@ Home in the World

Can I have a few minutes to work on my BLOG?

Sheesh!

I returned from BlogHer with the best of intentions and a huge ToDo list. I haven't gotten very far.

When I returned to work, I found out that the budget on my project was running thin -- so my time with them would be ending in two weeks. I had to then scramble to both finish what I had promised them and look for a new job.

I've also been trying to get the boys ready for school which starts next week. I hadn't gotten anything in terms of new clothes or school supplies, so I've been doing that in between interviews.

The good news is that, this time around, the job search has been much more productive than the one I undertook last winter. I was interviewing even before I left the project, which gave me hope, and within the last 48 hours, I applied, interviewed and accepted a dream job I thought I had no hope of getting. After 10 years of trying, I have finally gotten a job at a University. I accepted the offer this afternoon. I still can't believe it!

I will start the day after Labor Day, which means I will get a little bit of a break to get some paperwork in order and a couple of projects around the house, and oh, try to figure out what I am doing with this blog!

I am at BlogHer

I am at BlogHer in NYC this week, getting excited and re-energized about writing and blogging.

 

My family is with me and they are enjoying being in NYC for the first time. Piper is herding the kids through the crowds.

I so appreciate the dedicated time to just focus on where my writing is going. I'm finding that my approach to BlogHer is a lot more serious this time. I feel a lot more focused and realistic about what I need to learn and do. I'm not as overwhelmed and exhausted as I was last year. Being in the same time zone and not having a cold probably helps, but it's only been a few hours and I have had several interesting conversations (still not an extrovert, but getting better at talking with strangers). The hug from Goon Squad Sarah though, made my morning. Nice people are awesome!

I am really trying to commit to this space again even if it is going to be less and less about parenting.

I've gotten some positive feedback for my ideas around Artifactual and hope to have people contributing so I can really build it into something.

If you landed here because we met in NYC, please leave a comment so we can reconnect online.

Artifactual is open!

I can think of no better way to begin the Artifactual  project than with the story of my grandmother's Scrabble set.

 I'm still hoping that this site will mostly feature the work of contributors writing about the objects that they have saved on the journey of life and what those ojects have meant to them. I am hoping that people will contribute pictures and stories of the things they value, and in the process doument a little more of the history that they share. I tend to think of these objects as antiques, but they don't have to be.

What have you hung onto? What has it meant to you? Get in touch with me. 

You can follow the blog on Twitter @Artifactualblog and I'll follow you back. Or you can email me at LATELIERDELISSE AT YAHOO DOT COM.

(Mis)Adventures in Social Media

Hi, I'm back. I feel like I fell off a cliff there for a while. I hate that. I get going in a particular direction and it's all good, but then I drive into a rotary and can't decide which exit to take.

So while mentally traveling around in small circles for the last week or so, I've been puttering around on various social media outlets trying to set up connections for Artifactual. It's been slow going. I tried to create a page for it on Facebook, but when I try to link the blog to it, it only wants to post to my personal page. As I struggle to keep the last vestiges of my semi-anonymous blogging life away from my family, I do NOT want them to make that connection. I still can't get it to work. The only option I can see is setting up a separate account for Artifactual, but apparently Facebook frowns on that sort of thing. I think I may have to share posts to Artifactual's FB page by hand. I also cannot figure out how to get a FB badge from the Artifactual FB page to put on the actual blog. I can get one from my personal page, but that defeats the purpose. What a pain!

Google Plus. Okay. I'm on it. Now what? I have "Circled" my SIL and one of my husband's cousins, both of whom have reciprocated. I've also added a handful of bloggers who don't know me well and have no idea I've linked to them. And while I love the idea of the hangout feature, I don't yet know enough people on Google Plus to have one. The functionality is fabulous enough that while the rest of Google Plus will probably never catch up to Facebook and Twitter and will eventually wither away, the hangout will thrive, as it is both useful and fun.

Muppet break! Frustrations notwithstanding, this ad makes me smile every time:

 

And while I have never been a huge fan of either Queen or David Bowie, I have loved this song since the first time I heard it back in High School. It never gets old.

Moving on...

So maybe you've heard of the next big thing - Pinterest? I've been avoiding it because what I saw of it early on looked like an endless Anthropologie catalog.  Just what I don't need when I'm not working. But hearing about how fast it grew and its usefulness as a content sharing site, I thought it might be useful for Artifactual once it gets off the ground and decided to get lost in try it. 

As kids my sister and I used to sit around leafing through my mother's stacks of ridiculously priced catalogs and claiming numerous items for our future houses and closets with no concept of how to actually pay for them.  Pinterest is exactly that impulse with some organization and quirky captioning. It is a lovely time suck. As someone who does not do a whole lot of shopping (though my husband might beg to differ), I just had no idea there were so many things in the world. Of course there are annoyances, like the repetition of images that multiple people have repinned, and the overwhelming desire to delete things you don't want to look at (not possible). The whole thing reminds me of the stuff we used to cut out of magazines and tape to our dorm walls in college; beautiful clothes, beautiful people, pithy sayings, and an overabundance of food. There are some truly stunning things to see at but in less than three days I was sick of the mustache as a design element. Stop, please.

As of this writing, I still haven't accumulated any followers. I'm Lisse13 on Pinterest. By the way if you haven't yet seen Pinterest, You Are Drunk, you should.

On Saturday, I did something really crazy and drove across the state to attend a PodCamp.  They have a version of this in Boston, but I just missed it. I got up earlier than I have for weeks and drove over two hours to Holyoke Community College. I wasn't sure whether I belonged there, but it was a very mixed group of professionals - marketers, audio engineers, videographers, photographers, and people who ran small businesses in need of better understanding the tools. I figured I was there to mostly learn, but I was surprised by how much I talked. As SoMe enthusiasts go, I'm still pretty much an amateur, but that even made it clear that there are many others who are interested in these tools with even less knowledge and more floundering. I came away from that event thinking of the many small businesses on the North Shore that could use an event like this...

Wheels aturnin'. Stay tuned.

A Gift from Afghanistan

As my brother-in-law makes his way back to Germany from Afghanistan, I thought I would share what he sent to me for Christmas. My husband told him that I would appreciate something from the country and he was right.

From the enclosed note:

The shawl is from Mazar e Sharif...renowed for its skilled workers in fabric-related endeavors (weaving, rugmaking, etc.). I figured there was a greater chance of you wearing it if I got you this wool/cotton combo instead of camel fur...the camel fur here is from real camels and smells like -- camels.

The candle holder is a little tricky. It's easiest if you hold it upside down with your left hand, grab the bulb-like part and spin the base in a counter-clockwise direction. When you turn it rightside up, the leaves will fall down and you can see the small bowl-like receptacle for the candle or pyramid-shaped incense.

Not sure what the turtle base signifies, but the images of Buddha on the leaves indicate that this was made in Bamiyan. That's the central part of the country where we went and had a meeting with the first and only female governor. That part of the country is gorgeous with the pristine landscape, extremely nice people and archeological wonders.

I was thrilled with these gifts, but it probably won't surprise you that I loved the story behind them, and that they came from halfway across the world.

It is this sort of thing that I'm hoping to showcase on my new blog Artifactual .

I am hoping that people will contribute pictures and stories of the things they value, and in the process doument a little more of the history that they share. I tend to think of these objects as antiques, but they don't have to be. Heck, I have an entire collection of concert tickets that I've kept because they represent who I was at a specific period in time.

The Artifactual site will be officially launching at the end of January. If you have something to share, whether it is a family heirloom, or something you have kept for sentimental reasons, please contact me with a photo and description at LATELIERDELISSE AT YAHOO DOT COM.

Artifactual: A New Project

What have you held onto?

I live not far from a bunch of antique dealers and there's one guy that has two different outlets on the same stretch of road. I always find it interesting because the main shop has a lot of things from the WWII era and older, plus a lot of old books and records, it reminds me of my grandparents on my mother's side. The annex has more of the stuff that is newer, 50s and 60s mostly. It is far more kitchy and it reminds me of my grandparents on my father's side. Every time I go into one of the shops there are always things that I think must have belonged to someone interesting. People around here live to be really old (lots in their 90s) and when you glance at the obits, you get this incredible sense of the history they must have lived through, and you wonder how much of their story is recorded anywhere and what, if anything they have left behind.

When my mom had her antique shop there was always someone who would come through and say "Oh I remember this stuff, what a shame we threw it all away!" My mother used to hate hearing that, and yet I have very little that belonged to my grandparents on either side. Most of it got pitched including a dress I would have loved to still have.

If we have learned anything from shows like Antiques Roadshow, American Pickers, and even Pawn Stars, it's that objects can have stories of their own. Growing up I loved going to antique shows and shops, and wondering what those stories might be. I was often drawn to postcards and diaries that at least gave me glimpses of the people who held them.

Less and less of our communication and record-keeping is handwritten these days. It is all digital - digital photos, typed blogs, tweets, and Facebook posts; digital music. I'm reminded of that old Crane's Stationery ad that appeared on the back of the New York Times Magazine: "When all is said and done, no one will keep your emails tied up in a ribbon under the bed." I have boxes of letters from friends up in the attic, but I probably have not sent or received a letter in over a decade.  I got to thinking about how we preserve the things that are important to us and communicate those stories to the next generation. When so much of what we make is disposable; when so many blogs and books are dedicated to getting organized and throwing stuff out - what about the stuff we keep?  

So I am starting a new project - one that I hope will be populated largely by outside contributors. I am hoping that people will contribute pictures and stories of the things they value, and in the process doument a little more of the history that they share. I tend to think of these objects as antiques, but they don't have to be. Heck, I have an entire collection of concert tickets that I've kept because they represent who I was at a specific period in time.

The Artifactual site will be officially launching in January. If you have something to share, whether it is a family heirloom, or something you have kept for sentimental reasons, please contact me with a photo and description at  LATELIERDELISSE  AT YAHOO DOT COM.

I'm looking forward to your stories.

So, yeah, I'm a writer!

Today was a big day for me. Huge in fact.

And the funny thing is - there may be no one in my real life who gets this.

But I should take it back a couple of steps. This blog has been pretty light for over a year. I have been looking back at the archives and not seeing all that much. Both trips to Washington that we took this year have gone largely unwritten, and while I've had a few good posts around going to BlogHer I haven't really done much to follow up on my experience there.

I've been working. Working really hard, and enduring a beastly commute that has pretty much sucked the life out of me. I loved my work, the company I worked for, and the people I worked with, but I couldn't keep up. All the while I was reading about all the other bloggers who have been doing things online, travelling, and having really good experiences to write about. I was hard not to be depressed and resentful about it.

Meanwhile, I turned 45 a couple of months ago. I had thought that I would be back in graduate school by then, or maybe even done, but no. I was working. My job, much as I loved it, was not going to allow for me to take on anything extra - don't get me wrong, they would have totally covered tuition for anything I work related, but I was having trouble matching my real interests to anything that would benefit the company, and really, I didn't have time for anything extra.  Meanwhile, my vision for what the job could be wasn't exactly bearing fruit. Admittedly, it was a bit of a fuzzy vision, and I'm sure that was part of the problem.

I left that job a couple of weeks ago. It's a big step for me, because I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do next, I have flooded the market with resumes, and have gotten a few bites, but they are all largely the same kind of job. I'm finding that the things I'm drawn to these days have more to do with social media or educational technology than instructional design.

Around the same time I left the company, I got a message from my friend PunditMom inviting me to post for her new project. I told her I'd be going to a volunteer event for Elizabeth Warren, and offered to write about it. Then she asked for a bio.

Now normally that wouldn't be such a big deal, but I'm at a crossroads here. How to describe myself at this point in transition? And, possibly, more importantly, do I use my real name? 

I hemmed and hawed about it for over a week. I'm sure my husband is tired of hearing about it, because although he's not really pushed me in one direction or another, when I was about to hit the send button, I announced, "Okay, here goes, I'm going to go with my real name..." he said "It's about time."

All right then.

This morning, I put the Warren post up thinking that it might go live tomorrow, but before I could even send her the photo from the event, she tweeted about the post. It was up! I had an inkling that the Warren campaign might catch it, and this afternoon, they did. It got retweeted to 30K followers. As if that weren't enough, a few hours later EMILY's list picked it up and tweeted it.

And that's not even thinking about having had it tagged on Facebook.

I've just got laugh. I've been writing online under one nom de plume or another for over a decade. This was my very first post using my real name, and a nationwide outfit like EMILY's list has picked it up.

If that isn't a sign from the Universe, I don't know what is.

 

I'm not alone. You're not, either.

One of my goals for going to Blogher11 was to sit in on the Special Needs Mini-Conference.

Prior to this, I had never really identified as a special needs blogger and somedays I don't really identify as a special needs mom. Over the years however, I have come to realize how others who have had the experience of raising an adopted child - particularly, but not always, one adopted internationally - were drawn to one another at gatherings. More recently I have noticed the vast difference in my personal comfort level in the company of mothers with special needs children. These women have seen it all. A temper tantrum here, an unusual mannerism or several, an aversion to transtions, a sensitivity to the seemingly innocuous, a vocabulary of strange sounds - these parents try to help or they nod in recognition - but they don't judge.

Beyond seeking the company of others who had "been there," I can't say that I had any specific expectations of the extended session except to learn how people, beside those I was already reading, handled this topic. Mir and Christy, for instance, handle it with particular grace; something I have to assume is partly an extension of their personalities, and partly their writing talents. I was also intrigued by the notion, in the session blurb, that we were telling a story that no one wants to hear.

Well, maybe no one outside the special needs community, but as we are learning, that community is a whole lot bigger than people think. The fairly large room at this one conference was filled with people, and this was just one subset of a conference of people who called themselves writers or bloggers. Imagine how big the population outside this one room could be and what we could learn from each other.

It turned out that one of the things author Rob Rummel-Hudson was talking about was advocacy - writing and talking about what it's like to raise a child with special needs when the people around you, who haven't experienced what you are going through, want mostly to avert their eyes. Aurelia Cotta spoke about the people around her not wanting to hear how medication worked for her and how people compared her to a drug addict. Someone in the audience mentioned that she struggled with the hopeful but impossibly high expectations of her relatives for her preemie daughter when the future was far from certain.

At our tables we talked about what and how much we shared about our children or ourselves on our blogs and in real life. How much do the people outside of our immediate lives need to know? Particularly for those with so-called invisible disabilities, how much do we need to explain their behaviors?  How much will they hold against us? Why are each of these encounters and the decisions associated with them so much more of a struggle?

Interestingly, I found myself once again at that scary intersection between my public life and my semi-anonymous blog, and the more we talked and I listened, the more I realized how many dimensions there were to the struggle of parents, including one I have spent much of my life defending - the public school.   Before I knew it, I was standing and speaking and addressing something I have never really discussed on this blog - I outed myself as an elected School Board member.

I am and I have been for the last ten years, a local school board member. I got involved out of a lifetime interest in education, educational technology, and educational policy. I have worked my way through nine budget seasons cognizant of the tension between the cost of special education services and the pressure they put on the rest of the school, I have learned more and can go on and on about how to run a school, what works and what doesn't, what we as a society should have but aren't willing to pay for.

I have sat in on countless IEP meetings as a parent and wondered what it would be like if every student got this kind of attention instead of the half-hour parent/teacher conference twice a year, but the national conversation about education seems to be going in exactly the opposite direction. I have involved myself in countless discussions online about the conflict of reformers who act as though we aren't demanding enough from our teachers and simultaneously maintain that they are overpaid because any idiot can teach. I have argued with people who simply do not recognize the presence of special needs students in their calculations of what makes a successful school, or worse, claim that special ed services are simply a ploy by union members to increase their numbers. What I have found most disturbing though, is the more recent tendency of people, who were once only against mainstreaming, to assert that our scant educational resources should go to those who have the best chance of being productive members of society.

This sentiment has only been escalated by the rise of the Tea Party. Many of those who once feared that such arguments would meet with disapproval for their very selfishness are afraid no more. They speak of our children as a burden for which they should not have to be responsible.

And so, I stood in that conference room and identified myself and advocated for advocacy. Because this fight is going to get worse before it gets better, but it's not a fight any of us has to face alone.

So much to think about - A BlogHer experience

 

That was the view outside my hotel window in San Diego. To say the city is stunning is an understatement. One of my few regrets about this trip is that I didn't have that much time to explore.

When I applied to volunteer at Blogher in the Spring, I have to say I didn't really expect to get accepted. It was a huge surprise that I did and of course I worried about what I was getting myself into. In past years I haven't gone to the conference because when I wasn't working, I couldn't justify spending the money, and when I was working, I couldn't justify spending the vacation time.

This year, thanks to careful rationing and the ability to rollover vacation time from last year, I was able to go. Of course the flight and hotel weren't cheap and, I found myself a week or so before I was due to leave - questioning whether I deserved this trip.

But that's me, and the baggage I carry (no pun intended). Writing has always been a wish - but something clearly only the most talented were ever going to be allowed to do professionally. My writing never seemed to qualify as anything more than just a hobby and something I had to justify spending time on - spending money on it? Unthinkable.

Now before anyone jumps in and pats me on the back and tells me how great my writing is - thanks, but I'm really not fishing for compliments. I know my writing is pretty damn good, no matter how much my internal dialogue (and mother voice) tries to tell me otherwise. Would I ever be able to make the sacrifices necessary for it to become more than just a hobby? Well, Piper gave me the simplest of answers: "People spend money on their hobbies."

And while I was stressing over leaving and spending all this money, he asked me what I hoped to get out of it.

I'm not an A-list blogger and I would never expect to make any kind of lasting connection with the people I have read for years - because they have their circles. That's not said out of resentment, it's just what is, and who I am. That said, there were 3500 people attending this conference, I was bound to find someone to talk to. So, given that, and the fact that I was there as a volunteer, I set the following goals.

I wanted to attend the Special Needs Mini-Conference. I can't say that I strongly identified as a "Special Needs Parent," but I've definitely experienced a strange gravitational pull in the company of other parents who've been there. I really wanted to hear what these women would talk about.

I wanted to touch base with some of the political bloggers. As my kids get older and their stories become more their own, I will be writing more and more about politics. I have seen many bloggers do amazing things with media consulting, graphic and site design, memoir writing, and so on, but the stuff I know best will always be politics and education. Plus, maybe you've heard, there's an election coming. If I get a chance to expand beyond my own site, I'd love to do that.

And that's it. Those were my only real goals. Whatever else happened could only be a bonus.

Right?

Well, most of it was. I'm not a reviewer at all so I found the brands and the exhibits to be interesting and at times overwhelming. Some of it was fun and a little bit hokey - like getting my picture taken with a California Raisin or the Statue of Liberty made from Twizzlers. Because I'm not a reviewer I wasn't stressing over the private parties I didn't get invited to. I recognize that all that product placement serves a purpose, though. Whether we are talking about websites or magazines, a lot of writers get published because sponsors (ad buyers) pay for the space. The same holds true for BlogHer. The presence of a lot of the sponsors made it possible for BlogHer to be as big as it was this year (more than twice the size of last year). And there were plenty of public parties to visit.

Sadly, between the timezone, the head cold I was fighting, and the stress of having my wallet stolen, I slept through Sparklecorn. I did make it to Aiming Low's party, and to CheeseburgHer which was a riot. I found people to talk to.

I accomplished my two goals. The Special Needs Mini-Conference is a post all its own. I had the real pleasure of meeting both PunditMom and Kyran Pittman and got them both to sign books for me. I got to meet Goon Squad Sarah whose attitude I just love. I also got to meet several of the Momocrats - women I have been admiring for years. Glennia was kind enough to invite me to lunch.

Because I volunteered and worked the reception desk - I got to meet Erin, Queen of Spain and her husband, also Bon Stewart, Schmutzie, the amazing Cynthia Samuels, Anissa Mayhew, and many others.

It feels a bit like name dropping, but that's not the intention. Really, I interacted with these people at the desk for all of 2 minutes. However, anyone who has been to one of these things knows that it a unique thing to meet someone you have been reading for some time. It's like a 2D world suddenly becoming 3D.

In many ways, this was a trial run for me. I've been pulled in so many directions lately, that even when there is time for blogging, my brain has been sucked dry of anything worth the effort to write about. I felt like I had to go to see if I could find my place in the writing universe again. That place is still taking shape, but I can say definitively, that yes, this is still something I want to do. I still have a voice and knowledge that I want to share, and I hope to participate in the blogging community in an even bigger way, next year.

I have already bought my ticket.

Fanning Myself

So, in an effort to try to get back on the writing track, I impulsively signed up to do NaBloPoMo for the month of June. I signed up last night close to midnight, after a glass of wine. What can I say?

So it turns out that they do this every month, and this month has a theme. I told you I have been out of the loop on this whole blogging thing.

This month's theme? FAN.

 

Get it?

I am a fan of visual puns.

Of course, I discovered this after I signed up. I'm not sure that I'm going to be able to write about fans for thirty days, but it will at least get me to finally write out my impressions from going to see Anthony Bourdain speak last year. Let's just say that as Bourdain deplores tourists, I'm not a fan of fans.

Oh that reminds me to write about that horrible hockey game I went to a decade ago.

Or how I fell in love with the Red Sox and actually became a sports fan.

And the Depeche Mode concert that made me realize I was getting too old for concerts.

Or the odd collection of famous people I have met, whether I was a fan or not.

Suddenly, there's quite a lot to write about, isn't there?

FANtastic!

 

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