Friday I'm in Love: A Short List

I have been in a super grouchy mood for the past few days, though I am not sure why. But I'm trying to stick with being more positive, more often, so . . . .

1. I love Johnny Weir. The former skater doing the day time commentary on Olympic figure skating is the best commentator EVER. Plus, the outfits. NBC should use him all the time.

Courtesy of NYmag.com. 

2. I love Jonathan Kellerman. His mystery series featuring Alex Delaware

has something like 20 novels in it and I've stayed up way too late reading each and every one. Normally I don't like super popular mysteries written by men, but his just appeal to me.

3.  I love Zulily. They have the best deals on the coolest stuff. 

4. I love milk chocolate. I've tried to like dark chocolate, I really have. I'd rather have dark chocolate than lima beans. Or pork. But all of the health benefits of dark chocolate cannot make up for the smooth creaminess of milk chocolate. Ever.

5. I love my family. Even when I'm super grumpy and short-tempered, it's hard not to feel lucky because I have them.

Happy Holidays!

This is better than any blog post I could ever write. Enjoy.

Friday I'm in Love: Nerd Happiness

I spent a long time hiding my nerdiness. Not admitting that I'd already read and enjoyed the book that my classmates were groaning about. Not admitting that I still played with my dollhouses at 12. Not admitting that I loved doing research in the library.

But in college, living in a dorm, I couldn't hide it anymore. Probably the weekend I stayed in reading my freshmen roommate's books from her literature class, instead of going out with said roommate, was what forced me to come out as a nerd.

I just want to point out that that was at least ten years before nerds were cool and hot actors started showing up at Comic-Con.

So, fellow nerds, this is for you:

• There's now a role-playing game for Jane Austen nerds. You are welcome.

• This is for European history nerds. My favorite profile is "Hindsight".

• I don't get all of these, but I liked the ones I did. Jokes for nerds. 

• Usually, I don't really get Tumblr, but then I found My Daguerreotype Boyfriend. 

• Harry Potter nerdiness. 

Friday I'm in Love: On the Interwebs

Stuff I love on the internet:

I always thought Donors Choose was a great idea, and now a friend of mine is participating! I've known her since she was a student teacher - and I swear she's still got the same level of enthusiasm and devotion to her students. Can you help her out?

I don't like to (or have) a lot of money to spend on clothes and whatnot. But I've also discovered the perils of being too cheap when it comes to buying clothes and shoes (hello, Wal-Mart bra that actually fell apart while I was driving the kids to school. Like the strap broke off completely and stopped supporting the girls altogether. I had to hobble into the building to avoid bouncing.). Enter Zulily, where you can buy quality clothes, shoes and housewares for far less than retail. Some of the stuff is even so fancy and designery that I can't buy it even with the discount, but I've still found a ton of stuff on there. Like possibly too much.  (Full disclosure: If you join and order something, I will get credit on Zulily. Darling readers, I really need credit on Zulily.)

One of the funniest blog posts I have read in weeks.

Best parenting advice I have read in months.

This is what a feminist looks like.


Funny, funny, funny - especially if you like The Real Housewives. Or Shakespeare.

Or maybe you're more of a Jane Austen fan?

Friday I'm in Love: Shameless

Shame, as we all know, is a negative emotion. And negativity is bad, right? So I'm going to stop feeling ashamed of my deep love for the following. . .

Degrassi; The Next Generation. Sure, I was old enough to watch the original (which I did regularly) but that doesn't mean it's shameful to love the one aimed at today's teenagers, right? And yesterday's. The show's been around for 13 years now. I haven't kept up the past couple of seasons, but that'll just make it more exciting when I force my kids to watch it with me in a few years. Besides, if Vulture talks about it, it can't be that uncool.

Lamebook. Where everyone is just making fun of stuff that idiot-type people put on Facebook. It's probably bad to be so entertained by something so mean, but I can't help it.

Planet Hiltron. I originally discovered Danny Evans from the compilation of his celebrity makeunder photos on Loffee. You might say I'm obsessed with them.

Thredup. Basically, you can go here and buy barely used (trust me, they are STRICT) clothes for kids and women. Some of the stuff still has tags, even.  You can also mail in barely used clothes and shoes and get paid (or buy stuff in bigger sizes, which is what I do). Lovebug put it this way, "I used to not really like it when you bought me shirts before, but now you get me cool ones." If you use my link, you get $10 off your first order!

XOJane. If you ever read Jane magazine, then you can sort of imagine the web site. Some of the articles are really interesting and even well thought out, but their titles can be such link bait.

Saltines. I have actually dreamt about saltines with butter on them, which is what I used to eat whenever I was sick as a kid. Or sometimes when I wasn't sick. Okay, and I occasionally ate them for dinner when I had my first apartment in college. Oh my god, I want one right now.

It Friday, Bitch!

Things have actually deteriorated around here since I started the whole "Friday I'm in Love" thing. Crappy stuff happening to the family, fewer readers on the blog. . .I think I'm not meant to be filled with happiness and light.

Welcome to "It's Friday, Bitch!", wherein I list this things that have happened in the past week   past two weeks have filled me with love, happiness, mirth or schadenfreude. Yeah, I forgot to finish this post last week. And now I have some sort of nasty cold/sinus infection/death cough going on, which is my excuse for slacking this week, but at least I'm trying, right?

1. As our family slowly recovered from the world's most evil stomach virus (how come there's no shot for that?), Lovebug asked me, "Can you die from the stomach virus?" He asks such good questions. Good thing he asked after I'd started to feel better.

2. Apparently some dudes want to make "masculinism" a thing, because men are so oppressed in so many cultures and 1 in 3 of them will be raped or beaten in their lifetimes. . . oh, wait, no, that's women. Apparently some dudes are total whiners.

3. So I like to shop for my kids, which works out well because one of them is always outgrowing their entire wardrobe. Unfortunately, this blog is not the lucrative gold mine it appears to be. However, I've recently discovered ThredUp, which lets me mail in stuff they've hardly worn and get money for it. Money that I can spend on the reasonably priced stuff ThredUp is selling. And if you click one of those links, you'll get $10 off of your first order.

4. Wipeout. When everyone is too sick to do anything but crawl to the bathroom, you watch a lot of TV. But at least this show doesn't make me want to choke the writers (Max and Ruby staff, I'm talking to you) or feel guilty about letting my kids see it (every other show I enjoy watching except for Project Runway).

5. Ironflower and Lovebug were apparently awesome at the world dance presentation at the library this week. The sainted Hot Guy took them so that I would not terrify people with my death cough, but the photos make me so proud.

I don't have one of Ironflower because hers are all with other kids and I'm not up to editing today. 

6. Hugmonkey has been trying to take care of me this week, which is just the cutest thing ever. He also had his first real play date this week, with the younger sister of Ironflower's best friend. 

7. Community is back on television, where it belongs. 

8. Deborah Crombie has a new book out, which is great if you have an English police detective fetish like I do.