Etsy Anyone?

The blogosphere is full of posts and links to fabulous finds on Etsy but I’m obsessed with the items on Etsy as well as the concept and I think there are still some friends of Ma’May’s who have not seen the Etsy light yet. I’m also highly invested in continuing the traditions of women who came before me through “handy crafts”. Handmade is so special and Etsy is helping to bring handmade to a new level.

In case you’re new to the world or have been under a rock oblivious to cool things, Etsy is “an online marketplace for buying & selling all things handmade.” Now we’re not talking handmade things that look like they came from some horrible home economics class. There are no pen cups made out of old toilet paper rolls. There is some AMAZING stuff on this website. It’s like walking down the trendiest NYC boutique avenue times 1000 and cheaper and better. It’s also a really interesting combination of an online e-commerce marketplace and a social network or online community.

There are some really cool features like their Alchemy section where you as a shopper could post that you’d like to purchase something for a mom who likes eco friendly design, is in love with pink, and you’d like to spend $50. Vendors/crafters/artists could then bid on your post with ideas from their repertoire. There are also some really innovative ways to shop like their color selection tool, which will pull up all items on Etsy that are your chosen color. Seriously, it’s cool.

Check out the video on their About page to learn more and spend some time on the site.I guarantee you’ll find something to your liking.

Hmm sounds like….

Ok this one is not related to parenting or any of my normal topics, but I’ve been having a good chuckle over this new TV ad for a food snack. I think they should have done a bit more user testing or convened a focus group prior to launching their TV ad campaign.

Several years back a friend and I had a great chuckle over the ad campaign for a furniture store called the Sofa King. Now Sofa King was very clever and deliberate in their ad campaign, unlike the aforementioned company which I will discuss further in a bit. [Now’s the time when you might want to read this post out loud.] Sofa King had a great series of ads that played off of their name. Like: “Our sofa’s are sofa king comfortable.” “Our sofa’s are sofa king affordable.” Very cute ad campaign and a great play on making their name sound like something it wasn’t.

However this latest company does not appear to realize that when said fast like the Sofa King example its name and ad campaign do not actually sound like its name but in fact a male body part. I only hope you can have as good laugh at the Nut Snack ads I have recently had. Please now say aloud, Nut Snack, several times quickly as if you’re a TV announcer.

In love with this bag

Just a quick post to highlight this bag I’m totally in love with. It’s going to be on my future purchase list. Morelle on Etsy.

The 4 P’s of Motherhood

I’ve decided that there are four P’s to motherhood. At some point in your career as a mom you’ll experience them all. Dad’s get some, grandparents get some, the baby sitter might get one here or there. But you, moms, you’ll get them all.

You may be wondering what the four P’s are and may readily know what two of them are, but believe me there are four: Pee, poop, puke, and phlegm. That’s right folks — phlegm.

The four Ps became abundantly apparent one winter morning when Mazie was sick. Poor thing had some nasty stomach bug and had thrown up during the night as well as a whole host of other lovely symptoms. So a sleep deprived mom (me) sat in the rocking chair trying to comfort and nurse my limp lifeless little child with our trusty and ever vigilant cat by our side. I though I had things under control so my husband ventured out to the corner market to pick up a few key items. Just as I heard him shut the door to leave, Mazie started fussing — a tell tale sign of puke to come — rather than be puked on for the third time that morning, I positioned Mazie over the side of the chair where she promptly threw up… RIGHT ON THE CAT.

Who as any unlucky cat would, ran like hell out of the room aptly spreading puke from one end of the house to the other. Needless to say my husband walked back into the house just after the whole incident went down.

Ahh motherhood.

Results of my Facebook publicity tour

So I recently installed Google Analytics on the site so I could keep track of the droves and droves of fans flocking to my site. Admitadly it was a bit of a sad state of affairs for unique viewers, mostly due to the fact that I hadn’t sent the site to anyone until I was sure I’d actually do this blog thing for real.

I finally decided to hit prime time and posted my URL on my facebook page and yahoo Google Analytics tells me I had 18 new visitors to the site on day 1 of my facebook publicity tour. The great part about it was that I could basically tell who most of you were based on the geography, etc. So thanks to my friends and family for boosting my unique visitor count and for taking the time to read my randomly generated thoughts I post on the site.

Hopefully, I’ll entertain enough that you’ll want to come back.

Bottle up that scent

Non parents often think of all of the smells that come along with babies as being related to spit up and poop, but I have to say there is nothing like the sweet fresh scent of my baby. She smells like the outdoors to me, like wonderful fresh sweet summer air. There is nothing like it and I’m glad it’s unique to her.

Some mornings when we snuggle, I lean against her head and take a big deep breath to take as much of it in as I can before I have to rush about my day. If I could I bottle it up and I would take it with me where ever I go — keep a bottle of it on my desk — carry it with me in my pocketbook.

It would make a great fragrance, but I could never sell it.  It’s a secret indulgence that no one else can have.

Ahhh… Sometimes you just want to shout at someone

So I’ve been working on this album for Mazie’s first year through Kodak Gallery, it’s the part of the site that allows you to lay out you pics in an album and then they print it up for you in a nicely bound book.  I made on earlier to test it out based on our trip to Jamaica.  That seemed to go well.  However, this second experience with Mazie’s first year has been one of the most annoying experiences EVER!  Now mind you, this album is now ab out 100 pages and I had it laid out month by month and was very proud of myself.

Here’s the annoying part.  For the last few months (yes I know a year has long since passed, but give me a break…I’ve had other things to worry about in toddlerhood) every time I’ve gone in to check it photos have been dropped or shifted, or something.  I just went in to finalize it and about 7 pics from throughout the year were gone and I had to wrack my brain to remember what was there and which pics were indeed 2 months vs three months.  Ahhhh.  So frustrating, but I’ve just ordered it and hope it will be as nice as I anticipate it to be. I’ll keep you posted.

Speaking of Gluten Free….

Not really my typical topic, but wanted to give a shout out to Redbridge beer by Anheuser Busch.  It’s a gluten free beer made from Sorghum — no wheat, no barley.  It’s quite tasty and really glad to have it this summer.  Not a big drinker, but on a hot summer evening, there is nothing like sitting outside and having a nice cold beer with friends.

It’s tasty even if you’re not a Celiac like me.

Go ahead you can eat it… and it’s gluten free!

Yahoo. I spend most of my days telling my daughter that she shouldn’t eat XYZ. The latest obsession is to eat the ends off of all of her crayons or “colahs” as she calls them. Although I bought washable, non-toxic crayons, I still can’t believe that it’s ok to EAT crayons. Not to mention because they are washable, the minute she puts them in her mouth, they run down out and liquefy, which as you can imagine reenacts some very scary scenes from horror movies or creep dreams.

She might be a little young for play dough and yes I know I can make my own, but how cool is it that there is company out there making all natural eco friendly play dough for kids…. AND they have a gluten free product to, which is great for all of us Celiacs. Oh if I didn’t mention it before, I’m a Celiac and we are assuming as of yet that our child is.

To vaccinate or not to vaccinate

So this is an intense debate in many parenting circles. I tend to hand with a pretty eco/crunchy circle or parents and we still debate the merits one way or the other on the vaccinate issue. I wish I had read this book during my pregnancy because I think I would have been better prepared “right out of the shoot” so to speak, however it’s a good read for parents at any stage of their child’s vaccine schedule. Not necessarily because it will change your mind on what to do, but because it has a lot of nice information that I (thinking I was already very learned and researched in this area) did not know.

It’s also the most pragmatic text I’ve seen so far on the issue. Most other sources I found on this issue said you were a bad parent if you vaccinated and a bad parent if you didn’t. What about hey I’m a good parent just trying to do the right thing and just scared shitless that I might inject some crap into my kid and give them problems or choose not to inject them with crap and they get an awful disease? What about that medical establishment? Huh? What about that?

This is a very personal choice for parents and I’m not advocating one way or the other. I certainly have my opinions and my husband and I have made our choices about how to proceed. I am advocating that no matter what parents choose they should choose so because they are educated about their decision and not because they are just following going with the flow.