Category: Uncategorized

Have you ever visited The Hairpin?  That is one of my favorite websites.  The articles are smart, funny, and legitimately helpful.  I highly recommend.

Some other recommendations:

• CoverGirl Lash Blast Mascara  I bought this in the checkout line of Walgreens on a day that I realized I had forgotten to pack my mascara into my gym bag.  This is my new favorite mascara.
• Sally Hansen Lip Inflation lip gloss in Bare  For a nude lip, you can’t beat this gloss.  It’s got just enough color that your lips aren’t corpselike, and just enough plumping agent that you get a nice natural color under the shimmer-gloss.  This is a must have for neutral makeup days.
• Scunci Bobby Pins  My hair secret.  I use bobby pins like most people use hairspray.  These are the best I’ve found.  They do cost more, but they hold and don’t slip.  Love them.
• K-Y Touch  I’m gonna slip this in here because we’re mostly adults and even if we aren’t, it’s useful information.  I hate feeling sticky, greasy, or oily.  This is none of the above, and I don’t have the compulsive urge to stop whatever I am doing and go wash my hands no matter what else I might be missing.
• Jim Parrack  The guy who plays Hoyt Fortenberry on True Blood.  I love being able to say when I meet actors who are kind people.  When I met Jim, he was a true sweetheart, and that delighted me because Hoyt is my favorite TB character.
• Pilar Alessandra of On The Page  I met Pilar through my high school compadre, the lovely and talented Laura House, when I took her Coffee Break Screen Writer workshop.  I think I learned more in those 3 hours about drafting out a storyline, than I learned in all my years of college.  If you are so inclined, you MUST get one of Pilar’s books, or attend her workshops.
• Weight Watchers Toasted Coconut Dreambars  Oh. My. Word.  So tasty.  So sinfully tasty.
• Jag Jeans Pelly Crop Pant  These are my favorite pants, and I am going to be really sad when I shrink out of them, as I almost have done.  Mine are chocolate brown, soft as butter, and are more comfortable than anything else I own.  And I got them marked down at Nordstrom Rack, so the price made me happy, too.
• Free Air and Water  My husband’s blog.  I am always trying to decide if he is smarter, or better looking because, y’all, he is brilliant and handsome.

My son went to two schools last year, and at his Kinder-point-of-origin, his school had a pledge. Daily, the students repeated that they would: Do their best, be their best, and never give up. I thought that was terrific advice for life in general, so we still make this pledge to each other as I drop him off in the mornings.

He’s wearing Yogi Berra’s number on his little Yankees uniform, and at 6, he is more athletic than I ever was.  He’s something else, y’all.  That kid got out there on that field and he played his heart out.  It wasn’t like me running myself into the ground to be as good as the worst kid on the team.  It was entirely different. 

Thor appears to be middle of the pack for his team.  He hits well, he throws well, and he’ll figure out the catching.  He’s better at catching this week, than he was last week.  But he hits really well.  And he hustles. 

He was a little foggy on the rules, so when he started off playing 3rd base, he kept running to 1st, trying to field the balls that were headed that way.  In the second inning, they moved him to 1st base, and he did better.  He understood that concept a little more.  When they moved him to Shortstop in the 3rd (and final) inning, he made a spectacular play that would have resulted in an out, if there were outs in T-ball.  Uhm…there are no outs in T-ball.  There are also no scores.  I guess this is great for the kids, and I’m not saying a word to Thor about it, but I like having Winners and Losers.  Ha!

It was fun to watch how into the game Thor was.  He was just a jumping bean of focused energy the entire time.  Never took his eyes off that ball, but was working so hard to make a play.  Focus.  You could see it in his face, and you could see he felt like a big, big man.  He was DOING something.  And he followed the coach around like a shadow before the game started.

What I liked best was this:  When the coaches worked with him on where he should be when playing his positions, he didn’t seem to mind.  He just agreed (then forgot immediately, and had to be reminded) to follow their instructions and got right back down into his crouch, waiting on that ball.  You guys, I told Bryan that we’d done something right.

See, if I had been wearing that number 8 at age 6 (or even 16), and the coach had had to tell me I wasn’t playing my position properly, I’d have been so upset and mortified that I had done something wrong, that I wouldn’t have been able to play anymore.  I would have been physically sick to my stomach at having made a mistake in front of so many people, and I probably would have cried right there.  I had no self-confidence–I faked self-confidence very well, but I had zero confidence in my ability to correct mid-play and move on.  My son has that!  I’ve met a parenting goal!  I could have Snoopy danced right there in the bleachers realizing that he didn’t give a rip about who was watching, or what he’d done incorrectly, only on improving and playing better, and winning that game.

He was focused, confident, and determined to do everything in his power to bring home a win.  That meant two things to him:  1.  Keep the other team from scoring, 2.  Make a home run.

I’m wondering when he’s going to figure out and realize that everyone scores, and everyone gets to run all the bases at some point?  Until then, I’m just enjoying this.

Last month, I took a screenwriting workshop from Pilar Alessandra of On The Page, at the suggestion of high school chum, Laura House.  Laura is a great writer and has great taste in people, so I felt good about my chances of learning something interesting.  Remembering that frequent WWK contributor, and script guru Elspeth Grafton had also mentioned Pilar’s name made it that much more intriguing.  So, I ended up in a classroom with mostly members of the local Screenwriter’s Association, hoping no one would sniff me out for the n00b phony I was. 

We had been asked to come to class with an idea to build upon, and since Nicole and I have a bazillion finished manuscripts, I just picked one of those to play with.  I think Pilar was a little horrified when I said “werewolves”, but at least I didn’t say “vampires,” right?  Using her Coffee Break Screenwriter method, we spent the next couple of hours building a screenplay. 

Listen, I learned more about crafting a tight, well-rounded story in that workshop, than I have ever learned in any other class.  Afterward, I was talking with another author friend, Emily Reese, and told her I thought my whole process was revolutionized.  I am decidedly not good at organized writing, and even worse at outlining, but what I learned in Pilar’s workshop really showed me a new way of doing things.  I was impressed enough by it that I will point you back to Pilar’s website to buy the book or DVD, or sign up for a seminar yourself, rather than trying tell you what we did.  If you are at all interested in writing screenplays or anything else, you will want to study Pilar’s methods.

I was thinking about all this when I ran across Inspire and Imagine, a blog decorated with some stunning photography.  The particular article that caught my eye was about the author’s trip outside his comfort zone to attend a screenwriting workshop.  I hope he finds Pilar!

I used to work for a man, whose wife would call and share information with me.  One of her more amusing bon mots was that a lady should never use the words boobs, buck, or butt.  Up until then, I don’t think I used the words boobs or butt at all.  Now?  Now, I am practically Carlinesque with my desire to say all three of those words.

Why am I thinking about boobs?  I joined a blog networking community called SeededBuzz and have been reading all sorts of interesting articles.  Well, I have been bookmarking all sorts of articles that looked interesting to read later.  This morning I read one of my tagged titles regarding bra fitting.

Over on 32AA Bra, Amanda talks about how she fits clients for their lingere.  My sizing is a bit more generous than her speciality covers, but I always appreciate an expert’s opinion on sizing and fit.  I know I’ve been sized in more places than I care to admit, and done all the at-home math to end up with some hilariously ill-fitting results.  The worst is always when I try to talk to a Fitter about my build and make specific requests, and the Fitter looks at me like I’ve just blown her circuit board with my talk about having a high rib cage, broad shoulders, and wanting either a balconette or a demi-bra in either a stretch lace or a satin cup with minimal padding and absolutely no molding.  That usually ends with the Fitter just sort of wagging her measuring tape at me and saying words about numbers.

But as Amanda discusses, bodies aren’t all alike, so boobs won’t all fit into the same bras equally as well.  It is all about finding the style or brand that fits you best in a style, and very little to do with the alphabet.  In fact, of my 3 favorite bras, I have 3 different sizes.  Each one fits a little differently.  In one, I need a smaller band.  In one, I need a smaller cup.  In one, I wear a larger cup AND a smaller band.

So my advice is get your fitting, but remember that you are the one who knows best.

Some of my favorites:

the Heavently Wonder Push-up Balconette by Wonderbra

the Level 2 Naked Glamour Convertible Plunge by Calvin Klein

the Pure Bliss Microfiber Underwire by Hanes (that you can get in 3-packs at Sam’s!)