Stuff they don't cover in the What to Expect Books

True confessions time: I own every parenting book ever written. Seriously, I just counted them and there are 47 of them. FORTY SEVEN. Everything from What to Eat when You're Expecting to What Your Fifth Grader needs To Know to Parenting through Crisis lined up neatly on my bookshelf.

Don't be too impressed, I haven't actually read any of them. I just hope to become a better mother through osmosis. Mostly I like to have them around so my kids think I know what I'm doing. Unfortunately by the time they can read the titles (1) they know better.

So basically they're there for emergency reference. And if any of my kids sticks a pea up their nose or loses a pet(2), I have the book to help me resolve the situation. But my kids are, well, my kids are unusual.

Last night I got a call from Jake's teacher. This was actually a huge surprise to me because Jake is my good kid. (3) After a few pleasantries, she got right down to business:

I'm afraid we have a problem with Jake. As you know, he's running for President. (4) And it's become a bit of an issue. The class has become distracted with his campaign. They want to have a dance, and they want to use school materials and they involved the Principal.

So here's the thing. None of my books cover this. I googled "What to do when your kid runs for US President and it bugs his teacher" Nada.
Jake and I had a talk about his campaign work being done at home and focusing on math and moon cycles and ancient Mali at school. But part of me is really annoyed by this. Jake is in a magnet program for gifted and talented kids, and his placement there is due in large part to his creativity. And here he's doing a creative project, using his free time to research politics and plan strategy and discuss real life things with his friends. He's even swapped his sweatpants for polo shirts and khakis. (5) It's not an obsession with Pokemon cards, for crying out loud.

Jake had a test last month where he needed to know things like what language the Algonquin Indians spoke. Post-SOLs (6)he will never need that information. But leadership skills and public speaking, I wish I had studied THAT in school. Jake loves school. I will be disappointed, no, scratch that, I will be pissed as hell if this changes that.

Maybe Border's has a copy of What to Expect When You Get Fed Up with the Public School System and all its Bullshit. I'll even read it this time.

How could you not vote for this kid?

1) And probably way way before
2) We don't have a pet.
3) Very important to label your kids, that's in one of my books, for sure.
4) Of the United States, not the school, btw.
5) I assumed for a girl, but no, he assures me it's for his campaign.
5) The test that kids in Virginia take at the end of the year.

How to plan a trip to New York, ShallowGal style

Step 1- One month out:
Decide on a whim to take Noa to New York to see the holiday lights and windows. (1) Hope fervently that this will permanently end all middle child angst. Spend twenty minutes booking travel and deciding to splurge on orchestra seats to the Lion King. Rationalize that the airfare was less than $100 each and we'll be staying with my dad. Promise self to spend no more money on this trip.

Step 2-Three and a half weeks out:
Realize I chose one of the shows on strike. Spend next 3 weeks googling "New York Theater Strike" looking for secret clues. Find none.

Step 3-Three weeks out:
Start checking weather. Get frustrated at the limitation of modern meteorology. Instead start reading every guidebook available at the library, forgetting that I actually spent 18 years living in New York. Buy Zagat's guide to Shopping in New York. Justify $14 spent on book by planning a second trip to New York in the spring.

Step 4- One week out:
Allow laundry to pile up and children's brains to turn to mush in front of endless Disney channel while I turn attention to my bag saga.

Step 5-Yesterday:
Check weather. Realize it will snow. Express amazing amounts of surprise. (2) Turn attention to the shoe situation. Remember excellent experience with Zappos (3) Order these boots:




Speculate boots will look like too Wonder Woman-ish. Stress that PCSguy will learn what boots cost. Come up with plan to buy Wonder Woman outfit to appease him. Rationalize that I will use the money refunded from the Lion King tickets.

Step 6- Four hours later:
Learn theater strike is over. Check Zappos, see boots left Kentucky at 1 am and are already in Springfield. Marvel over Zappos. Feel momentarily guilty about my carbon footprint this week. Vow to plant a tree or something when it's tree planting season.

Step 7- Now:
Reminisce over previous trips to New York. Remember one with Jake when he was almost 2. (4) Recall standing outside the Today Show and Al Roker (5) made a bee-line over to talk to my adorable toddler. Watch Jake scream in terror, hysterical, on national television until I finally had to apologize to Al and walk away. Spend next 7 years worrying that America thinks I'm raising some kind of racist toddler.




1)Plus her grandfather has been wanting to take her to the American Girl store and who am I to prevent that?
2) Now in my NY fantasy, Noa and I were skating in Central Park with lightly falling snow. However, it was also 72 degrees the rest of the trip. Not my best thought out fantasy.
3) I have a memory like an elephant.
4)My elephant-like memory does not extend back to this trip, except for this one specific memory. I cannot remember what season it was or why we went. I have apparently blocked this trip, for good reason.
5)This was like 7 years ago so it was back when Al was fat. Maybe that's what scared Jake.

CAGE MATCH ! CAGE MATCH !

Today's Cage match is eBags vs. Zappos

May the best site win !

PCSguy needed new luggage (1) He's always been partial to eBags, something about a gym bag or a laptop bag, I don't know, something to do with a bag. I'm almost positive. As long as he was ordering, I decided to treat myself to a new bag for Noa's and my upcoming trip to New York.

Specifically this bag:

What is this? A bag for midgets?
It would have to be three times this size!

Right? It's cute and big enough to hold my Chloe wallet and it's classified as "urban" which I think is e-commerce for "You need this to go to New York with a 7 year old for the weekend." I ordered it from eBags on November 17th. Here's what it looks like, in real life, ten full days later:

It looked bigger online

What? You don't see it? Not even if you squint really hard? Huh. Let me ask eBags. Oh ! They say:

•Sherpani - Trevina

Order Sent to Warehouse

Nov 27, 2007

Not yet available*

Actually if you call them they tell you to fuck off, they're closed and if you e-mail them they just ignore you. But if you log unto my accounts page, they tell you it will be here sometime today, which I doubt unless the warehouse guy delivers it himself by unicorn or something.


So our next contestant in this cage match is the heavily favored Zappos. Now I've never actually kept a single thing I ordered from Zappos and guess what, they don't care ! They keep sending stuff to my house with my free return labels. No grudges. No "Do you think THIS time you might actually really want this?"

Zappos offered me 12% back on ebates (2) and even had choices from Sherpani (3) that didn't even exist back in the day, long ago, when I ordered from eBags. Last night (Cyber Monday) after putting kids to bed (but before Two and a Half Men) I picked out this one:



And at 2:55 PM (4), it looked like this:

Infinitely more usable, no?

Thus the first winner of our online shopping Cage match is Zappos.

1)Cause he travels, I may have mentioned that. And he's apparently unusually hard on luggage.
2) Seriously? You still haven't joined ebates?
3) Who I am obsessed with for no good reason except I saw one of their bags at REI and thought it was cute. Or possibly that was a Timbuck2 bag. They're also "urban."
4) That's tricky math there, let's just call it 18 hours.

Banana Non Gratis

This morning at breakfast, Eli received a very important call on his banana. It went something like this:

Hi? Banana people? Yes, this Eli. Hi. Yes. Yes.
Umhmmm. OK. You want to talk to Mommy?

I held out my hand for the banana.

No? No you talk to Mommy? You sure?
Maybe tomorrow? Ok, you have a nice day too. Bye bye.

Snubbed by a banana. In my own house. So uncool.

The banana people told me not to let you in here either.

The word that best describes our Thanksgiving

So. Thanksgiving has come and gone for another year (1) And the word that describes this year's festivities . . . authentic. That's because, except for my husband and children, everyone we spent Thanksgiving with actually arrived here on the Mayflower. You'd have to go to Del Boca Vista to find a dinner table with an older median age.

First there was my Grandmother and Aunt Ruth. 82 with advanced Alzheimers and 92 and just plain mean, respectively. We celebrated with them over at their nursing home. Did I mention that Aunt Ruth is actually my common-law, step-great-Aunt? (2) Both were in unusually good moods, Grandma even recognized me. That there, that's my Thanksgiving miracle. (3)

Our actual Thanksgiving dinner took place at my Mother-in-law's house. She invited three of her friends and the highlight of the evening was the Great Cane Debate of 2007 ("Is that my cane?" " No, that's my cane, your cane is in your hand." "So it is.") (4)

The other super-authentic thing about our Thanksgiving was the Kosher/ dairy egg salad turkey. Just like the Pilgrims had. Yummy.

Makes you kind of wish you hadn't shot down the turducken so fast, eh?

1) And no turducken for PCSguy. Better luck in '08!
2) We are all disguised white trash, you can't say I didn't warn you.
3) No seriously, it was really sweet. Except when I helped her to call my mom and she said "Amy's trippin over here.'"
4) I swear to G-d this conversation took place, PCSguy will back me up.

The not so shallow side of me

ShallowGal does have some pet causes. Things that get me excited other than the friends and family sale over at Sephora. (1) Yes, most are extremely petty. For example, I'd like to see the abolition of vanity license plates. Early dismissal from school on Mondays is another.

But some of my mini-missions are legit; like Christmas presents for kids in foster care and boycotting anything related to the boy scouts until they stop their discrimination against homosexuals and agnostics.

Unfortunately I just dabble in these causes as they enter my atmosphere. Back in September, when my Synagogue started a Boy Scout troop, I protested vehemently. Until I forgot to. For weeks this was the only issue I was capable of discussing. Today I have no clue if there even is still a Boy Scout troop there. I step foot in that building SEVEN days a week and couldn't tell you if there's a sign in the lobby or not. I keep meaning to ask someone.

Christmas presents for kids in foster care, well luckily that is a short lived project anyway. But please, this Holiday season remember children who have already been through so much. I can help you find a local agency, please e-mail me or leave a comment.

Most near and dear to my heart, however, the issue I would use for my Presidential campaign, is the prompt and nonjudgmental treatment of women with postpartum depression.

The first OBGyn I tried to discuss it with suggested that an hour of strenuous exercise a day was all I needed to feel better. Another one happily scribbled a prescription for Prozac, but when questioned about it by CPS (2) wrote a long letter that denied any involvement or knowledge in the situation. Rat bastard. I got rejected for life insurance at 30 because I was on Prozac. PCS-guy scored a millions bucks worth, despite having cholesterol over 300.

Luckily for me and my family, I'm now under the care of an experienced and caring midwife. Who has done the research and knows that PPD is an illness. That I need zoloft the way a diabetic needs insulin. Who treats me in a nonjudgmental manner that allows me to feel safe when discussing symptoms and treatments.

I have friends, both in real life and through the internet who also suffer from depression. And because of the stigma that's attached, don't get help.

I promise this isn't going to become one of those "My life with PPD" blogs. (3) I'm not going to start sprouting stats about women and depression and suggesting 1-800 numbers. But I won't hide the issue in the closet for fear of being thought less of.

I know. As if.


1)Use the code FF2007 at checkout for 20% off your total. Today (Tuesday) go thru ebates for an extra 8% back.
2) For our foster care license, not the aqua-dotting of my children. Which again, I was only joking.
3) Or a nun bar (name *that* movie!)

Yahtzee!

You know how when you're playing Yahtzee and you get some sucky dice roll and it doesn't fit into any unused scoring category so you place a zero in one of the remaining categories? (1) This may look like another parenting issue but really it's my entry for Best Asian Blog. I wasn't a leading contender there anyway.

We were at a party last Saturday when the conversation turned to the recall of AquaDots because the plastic contains something similar to rohypnol. Nobody else could get this latest toy-of-death of their house fast enough. I commented how much money I'd save on benedryl.

OK. Maybe that came a little closer to crossing the line than I usually get out loud. Anyone who knows me, knows I would never *actually* aquadot my kids. I mean where would one find the dosage? (Crap I did it again) (2)

Fact: None of my kids slept thru the night before 18 months old. Noa was probably closer to three. When I wake that child up for school at 7 am by yanking the covers off and yelling "Payback's a bitch!" well, I won't lie, it feels pretty good.

Sleep is easily the rarest commodity in this house. (3) That's why when PCS-guy bet me I couldn't stay out of the malls until after Christmas, and let me choose my own reward I picked sleep. And when offered anything he wanted should he win (which he will not) he also choose sleep. (4)

So don't call me on December 26th. I'll be sleeping until noon.

On a completely related note (and do not expect that to happen again anytime soon!) tomorrow I plan to start a three part shopping guide for everyone on your list. Completely on-line of course.


(1) Like you aren't home playing Yahtzee on Saturday night too.
(2) Seriously, I'm so crunchy that I annoy myself. I have never drugged my kids to get them to sleep, even on long car trips or for daylight savings.
(3) The most common being the free crayons that come with kids meals.
(4) 15 years together is apparently the statue of limitations on winning sexual favors.

It's a Family Affair

Most printer cartridge salesmen travel extensively for their job, my husband is no exception. (1) For the most part I'm used to it. Occasionally, though, I have a night like Tuesday:


It was my turn to drive carpool and it was also swim team "funraiser" night at Chicken Out. I decided to treat the entire carpool to dinner, at the time (2) it seemed easier than driving everyone home and turning around. Dinner was a disaster from the get-go; girl child is mad because I won't let her sit with the teenagers, the baby is mad because I got him mac and cheese instead of an M&M cookie and all the older kids are pestering me for their social security numbers so they can apply for jobs at Chicken Out. (3)


By the time we get home, the baby is running a fever. Girlchild somehow blows a circuit by jamming her night light into the socket too hard and shorts out half the house. It takes me until midnight to get all the electricity squared away and the clocks reset. The baby is up most of the night, and the next, it turns out.

Nights like that, I do wish I was married to a Nordstrom shoe salesman. (4)

Anyway, PCSguy now has his own blog (like I tell my kids, forgery is the nicest form of flattery) It's either about business travel or balancing work and family (depending on a complicated matrix involving the barometric pressure, the price of crude oil and the availability of Da Ali G show at his hotel)


Oh, I almost forgot: PCSguy saw American Gangster Tuesday. (5) He said it was really good. Also he highly recommends the Westin in Houston. The beds are particularly comfortable.


(1) Don't bother stalkers. I have an alarm system and a large Doberman Pinscher.
(2) Oy, those three words.
(3) They're nine, the lack of social security numbers on the application is not what's preventing them from getting this job.
(4)Just not the one at Pentagon City, he's hella-old.
(5) We both know that I *so* did not almost forget.

ShallowGal challenges YOU !

I cannot possibly be the only woman on the planet who spends way too much time (and money) at Nordstroms yet still ends up at preschool drop-off in yoga pants. (1) Surely someone else has had to tell their three year old "You have to do kiss-and-ride sweetie. Mommy can't walk you in wearing slippers." All these cute clothes are lingering in my closet and I'm wearing pajamas to the bus stop.

Sometimes I worry they might stage a mutiny.

Oh I have plenty of excuses; I might get to the gym that day, printer-cartridge-salesman guy is on the road and there's no time to shower, or I'm at some bloated point of the month where jeans are just a bad idea. Excuses are the specialty of the house.

FlyLady talks about getting up a half-hour before the rest of the family. Nice try. There are days I'd have to get up before I even went to bed (2)

This morning, my friend Linda (3) made the following challenge. For one week, starting tomorrow, we get dressed in actual clothes every single morning. Groundbreaking. But honestly, it does not take any longer to put on a nice top instead of a 20 year old college sweatshirt. When I nag the kids to pick out their clothes the night before, well, I can follow my own advice. And even if it doesn't make me any more productive, I deserve to look pretty.

ShallowGal loves company ! (4) Pledge to join me over in the comment section ! Photography will be used me to keep me honest.

If only we'd started today I wouldn't have had to negotiate with the contractor
while wearing zebra pajamas and a hoodie. At 4 in the afternoon.

1) With no intention of going to yoga natch
2) The lack of sleep in this house will be tomorrow's post.
3) Linda's motto is "no more shopping in the junior department" However we spend a lot of time at Forever 21. It's a close call.
4) Although if I get gussied up and you're still in track pants I do look that much nicer.

Best Food Blog

I hate to admit this out loud, but I never saw the big deal about Thanksgiving. Don't get me wrong, I have plenty to be thankful for and I'll happily sit around a table filled with food for hours and hours. And that parade with the giant balloons, well that's television at it's finest.

I guess the issue for me is I don't particularly like turkey or sweet potatoes or pumpkin pie so that basically leaves me with some soup and rolls. So being the ever thoughtful kind of gal I am, I am providing my perfect Thanksgiving menu. Here is *your* chance to change my mind about Thanksgiving !

I can be there by 1 and I'll bring the wine.


Appetizer: Since the turkey always takes like a full hour longer to cook than you think it will, something a little more substantial than cheese and crackers is in order. Red Pepper and Boursin Tarts are easy and can be made the day before. They're pretty yummy, better double the recipe.

Turkey: Printer-cartridge-salesman guy once read this article in the Wall Street Journal about something called a turducken. Basically some poor dude somewhere has to take a chicken and stuff it inside a duck and then shove that whole bugaboo inside a turkey. I know ! Like WTF? Since then PCSguy has been obsessed with having a turducken for Thanksgiving. So this is the year.(1) Please spring for the next day shipping, the thought of that baby sitting in a UPS truck all week gives me the heebie-jeebies.


Sides: I've tried out a bunch of different butternut squash lasagna over the years, and hands down the best one is by Giada De Laurentiis. Even my super-picky stepfather had thirds, and this way all the vegetarians and people skeeved out by the turducken have something fairly substantial.

Assorted steamed fresh vegetables.

Rolls

Dessert: Cookies. This just seems so obvious to me. You make like 6 kinds of cookies and people can nibble them all evening. Why do cookie swaps always happen after Thanksgiving but before Christmas? What power-that-be made that the rule?

Do you have a favorite Thanksgiving dish? I hate to sound like a broken record but this is what the comment section is for ! (2)This is *so* not what the Pilgrims wanted for us

Footnotes:

1. Being as you're cooking and all.
2. Or better yet, make it and bring it over.

I made it SIX posts without being a Mommy blog

Continuing with my plan to try to blog everyday in a different category (1), I have chosen to take the easy way out today and try for BEST PARENTING BLOG. (Apparently the winner of this category this year is some chick also named Amy so I thought by typing both AMY and Best Parenting Blog maybe I'd get some random google hits. Diabolical. How has no one ever thought of this before?)

As a Stay at Home Mom, I take my children's successes and failures very personally. I know I shouldn't, but I do; I mean since all I really do 24/7 is raise these kids how can they NOT be a reflection on me? For that reason, teacher conferences tend to be the highlight of my month.

Generally I have a pretty good clue what to expect before any teacher conference. Especially when my kids are still in preschool; their proficiency with scissors, hopping on one foot, and napkin handing out, well, not to brag but they are legendary. That's why Noa's Pre-K conference was such a surprise.

"Noa is doing so well this year. She's picked up a lot of Hebrew words and knows all her letters and sounds. "

(I shrug modestly and smile.)

"But really, I wanted to tell you how impressed I am with how well you handle your situation. Not a lot of mothers could do that."

(I smile and nod and think about all the great things I do for my kids, and wonder exactly what situation she means)

" I could never live across the street for my husband's first wife and help raise their teenage daughter."

(I know, I am so awesome. Wait a second, WHAT?)

Turns out that Noa had been telling her teachers about her 16 year old half sister named Madeline who lived across the street. Everyday at circle time for 5 months Noa would share with her class detailed stories about things she had done with her half sister Madeline. Her teachers assumed that my husband had been married before, fathered a child, divorced, remarried, had 3 more children and moved across the street from his daughter and first wife.(2) None of this is even remotely true. Noa let them think it was. At 4.

Can you even imagine what I'll be saying at 13?

I still enjoy teacher conferences but I do approach them a little more cautiously these days.

(Below are footnotes, by the way. That's what those numbers mean. Blogger does not seem to like footnotes and I do so we will need to iron that out between us)

1 My plan is to sweep every category in the 2008 Weblogs
2 Had this not been a Jewish preschool, the obvious guess would have been bigamy.

Assvice all around

"Blogging Again? I hope this blog doesn't interfere with you doing other stuff."

Originally I had planned to try my hand today at Mommy Blogging. Lord knows I have enough material. But this snarky little quote as I sat at the computer really pissed me off.

It reminded me of a question that a loyal reader asked: How do you take your husband's ego down a notch without actually hurting his earning potential? It's an interesting question, and one that I honestly hadn't considered before. I'm a fairly bitchy straightforward kinda person, so there isn't a lot of chance to actually become uppity around me to begin with. But I can see how this could be an issue.

In the almost ten years since I left the workforce to be a stay-at-home mom, my husband's career has skyrocketed. I'm very proud of his success, and more importantly, relieved that he makes enough money to support all five of us. But sometimes I get just a teensy bit jealous.

Promotions and perks don't come with the SAHM package, so we need to look for our fulfillment elsewhere. It's been a long time since one of my kids said anything along the lines of "Hey mom, Thanks for birthing me, raising me, feeding me 3 squares a day, keeping me in clean laundry, driving me 100 miles a week . . . " Oh wait, it never happened. That's why it's so annoying when our significant others not only get to leave the house for 60 hours a week but actually get paid and thanked. Their egos get stroked on a daily basis and we're left hoarding out the remaining xanax until our next OBGYN appointment.

So here's my answer. Leave your husband's ego alone (or I can teach you my little smirk / eye-roll combination which pretty much deflates all pomposity) but work on improving your own. If the kids aren't going to thank you, and they aren't, you need something that brings you self-satisfaction (and not in the battery operated way.) Find your own hobby, something with totally nothing to do with your children. It doesn't have to be fancy or life altering. (Personally, I'd prefer it have nothing to do with scrap booking but it's your life.) It just has to bring you a little gratification. Me, I've decided to blog.

Back to our regularly scheduled blog defining crisis tomorrow. As always, feel free to e-mail me or leave your life altering questions in the comment section.

Issue Number One ! Am I a shopping blog?

It's kind of a joke between me and my husband; I do all my best thinking in the shower and on the elliptical trainer. Sadly I don't spend enough time either place, hence my greasy hair, size 10 jeans and lack of original thoughts.

But yesterday was a red letter day ! I got my tush to the gym nice and early and a mere nine hours later showered and changed out of my workout clothes. But alas, much thinking took place. (And I promise this will be the last time I get so specific about HOW my thought process works)

I figured out how I will determine what kind of blog this will be. Each day I will try a different approach. using the categories so kindly established here. Unfortunately, I already promised today's post would be SHOPPING and ShallowGal never goes back on her word. And c'mon Weblog people, best shopping blog should totally be a category, way more than Best Technology blog or Best Canadian Blog. That is so not why Al Gore invented the internet.

And now, for my actual post (all that was just foreplay)

ShallowGal has many many addictions, but the least destructive one is my obsession with beauty product samples. I have bought way more Clinque that I never used solely for that little bottle of yellow moisturizer and teeny bronze little pencil. Hell, I'll even hoard the toiletries from the hotel bathroom.

Some web surfing the other day led my to this great website: SpaLook. It's reminds me of Sephora with an 8% ebates kickback. Same old, same old and then . . . WHOA. The Fragrance finder box. Six deluxe samples of perfumes, in the cutest miniature version of their full size bottles. I mean do you see that adorable L'Air du Temps bottle? That baby makes me want to go out and buy an old fashion vanity table for primping. The whole kit and kaboodle is $25 and you get a $20 gift card towards the full size version of one of those products. SpaLook threw in a bunch of skincare samples as well. Pure bliss. Spend $50 and get free FedEx second day shipping.



So? Do I have what it takes to be a shopping blog? This is what the comment section is for, people !

Who's Who around here

Long time readers of this blog (little inside joke there) will notice I've changed my title and URL. Glad you found me!

One of the most important things about writing a blog (location, location, location?) is deciding how you will refer to all your friends and family. I've noticed several options: 1) using everyone's real and full name and praying the stalkers live too far away to to anything about it or 2) use cutesy nicknames like "Baby Bear" or "the dad" 3) give everyone pseudonyms. I have given my friends the option to pick their own names that describe their own personality. Sadly, I have not offered my husband or children the same kindness.

The kids are easy, especially given my hope that this doesn't turn out to be a parenting blog. There are 3 of them: so the 9 year old becomes the oldest, the 7 year year old can either be the middle child or the girl-child. Much to the dismay of my friend Donna (whose real name I am using) I will refer to my almost 3 year old as the baby. Lordy, she hates that.

Naming my husband is tougher. The obvious choice is Printer-Cartridge-Salesman-Guy, but that's really a mouthful, no? I've always been partial to The father of three of my children. Kind of reveals us as the middle-upper-class white trash we are. Since he has already complained about the way he is portrayed on this blog possibly we'll just write him off. I'll get back to him.

Now me. I renamed this blog today; it used to be Let's Pretend you Asked because I love love love to give unsolicited advice. And I still plan to do that. But let's face it, I am seriously one of the shallowest people I know. I like shopping, wine and sleeping. I prefer InStyle to Time, America's Next Top Model to Masterpiece Theatre. In this paragraph alone I've used the word "I" EIGHT times already. That's not to say I don't have redeeming qualities, and we'll get into those at some point, but overall, I am one shallow chickadee . So henceforth, I shall be ShallowGal. (Or just "me" or "I" cause I'm really not into the third person speak) Or you can call me Amy, I think that's still vague enough to confuse the stalkers.

Tomorrow we start delving into what kind of blog this is. Possibility #1: Is it a shopping blog?

Defining myself thru a blog

So when I told all my friends (fine, both my friends) I had a blog, obviously the question came up: What kind of blog is it? Is it a parenting blog, you know, one of those mommy manifetos? Is it about shopping or drinking? Because c'mon, it's not like I'm flush with hobbies. (We discussed this over salad and shiraz at Nordstrom at 11:30 in the morning so you can pretty much assume this is not the place to find predictions about the next interest rate cut.)

So over the course of the next week, in between shopping for the perfect shoes to match my new eyeliner and carpooling to skating, swimming and Spanish, I will attempt to determine exactly what kind of blog this will be.

And for the record, my husband would like you all to know that he is NOT a printer cartridge salesman. He is actually A VERY IMPORTANT ADVERTISING EXECUTIVE.

I did it all by myself !

I did it all by myself. Without any help from my printer-salesman husband. Before 9 am even.

I have a blog. I have a blog. Now, the big question: who to mock first.