In case you wanted to know
May 16, 2007 Blogging
For the wordpress users among you who might want to know, the wordpress plugins I currently use are:
- Akismet — for spam killing, natch
- Comment Email Responder — That new one I mentioned where I can comment at the page and have it sent to the person to whom I am responding.
- Compact Monthly Archive — My old archives plugin wasn’t working so I tried two new ones and this one is, well, it’s compact so I’m going with it.
- CSS Compress — To speed up my page load time.
- Executable PHP widget — Allows me to run PHP code in my widgets, which I use to run the “most popular posts” widget there on the right.
- Feedburner Feed Replacement — Runs all my feeds through feedburner, which means my feed won’t switch even if I mess with my blog and means I can see some interesting feed stat info. (Currently 226 of you read this through the feedburner feed. 6 of you also subscribe to my comments through there.)
- Flexible upload — Makes it easy to resize pics and use my lightbox plugin when I upload pictures. Also adds the funny-looking watermark although I may stop using the watermark.
- Google Sitemaps — Makes it easier for google to crawl my blog.
- iTunesSpy and iTunesSpy Sidebar Widget — Grabs what I’m currently listening to on iTunes and let’s you see what’s playing.
Lightbox 2 Plugin — Makes my pictures open up on the same page while the background gets dark. (If you’ve got the password to the picture posts, you know how this works. - LiveJournal Crossposter — My Xanga crossposter broke on my update but this one is still going strong. It automatically crossposts any entries on over to LJ.
- Post Avatar — Adds pretty pictures to entries. (I try not to use it too often so that the blog doesn’t get too busy-looking.)
- Random Quotes and Random Quote widget — so that the (last count) 196 writer-ly quotes I have will randomly show up in my sidebar. (I love this widget, too, because I love the writer-ly quotes. Sometimes they’re just what I need to read.)
- Sidebar Widgets — Of course, because widgets are, as the kids used to say, the bomb.
- Similar Posts and Similar Posts Feed — Scans entries for keywords and then pulls out similar entries from my archives. I love this plugin. I like this one better than the other plugin, which is — I think — relevant posts? I can’t remember but I think it begins with an “r.” Related? Oh forget it, I don’t know. Anyway, I like this one better because I limit it to categories so an adoption post will only pull past adoption entries.
- Sociable — This adds those bookmark site links to the bottom of my entries. See ‘em?
- Subscribe To Comments — Let’s people subscribe to the comments and see new ones come into their email inbox.
- Ultimate Tag Warrior — Makes using tags simple but I always forget to tag my entries. (I have my tags set to be invisible because I don’t like ‘em hanging out there.)
- WordPress.com Stats — Simple stats program.
- wp-cache — Again, helps speed up page load and if you have a big blog, this is a must-have.
- WP-ContactForm — Gives people a way to contact me through my blog.
- WP-DBManager — This is very cool. Let’s me optimize, back-up and otherwise take care of my database. Did you know you should optimize your database regularly? Like once a month or even once a week?
- WP-PageNavi — For Kayoz, puts that page navigation at the bottom of the front page.
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Tags: wordpress
More on the Faces column
May 16, 2007 Writing
I shoulda been more specific but I was on my way out the door.
The column is for under-represented voices of motherhood. It’s for women who have been left out of the conversation — who are not June Cleaver, who may not have access to their children, whose ability to mother has been questioned or outright challenged. Think teen moms, first moms, moms without custody, moms who are poor, moms whose children have died, etc. etc. It’s to show that motherhood is diverse and highlight the inadequacies of our mothering stereotypes.
The piece publishes personal essays and you can look at what’s up there (archives are on the left side) to get a better idea.
One of my favorite upcoming columns was written by a dear friend of mine who is a wonderful writer and it’s about being a noncustodial mother. It’s moving and thought-provoking and absolutely terrific. I can’t wait to see it published up there!!!
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Tags: essay
I’m really excited about this
May 16, 2007 Writing
I’m taking over the Faces of Motherhood column for Literary Mama. This is the column for underrepresented voices of motherhood, which is near and dear to my heart. I’ll still be doing Op-Ed (although I’m hoping — and the senior editors know I’m hoping — that they’ll find someone else to do that soon) but I’m really happy to get to do “Faces.”
And you know I really really really really really really really really want an essay from a first mom. Oh yes, you know I do. Actually I’d like more than one because there are lots of stories out there. (I’ll just have to spread ‘em out time-wise.)
I want to hear from moms whose motherhood isn’t honored. If you’ve got a story or know someone with a story, hit me up!!!
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Tags: essay
So tomorrow
May 15, 2007 Blogging, The Story of My Life
I have a lunch meeting. I may carry a briefcase. (I have one, too, it’s a leather briefcase Brett got for me when I graduated from college.) I just printed out my very informal proposal. And I have a BUNCH of writing to do tomorrow (Julia).
I figured out my thiswomanswork.com email was stalled and if you wrote to that address in the last two weeks and didn’t hear from me it’s because I didn’t get it. Also a bunch of typepad feeds weren’t working or something and I’m only now figuring it out and resubscribing (again Julia).
Finally, I just bought a laptop dock-thingie to raise my laptop up so the monitor is at eye-level. Using Noah’s keyboard and mouse is helping, too. As has lowering my chair now that I can use the roll-out keyboard shelf on our desk. I think when I get the dock that it’ll make a HUGE difference and I really appreciate all of the input I got from my fellow ergonomically-challenged readers. Thank you!!
One more thing — I installed the similar posts plugin for the feeds and I also installed a plugin that lets me respond to comments via email and have the commented posted at the same time but I’m not sure if it’s working. Has anyone gotten a comment from emailed to them? It’s supposed to be that I can click on this wee icon (you can’t see it) next to the commenter’s name and my comment will go live but also email itself to the person I’m responding to provided they left a working email address. I’ve tried testing it on myself but maybe it doesn’t send if it’s going back to the administrator?
In any case, wordpress plug-ins are addictively fun. I really really love the similar posts one because I often forget what I’ve written and I love to read about the things the kids were doing way back when.
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Snap snap snap
May 15, 2007 The Story of My Life
Last night I couldn’t sleep in the big bed with my husband and our unruly daughter. This weekend Brett got a futon (frame and all — twin size for twenty bucks at a garage sale two streets over) and Madison did indeed sleep in it Monday night. Not only did she sleep in it but she also woke up, took herself to the bathroom and only then climbed into the big bed with us. We were impressed. Anyhow, she’s been at this awkward sleep point for the past few months where she has to have a nap but if she has one, she’s up all night. If she skips it, she’s miserable by dinnertime, falls asleep right after and then wakes up at 10pm ready to play. So the trick is to put her down but wake her up after an hour. Only we don’t always do this.
Last night was one of the nights where she’d napped too long so she wasn’t tired and we finally all went down together at about 11pm but I couldn’t sleep. My neck was hurting (part of the whole ergonomics thing is I have whiplash and so I have some arthritis in my neck) so I went to sleep on the rock-hard futon, which felt wonderful and I fell asleep pretty quickly.
I woke up in a panic. Brett was in there with his hand on my forehead and even though he’d been very gently patting me awake, I woke up like when you’re dreaming you’re falling and you hit. The reason he’d come in was that I was snapping my teeth and he was afraid I was having some kind of seizure. (I think he’s been watching too many House reruns.)
I knew I clenched my teeth at night but I didn’t know I was snapping them. I know it’s a stress thing. Meanwhile I think I might get a mouthguard. There’s nothing sexier than slipping into a second-hand futon with your wife and she’s wearing one of your old faded, sweat-stained t-shirts with a mouthguard. Ahhh the heady romance of marriage in it’s second decade!
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Tags: Madison