I am alone in the house. ALONE! My husband took Ryan and Kaitlyn and left to drive down to Ft. Wayne, IN to pick up Nathan from his grandparents’ house, it’s about a 3 1/2 hour drive, so they will be gone ALL DAY. So, what am I going to do with all this free time? Write blog posts of course! And surf the web, of course. Would you expect a website known for it’s snarky t-shirts to also sell hot Halloween costumes? Well, Crazy Dog T-shirts does, and these are definitely meant for grown-ups, not kids.

Crazy Dog has adult Halloween costumes like the classic Ghostbusters and Mario for men, and what guy doesn’t look hot in blue overalls with a big fake mustache? yeah, I’m kidding there They also sell womens Halloween costumes that have a definite sexy twist to them. Snow White doesn’t look so innocent with her miniskirt and red thigh-high stockings. You can also choose from costumes like Genie, Pirate, and “sexy spider”. Hmmm. Check the size you order carefully too, because I checked the Policies page for the return policy, and it seems they don’t do exchanges for Halloween costumes, although that page might be out of date.

So that’s what I’m doing on this sunny and unseasonably cool Saturday afternoon, how about you? I’ve got more posts coming plus giveaways here and on MomReviews, so I hope you will click through the RSS feed and stop by! And PLEASE look in the sidebar for the donation widget to help raise money for tetanus vaccines. Thanks a bunch!!

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Yes, YOU, you right there, reading this site. Do you have five cents? Your five cents can SAVE A LIFE. WOW, right? In poor countries like Angola, women give birth on dirt floors and then their umbilical cords are cut with knives made from a piece of sugarcane pulled right out of the ground. Do you know what lives in dirt? TETANUS. In this country, we get vaccinated against tetanus as infants, and then booster shots if we get cut on something. These poor women who have their umbilical cords cut with dirty knives don’t have that, unless WE HELP. By the way, once a mother or newborn gets tetanus, they are going to die. Painfully. It causes excruciating muscle spasms and renders them unable to eat or drink, and then they die. The video I watched during the UNICEF presentation in Cincinnati was agonizing. But it also made me hopeful because I CAN HELP. I have five cents.

There are a few ways you can help- one is by clicking the widget in this post and in my sidebar and donating what you can. Yes, even one dollar, because that buys twenty vaccines. You can also buy specially marked packages of Pampers, look for the 1 pack = 1 vaccine sticker on the package. Don’t need diapers? Do you have a friend or family member who is pregnant? Does your nursery at church keep diapers stocked for infants? What about your local daycare center or women’s shelter?

Now, I asked the PRESIDENT of the U.S. Fund for UNICEF this question during her presentation- how do I know for SURE that my purchase of a pack of diapers or my donation to the Pampers/UNICEF fund will REALLY be used to buy a vaccine? How do I know the money won’t go to some corrupt government? Her answer? UNICEF does not work with governments. They work with NGOs, non-governmental organizations. They send a UNICEF employee to a country, and that person takes up residence there. They get to know the people in their village, they meet local leaders, they gain trust. THEN they help these organizations set up programs, clinics, whatever they need. So, for example, Pampers worked with UNICEF to set up the vaccination program, and the money that is donated goes directly to those non-governmental organizations to be spent on purchasing vaccines.

I hardly have the words to tell you what it means to me to have been invited to sit in the room with the President of UNICEF and ask her questions about her job. I also want you to know that the people who work for Pampers? Are absolutely AMAZING. When you think about a giant multinational corporation, you probably think about a bunch of men in suits sitting in offices making all the decisions, right? Well, in the case of Pampers, that couldn’t be further from the truth. One concept that we heard again and again is that products at Pampers are developed from listening to people’s stories.

The Moms on the Pampers Testing Panel who bring in their babies, diaper them, then talk to a Pampers employee about how the diaper feels and fits, they are helping develop diapers. The people in Brazil and China and Germany who see a Pampers employee in their grocery store demonstrating diapers tell them how much they appreciate being able to sleep longer at night because Pampers holds in wetness better than other brands. And the Moms in countries like Angola? Are grateful beyond words that their babies are actually surviving being born now that there are tetanus vaccines becoming available.

Click the widget below and you’ll go to a donation page where you can print out a tax receipt immediately. Pampers will track the donations that come through this widget, so we can see how well we’re doing to support the cause. Of all the things I have ever done with this blog, asking my readers to help UNICEF reach their goal of enough vaccines so that NO BABY EVER HAS TO DIE from tetanus has to be one of the most important. Five cents, people. Oh, and at the end of the presentation when we were told that Pampers had donated one thousand vaccines in each of our names to UNICEF, I started to cry. There are 1,000 vaccination shots headed to some village somewhere because of ME. For that, I am humbled and grateful. Please, now, click.

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I just had no idea how popular the Transformers were. No idea at all. I knew it was a TV show and a line of toys, and a movie starring the jail-baity Shia LaBeouf, but I just had no idea it was so…detailed. And then I got Transformers Cybertron: The Ultimate Collection for review, it’s a 7-disc set spanning an entire season from 2005, and despite what seems like silly plot points (i.e. the search for Cyber Planet Keys that will save the world from CERTAIN DESTRUCTION), it’s really a well put-together series.

For those of you reading this who are familiar with the show, I had to rewrite the product description from Amazon.com because, well, it didn’t make any damn sense to me at all, but here it is:

Optimus Prime and the Autobots face the greatest danger in all eternity, a menace that threatens not only the survival of the Transformers but the very existence of CYBERTRON and the universe itself. CYBERTRON, the TRANSFORMERS home planet, is on the brink of destruction as an ominous Black Hole looms. In order to save their world, the TRANSFORMERS embark upon an intergalactic scavenger hunt across the universe searching for the lost Cyber Planet Keys. The evil DECEPTICONS villains-unlike any you have seen before-are in a race against the Heroic AUTOBOTS to recover these lost Cyber Planet Keys - keys that have the power to unlock the CYBERTRON planet itself, creating the greatest TRANSFORMER the universe has ever seen! The battle will span the galaxy in a race to wield the all powerful Planet Keys and to save their home world of CYBERTRON from certain DOOM!!

Not rated but appropriate for all ages except for cartoon violence.

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While I was at BlogHer, I missed the “Is Mommyblogging a Radical Act?” session partly on purpose because last year I left the session in tears (looong story), and partly because I thought there wasn’t anything anyone could say at that session that I haven’t already heard.

And then I found the session in video form on Lindsey’s blog Suburban Turmoil, and I watched it. And realized that damn, I missed a GOOD session, and I really wish I had been there. I’m listening to women who are Moms and bloggers but not necessarily defining themselves as “Mommybloggers” talk about what exactly “Radical” is, and I’ve come to the conclusion, for myself, that I have NO IDEA what is and isn’t “Radical” about anything that I do online.

You’ve got one blogger who has been interviewed several times and tries to tell the reporters about the Mommyblogging community and how she started blogging to be a part of it (the same reason I started blogging), and that reporters don’t want to hear that, they want her to tell them how Moms can make money blogging, and whether they can make a living at it. You have another blogger who (gasp!) CLOSED her “Mommyblog” and started doing other kinds of online writing, and now has people asking her why she gave up all that great traffic for a blog no one reads (which I’m sure isn’t true because I know that blogger and any writing she is doing is sure to be awesome).

If you are a Mom and you are blogging about being a Mom, are there a pre-conceived set of rules you are “required” to live by? What if you want to write about your sex life or how much you love having drinks with your friends? What if you occasionally smoke pot or take recreational drugs? What if you’ve been in jail or live an alternative lifestyle? What if you think being a Mom is FUCKING HARD AS HELL and there are days where you would honestly prefer to spend your day with your laptop rather than with your precious darling children?

Ooh, “radical”. While I was in Cincinnati, I spent time with Romi from True Mom Confessions, who is just lovely. She sat next to me at dinner on Monday night and we found ourselves in a private conversation about her site, about the kinds of things that Moms confess, and at some point (perhaps after my second Blue Raspberry Martini), I leaned over and said to her something like “I confess. Sometimes I like blogging more than I like being a Mom.”

DOUBLE-GASP. But there are days when I just have so much to do that I wish I lived ALONE or had my own office where I could work steadily from 8-6 and not be interrupted. I just know that if I could get a few days of solid work, I could get completely caught up, and believe me when I say that for me right now, the concept of being completely caught up is not that far off from reaching the mystical state of Nirvana.

My husband is trying very hard to be understanding, he takes the kids on walks and to Home Depot after dinner so I can get a few more hours of work done, he tries so hard to understand, but he also says that I am choosing to have this much work. Which then brings me back to the concept of Radical, because is it Radical to enjoy having this Internet Life?

I LIKE Twittering and Flickering and LinkingIn and BlogCataloging and Facebooking (well, some of Facebook at least), and even though I am not being paid all that much, I think of it as my JOB. But are I not technically a Stay At Home Mom and therefore isn’t THAT my job? And if it is, what exactly is the definition these days of Stay At Home Mom? Should I be making housekeeping schedules and meal plans (well, YES on that one) and clipping coupons and playing The Grocery Game? Am I supposed to be hanging out at local playgrounds eyeballing other Moms with kids the same ages as mine, hoping they won’t think it’s weird if I strike up a conversation?

Or is it okay that I choose to stay inside, shooing my kids out the door to go on walks and play in the backyard sandbox (okay, it’s a sand PIT, whatever), and expecting them to figure out things to do for themselves? I don’t remember my Mom ever having Structured Play Time with me, not even when I was Kaitlyn’s age, which is probably why I was reading Golden Books at age 3 and chapter books by age 5. Is Mommyblogging a Radical Act because we choose to live at least part of our lives virtually, even if we are typing blog posts with one hand while holding sleeping babies? (Read my posts from November 2005, they were typed with just my right hand while a sleeping Kaitlyn lay in my left arm).

The thing I wish the media understood about being a “Mommyblogger” is that for I would guess the majority of us, it is NOT about money and ads. Like someone else on the panel said (click here to watch the video), she might not actively seek out advertisers and payment for posts, but if someone wants to PAY HER TO BLOG, she’ll take it, because she likes money.

Does the very act of accepting advertising or agreeing to review a product have to mean changing the essence of who you are as a writer? There’s no Mad Libs version of blogging, we aren’t using a post template to fill in “Today I _ _ _ and then my child _ _ _, which sucked because then she _ _ _ and I had to _ _ _.” Every single blog is written in a UNIQUE VOICE, and okay, some are more unique than others, Amy, but even when we are writing a review of a website or product, we are putting it into our own words.

I was tremendously guilty last year of being so desperate for money that I was taking every single paid post I could find, and just cranking them out in the most unappealing way possible, and trust me, it pains me to go back and read those posts now, so I completely understand why I lost readers over it, including some that just about broke my heart when they left and never came back.

And today, when I discovered that we have THIRTEEN DOLLARS in our checking account and my husband gets paid in EIGHT DAYS and what the fuck am I supposed to do now, I can’t feed my family for eight days on thirteen dollars, holy crap-I am very, very, very, VERY tempted to contact those pay-you-to-post companies and start taking every single offer I can. Does that make me a Bad Blogger? Is it Radical to admit that I am not above taking $15.00 for a 200 word post if it means I’ll have $15.00 in seven days with which to buy groceries for that night’s dinner?

By the way, if anyone with any connections in PR or advertising is reading this post, and you have immediate funds to spend on word-of-mouth-marketing, please email me at table4five AT gmail DOT com. I can deliver an immediate post in a UNIQUE VOICE.

Ahem. I AM a Mommyblogger, and it’s a community I am very proud to be a part of. On this blog, the very kind and generous advertisers who have purchased text link advertising are in no way influencing what I write. I receive products to review and occasionally am asked to include a website review, but I am never, EVER told what to write. I have emailed PR firms and said hey, wanna give you a head’s up, we did NOT like the product you sent us, and every single time they have replied back and said THAT’S what we want you to say in your review then, we want to KNOW what you, typical suburban housewife, think of that product, good or bad. There seems to be this idea that bloggers who write product reviews have “sold out”, have changed who they are and how they write, have WHORED THEMSELVES OUT for products.

For me, I might be a product whore, but I’m an HONEST product whore. Does THAT make me “Radical”?

Okay, I’ve been writing this post for almost two hours and I think I’ve said everything I set out to say at the beginning. I’m going to go all Linda-Richmond-on-Coffee-Talk on you now and say this-

Mommyblogging As A Radical Act is neither Radical nor an ACT. Discuss.

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I had such a great time on Friday night meeting up with Tiffany, Missy, Aimee, and Andrea, plus Tiffany’s friend Amber was there too. Look how gorgeous we all look!

Andrea’s not in that photo, she got to the party a little late. Because her four and a half year old son wrote out her directions which were a little hard for her to decipher

And Tiffany used to be a bartender at Bennigan’s, so she has this like Blender Mojo when it comes to making Strawberry Daiquiris. With frozen strawberries, frozen pineapple chunks, and a banana to mellow things out. They were thick and frosty and SO GOOD.

We just talked and talked, Andrea showed me how to twist my hair into a bun and told us about how she won Whoorl’s Hair Thursday contest. Missy told me about her job as a Classroom Assistant to a young boy, and Aimee brought her husband and told me about how she started blogging. I had such a good time hanging out with other bloggers and not having to run off to some activity, it was great to just be able to chat.

Missy tried her hardest to make me not leave! It’s so not fair that she lives in Australia which is a zillion miles away. She is such an awesome person to talk to! You wouldn’t think a 41 year old housewife would have anything in common with a 23 year old University Student and childcare worker, but that’s the magic of blogging, it brings people together. I just hope it brings me and Missy together again some day because darn it, she’s adorable and fun and smart, and I’m always going to think of her as my friend.

We started out the evening at Tiffany’s Mom’s house, but then we moved to the house that Tiff and her boyfriend just bought, which was just one neighborhood over. Pizza was ordered (it was really good, too), more wine and other beverages were served (I switched to Diet Coke), and there was Rock Band. I attempted to sing, it was not pretty, but it was fun! And then the battery in my camera died, so I had no photos from then on.

By 11:30 PM I was wearing out, so I said my goodbyes and headed to the Courtyard by Marriott in Ann Arbor to get some sleep. Why did I check into a hotel? Well, I had a crappy day on Friday, and wrote a post about it, and Miss Britt left me a comment saying that it sounded like I could use a night in a hotel. Which seemed like such a good idea! I was only there from about midnight until just after 9 AM, but it seemed more responsible to me that I stay there than drive home tired in the dark for an hour and a half. I woke up Saturday morning, had breakfast at the hotel, and drove home.

Tiffany says she wants to make these meetups a regular thing, so I hopefully will be seeing all these gorgeous gals again really soon! Thanks again for being such a great hostess, Tiff!

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