary?

How pitiful.