A Disney short from 1956. If you can ignore the racism, robbery, kidnapping, and attempted murder, enjoy the amazing artwork and the seriously catchy song.

I have an infant son. And I have a blog. Does this makes me a “mommyblogger?” Maybe not in the traditional sense of the term (and it is weird to think that a term coined so recently can even have a “traditional sense” yet), but I am a mom who blogs about her life and her family.

So… in what I call Reverse Mommyblogging, I shall now take you through a day in my household, and list by name and brand all the products I typically use, BEFORE I get paid to mention them!

I am not affiliated with any of these companies, and they have not paid me or sent me free products… YET. In these trying economic times, though, a few extra bucks or free products would sure come in handy, so all offers will be entertained. Do you hear me, Procter and Gamble? Get me on that free products train! I can be a corporate shill, too!

• Safety 1st baby monitor
• Apple iPhone
• Pampers Baby Dry or Cruisers size 4 diapers
• Pampers Sensitive baby wipes
• Aveeno Baby Soothing Relief Moisture Cream
• Triple Paste diaper ointment
• Gold Bond medicated baby powder
• Baby clothing by: Gymboree, Baby Gap, Carters, Circo
• Avent pacifiers
• Enfamil Nutramigen baby formula
• Gerber 2nd foods baby puree
• Healthy Times brown rice baby cereal
• Dr. Brown’s baby bottles
• Gerber Soft Bite baby food spoons
• Baby Orajel toothbrush and toothpaste
• Tom’s of Maine toothpaste
• Boston Simplicity contact lens solution
• Aussie Moist shampoo and 3 Minute Miracle Deeeeep Conditioner
• Infusium leave-in treatment
• Garnier Fructis Sleek & Shine 
Anti-Humidity Styling Cream
• Dove moisturizing soap
• Noxzema Daily Exfoliating Cleanser
• Cococare cocoa butter
• Kiss My Face Liquid Rock Patchouli deodorant
• Burt’s Bees Radiance Day Cream
• Burt’s Bees Chemical-Free Sunscreen SPF 30
• Cover Girl Trublend pressed powder
• Almay Intense I-Color eyeliner  in Raisin Quartz
• Maybelline Great Lash mascara in Black
• Burt’s Bees Lip Shimmer in Champagne
• Millstone decaf caramel truffle coffee
• Saturn SL2 automobile
• Gasoline from 7-11, Exxon, Shell, etc.
• Apple MacBook Pro
• Logitech MX Revolution wireless laser mouse
• Apple 23″ Cinema Display
• Coke Zero
• Mirado Black Warrior pencils
• Adobe Creative Suite CS4 software
• Calphalon Stainless Steel cookware
• Cascade 2-in-1 Action Pacs dishwasher detergent
• BabyGanics foaming dish and bottle soap
• Dr. Brown’s bottle brush
• Tide Free laundry soap
• Target brand baby laundry soap
• Target brand infant ibuprofen
• Target brand infant gas drops
• Aveeno Baby Soothing Relief Creamy Wash
• Sony television
• Mac mini
• Playstation 3

Beautiful photography of urban store fronts, from James and Karla Murray:

KATY'S CANDY STORE, IN BUSINESS FROM 1969-2007. "I speak 3 languages. English. Spanish. And Motherfucker." Katy Keyzer, Owner. BROOKLYN, 2004

I read a great article by Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times a while back (thanks to the magically wonderful iPhone, I occasionally get to do adult things like read the NYT) about getting kids to read during summer break. That was never a problem for me. I LOVED to read and never turned down a trip to the library. I would come home each time with a big stack of books and wrestle with the delicious dilemma of which one to read first. To this day, when I have a stack of fresh reading material in front of me, I get this happy and excited feeling, like a kid in a candy store!

Here are some of my favorite books from when I was growing up (and a few more recent than that).

1. The Harry Potter series, by J.K. Rowling. This might be my all-time favorite series of books.
2. Old Yeller, by Fred Gipson. I was SO SAD when I realized what was going to happen to Old Yeller. Made me scared to death of “hydrophobia.”
3. Anything by Richard Scarry, especially  Cars and Trucks and Things that Go. My favorite thing about his books was searching for Goldbug on each page. Kind of like the 1970s version of Where’s Waldo.
4. The Great Brain series, by John Fitzgerald, especially The Great Brain at the Academy. I first found a copy that belonged to my older cousin at my Grandma’s house. I read them over and over again.
5. Bridge to Terabithia, by Katherine Paterson. Sniffle.
6. A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L’Engle. This was probably my introduction to sci-fi.
7. James and the Giant Peach, by Roald Dahl. I, too, wanted to escape my troubles and live in a giant rolling peach with some caring, loving bug friends.
8. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, by Roald Dahl. Another favorite escapist fantasy.
9. Bunnicula, by Deborah and James Howe. Find out why all the vegetables in the crisper lose their color at night! It couldn’t be a vampire bunny, could it?
10. Harriet the Spy, by Louise Fitzhugh.
11. The Root Cellar, by Janet Lunn. Historical time travel.
12. The Boxcar Children series, by Gertrude Chandler Warner.
13. Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh, by Robert C. O’Brien.
14. The Girl with the Silver Eyes, by Willo Davis Roberts. The main character, Katie, has the power of telekinesis, and is on the run from some very bad people.
15. The Westing Game, by Ellen Raskin. A fascinating murder mystery, concerning the will of George Westing. Who will solve the puzzle and claim the inheritance?
16. Strawberry Girl, by Lois Lenski. I loved the illustrations and it took me forever to figure out that “biddies” referred to chickens.
17. The Little House series, by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Because I’m a girl, yo.
18. And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street, by Dr. Seuss. My favorite Dr. Seuss book ever!

This is a pretty nifty little test of color vision… You drag the color chips around to arrange them into a smooth spectrum.

It turns out I have perfect color vision!

The George W. Bush Presidential Librarium

This is beautifully drawn, and absolutely hilarious. By the creators of the book, “Goodnight Bush.” Click here to go to the site, and be sure to then click on the illustration to view close-ups!!

A List Apart is one of my favorite online magazines and resources for web design, encompassing culture, code, content, standards and practices, etc. Right now they’re conducting a survey of “designers, developers, information architects, project managers, writers, editors, marketers, and everyone else who makes websites” to get a sense of how our profession is practiced. Take the survey! It’s fast and easy.

A co-worker forwarded a really fantastic article from Smashing Magazine, about new standards in web design. The good news is, I appear to be doing a lot of things right in my design work. Although the survey analyzed large blogs, I think the results can apply to any type of site. Here is a summary; the percentages in parentheses indicate the percentage of surveyed sites conforming to the standard:

• large blogs require a multi-column layout solution (usually 3 columns suffice) (58%);
• layouts are usually centered (94%),
• layouts usually have a fixed width (px-based) (92%),
• the width of the fixed layout varies between 951 and 1000px (56%),
• 58% of the overall site layout is used to display the main content,
• CSS-layouts are used (90%),
• the background is light, the body text is dark (98%),
• the most usual (not necessarily most user-friendly) line length lies between 80 and 100 characters,
• Verdana, Lucida Grande, Arial and Georgia are used for body text (90%),
• the font size of body text varies between 12 and 14px (78%),
• Arial and Georgia are used for headlines (52%),
• headlines have the font size between 17 and 25px.

 

My friend Brad pointed me to this really cool application that creates a customized word cloud from any text or URL.

This one is created from the text of my cookbook. Good times!

I found this image on ArtDaily and thought it was beautiful.

Javier Peréz
Mascara de Seduccion (Mask of Seduction), 1997
Guggenheim Bilbao Museoa

Horse hair, cotton fabric, silk, text

Smashing Magazine has collected some really gorgeous desktop backgrounds for your Mac. Or, your PC, I suppose. This is the one I’m currently using both at work and home.

I realized tonight that I’ve only made three short posts in the past three weeks that AREN’T about my miscarriage. Part of me is tired of thinking about it, and I am sure that my readers, all two of you, are tired of reading about it too, so I’m going to try to move on to other topics now for the most part. I can’t promise there won’t be the occasional “woe is me” post, but I am trying not to let the woe engulf me and writing about normal things will be an exercise in getting my head out of that sadness.

So. Onward!

Last.fm
Doc turned me on to this cool site called Last.fm. It’s a free service (similar to Pandora) that keeps track of what music you listen to, streams music that it thinks you’ll like on your own personal “radio stations” (and does a darn good job, by the way, of choosing music that I like), connects you with people that have similar tastes, and introduces you to independent artists and music you may not have heard before.

Try it! It’s very easy to install and operate. It imports your iTunes listening history and then is able to custom-tailor “radio stations” for you.

The 6 Cutest Animals That Can Still Destroy You
I absolutely love Cracked.com’s lists. The people who write them are hilariously witty and razor sharp. Even if I don’t have any interest in the topic, although I usually do, I still read them for the quality of writing. Here are just a few choice quotes from a recent article about six adorably cute animals that can fucking kill you. This shit is bananas, B-A-N-A-N-A-S.

If animals could talk, they would spend most of their time calling us dicks and telling us to get off their land. The traits we think of as “cute” are often simply tricks animals have developed to get tourists to throw them food.

There is no way you could look at a big, fat, happy, squishy, huggable hippo and not think, “If she could talk like a human, she would sound just like Jada Pinkett Smith and be oh so sassy.” You would totally name her Sassybaskets and she would be your tutu-wearing, ballet-dancing, strut-walking pal for life. Just you and Sassybaskets against the world! Look out, New York, here comes Sassybaskets!

The platypus is mother nature’s way of saying, “I made this thing out of spare parts I found on the workshop floor, and it can still fucking cripple you.”

It turns out swans are now and have always been vicious, mean little motherfuckers who will not hesitate to snap your fingers off one by one for daring to pollute its presence. And then going off to laugh with all their friends about what a huge loser you are.

Orange Almond Cake with Caramel Sauce
A few weeks ago I made a delicious cake. It is in no way low-calorie or low-fat, and it tastes utterly decadent. Here’s the recipe:

3/4 cup butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs plus 1 egg yolk
1/3 cup orange marmalade
1/3 cup light sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1-3/4 cup flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
7 ounces almond paste, crumbled

Sauce:
1/4 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon rum extract
1/3 cup orange marmalade

Preheat oven to 350.

Lightly butter a 9″-round bundt cake pan; set aside.

With a mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 3-4 minutes. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the apricot preserves, sour cream, and vanilla extract; beat for 1 minute more.

Stir together the flour, baking powder, and salt; lightly fold into the batter along with the almond paste.

Spread batter evenly into the prepared pan . Bake for 40-45 minutes or until the center of the cake is firm when the pan is lightly tapped.

For sauce:
In a medium saucepan, melt butter. Stir in brown sugar and cook for 2 minutes. Stir in remaining ingredients and simmer over low heat for a few minutes more. Drizzle over cake slices.

Recent Activities
Last Friday night we went to an art show and dinner with Kathryn and Brett. Even though I didn’t particularly care for most of the art (a student show, watercolors), it was nice to get out and do something cultural with friends. I don’t know why we don’t do that more often. Recent events have got me thinking a lot about priorities and free-time activities, and I’ve realized that I miss actively making art and actively going out to look at other peoples’ art. I want to start doing that more often. We need to force ourselves to find the time…. maybe by just writing on the calendar what we are going to do, and then sticking to it. For someone who’s supposed to be an artist, I sure avoid art a lot of the time. I don’t understand myself sometimes.