I worry EVERY SINGLE YEAR about teacher gifts. I worry about it twice: once before December vacation, and once at the end of the school year. We’re heading for the end of the school year now, so I’m about a month into worrying about it already.

One of my favorite ideas is Read the rest of this entry »

For those of you who like tangible organization tools (as opposed to software), and you’re tired of the same old Day Runners, Day-Timers, Franklin Coveys, etc, this post’s for you. I’ve been looking at day planners recently, both because of a request to cover them here and the growing realization that the combination of two small children, a part-time office job, ongoing freelance assignments, and a swirling maelstrom of doctor’s appointments/errands/grocery lists/home and garden projects/ET-BLEEPING-CETERA is resulting in what you might call a need for improved personal productivity on my end.

Ahem. So, planners! Preferably interesting and/or unique ones! Let’s check them out: Read the rest of this entry »

So Mother’s Day is coming up, traditionally the time of year when lots of women secretly hope for amazingly thoughtful gifts from their spouses and receive . . . well, it’s the thought that counts, right? My own husband has a poor track record with this holiday, one year claiming that it didn’t ‘make any sense’ to get me anything until our son was old enough to pick it out.

(Aw, sweetie, guess what else doesn’t make sense? HAVING SEX AGAIN EVER.)

I don’t lust too heavily after gifts consisting of little blue Tiffany boxes because to be honest, I’d rather have a whole crapload of Amazon gift certificates so I can buy all the makeup, comic books, and DVDs that I want. However, ’tis the season to talk jewelry, so I thought I’d run down some of the top ticket traditional sparkly-things, and see what you think about them:
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I don’t know about you, but in my house almost all the gift-giving strategies fall on my shoulders, regardless of the occasion. So if you’re in a similar boat, and you maybe have a hard-to-shop for relative to consider this Mother’s Day, here are just a couple ideas for gifts that fall outside the “lovely framed picture of the grandchildren” spectrum (although frankly, those are the easiest and probably best-received ones):

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I was thinking about brand loyalty recently because I noticed that while I love Bumble & bumble hair products, I tend to buy all sorts of random shampoos. I have a stack of them in my shower ranging from fancypants expensive salon varieties to good old drugstore cheapskate brands. My basic requirement on shampoo is that it needs to smell good, I guess — I’ve never really noticed that one makes a major difference over another.

Skin care’s another story, though. I am officially fussy about the stuff I use on my face, and fiercely loyal to one particular brand, who I swear is not paying me to say so: philosophy.

I’ll admit I’m kind of a sucker for their great packaging and the fragrance of their line (lots of lavender), but I also think their stuff just . . . works. Awesomely. My favorite items:
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My maternity leave is drawing to an end, and I am both dreading and anticipating returning to work, if that makes any sense. There are things I’m really looking forward to: being around other adults, working on projects, and having an ongoing reason to get dressed before noon a few days a week. But of course I’ll miss being around the kids, especially since Dylan has officially entered the Adorable Cooing Phase of babyhood.

At any rate, when I get back to work at the start of May I’ll need to update some of the family photos I’ve got in my office. I mean, now there’s a whole new child to proudly display. Plus, I’d like to spruce things up in general — my workplace had just moved to a new building before I went on leave, so my office is kind of drab since I hadn’t bothered to personalize it much before leaving it empty for twelve weeks.

Do you have any cool ideas for spiffing up a workspace, and including items that remind you of your family? I’d love to hear them! Here are a few things I’ve been looking at:
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I think the best investment I’ve made towards my work/life balance has to be the laptop I bought last year. Now instead of being tied to a desktop, I can quickly get some work done from wherever I need to be, whether that’s the living room sofa during naptime, the kitchen counter while I’m cooking dinner and jiggling a baby in the front carrier, or the local Starbucks (a lifesaver since being home on maternity leave; sometimes a person just needs to get the HELL out of Dodge, even if it’s just to get more work done).

Although I mostly use my MacBook around the house, for the times I do take my computer on the road I think I’d like a more travel-friendly bag that what I currently have. I’m pretty sure I’m going to upgrade to a current MacBook Pro this year, and I definitely want to make sure I keep it in good shape while still being able to comfortably tote it from Point A to Point B.

Laptop bags are sort of fun to shop for, like diaper bags they can run the spectrum from utilitarian to fancy purselike options. With my own personal criteria of wanting something at least somewhat rugged, comfortable, and sporty/funky in design, here’s a few I’ve been looking at lately:
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The books Riley wants us to read over and over are Good Night Moon, Curious George Visits a Toy Store, and any of the Dr. Seuss tongue-twisters. As children’s books go, I figure it could be much worse—at least he likes the classics. He’s got more than one book in his collection that would have to find its way to the recycle bin if he wanted to hear it every day, such as the odious/preachy I Love You Mommy.

I’m sure most of us are up to our ears in kids’ reading material and don’t need a whole lot of suggestions in that arena, but I wanted to share a few of the title that have a special place on Riley’s bookshelf. A couple of them are many years old, from when I was a little kid, and I hope that Riley one day enjoys them as much as I used to—and maybe even passes them down to his own kids. If they survive his childhood, that is, which given the state of some of his much-loved tomes seems doubtful.
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On my last post Sarah posted a comment asking whether the Dyson vacuum was worth the expense, and I thought HEY I WOULD ALSO LIKE TO KNOW THE ANSWER TO THAT QUESTION.

Sometimes I think in all caps, I don’t know why.

In the hopes of pooling our collective smarty-pantsedness, today’s post will focus on three insanely expensive products—your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to weigh in on whether or not you think they’re worth the cost. Bonus points if you have actual experience with the product, but totally uninformed opinions are welcome too. I mean, this IS the internet.
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Back in 2005 I bought myself a Mommytags necklace when Riley was born, and now that I’ve got a second child (is that ever going to seem completely normal to me, the notion that I have not a child but children?) I need to get myself a third tag with Dylan’s birth date on there. I suppose at that point it won’t quite have the same military vibe (which I love, because hello, as mothers have we not all joined some sort of poop-smeared Special Forces Brute Squad?), but I dig that piece of jewelry. It’s got just the right feel for me: not too froufrou, perfect for t-shirts and dresses alike.

I like the idea of customized jewelry but there’s a lot of cheesy stuff out there, apparently targeting the cheery holiday sweater crowd. I did some browsing around to see what was available that didn’t seem like it should come with a shot of insulin (note to jewelry makers: if your website automatically starts playing sappy music upon loading, most of us can’t hit the Back button fast enough. Welcome to 2008, where web design should not hold a person down and dry-hump their leg); here are a few of the items that caught my eye:
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