What’s So “Pinteresting”?

Tags

feminism, humor, life, pinterest, reblogged, Stay at Home Mom

I recently read the post What’s So “Pinteresting”? on the blog, Shout Out
JMU (your source for feminine discourse).  She had a great response to the critic.   What she says at the end of her post is perfect.

So before we disparage Pinterest for putting feminism at risk, can we please remember that feminine is not anti-feminist, and at the end of the day, it’s just a pinboard?

Yes, it is just a pinboard.

What the article on Buzzfeed (the one that Shout Out JMU is referring to) is missing is that not everyone is a feminist (because it is true) and that not all feminists are alike (as Shout Out JMU nicely points out).

Woman-power symbol (clenched fist in Venus sign). עברית: כוח נשים (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I think that we should embrace our feminism because let’s face it… we do have different body parts and (like it or not) we do have a different biological role, and by that I mean we have the babies not our role as a nurturer.   Instead of making women feel bad about not being feminist enough, support a sister for the challenges that they are facing and overcoming each day and then help them to be the change that we, women, will want to make (because as much as the world has changed, but there are still changes to be made).

Furthermore, I have heard criticism about wanting to stay at home and how that will cause the feminist movement to go backward.  Odell kind of hints at this with her “Mormon housewife” comment.  The way I see it, being a stay-at-home mom who wants to care for their family is not anti-feminist… it is a decision that I made (which I think is now kind of against the mainstream) because I chose to.    I had that choice because of feminism and, personally, I appreciated having the choice.  I would guess that a lot of the women appreciate the choices that they have now that were given to them thanks to the feminist movement in the past.

Yet, here is my question to her question… Does she think that the diet and skinny body stuff is going to go away or, at least, that women in general are not going to be interested in that kind of material?  If she does, then she is dreaming.  I say this because a lot of my friends who are into eating healthy, exercising, and designer clothes do it because they like it.  They are not doing it because their husbands will divorce them if they are not a size 0.  I am not saying that society has a part in it, but society or not, my friends exercise and eat healthy because they want to and seem to enjoy it (although I don’t share the fondness of exercise that they do).  There will always be plenty of girls and women that have body image issues and men/boys that will try make the girls they “supposedly” love feel bad about weight or what they look like too, but that is why I think it is best to support other women to be strong enough to see that they are enough when they are just being themselves and if the one they love does not see it… then it is time to move on.

With that said, I will give myself a pat on the back for doing my part to fill Pinterest pinboards with pins that are exercise and dream body free…and I know she would like to thank me for it.  Rest assured that the Cauliflower Crust Pizza will never show up on my “yumminess” board.

And now a little something from my pinboards…

Source: Tara on Pinterest

via What’s So “Pinteresting”?.

Related articles

• More Feminist Rants?
• Sleepwalking into Sexism
• Pinterest’s Burgeoning Feminist Community
• Embracing the F-word

What’s Up?

Tags

cleaning, decluttering, Domo, humor, life, mommydom, puppy, SAHM, Stay at Home Mom, The Voice, TV

I feel so bad for not posting more this week.

Image found on http://www.wow.bayzaar.com.

The problem was I just have not been doing anything “post worthy”.  I have not been feeling like a Supermom lately (and no dirty old men have been checking me out).  Seriously, I have been so boring, that I have not even found the humor in it boringness.

It is Friday though and so I thought I would share the highlights of the week so that you can be impressed with the mundane happenings of our household (or rather to help you see your life that your life is much more exciting than mine). 

Love It/Hate It: All Natural Cat Litter Battle

Tags

cat litter, cleaning, HELP, humor, life, Love it/Hate it, mess, Stay at Home Mom, technical difficulties

It has been a while since I posted about my quest to find the best cat litter.  Recently, I put…

World’s Best Multiple Cat Clumping Cat Litter

image from http://harloshealthypets.com/

Against

BLUE Naturally Fresh Multi-cat Quick Clumping Cat Litter.

Image from http://bluebuffalo.com/

What makes a better natural cat litter corn or walnut shells?

But first… I must tell you about my undomestic awesomeness that I promised that I would share with you guys.  It is related, trust me!

We keep the downstairs litter box in our office, because open floor plans really don’t give you any great places to hide litter boxes.  Last Friday, I decided I should try and clean up the office a bit (it is the last room to be picked up, because I believe offices are working rooms and therefore have a right to be messy).  When I pick up the office, I always start off with the litter box.  Who wants to clean in a stinky room?  Also, I always make a mess when I scoop out the litter box so it is best to do it before I vacuum and mop.  On this special day, I lifted up the top and found that my cat(s) have been peeing on the little stairs inside the dome.  No wonder it smelled so quickly after changing the litter (btw we found some of the leftover clay litter so that was what we used this time)!  A little ticked and after a few expletives shouted, I decided that I had to throw all the cat litter away (even though the litter box has just been changed) and wash out the whole litter box.  I got the garbage bag and patted myself on the back for not making as big of a mess as I usually do.  I am moving along.  Throw the bag of litter in the trashcan in the back of the house, and then it is time to conquer the office.  Obviously, Life had a little something up it’s sleeve.

Created at http://www.someecards.com

I had a Pinteresting Weekend… or rather I just slept

Tags

aging, Cinco de Mayo, drinks, humor, husband, jet lag, life, mommydom, pinterest, sleep problems, Stay at Home Mom

I am getting old.  I have noticed that I do not handle jet lag as well as I did in my 20’s.  In fact, it took a whole lot of sleeping this weekend before I felt normal (or as close as I get) again.

I did wake up yesterday and, for the first time in days, I did not feel like a zombie.  I think I looked less like a zombie as well.  Now, I just have to get back into gear with the house projects I started before I switched into vacation mode.  At any rate, I still have found some time to pin a few great ideas on Pinterest… now I just need to get motivated by those ideas.

Age… It is what it is

Source: life-love-laughter.tumblr.com via Tara on Pinterest

 

My husband and I recently realized that we are rather old.  I noted that I think my age is part of the reason that I was not able to jump right back into life after our trip west, but we also have noted other disturbing realizations… such as  Robert Griffin III was born in 1990.  That may not seem that alarming, but really kids born in the 90’s are now graduating or joining our workforce.  Other disturbing realizations I have recently had…

• I recently read an historical fiction book that took place in the 70’s.
• Julie, one of American Girl’s historical dolls, is from 1974.
• I actually told my kids that when I was young, I had to get up and change the channel because remote controls for the TVs were not invented yet.
• Next year is my 20th high school reunion (that I will not go to).
• The pièces de ré·sis·tance:  My husband and I like playing Bingo on Facebook.  Yep, if you told the 26 year old me, that 10 years from now that I would enjoy Bingo I may have laughed… but sadly I have discovered that it really is a fun game and we are even contemplating hitting up a real game at some point.

Yet, even with these realizations… the worst realization is that I will never be this young again…which is enough to make me want a drink.

Who Dreams about Mongooses*?

Tags

cleaning, decluttering, dream interpretation, dreams, HELP, humor, mongoose, random, Stay at Home Mom

Last night I had the strangest dream… and I usually don’t remember my dreams so this dream must be worth a blog post, right?.   I have not studied dream symbols or dream interpretation, but a quick internet search helped me find the website Dream Moods and their Dream Dictionary and I thought it would help me see if there was something to be learned through this rather disturbing dream.

The Rat and Mongoose in The Camping trip from Hell

My dream began in a campground and I am guessing we were camping (although it is a bit unclear what we were doing there).

My whole family was in our car (and it looked like we were sleeping in the car too) watching a movie. We really love to rough it and get away from technology, as you can plainly see.  I happened to look out the window and a giant (like size of a small cat) rat was climbing up the side mirror.  I screamed and then realized that our dog was sleeping outside of the car in a dog bed.  I worried about him, but got even more worried when I saw there was a mongoose licking his ear.  I thought about getting out of the car to get my dog, but the rat was still sitting on my side mirror.  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a mother unloading her car and she had a toddler with her.  Her child began to toddle towards my dog and the mongoose.  Unfortunately, the mongoose saw the child before the mother noticed the mongoose.  As the child neared the Mongoose bit the boy on the arm.  The child screamed and the mother ran over to rescue her child and as she tried to fight the mongoose away… it bit her on the arm.  My dog had woken up and we were out of the car by then.  The rat was heading over in that direction and my dog’s ratter instinct (rat terrier) took over and he began to fight with the rat.  They fought and the rat bit his ear.  My son tried to break up the fight and before I could get to him my dog had bitten him on the arm.  Finally, the mongoose and the rat were scared away (not sure really by what) and I was crying.

Of course, I woke up slightly at that point and stared at the ceiling and thought about it.   Shouldn’t the Mongoose have gone after the Rat and not my dog?  Really, the mongoose wanted to lick the ear of my dog and not go after the rather tasty and fat rat that was close by.  It did not make any sense**.  Was this dream telling me something I should listen to?

Love It/Hate It: Amazing Cat Litter

Tags

Amazing Cat Litter, cats, clean house, gag reflex, humor, husband, life, litter, Love it/Hate it, Stay at Home Mom

So, it has been a while since I shared my thoughts on cat litter.  I know you guys were just dying to hear my latest review of the cat litters I have been trying.

As I mentioned before, I tried out Amazing Cat Litter as my next choice.   It actually was kind of amazing.  For a week, I thought that the cats just weren’t using the litter box.  It says on the directions to scoop the litter and then mix the litter up so that the blue oder reducing crystals would work better.  So after a week I thought I would swish the litter around a bit.  To my surprise, the cats had used the litter and used it a lot.  It was so good at hiding the smell, I had no idea they were even using the litter box.

Another great thing about this litter was that the cats did not track it out and even when they did, the clear crystals were not easily seen until swept up.  Of course, they did look a little like broken glass which did give my husband a scare or two, and felt a bit like broken glass when stepped on with bare feet (Which I used as a signal to sweep the floor).

A little Wine and a Game of Tag

Tags

ADHD, fun, game, humor, interview, James Marsden, life, Stay at Home Mom, Tagged, Thank You

This weekend went on my first overnight trip without the kids.  If you know me then you know it was a big milestone.  In fact, many of the women I went with expected me to either back out at the last minute or take off under the cover of night.  I managed to make it until morning and had a great time.

My friend’s husband set up the whole weekend… Limobus tour of the 4 wineries, a private tour and tasting at my friend’s favorite winery (King Family), and a hotel stay.  He had also made reservations at a nice restaurant, but after drinking wine all day we thought it would be better to walk to the closest restaurant rather than drive.

He made us all T-shirts too, but much to his dismay we did not wear them.  I thought I would give him some love and share it with you guys though.

Well, while I toured the wineries, I found out that the wonderful Sharon from Hyperactive Inefficency had tagged me in a Blogger game of Tag.

As she quoted…”To be tagged is a fun way to get to know fellow bloggers a little better (and to mess with them a little).”  I love messing with people and well I am always for getting to know people better.  Isn’t that why we all blog… To share our story and to connect to other who also want to share a bit about themselves though blogging.

So without further ado… Here are the rules:

1. Post the rules.
2. Answer the questions the tagger set for you in their post
3. Create eleven new questions to ask the people you’ve tagged.
3. Tag eleven people and link to them on your post.
4. Let them know you’ve tagged them!

So let’s get to answering those questions from Sharon…

Thank Goodwill It’s Friday: Consignment is not my thing.

Tags

ADHD, Consignment sale, decluttering, dunce, humor, life, mistakes, Stay at Home Mom, technical difficulties

So, I was supposed to drop off my stuff for the consignment sale this morning, but then I realized that all of the clothes had to be hung.  I don’t know why I thought they would provide hangers…. I am just stupid when it comes to this stuff apparently.  I was without hangers and the safety pins needed to attach the clothes to the hangers.  So, I had the option of running out to buy cheap hangers and safety pins or just cutting my losses.  I went for cutting my losses, because I really did not know what I was doing.  I am thinking I do not have the patience for doing all the little things that you have to do to sell at these sales.  I also decided I over-think about stupid little things too much.  I spent at least 1 hour at the store trying to figure out how I was going to fasten on the price tag… It really should not be this hard.

Another problem I have is that I really am not sure what is the going rate for used kid’s clothes.  I thought I did a good job pricing them, but when I printed out the estimate of settlement… I was amazed at how little I was going to get.  All that pressing and hangering and pricing… I do just as well when I sell to the consignment stores like Once Upon a Child (which is a gently used kid stuff store in town).  I am not sure if I just did not price the items well (which I am guessing is the case), or if the percentage worked out to be the same.  If the percentage is the same then I should just do what I have done in the past and dropped it off and gone to get a coffee and then pick up my check.  I think I need more guidance before I try this consigning thing out in the future.  I am an consignment sale dunce.

 

So, I managed to not get rid of anything today.  I guess that I am doing so well with this decluttering thing, am I?

Even though I did not get rid of anything today… I did clean out my car.  I threw away quite a bit of junk there.  I also decided that I really do need to thin all my kitchen junk.  There are devices and other dish ware that has never been used and it is all crammed into my cupboards.  It sounds like a great project for next Friday… because it is time to get ready for The Hunger Games now.

 

Thank Goodwill It’s Friday: Time to Consign?

Tags

American Girl, Consignment sale, decluttering, family, kids, mommydom, Stay at Home Mom

So I have been inspired by 365 Trinkets to get rid of the clutter in my house.  I have decided that Fridays will be my day to focus on the decluttering process… so here it goes.

Many of my friends have asked me why I don’t try and sell my kids’ old clothes (since I usually donate them or give them to my friends).  In the past, I have always said that it was too time consuming to deal with tagging and all that stuff.  Now that I stay at home, I have found that I really do not have a good reason and we could use the extra spending money too.

I decided to bite the bullet and sign up as a consignor for an upcoming sale.  I may regret this, but the big pile of kids clothes in my room… really has been bugging me so I figured there was nothing to lose if I tried it out.

So far I have found a lot of great things to consign, although my daughter found an American Girl Dress in the pile that she has rescued (and that she was infuriated with me for trying to give away).

More Pinteresting than Pink Eye

Tags

drinking fountain, family, genius, humor, kids, Kids activities, mommydom, movie, parenting, Pink Eye, sick, St. Patrick's Day, Stay at Home Mom, The Hunger Games

Yesterday, my son came home from school with a note from the nurse.  His eye was reddened, but they weren’t sure it was pink eye.  So, this morning was the test.  Goop equals Pink Eye and no goop means get ready for school.  I am not sure it was goop or just the sleep in the eye that sometimes happens, guess we are going to have to head to doctor…

To add to the fun this morning, I got my daughter all ready for school and did not realize that there was a 2 hour delay.  We stood at the front door waiting for people to arrive at the bus stop and then there were no kids.  It was a ghost town.  I wondered if I missed something, so I checked Facebook.  Guess that doctor visit was going to have to wait until 10:00.

So my day is certainly going to be Pinteresting, but definitely not as cool as these great pins.