Five pounds, to be exact. My fantasy goal: 10 pounds, my dream goal: 7 pounds, my realistic, reasonable goal: 5 pounds.

Journaling and being part of a community have always been essential to my success with weight loss, and so I had a thought about twitter.

I’m going to use my twitter account as my food journaling tool. So much faster/easier than logging on to Weight Watchers – which is unbearably slow on my Mac. And for whatever reason, pulling out a notebook and writing it all down isn’t happening – it’s just so 20th century!

Yesterday I used the hashtag #foodjournal, to tweet my first meal, and I invite you to join in. Fair warning: if you don’t twitter yet, it can be habit-forming – but it’s calorie-free!

June 29th, 2009 | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

That is the huge, messy pile of papers I have on the floor of my office. They are waiting for me to deal with them: recycle, toss, file – whatever. We had a bit of drama around here last week as we were heading to Canada and needed to find certain documents, and my office hasn’t been the same since.

The huge messy pile is usually contained by my “to file” black hole box, but it has become very clear that I need to actually do some filing. Needless to say, paper management is not my strength.

I really hope to Show & Tell  about my clean floor and efficiently filed papers next week in a post entitled “AFTER” – original, no?

On another note: I refrained from taking a photo of Vintage Girl’s empty bed, but she is off at Girl Scout camp for two nights. Earlier today she threatened to stay there forever because I was being SO MEAN! What terrible, mean thing did I do? I told her she had to finish her lunch before playing w/her camera. Just awful, I know! I’m sure you’d want to stay at camp forever too if you had me for a mother.

Don’t forget to head over to Mel’s to see what the rest of the class is sharing this week.

June 24th, 2009 | Category: Uncategorized | Comments (7)

What is ETSY Expo? Read more on my ETSY page.

This week I present crazy and wonderful soaps from Annie’s Powder Room. There is a lot of handmade soap for sale on Etsy, but these have to be the most fun!

June 23rd, 2009 | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Tonight Vintage Girl explained that she’s part of two groups at school. Sometimes she plays with the “girly girls” and sometimes she plays with the “regular people”. I almost spit out my water when she said “regular people”!

Apparently what defines a “girly girl” is not what she wears or what she likes to play at recess, but that she flips a little attitude on the playground.

Sounds like the “regular people” are a lot nicer . . .

photo by LonesomeRoadStudio

June 21st, 2009 | Category: Uncategorized | Comments (1)

I’ve been wanting to make wine journals as gifts for years, and with the opening of my new etsy shop, I finally did it. This first one will be a gift for Vintage Girl’s teacher (who loves her wine!) but I hope to make some more and get them into the shop soon.

I’m rather proud of this journal! I chose the cover paper (from my stash), designed and printed the inside pages, and designed the label (I have mixed feelings about the label), then had it coil bound at Kinkos. I plan to give it to VG’s teacher along with a bottle of my favorite wine.

I thought you might also get a kick out of the gifts that Vintage Girl has been working on. She loves to “craft” and has an enormous supply of my rejects and scraps to inspire her!

Just two more days until the end of first grade. As usual, it’s hard for me to see my girl grow up, but I’m ready for a new rhythm to our days for a while.

Be sure to stop over at Mel’s to see what everyone else is sharing this week.

June 17th, 2009 | Category: Uncategorized | Comments (8)

Since setting up my little shop at Etsy, I’ve spent a fair amount of time looking around, and I’m amazed at how much truly beautiful work is available. From photographs and jewelry to handmade clothing and original prints – there are some extraordinarily talented people selling their things.

I thought it would be fun to share my Etsy discoveries on Vintage Mommy, and if a reader finds that perfect necklace or greeting card while supporting an Etsy artist – wonderful! I can’t afford to buy most of the things I see and love, so I will live vicariously through you.

I’m kicking off my Etsy Expo with a shop called skinny laminx. Not only do I love her graphics, the color palette she uses, and the items themselves, there is not a baby item in sight in her shop (hello fellow IF-ers!). And let me tell you, Etsy is crawling with baby items!

Happy Browsing – and tell me what you think!

June 16th, 2009 | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

I was wading through the pile of art supplies, school papers, junk treasures, and food remains on Vintage Girl’s desk yesterday, and look what I found!

Apparently the wound is deeper than I thought – but at least we’re wearing matching dresses adorned with friendly tulips! (you can read the first chapter of A Tale of Woe here).

And don’t forget to head over to Mel’s to see what others are sharing this week.

June 11th, 2009 | Category: Uncategorized, unplanned pregnancy | Comments (7)

First I have to say that I try not to say the words stupid (or hate) very often. They’re words that come out so easily, yet when I hear my daughter (or other children) use them, I cringe. So I wrote this post title with hesitation. However . . .

Last night I was having dinner with a good friend whose husband was adopted.  In the course of our commiserating about husbands, my friend casually threw out that she knew her husband was an “adoptive pleaser”. I had never heard that term before but I immediately got the drift - it’s not a good thing to be an “adoptive pleaser”.

Was it a stupid thing to say to an adoptive mom, an insensivite thing to say to an adoptive mom, or am I over reacting? It went through me like a sharp knife.

My friend’s mother-in-law (her husband’s adoptive mother) recently passed away, and from all indications, she was a mean, angry, bitter person who treated everyone in her path with contempt. I can well understand that her husband has spent most of his life trying to recover – but would it be different if she had been his biological mother? Would less damage have been done? Would she have treated biological children differently?

When I googled “adoptive pleaser”, I could barely bring myself to read the results. I feel like this description, this idea, is somehow my daughter’s fate – according to some. One website which claims to be an Adoption Dictionary says that adoptees are often pleasers (and fixers!) because they fear being rejected by their adoptive family and “abandoned” once more.

I don’t know if I’m living in denial about the depth of feelings regarding abandonment that adoptees have, or if these are sweeping generalizations that simply can’t apply to every adoptee or adoptive family.

I can say that Vintage Girl shows no signs of being a “pleaser” in any negative way. She’s proud when she does something well, but  I see her taking her own path with great confidence and often not caring what “everyone else” is doing.

So although I’ll now have this worry permanently planted in my brain – and my heart – I do feel better now for venting and I welcome your thoughts.

June 10th, 2009 | Category: Uncategorized | Comments (4)

I discovered Dawn Friedman’s blog a few months ago in my search for other families living in an open adoption. Recently Dawn has taken a giant leap forward and started a website devoted to open adoption, called Open Adoption Support. It’s brand-new, but groups are forming to support all kinds of families and all kinds of open adoptions.

Dawn’s personal blog is a treasure, especially when she talks about her daughter Madison, who is unbelievably smart, perceptive and often just plain entertaining. I admire Dawn for her candor, and her unwavering, passionate support of open adoption – even when the going gets tough. Her ability to create community and her smart, warm writing remind me of someone around here . . .

Another site I just discovered this week is called Adoption Under One Roof. From their site:

Providing access to information on adoption from every angle, every direction, every point of view is the goal of Adoption Under One Roof, and those of us who have this dream and work to make it real are determined to offer a platform that will encourage the sort of sharing that will lead to improvements in every aspect of adoption.

The website has posts about lots of adoption-related issues, including some really difficult subjects. I haven’t explored the site in depth, and I’ve been a little turned off by the giant banner ad at the top of every page, but it offers some good reading – and some brutal honesty. I have to confess that I wish I hadn’t read a recent post; it will haunt me for a long time. However . . . it is worth visiting if you are considering adoption or have already adopted and are looking for community.

And finally, I’m giving myself a pat on the back for successfully pasting that code – twice now! – for the Show & Tell graphic into my blog; I’m so amazed anytime something “techy” like that actually works for me!

June 8th, 2009 | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment