Friday, June 4, 2010

Moving on up...

I am pleased to announce that my new blog is up and running! I'm now on Wordpress at http://crunchychewymama.com/

All of my blog posts from this blog, Mama's Mouth, and Inexact Science: Raising Healthy Families have been migrated over. They are currently all on the main page. Eventually I will break them out so that all the recipe and food entries go under "Healthy Eating," all the entries about writing and art go under "The Arts," etc. This is all explained on the "About" page (which also has a link to my new writer's site, which is not up yet). Right now the only way to find stuff is just to use the tag categories.

I also don't have up any links, or buttons, or ways to help readers subscribe or anything savvy and smart in terms of social networking. I had help with the design and migration and am just now going to try to log in myself to post something. I anticipate I won't write again here except to announce the move is official and complete. But if I can't figure out what I'm doing right away, I'll keep posting here until I do!

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Read me in a book!

I'm pleased to announce that an essay of mine is going to be published in From the Heart: A Collection of Stories and Poems from the Front Lines of Parenting, an anthology that's just about to be published by a group called Write for Charity. Proceeds will benefit Children’s Hospital and St. Jude’s Children’s Research Foundation.

The book is now available for pre-sale. Details about the book's contents and about how to order a pre-sale (discounted) copy are available at http://writeforcharity.wordpress.com/the-book/

My essay, originally published online in 2008 at the Mothering Heights Second Mother's Day Online Anthology, compares my first year teaching high school to my first year as a mom. It's called "The First Time Around." I can't wait to see it in a volume!

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

American Idol 2010 -- not a mom

How bad does it sound to say that because she is a mom, I'm glad Crystal Bowersox didn't win American Idol? That's not completely true. I just wondered how bad it would sound to say it.

Make no mistake, I was and am a Crystal fan. I think she's amazingly talented, so damn centered, and really someone I would love to have a beer with (metaphorically anyway. My best drinking days days were winding down when she was still a preschooler). But I'm kind of relieved for her that she didn't win, the same way I was relieved for Adam Lambert. As Lisa deMoraes of the Washington Post put it this article, Crystal "escapes the whole 'American Idol' beauty pageant syndrome -- shilling for Ford, etc." She will still go out on the summer concert and have the backing of the AI machine, but there's a bunch of stuff she won't have to do since she's not the winner. For someone as clear about who she is as Crystal (same goes for Adam Lambert), I think it sounds like a relief to have a lighter load of product endorsements and the like, especially since she's got a young son.

I don't think her career or her ego needed for her to win, and it sounds like she agrees from the "don't cry for me" comments she made after Lee Dewyze won the competition.

Read the rest of this entry at DC Metro Moms Blog.