Return of the Mamarazzi

Personal, The Real Live Boy, Weblogs 2 Responses »
Aug 312006

Happy BoyWelcome!

I have some new visitors who are here courtesy of Bernaise Source, and perhaps they’ll be distracted from my ugly layout by cute baby pictures. Hopefully that will work on my new coworkers too, who all saw Bernaise Source and this blog in a demo today.

If you check back in a few days or weeks, the blog should look different, hopefully better and more like a personal blog than an exceptionally boring corporate blog. Er, that’s true for regular readers too. (Mom, I promise! Maybe while you’re here and distracting Noah.)

Crawling 1 of 4 Crawling 2 of 4 Crawling 3 of 4 Crawling 4 of 4Sorry. I’m distracted by my sudden wealth of pictures of Noah being cute.

I do want to talk a little bit about why Dan linked here from Bernaise Source.

We’ve been talking about blogging, and the fact that even though I’m excited to have my own live blog domain, I’m finding it a lot harder to have an attractive blog that reflects my personality than I did in a WYSIWYG blog-service blog.

Over at LesbianFamily.org, S has been helping me move the layout from equally boring and awful to much cuter and more functional, and on the way, I’ve been learning a ton. It’s just that I haven’t applied any of that learning here. Yet.

Lesson Learned:
1) If you want it to look good right away, stick with preformatted options. If you want to learn more and are willing to spend a LOT of time, hosting your own blog is a cool project.
2) Yes, your technorati ranking will plummet if you move. My old blog on typepad had reached 85,987. This one is up to 268,766.
3) If you find that depressing, maybe this will help.

6 Months 2

Posted by Liza at 10:54 pm

Actual, Factual Crawling

The Real Live Boy 5 Responses »
Aug 292006

Noah’s ability to propel himself in the direction of his choice has been improving on a daily basis for the last week, and today, he started really crawling.

At first, I wasn’t sure. He’d get himself up into forward-motion position, then put his face down and blow a raspberry on my leg. Crawling? Or trying but failing?

Then I picked up Noah’s toy remote, and started playing with the clicky buttons just out of his reach. He went into crawling position (a lot like downward dog, in yoga) and moved to grab it. Because I’m mean like that, I moved it another 6 inches out of range. Noah kept moving. In less than a minute, he’d crawled forward 5 feet.

I think our labor day project will be babyproofing.

That, and cleaning out the office/guestroom so that it functions plausibly as both by the following weekend, when Grandma comes to visit!

Posted by Liza at 8:57 pm

Observations

Opinion, Personal 5 Responses »
Aug 282006
  • The Avent IQ battery pack almost makes it through 1 day of pumping, but not quite. At least for me.
  • Pumping in the restroom of an airplane is weird, but ok.
  • Flight attendents are very nice about giving you ice since you can’t bring an ice pack on the plane.
  • The freebie similac cooler bag from the hospital isn’t actually waterproof.
  • They really do get very worked up about milk in your carry on luggage, but if the bag check person is nice, they will let you keep it even if the baby isn’t traveling with you.
  • There is no comfortable way to have a conversation about pumping breastmilk while on the road with your boss. No matter how nice he might be. (I settled on, “Excuse me. I’m probably going to be a little while.”)
  • The security at Quantico is very serious. And there’s a building there with more antennae than I’ve ever seen outside of a movie. Going *into* that building was both cool and creepy.
  • The FBI takes courtesy and politeness extremely seriously. Also grooming.
  • Noah can sleep at day care, if he’s sufficiently exhausted. He does not enjoy having his routine changed.
Posted by Liza at 9:35 pm

It’s Like He Has A 6th Sense

The Real Live Boy 3 Responses »
Aug 272006

Within 10 minutes of when I am ready for bed, Noah is up, and hungry.

It doesn’t matter when I go to bed, or when he does. Sometimes he wakes up just as I’ve decided to go to bed. Today it was while I was brushing my teeth. Usually it’s just after I’ve crawled into bed.

Mind, we don’t co-sleep. He’s in his own room.

How does he do it? Am I raising a psychic with a mean sense of humor?

Posted by Liza at 12:06 am

Peter Mulvey: Lucky CrazyMixedUp CD Group

Personal 8 Responses »
Aug 252006

Are there any other NPR junkies out there?

All Things Considered featured a +7 minute story on singer-songwriter Peter Mulvey today. Some of his current music and other projects can be heard in the story, along with the Internet-driven loyalty of some of his fans, and the bizarreness of the economics of being an indie artist.

Many of you who know me in real life also know Peter in real life, and we’ve known each other for more than 20 years. (Gulp!) If you missed it and you miss him, listen online, it’s vintage Peter.

And those of you on the CrazyMixedUp CD Group Listserv should have gotten our extremely extremely late CD in the mail this week. The final track is the perfect “Peter Mulvey & Internet Friends” song, his cover of the 1930s ragtime You Meet The Nicest People (In Your Dreams).

Apropos of nothing, that song is neither the one he sang at our wedding, If I Were, originally a duet with Pamela Means (back in ancient history when Pamela still lived in Milwaukee and wasn’t out), nor my favorite, Shirt, which you can check out on Peter’s site. But it fit best on an Internet-friends mix. :)
And it is just always cool and exciting and wonderful when you get to hear your friends on the radio. My parents called every phone we own TWICE to tell us. (Isn’t that sweet? Did you friends from way back when know that my parents like you that much? They do! It isn’t just Peter.)

Posted by Liza at 10:49 pm

SO! EXCITED!

Personal 5 Responses »
Aug 242006

I’m in the right job.

I’ve had a lot of cool sounding jobs, and jobs that were great opportunities, and jobs where I learned a lot. But almost always, sooner than I hoped, I hit the cynical stage, and the job no longer seemed as cool as it had looked during the interview.

With this job, I’m now MORE excited about it than I was during the interviews.

A lot of the day to day part will probably become routine and not so exciting over time, but right now, I’m really present to the importance of it.

When people use their email and/or Internet access accounts to commit crimes, my work helps them get caught. And some of those crimes are serious and scary, and I’m proud to be helping them get caught. My work seems more useful than it ever has before.

The other part of my job is bigger picture. I’m going to be learning new areas of privacy law and getting certified as a privacy professional. I’m learning more about the myriad of other legal issues that come up in all companies, but that aren’t “we’re being sued” or “the contract has to say X.” Over time, more and more of those things are going to land on my plate, which will keep the job fresh and interesting.

And I’m back in the world of having an office.

When you’re a lawyer, you pretty much expect to have an office. But when you work in big corporate world, you pretty much get a cubicle, until, eventually, if you’re lucky, you reach office level. On the business side, I was not almost there. I was years from getting an office.

But I have an office. I can close my door and my blinds (my window faces an interior hallway) and pump right there instead of hauling my gear to the common pumping room. I can hang pictures and diplomas. I can close the door and concentrate. I don’t have to book a room to have a conversation with someone that doesn’t annoy my neighbors.
And I’m exercising my lawyerbrain, which I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed.

Posted by Liza at 8:33 pm

Announcement! (Now with working links!)

Personal 11 Responses »
Aug 232006

Because life with a new and exciting job, a baby whose stopped sleeping through the night and thinks that 2:30 am is the most interesting time of day, and the redesign of this blog is not enough, I am proud and VERY VERY EXCITED to announce the launch of:

LesbianFamily.org

My plan for LesbianFamily.org is to create a portal for lesbian blogs that will help blog readers connect with other lesbian moms, pregnant dykes, TTCers, and folks with families in similar situations. I’ve also included categories for “extended family” and “friends of the family” and for interracial families.

PLEASE visit, and let me know what you think.

  • If I’ve listed you and you want to be removed from the blogroll, I will.
  • If you aren’t listed and you want to be, let me know.
  • If you’re in the wrong category or you want to be in an additional category, let me know.
  • If I’m missing a logical category, let me know.
  • If I’m missing a site you love, let me know.

If you’d rather send e-mail than leave a comment, please send your suggestions or requests to: lesbianfamily @ gmail dot com

OH YEAH, and I would dearly love to make a flickr mosaic of a whole bunch of different lesbian families for the header. Please let me know if it’s ok for me to use a public image of your family. It’ll be days before I get to this, but I think it will be amazing.

My personal blog will remain right here and continue to be personal and all about meNoah. And I’ll be trying to get it looking good and with a functional blogroll again. I think I figured out what wordpress didn’t like before.

Posted by Liza at 8:49 pm
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