How about you just call me Linda?

We did it!

2008-12-10T22:09:00.002-06:00

Cue Miss Marquez...

We did it!

We got a decent Santa picture. Doesn't he look so proud to be telling Santa what he wants for Christmas?

And yes. He's incredibly grown up. I have no idea where the baby went. And I am so proud of him!!!

Bye Bye Bubba Kitty

2008-09-22T15:54:00.002-05:00

Zitman Raleigh Dubin 1992 - 2008

We will miss you Zitty!

Meow

2008-09-20T09:06:00.000-05:00

Happy Restaurant Week, Nashville!

2008-09-16T08:49:00.000-05:00

J.J. and I are thrilled to celebrate Nashville's first annual restaurant week.

We're celebrating tomorrow and Thursday.

Anyone free for dinner Friday? :o)

Sounds that should be banned fom radio...

2008-09-11T21:43:00.001-05:00

...since I usually only listen to radio in the car:

sirens
Car crashes and squealing brakes
honking horns
train whistles

Uh OH!

2008-09-08T23:44:00.000-05:00

So. There we were. Me and J.J. and it was time for Blues Clues before a couple of bedtime books and bedtime.

And as I reached for the remote, it crashed from the nightstand to the floor.

"Uh oh!", said mommy (me).

"Shit!", said the little angel.

"Uh oh!", repeated mommy, desperately trying not to laugh.

"Was that what I think it was?" asked daddy, from around the corner (probably checking in on facebook).

"Yes, honey," said mommy, "and you are in trouble."

Around the corner came daddy, who asked, "Why, did the remote break?"

(Please no comments on his other recent expletive. He clearly said "fup". And I'm blaming that on daddy too.)

Dancing fool at kid's night at CFA

2008-08-29T16:32:00.002-05:00

...and yes, the guy singing is laughing at my little man.

Go Mama!

2008-08-08T21:46:00.001-05:00

J.J. is not a big fan of car seats... he often tugs at his straps, exclaiming "I'm stuck!"

This evening, he thought he would be just fine riding in the back, with a view:

(note: Of COURSE I did not let him ride home that way, even if it was just a mile and I'm sure my mom let me do worse... I seem to recall three of us preschoolers sitting behind the only seats in a MGB with the top down, going to CHURCH... that picture was taken in a parking lot and I was in the backseat with him. He was fully secured the entire way home. /disclaimer)

Hi.

2008-07-14T15:19:00.001-05:00

There's nothing to see here; I'm just testing something...

But, you know, in case you were worried, I'm not dead. Even though my blog appears to be.

Hope you're enjoying your summer.

I'll be back. :o)

Happy Second Birthday...

2008-05-01T00:07:00.002-05:00

...my not-so-baby baby boy.

Green screen rule #1

2008-04-28T21:50:00.001-05:00

Don't wear a green hat.

Spidey dance party...

2008-04-20T11:52:00.002-05:00

J.J. and Spiderman dance to the Spiderman & Friends theme until mommy ruins their fun and selects another song...

Let's go Predators!

2008-04-20T11:31:00.002-05:00

J.J. and I are headed to the Sommet Center where he can visit his bobblehead buddy... Let's hope it's not the last time this year!

Another milestone reached

2008-04-16T21:56:00.004-05:00

J.J. loves sleeping in his crib. He also loves playing in his crib as he's falling asleep and when he wakes up. He is (for the most part) the ideal crib sleeper. While he is without a doubt tall enough and strong enough and determined enough to climb over the rail and lower himself to the floor, he has never tried. Maybe he feels secure in there. I can't believe the thought hasn't crossed his mind.

At night, we go through our routine from bath to a DVR'd program to a book or two (or three) to the rocking chair for at least part of a lullaby before I lay him down and say goodnight.

In the morning, he wakes up in a good mood (except for the week he had that virus that turned him into a human snot machine; he was cranky that week). He'll entertain himself and talk to the cat until one of us decides to scoop him up and turn on Noggin or Disney which entertain him until he's awake enough to climb out of our bed and head off to ~~his playroom~~ our living room. If we take too long to get around to him, he might yell or throw things, but it's usually smooth sailing. Some days, I leave for work and both he and his daddy are both still sound asleep.

Lately, I've been hearing him rumbling around after we say our good nights (he actually tells me "bye! see you!", I say "good night"). But, after a few minutes, he's sleeping soundly. The past few nights, in his last-ditch effort to stay awake, he has been reaching out of his crib and banging his rocker/glider into the wall. We're talking 10 - 15 seconds, then it stops and he's out.

Tonight, I decided to remove the temptation and moved the rocker a good 18 inches away from the crib. And I placed him in his crib, said goodnight and headed off to my laptop to get some work done.

And for four minutes, nothing. Not a peep.

Then, a loud crash, followed by wailing.

I raced to his room to find him on the floor between the crib and the rocker, screaming his head off. Not injured, but obviously mad and probably scared. He had been trying to reach the rocker and flipped himself over the crib rail and onto the floor.

We rocked away the tears, and I put him back to bed. I handed him his Elmo as I said, "Now you guys need to stay in this crib all night, OK?" I moved the rocker back to its cribside position. And as I walked out of the room, he (J.J., not Elmo) gave me a pouty "bye".

And promptly fell asleep.

My biggest fear is that he now knows he can get himself out of the crib. So he may think about it enough to figure out how to get out a little more gracefully. So next time he wakes up, he very well may decide to climb out and...

...and do whatever he feels like doing.

Stop Rockin' my World

2008-04-13T22:45:00.002-05:00

So. I have a confession.

Remember me, the poster child against reality television?

Well, last summer, I developed a terribly bad habit.

Before we got digital cable and a DVR upstairs, I would flip through the dozen or so channels that I was in the habit of watching and find SOMETHING to watch. And if there was nothing I could stomach, I would start crawling through every channel and see if there wasn't SOMETHING that caught my attention.

And, one evening, while waiting for the 10:00 news to come on so I could actually see my husband before drifting off to sleep, I found it.

Somehow, while flipping through the 70-some channels offered in the basic (extended?) cable package, I landed on Bret Michaels Rock of Love.

And it was B-A-D.

And I flipped right past it.

Then, a few days later, I found myself in the same predicament. And there it was again. And it was still B-A-D. But I watched it. And a few nights later, I found the first episode being reshown, and watched it. By the time the next new episode was shown, I had caught up on the episodes I had missed. Because by this time, we had digital cable and a DVR upstaris and I was able to set a series recording to ensure I caught up on all those early episodes.

And I looked forward to Sunday afternoons, when J.J. took his nap and Joe was at work and I could watch the latest episode.

I have to confess... I spent a good number of years in the 80s listening to hair bands and going to heavy metal concerts. I bought the piano sheet music for every sappy ballad, I left Easter dinner early my senior year to go to the Def Leppard concert and I owned pleather pants and a pair of earrings that were actual miniature daggers.

Hello. My name is Linda and I used to be a head banger.

So I watched the first season and I put it all behind me, moved on, and decided to forget that little lapse of judgement.

Until...

I was having dinner with my husband and one of his friends a few months ago and the topic of reality TV came up and somehow, I said (out loud), "I will admit, though, that I got hooked on Rock of Love this past summer."

"So have you seen the new one?" asked Joe's buddy.

"No - who's the rocker in it?" I replied, rolling my eyes.

"It's Bret again. Apparently the first girl didn't work out and he's doing it all over. It just started this week."

Reluctantly, I set the DVR to tape a replay of the first show. I mean, the least I needed was an answer to what happened between Bret and Jess and surely they were going to explain... They didn't really explain; just a quick reference to the reunion show (that I completely missed) and a snippet of Jess saying Bret should have picked Heather.

And then they started introducing the latest group of ~~skanks~~ girls and before the first commercial break, I stopped the recording because it was just so terrible. *PHEW* At least I'm not going to get hung up on THAT again.

Until a few nights later. When "nothing" was on and J.J. wasn't quite asleep yet so it was best that I didn't rattle around the kitchen or tromp downstairs to do something productive...

And all of the shows in the list on the DVR were either Joe's or J.J.'s. And I didn't feel like diving into my new library book or reading the latest issue of Cookie.

So I started watching it again.

And I made it all the way through.

And I set a series recording so each new episode was taped.

And I made it all the way to the "finale" tonight and am SO relieved he saw through Daisy as needing him as a way out more than wanting him...

Of course, I'll have to watch the reunion next week and see if this one took... And I hope it did. Not for Bret. Or Ambre. But for me.

Because I can't take another season.

How Geek Are You?

2008-04-13T15:03:00.000-05:00

75% Geek

That's great... NOT

2008-04-10T23:06:00.001-05:00

Look. It's my sling.

Get the scoop

2008-04-04T21:59:00.001-05:00

...the 31 cent scoop, that is.

April 30th at Baskin Robbins.

It's not easy being green...

2008-04-02T22:53:00.000-05:00

Imagine that you have a handful of jellybeans. There's a red one, a pink one, an orange one, a yellow one, a purple one and a green one. I know, that's a small handful, unless you're a kid, but work with me.

Assuming the colors in your hand represent all of the flavor varieties in the jellybean mix and that the jellybeans are all fruit-flavored, what flavor is the green one?

Well, if you ask me, it better be lime (and for those of you who need to know, the others are cherry, strawberry, orange, lemon and grape).

When I was a kid (hold on J.J., you're going to hear that phrase a LOT), green was ALWAYS lime. A few years ago, the "default" flavor for green fruity candy started transitioning from lime to (sour) green apple.

It's not that I have anything against green apple, it's just that to me, it's not a primary/default flavor. I mean, if there are two shades of green, I'm all for one of them being green apple, just so long as the other is lime.

How I'm using Google Reader now...

2008-03-28T00:26:00.002-05:00

One of the great things about using Google Reader, is that as it continues to evolve, so does my use of it.

About a year ago, I was assigned to a project at work that was to be built in MOSS 2007. So I created a "MOSS" tag and subscribed to feed after feed after feed. I just KNEW that Google was going to roll out search capability within reader and when they did, I had a finely honed list of resources from which I could do a targeted search for issues that arise during development.

The number of feeds I subscribe to hovers around 200. I've tried to cut back, but when I review my trends I realize that (for the most part) the high volume feeds I keep around are ones I truly value, and some of the "maybe I'll kill this one" feeds are updated so infrequently, I don't see any of them as enough of a time-waster to unsubscribe.

I used to painstakingly force every feed into a label... Some made sense -- Keeping all of my MOSS feeds tagged "MOSS" makes a targeted search a piece of cake. Some didn't. I used to have a "local" tag that I used for feeds that were from Nashville-area sites and blogs. Except I also had category tags, like "mommy stuff", "food" or my ever-popular "web dev tech agile blah blah blah" where most of my (non-MOSS) work-related stuff goes. So I was double tagging feeds for "local" and whatever else. But the fact is, I really don't *care* if a feed is local, unless the topics it covers are strictly local. So "local" is now strictly local... Like specific Nashville news feeds, weather, my favorite car dealership and an area restaurant review site.

I have my "a-list" tag. For that handful of feeds I want to check first, since I enjoy reading them. There's a "diversions" tag for things like Dilbert, xkcd and "Lost". Stuff that I look at when I have time. Stuff that I might breeze by when in a hurry but also might appreciate having around when I'm looking for something to entertain me. There's my "me" tag that includes feeds from my blog (posts and comments), flickr, tumblr, library card alerts, some custom (ego) Google searches, my Google base stuff, and some other me-related info. And some other categories that are important enough to me to keep separate. 11 categories and an "almost everything" tag. Anything that's not categorized goes into "almost everything". Some things that are tagged with a category are double-tagged "almost everything", but the reasoning isn't important enough to get into here.

There are two other BIG changes in the way I use Google Reader lately.

1. I used to view all of my feeds in "Expanded view". No longer. Most categories (folders) are viewed in "list view" and I scan the list and click through to see the details if I'm so inclined. Once I reach the end of the list, I mark all items as read and move on to another tag. I don't freak out (any more) that I might have overlooked something that might have been of interest to me. I figure I'm over-informed as it is, and if it's something really relevant, someone else will either link to it or share it or forward it to me. Note to the Google Reader team: I would *really* appreciate it if I could set my preferred view by tag, you know, under "folder settings".

2. I have started tagging individual items for follow-up.

I try to tag any items I comment on as "commented" so I can check back and see if someone responded to me. Not everyone responds with an email or gives me the option to subscribe to follow-up comments. Things that I might want to try (like this or this), I tag "try it". Both of these types of items, I used to star, then would have to think about why I starred them. Interestingly enough, the star functionality is going away. Fine by me - sharing and tagging individual items should cover what the star did... but I have a couple of things starred that I should probably tag now.

Items that I want to read but don't have the time to read right now, I tag "later". Then, when I am home and J.J. is in bed and I don't feel compelled to clean the kitchen or grab some extra sleep, I can read them. I used to simply mark these types of items as "unread" but found I usually skimmed past them the next time I checked my reader. Now, they sit there waiting for me.

A few side notes...

Ever since the ability to see my friends' shared items came about, I started thinking more about what I share. I mean, I share an item because I'm interested in it, and I think it might interest someone else. But I wonder if I share more (or fewer) items because I know (think) there are people out there using reader who now see my shared items prominently.

I'm also a big supporter (fundamentally, not financially) of Readburner, because I think it's cool to see who else is sharing the items I share. I would *love* for Google Reader to give me that information, but am happy it's available elsewhere, even if it might be incomplete information.

And I'm also digging the "show details" link that Reader added. I was tickled to discover that I was the sole subscriber to Rex's RexHammock.com for a few days. Hi Rex. :o)

A word from Linda...

2008-03-23T21:39:00.003-05:00

First, I'm happy to say I was tagged. There's nothing like peer pressure to get me off of my butt and in front of the computer (yet still on my butt).

Secondly, this whole "one word only" rule made this TOUGH. My answers would have been drastically different had I been allowed a phrase...

On with the show.

----- ----- ----- ----- -----

Here is how it works:

You take each line and replace it with a single word of your choosing. Yes, just one word!!

Afterward, tag seven folks...

You're feeling: restless
To your left: toys
On your mind: toddler
Last meal included: cheerios
You sometimes find it hard to: delegate
The weather: cold
Something you have a collection of: lipstick
A smell that cheers you up: deli
A smell that can ruin your mood: litterbox
How long since you last shaved: morning
The current state of your hair: shiny
The largest item on your desk right now (besides computer): lamp
Your skill with chopsticks: sufficient
Which section you head to first in the bookstore: bargains
And after that?: cooking
Something you are craving: travel
Your general thoughts on the presidential race: hopeless
How many times have you been hospitalized this year: none
A favorite place to go for quiet time: porch
You've always secretly thought you'd be a good: volcanologist
Something that freaks you out a little: deja vu (ok I cheated on the one-word rule, but it is a single dictionary entry)
Something you've eaten too much of lately: pizza
You have never: parachuted
You never want to: disappoint

----- ----- ----- ----- -----

And, if you are reading this and haven't done it yet (or lately), I'm tagging YOU. And if you don't have a blog (I'm looking at you three ladies), leave it in the comments. :o)

Bathing beauty

2008-03-17T21:40:00.001-05:00

When I grow up, I want to be my daddy

2008-03-17T21:28:00.001-05:00

Come inside; it's fun inside.

2008-03-09T08:07:00.000-05:00

It's the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (warning - sound) roll call!

Here's how it goes at our house:

Donald?

Donald: Present

Daisy?

Daisy: Here

Goofy?

Goofy: Here

Minnie?

Minnie: Hi! here!

Pluto?

J.J.: Woof-woof!

----- ----- ----- ----- -----

It's so gosh-darned cute, we frequently rewind the beginning of the show just to hear it again. Kind of like the episode of Blues clues where Blue goes to Puppyville to meet her baby brother (Sprinkles) and when she first sees him hiding behind a hill, she asks, "How's the puppy feeling?" and J.J. yells back, "SHY!".

This post brought to you by Playhouse Disney and Noggin.

J.J.'s first time behind the camera

2008-03-06T22:25:00.001-06:00

J.J. takes the camera and shoots his own video. Watch out daddy!