Month: April 2010

Categories
Work

We interrupt this blog for an announcement

Originally posted at my writing blog

I don’t make a secret of it—I hate writing contests. And this is because I have never gotten useful (or even non-contradictory!) advice from them. That may be a reflection on the organization sponsoring the contests I’ve entered, of course, because after my first contest through another organization, I’m quickly beginning to change my mind.

This last weekend, I went to a writing conference. Despite my past experiences and with more than a little trepidation (and very low expectations), I entered the conference’s first chapter contest a month ago. I was really hoping to place, of course, but I didn’t expect to do well.

Nevertheless, every time I happened to see the Saturday lunch hour in the conference schedule (“First chapter contest winners announced”), my hearing dulled, my heart pounded and my stomach shriveled. Just thinking about that day put me through the first stages of a panic attack.

(This made planning my conference schedule very stressful 😉 .)

Finally, lunch rolled around. About halfway through, the conference coordinator got up, and the pulled up the PowerPoint that would announce the winners on the two 20′ screens in the hall. To all 450 attendees.

They received almost 200 entries. They printed over 900 critiques which would be returned to each entrant after lunch. And then they started on the winners. I almost hoped they’d start with my category, just so I could have my disappointment and work to move on. But no—first came third place, non fiction: title, author. Second place. First place.

They moved on to General Fiction. And another category. And another.

And then my category, Mystery/Suspense. Third place. Not me. Hey, maybe this wasn’t so bad.

Second place. Not me. Oh. There was no way I took first place—so I had my answer. It wasn’t me. That’s okay, I know how much these things are the luck of the draw—get one judge who doesn’t love your chapter and you’re hosed. And not everybody loves everything I’ll ever write. That’s okay.

Seriously, this felt like the longest pause of the ceremonies. Despite my best efforts at consoling myself, I could hear the contest coordinator’s voice saying the title of my story over and over again.

Stop, I told myself. Don’t torment yourself.

“First place, Mystery/Suspense: Saints and Spies.” This time it wasn’t in my head. “By Jordan McCollum.”

So that little announcement is why we’re not starting a new series today. Tomorrow for sure.

This came at a time I really needed it. Many thanks to all those who helped me prepare the chapter. Thanks for a great conference, to all those who worked so hard to put it on. I also want to congratulate so many of my friends who also placed!

You can read an excerpt of my winning chapter 😀 !

Categories
Random

Dear PR people

Dearest PR people spammers,

Or should I just open with “Hi,” since that’s how you usually address me, no name, no reference to my website, no indication you have any idea who I am or that you even actually meant to email me?

I know you think Mother’s day is a great time to celebrate motherhood. I do, too. But I don’t consider telling my readers (mostly moms) how to buy gifts for Mother’s day “celebrating motherhood.”

Maybe celebrating commercialism.

No, I will not cut-and-paste your press release onto my blog. No, I will not be telling my readers how they can spend $600 on a purse to show the mother in their lives how truly special she is. (It won’t work.) No, I will not promote your overpriced, completely-unrelated-to-motherhood-in-any-way-shape-or-form crap.

I know you’ll never read this, since I know I don’t have a name or a face to you and that you’ve never bothered to even look at my blog except to harvest my email address and pretend like your commercial email is solicited.

(The government has, like, laws about all that, you know. And I report you.)

But just as a reminder—seriously. I’m reporting you to the government.

If you happen to have a product that might actually help moms feel better about themselves (or just feel better), and you’d like to send me a sample or sponsor a giveaway, then I’m ready to listen.

Until then, stop spamming me.

No love,
Jordan

Sad, sad screenshot by Matthew Maber

Categories
Kids/Parenting Fulfillment

Brats on a plane

The movie may be slightly less compelling than the serpentine version, but this is my personal nightmare. Literally.

A couple weeks ago, I had a dream about traveling through an airport. I think I was pregnant, but I didn’t have Hayden and Rebecca with me. (Ryan was with me.) As we walked through the airport, for no apparent reason, I stuck my foot out maybe two inches to try to trip a little boy, about 7 years old.

The boy didn’t trip—but boy, did he notice. Even though he’d been walking in the opposite direction, he started to follow us. (Hello, parents?) He was yelling and trying to attack me. I managed to push him away before we reached our plane.

Our plane was HUGE. For some reason, we ended up in a back section of leather bank seats. They were pretty much awesome. You know you’re traveling in style when you get the whole can of Sprite 😉 .

Until the little boy found me. He proceeded to verbally attack to me, mess with my straw while I was trying to drink, poke me, prod me, and kick me.

I tried to push him away, I tried to look for his parents, I tried to tell Ryan or the flight attendant—but no one else could see how the child was harassing me. I was trapped—can’t exactly get off a plane midflight—and under attack and invisible.

I woke up in a sweat.

And the first thing I wondered was, Is that an allegory for how I feel about my life?

And right now, as I sit here with Hayden in the throes of a 20-minute (so far) tantrum (at least he’s in his room), no end in sight, knowing that I can hardly handle what I already have on my plate, and wanting to add so much more for my own sake, knowing the only things that can give way right now are the only things keeping me sane, knowing that my family is thousands of miles away and that simply will not change any time soon (except for the quick visit coming up this week—and despite my work all last week, the house is still half-wrecked), knowing that my friends and neighbors around me are already overloaded, and knowing that by just admitting how I feel, people will judge me less and tell me I’ve obviously made the wrong life choices . . . yes. Sometimes, it is.

What do you do when you feel trapped?

Photo by Jack

Categories
Kids/Parenting

Video update

Hayden’s more taken with taking pictures than being in them for the most part, so his latest video is things that he thought were worthy of filming:

And Rebecca’s is her three newest words

(They’re Becca, Pinky and milk.)

Categories
Fulfillment Faith

A good woman

Think about a good woman you know—your mother, a friend, a neighbor. What does she do that makes her so good?

For me, it’s not so much what the good women that I know do, it’s how much. As Proverbs says, a virtuous woman “looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness.” I’m always impressed by the women around me who take the time (because they don’t just find it!) to care for their families, and for others around them; women who seem to always be thinking of others and providing for them; women who still worry they’re not doing enough.

These women have busy, full lives—and perhaps surprisingly, they always end up worrying they’ve neglected something or forgotten someone, or that they need to cram more into their lives of service.

Last week at the LDS General Conference, General Relief Society President Julie B. Beck agreed that good women simply have more to do than their lives can fit:

A good woman knows that she does not have enough time, energy, or opportunity to take care of all of the people or do all of the worthy things her heart yearns to do. Life is not calm for most women, and each day seems to require the accomplishment of a million things, most of which are important.

I definitely have that part down 😉 . It’s Sister Beck’s next point that I’ve been struggling with a lot lately:

A good woman must constantly resist alluring and deceptive messages from many sources telling her that she is entitled to more time away from her responsibilities and that she deserves a life of greater ease and independence.

Sometimes, the more I fret over whether I’m doing enough, inside my home and out, the more I shut down and try to escape from even the most basic of my responsibilities. (Usually by wasting time online—and I don’t mean something even as productive as blogging. I mean the kind of time suck where after two hours, you can’t really remember what you’ve been doing.)

Sister Beck points out that the best way we can be a good woman isn’t to try to accomplish everything, and it’s especially not to focus only on ourselves. While we definitely need to remember to make time for ourselves (or there won’t be anything for us to give!), we have to focus on our responsibilities and prioritize as well.

So what do you think you can let go of? Can you tell the difference when you focus more on yourself—or too much on yourself?

(In case you’re wondering, Sister Beck says that the best way to prioritize is through personal revelation from God about what is most important and best for us and our families.)

Photo by Tom Goskar

Categories
Contests Product Reviews

Life with cloth diapers (and Smartipants winner!)

So, we’ve made through ten days of (mostly) cloth diapering. (I don’t have that many cloth diapers, so we’ve reverted to a lot of disposables lately.) I always imagined cloth diapering to be very gross—all that toilet dunking and then wet pee-poo-toilet-water diapers to deal with. Plus, washing them? Ugh.

Reality: not that gross. I mean, considering that we’re dealing with pee and poo anyway, it’s not really that different.

The routine
Diaper changes are basically the same, except we can’t use Desitin now (bad for the diapers’ absorbency. Luckily, we’ve also been good about changing her quickly enough—no rash yet). Rather than wrapping up the dirty diaper, if it’s just wet, we pull out the insert (unless it’s our Smartipants or an all-in-one/AIO) and toss it in the diaper pail.

If it’s a poopy diaper, we take the diaper to the bathroom and dump it. Sometimes it’s just dumping, sometimes there’s some shaking, and sometimes we grab the TP and wipe the diaper out as best we can. I don’t flush the diapers, and I wear myself out doing this—I get as much as I can off and trust the rest to come out in the wash. So far, it always has.

The laundry
So we collect “soiled” diapers in a 5 gallon bucket (because we only have about a thousand laying around) (no, I’m not joking). I won’t lie: the bucket stinks. Bad. Woot for airtight lids. I suspect that some of the used diapers we bought need to be “stripped,” either for hard water or just age. And then we’ll grab another bucket. Phew!

Dumping the bucket in the wash is fairly easy—if I’ve remembered to pull out the inserts and do up the laundry tabs as I go. (On velcro-closure diapers, there are extra pads on the back of the diaper to attach the velcro so you don’t make “diaper chains.”)

I use a plain rinse, and then a hot wash cycle with an extra rinse and about half as much detergent as usual (I had to go out and buy a brand that Smartipants doesn’t specifically say not to use, like our regular one).

Every other wash, I dry the diapers on low with three of our extra (dry) towels in the dryer. The rest of the time, I hang them up to dry, usually in the family room. And if I’m really on top of things, I stuff the inserts into the diapers so they’re ready in advance. (I totally need to make myself a diaper stacker!)

Is it a lot more work? No. It’s a little more work, but let’s be honest: I have a washing machine. I dump dirty clothes in, add detergent and switch it on. Life is easy.

Scale of grossness
Dumping or shaking poopy diaper—1 (unless the splash hits you)
Wiping baby’s poopy bum—2
Washing cloth diapers—3
Wiping toddler’s poopy bum—5
Wiping out diaper—6
Wiping out training potty—28

The cost
It is a much bigger investment initially. I bought 24 diapers and inserts for around $200. (Smartipants says 24 should do you.) I used craigslist (not averse to used, clean diapers) and searched out seconds, so I really got a good deal—less than $10/diaper (including insert). There are even message boards where they do lots of “FFS” giveaways/drawings (free for shipping—you pay shipping and you get the diapers free). Brand new diapers can cost up to $20 a piece.

I think our disposables run about $0.30 a piece, so $200 would buy about 670 diapers. At the rate little babies use diapers, that’s about three months’ worth. Not bad—if you can stop yourself from buying all those cute patterns.

One major plus for my experience: my husband is totally on board with me for this. (In fact, he’s been thinking about cloth diapering for longer than I have.) He’s down with using cloth diapers, changing cloth diapers (yes, even poopy ones!), pulling out the inserts, washing them and drying them (line or dryer). Without his support, I probably would have given up a while ago.

The winner!
And I had a Smartipants diaper to give away, too. So let’s have a drumroll please—the winner is:

Kayla of Monkey Sew, Monkey Do!

Congrats! Your diaper will be winging its way to you soon!

For those of you who didn’t win, I still have good news. If you’re looking to try Smartipants, there’s a good sale on seconds (slightly irregular new diapers—maybe misaligned snaps or crooked stitching). You can get 10 diapers (no inserts) for $69 and free shipping—but girl colors only. (Normally, the seconds are $99.)

Thanks to everyone who entered, and thanks for all the birthday wishes—it was a wonderful birthday, especially since two of my sisters came in from out of state to surprise me!