Spotlight on family, motherhood, and work

Well folks, my one year blogaversary is coming up in a week (I'm counting from when I first started writing "Letters from a broad..." as a column in the defunct Utah Valley Monitor).

In honor of my blogaversary, and in honor of the fact that these blogger blogs don't provide a built-in topic index, I'm going to be spending the next week reviewing my favorite blog entries by topic.

In each case, I'm starting with the oldest ones, which aren't necessarily the best...

If that seems shockingly self-indulgent, remember this is a blog. ;-)

The first topic is family, motherhood, and work:

Programmer Technophobe

For example, instead of a portable computer or PDA, I like to bring an old-fashioned paper notebook with me to take notes during meetings. This is mostly because I don't like to take notes during meetings. As far as I'm concerned, it's bad enough I have to sit there and listen to it the first time. A paper and pen is much more convenient for the kind of notes I like to take, which mostly consist of portraits of the other people who are also stuck in the same meeting. Now, when notebook computers get really good at saving drawings -- and add a feature so that they flip immediately from the drawing to something that looks work-related as soon as someone looks over my shoulder -- I'll for sure go out and get one. That's the kind of life-enhancing convenience that a really good gadget would provide in my ideal world.

Horrific Voyage: With two little kids, everywhere is a No-Fly Zone

The story I'm going to tell you is a true story. I have to apologize in advance for the fact that even though it's on the humor page, it's not very funny, or at least it wasn't at the time. You might get a laugh out of it if you subscribe to the theory that "comedy is tragedy plus distance" and/or if you're a big fan of the type of comedy where somebody steps on the end of a rake and the handle swings up and smacks them in the head. I'll tell you the story, and you can decide.

Tradition!

The Christian establishment hasn't always been so gung-ho to embrace its best-loved holiday. Notably, the Puritan pilgrims outlawed the celebration of Christmas. They invented the holiday "Thanksgiving" as a replacement to put a stop to all the partying, fun-having, and other pagan customs traditionally associated with the yuletide season. So if you were wondering why Thanksgiving is such a lame holiday, that's why.

We're all about trains at my house!!!

Normally I love to travel, but I've been feeling so lazy recently that I ended up just spending my whole vacation in my pajamas playing with trains, as you can see from the following photographic evidence.

Happy Easter!!!

Now if you're new to this blog, you're probably wondering "Hey, if she's an atheist, what's she doing celebrating the festival of the goddess Astarte??"

Baby's day in Bordeaux

By Bordeaux reckoning, we live on the third floor, but by U.S. reckoning, it's the fifth floor, and some of the floors have extra high ceilings. You may wonder how they can calculate it as being only the third floor. This is because, for starters, in Europe the ground floor does not count as a floor. Then, in Bordeaux in particular, if the next floor does not have an extra high ceiling, then it doesn't count either. It's just the "entresol" or "in between floor".

Trains, trains, and more trains!!!

Additionally I think it's pretty clear that James (the red engine) is gay. Now I hope my gay readers won't think I'm stereotyping here by saying that James kind of sets off my gaydar and not just because he's the most beautiful of all of the engines. But since the kids are clearly supposed to identify with these little anthropomorphic trains, I would just as soon go with the interpretation that one of them is gay. I even mentioned to my kids that James is gay. They have no idea what that means, but they can make a note of it for future reference.

Bonne Fête, Maman !

I like to call this one "I'm cute, but my mommy dresses me funny"

Why I'm a bad mom, part 1

After watching Shrek II I don't know how many hundred million times, I thought it would be funny to teach my son Nicolas that the correct, polite thing to say after you burp is "Better out than in I always say, eh Fiona?"

Questions on parenting boys...

Oh, and they told me I was the daddy of both dolls. So I guess my kids think I'm some sort of incestuous transgender polygamist... (Let's see what google searches that line attracts to my blog!!! Hehe!!!)

Sunday morning in the South of France

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I'm on the Mommy track!!!

I was telling my mom about my new schedule the other day, and she said that this homemaking day will fill up so quickly I won't know how I ever did without it. I replied that I already don't know how I'm doing without it -- I sincerely have no idea how other families with small kids where both parents work full-time keep their house from slowly (but surely) disintegrating...

On vacation...

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At-home-vacation Travelogue

First of all, we took the kids to some medieval castles. I couldn't help but feel like this outing would have gone better if we'd brought Mike & John with us to tell us some interesting historical tidbits about the castles and such, since they know a lot about history. Left to our own devices, we were basically like "Hmmm, look at that -- a castle from the middle ages. Isn't that interesting?" Sure, we could have looked up stuff about these castles on our own before visiting them, but hey, we're on vacation!!

A creation myth by Nicolas

Nico: (after thinking about it a bit) Yes... There was a great big water bottle, and it spilled on the sand and made the sea!

So there you have it. And that's why the sea is made of water. ;^)