December « 2011 « American Family

niblets

I have been working on a variety of home improvement projects. Sorry, this means I have basically fallen off the face of the blogshpere, but a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.

Right now, I am attempting to de-creepify my scary basement. I am not even sure that is entirely possible. Yesterday, I scrubbed and started painting the old coal storage room. You know what is dirty? Coal. Ok, to be honest it had already been cleaned and painted at least once since it held coal, but it was still really effing filthy. And surprise, surprise, painting is a nightmare too. The brick walls have multiple 1/2 inch grooves that run down the length of each brick so they have to be hand painted. NIGHTMARE. And don’t even get me started on the spiders. Ugh.

While I go re-immerse myself in that project, I am going to leave you with this:

I know I talk about my Magic Light here all the time, but it is only because it is so life-altering for me. We get sun maybe 3 out of every 30 days from November to March and the light is the only thing that gets me through the winter with my marriage and relationship with my children intact.

I thought I would pass along this article from the NY times that talks about the wonders of the Magic Light. You know, in case you are already laying on the couch in your pjs praying for spring.

Light Boxes May Melt Those Winter Blues

I also found an article about overparenting very interesting. I had a conversation with someone on twitter last week about whether or not it is ok to leave your kids in the car when you run into Starbucks. (I fall firmly on the side of YES, they can sit there for 5-10 minutes without dying or being kidnapped.) I had a lot of freedom to go out in the world and explore when I was younger and I want my kids to have that same opportunity. I haven’t quite figured out how to do that, but I am mulling it over.

Welcome to the Age of Overparenting.

Anyway, that’s it for today. I am heading back down to the ~~dungeon~~ basement.

tempest in a wood shop

Huh. Who knew this internet thing works so quickly?

So this morning, I wrote a post about my friends at Little Alouette and a product on the Land of Nod website that appears to be a copy of one of their designs. Apparently, quite a few of you were also a bit miffed and contacted the Land of Nod.

While the Land of Nod has not contacted me, they contacted Amy at Little Alouette and told her that the toy was manufactured by one of their suppliers and not designed someone in-house. I don’t know who because it is not linked to that toy anywhere I can see. Hopefully, now that Land of Nod is aware of the problem they will look more closely at the designs and designers they use. I will leave it up to Amy and Joe to figure out how to proceed.

As someone mentioned in the comments, if the Land of Nod went directly to Little Alouette for great designs on wood toys that might be a great ending to this little corporate PR problem.

I hope this hasn’t caused too much trouble for Amy and Joe, who did not even know I was going to post this today. I just love her company and I hope they get credit for the great work they do.

I am deleting the original post because my intention was to bring attention to the problem and apparently you all have helped me do exactly that.

Thanks, my friends in the computer. I love you all.

(Also, I hope you all check out Little Alouette too. They make great stocking stuffers!)

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I have mentioned my friend Amy’s company Little Alouette before. Amy and her husband Joe quit their regular jobs to start their own small business making organic wood toys. They work harder than just about anyone I know. (Seriously, Amy is a like a force of nature.)

They make beautiful little wooden toys like this:

And this:

and this:

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What are you voting for?

I ran into this link yesterday and it has stuck in my head ever since. This year, I wanted to be decidedly anti-political. I am afraid I am not going to be able to.

M’s best friend has two moms. I can’t understand how anyone can vote against the existence of their family. They are one of the nicest families I know.

I don’t understand how people can vote for discrimination. They know they are going to be on the wrong side of history, right?

So I guess I can’t be apolitical this year.

niblets

tempest in a wood shop

What are you voting for?

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