Blog Gems: School Daze

Hey boys and girls! Yes, it's time for the Blog Gems - Air Your Archives link-up again!

As our kids have just (FINALLY) completed their first full week of school here in New York City, and the first salvos of the homework wars have been fired off, I'm thinking a lot about school. So I figured, why not make that the theme for this fortnight's Blog Gems linky?

So, because it's on my mind, now it's on yours... this week's prompt is: School

School... yours... your kids'... Elementary... High School... College... your workplace (if you're a teacher)... childhood memories of your own school days... back-to-school... graduation...  anything related to SCHOOL.

Now dive into those archives and come up with something... I know you've got one! The post you wrote about the time your kid's school REALLY pissed you off? That's the one I want to read. Or the one about running into your old 5th grade teacher in a silver lame bikini on a gay beach. That one, too. It's all good. 

NOTE: try to dig deep into your archives, if you've got them. Your regular readers will have read last week's post anyway. So go back a year  -- or two! -- find something in the attic that not enough people read, or that you just simply adore. This is your chance for fresh eyeballs... go for it!

If you've done this before, you can just skip on down to the linky at the bottom.

If you're new here: Welcome, read on....

Come! link up! Tell all your friends! I promised my friend Jen her lovely linky meme would be alive and well when she brings it back home to her blog, The King and Eye, some time in the fall (or whenever she's ready). So don't make a liar out of me.

About Blog Gems (from Jen):
How many posts do you have languishing in your archives? Great posts that will never be dusted off and brought out to breathe again! Maybe you created fabulous content before you had lots of followers, or maybe you have been blogging for years and your current followers haven't seen your older material.

Blog Gems - Air Your Archives is a fortnightly linky list where we will give a prompt and you select a post from your archives that fits the prompt. You do not have to create content for the prompt, unless you want to. All you have to do is copy and paste the url of the post into the linky list. Voila, an old post gets a second shot!

To take part:

1. Follow MY blog for now (and Jen's blog once I hand her back the reins) to get future Blog Gem posting information and linkys.

2. Grab the Blog Gem button and place it on your sidebar (html code here). Putting the button on your blog is not a deal-breaker, some people just don't like doing it and I have no problem with that at all. What I will say is that something like this can't be successful without 'word of mouth' so I would appreciate if you could find another way to let people know that this is available and they are welcome to join in.

3. Enter your link.

4. Read and comment on the submissions of the two blogs posted before you on the linky list. (Please!)

5. Help spread the word by telling your blogging friends, either by tweeting this or blogging about your entry.

The rule is that you're supposed to select a post from your archives that fits the prompt... but it's a lenient rule, and broad interpretations are welcome, so be creative!

And here's what I have to add:
It's a wonderful chance to get fresh eyeballs on your great posts from the past. People tend to put in recent posts because they're freshly in our radar, but I would encourage rooting around in your archive and dredging stuff up that's deeply buried, if you can.

So come on... link up a school-related gem from the past.  Aaaaand Go!



Looking for comments? To read or leave a comment, click on THIS post's title, or HERE, to bring you to the post's page view. Comments should appear below.

Blog Gems: Make Me Laugh

I blinked and it's time for the Blog Gems - Air Your Archives link-up again!

We now have less than a week to go before school starts here in New York City, and it is a good thing as the fighting and the whining is getting to me, and I am really starting to lose my sense of humor.

And, as that's the perfect lead in to today's theme, I'm going to change things around this week and move that part up here to the top.

So, because I REALLY need to laugh, this week's prompt is: Humor

Humor... funny stuff... you know, the posts that cause coffee spit-takes on computer screens, that make you cackle while you're writing them. Find your funniest and bring it on over here. 

And if you're a super serious blogger, and have never tagged a post "humor" in your bloggy life? Find one that's on the lighter side, that spotlights a sweet/funny moment in your life. Because I know you have at least one of those.

So, come on... link up a side-splitting (or gentle-smile-generating) gem from the past. Make me laugh!

NOTE: try to dig deep into your archives, if you've got them. Your regular readers will have read last week's post anyway. So go back a year  -- or two! -- find something in the attic that not enough people read, or that you just simply adore. This is your chance for fresh eyeballs... go for it!

If you've done this before, you can just skip on down to the linky at the bottom.

If you're new here: Welcome, read on....

Come! link up! Tell all your friends! I promised my friend Jen her lovely linky meme would be alive and well when she brings it back home to her blog, The King and Eye, some time in the fall (or whenever she's ready). So don't make a liar out of me.

About Blog Gems (from Jen):
How many posts do you have languishing in your archives? Great posts that will never be dusted off and brought out to breathe again! Maybe you created fabulous content before you had lots of followers, or maybe you have been blogging for years and your current followers haven't seen your older material.

Blog Gems - Air Your Archives is a fortnightly linky list where we will give a prompt and you select a post from your archives that fits the prompt. You do not have to create content for the prompt, unless you want to. All you have to do is copy and paste the url of the post into the linky list. Voila, an old post gets a second shot!

To take part:

1. Follow MY blog for now (and Jen's blog once I hand her back the reins) to get future Blog Gem posting information and linkys.

2. Grab the Blog Gem button and place it on your sidebar (html code here). Putting the button on your blog is not a deal-breaker, some people just don't like doing it and I have no problem with that at all. What I will say is that something like this can't be successful without 'word of mouth' so I would appreciate if you could find another way to let people know that this is available and they are welcome to join in.

3. Enter your link.

4. Read and comment on the submissions of the two blogs posted before you on the linky list. (Please!)

5. Help spread the word by telling your blogging friends, either by tweeting this or blogging about your entry.

The rule is that you're supposed to select a post from your archives that fits the prompt... but it's a lenient rule, and broad interpretations are welcome, so be creative!

And here's what I have to add:
It's a wonderful chance to get fresh eyeballs on your great posts from the past. People tend to put in recent posts because they're freshly in our radar, but I would encourage rooting around in your archive and dredging stuff up that's deeply buried, if you can.

Ready? Good. Go link up!




Looking for comments? To read or leave a comment, click on THIS post's title, or HERE, to bring you to the post's page view. Comments should appear below.

Blog Gems at Summer's End

Can you believe a whole fortnight has passed since the last Blog Gems - Air Your Archives link-up? Me neither. What has happened to TIME this summer?

We've been so busy vacationing and preparing for vacationing (so much work I need a vacation from THAT) and this year for the FIRST TIME preparing to send the boys off to a week of sleep-away summer camp (sob, my baaaaabies, sob). Ethan is going with friends, and Jake is going to a special ASD camp where we hope he will find friends.

So while we are off depositing our kids in different states today, you....

Come! link up! Tell all your friends! I promised my friend Jen her lovely linky meme would be alive and well when she brings it back home to her blog, The King and Eye, some time in the fall (or whenever she's ready). So don't make a liar out of me.

This is what Jen says about Blog Gems:
How many posts do you have languishing in your archives? Great posts that will never be dusted off and brought out to breathe again! Maybe you created fabulous content before you had lots of followers, or maybe you have been blogging for years and your current followers haven't seen your older material.

Blog Gems - Air Your Archives is a fortnightly linky list where we will give a prompt and you select a post from your archives that fits the prompt. You do not have to create content for the prompt, unless you want to. All you have to do is copy and paste the url of the post into the linky list. Voila, an old post gets a second shot!

To take part:

1. Follow MY blog for now (and Jen's blog once I hand her back the reins) to get future Blog Gem posting information and linkys.

2. Grab the Blog Gem button and place it on your sidebar (html code here). Putting the button on your blog is not a deal-breaker, some people just don't like doing it and I have no problem with that at all. What I will say is that something like this can't be successful without 'word of mouth' so I would appreciate if you could find another way to let people know that this is available and they are welcome to join in.

3. Enter your link.

4. Read and comment on the submissions of the two blogs posted before you on the linky list. (Please!)

5. Help spread the word by telling your blogging friends, either by tweeting this or blogging about your entry.

And here's what I have to add:
It's a wonderful chance to get fresh eyeballs on your great posts from the past. People tend to put in recent posts because they're freshly in our radar, but I would encourage rooting around in your archive and dredging stuff up that's deeply buried, if you can.

The rule is that you're supposed to select a post from your archives that fits the prompt... but, being the generous, kind-hearted person that Jen is, it's a lenient rule. She states: "Broad interpretations of the prompt are encouraged so this could be a good chance to be creative!"

And now the theme (you may have guessed it)... as I'm currently wallowing in end-of-summer bittersweetness and nostalgia, full of feelings as my boys are about to go off to camp alone for the first time in our lives, this week's prompt is: Endings and Transitions 

Endings and Transitions... things that are over or about to be over... changing over to a new regime, or just the little daily transitions (that some of us have such trouble with). Take this as large or small as you want to go... the end of a day, a relationship, an era. Personal or political... macro or micro... happy or sad (or some of each)... have fun!

Ready? Good. Go link up!

Looking for comments? To read or leave a comment, click on THIS post's title, or HERE, to bring you to the post's page view. Comments should appear below.

Blog Gems Rolls On!

Oh, my, I can barely move my body after BlogHer, but it's time, and I'm the summer guest host for the Blog Gems - Air Your Archives fortnightly link-up, so here we go....

Come! link up! Tell all your friends! I promised Jen it would be alive and well when she brings it back home to her blog The King and Eye. in the fall (or whenever she's ready) So don't make a liar out of me.

This is what Jen says about Blog Gems:
How many posts do you have languishing in your archives? Great posts that will never be dusted off and brought out to breathe again! Maybe you created fabulous content before you had lots of followers, or maybe you have been blogging for years and your current followers haven't seen your older material.

Blog Gems - Air Your Archives is a fortnightly linky list where we will give a prompt and you select a post from your archives that fits the prompt. You do not have to create content for the prompt, unless you want to. All you have to do is copy and paste the url of the post into the linky list. Voila, an old post gets a second shot!

To take part:

1. Follow MY blog for now (and Jen's blog once I hand her back the reins) to get future Blog Gem posting information and linkys.

2. Grab the Blog Gem button and place it on your sidebar (html code here). Putting the button on your blog is not a deal-breaker, some people just don't like doing it and I have no problem with that at all. What I will say is that something like this can't be successful without 'word of mouth' so I would appreciate if you could find another way to let people know that this is available and they are welcome to join in.

3. Enter your link.

4. Read and comment on the submissions of the two blogs posted before you on the linky list. (Please!)

5. Help spread the word by telling your blogging friends, either by tweeting this or blogging about your entry.

And here's what I have to add:

It's a wonderful chance to get fresh eyeballs on your great posts from the past.

The rule is that you're supposed to select a post from your archives that fits the prompt... but, being the generous, kind-hearted person that Jen is, it's a lenient rule. She states: "Broad interpretations of the prompt are encouraged so this could be a good chance to be creative!"

And, as I've just spent 3 days hugging and being hugged by my bloggy brethren, this week's prompt is: Community. 

Community, connection and support; your tribe, blogging or otherwise. This week, look around in your archives and find an old post about your "community" (or lack thereof).

Ready? Good. Jump in the pool aaaaaand link up!

Looking for comments? To read or leave a comment, click on THIS post's title, or HERE, to bring you to the post's page view. Comments should appear below.

Blog Gems has a Summer Home!

My lovely friend Jen who created the Blog Gems - Air Your Archives link-up is taking a break from blogging for the rest of the summer to focus her time and energy on her family. 

So I am taking over and babysitting her baby until Jen gets her blogging mojo back and jumps back into the game again (hopefully in the fall when the kids are back in school). While *I* may not have a summer home, at least Blog Gems does.

I now will be hosting this linky fortnightly (I LOVE that word! It means every other week, for you non-anglophiles.) starting with today.

Come! link up! Tell all your friends! I promised Jen it would be alive and well when she brings it back home to her blog The King and Eye. So don't make a liar out of me.

This is what Jen says about Blog Gems:
How many posts do you have languishing in your archives? Great posts that will never be dusted off and brought out to breathe again! Maybe you created fabulous content before you had lots of followers, or maybe you have been blogging for years and your current followers haven't seen your older material.

Blog Gems - Air Your Archives is a fortnightly linky list where we will give a prompt and you select a post from your archives that fits the prompt. You do not have to create content for the prompt, unless you want to. All you have to do is copy and paste the url of the post into the linky list. Voila, an old post gets a second shot!

To take part:

1. Follow MY blog for now (and Jen's blog once I hand her back the reins) to get future Blog Gem posting information and linkys.

2. Grab the Blog Gem button and place it on your sidebar (html code here). Putting the button on your blog is not a deal-breaker, some people just don't like doing it and I have no problem with that at all. What I will say is that something like this can't be successful without 'word of mouth' so I would appreciate if you could find another way to let people know that this is available and they are welcome to join in.

3. Enter your link.

4. Read and comment on the submissions of the two blogs posted before you on the linky list. (Please!)

5. Help spread the word by telling your blogging friends, either by tweeting this or blogging about your entry.

And here's what I have to add:

It's a wonderful chance to get fresh eyeballs on your great posts from the past.

The rule is that you're supposed to select a post from your archives that fits the prompt... but, being the generous, kind-hearted person that Jen is, it's a lenient rule. She states: "Broad interpretations of the prompt are encouraged so this could be a good chance to be creative!"

And, as we're in the middle of a horrific heat wave, this week's prompt is: Cool. 

Cool... take that literally or figuratively; temperature or attitude. Root around in your archives and find an old post that connects to the concept of "cool."

Ready? Good. Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines, aaaaaand link up!



Looking for comments? To read or leave a comment, click on THIS post's title, or HERE, to bring you to the post's page view. Comments should appear below.

Blog Gems - Air Your Archives #17 visiting HERE

Today I am happy to be helping out a friend and hosting the fortnightly (LOVE that word!) Blog Gems - Air Your Archives link-up.

This was created by the wonderful Jen, my lovely friend from Ireland who blogs at The King and Eye. Jen, a sister Autism Mom, is taking a break from blogging, as her real life has been pretty intense lately and she needs to focus on family matters.

So she has asked her friends to help her out and keep the linky going.

I am very happy to help you, Jen! (Even though, true to form, I am 2 weeks and a day late!)

This is what Jen says about Blog Gems:
How many posts do you have languishing in your archives? Great posts that will never be dusted off and brought out to breathe again! Maybe you created fabulous content before you had lots of followers, or maybe you have been blogging for years and your current followers haven't seen your older material.

Blog Gems - Air Your Archives is a fortnightly linky list where we will give a prompt and you select a post from your archives that fits the prompt. You do not have to create content for the prompt, unless you want to. All you have to do is copy and paste the url of the post into the linky list. Voila, an old post gets a second shot!

To take part:

1. Follow Jen's blog to get future Blog Gem posting information and linkys.

2. Grab the Blog Gem button and place it on your sidebar (html code here). Putting the button on your blog is not a deal-breaker, some people just don't like doing it and I have no problem with that at all. What I will say is that something like this can't be successful without 'word of mouth' so I would appreciate if you could find another way to let people know that this is available and they are welcome to join in.

3. Enter your link.

4. Read and comment on the submissions of the two blogs posted before you on the linky list. (Please!)

5. Help spread the word by telling your blogging friends, either by tweeting this or blogging about your entry.

And here's what I have to add:

It's a wonderful chance to get fresh eyeballs on your great posts from the past.

The rule is that you're supposed to select a post from your archives that fits the prompt... but, being the generous, kind-hearted person that Jen is, it's a lenient rule. She states: "Broad interpretations of the prompt are encouraged so this could be a good chance to be creative!"

And today's theme is: CHANGE! 

We are about to end our School Year here in NYC (and most schools in America already have). The weather is switching back and forth between Spring and Summer day to day like it can't make up its mind which it is.  Everything is in a state of flux, transition.

So find a post about that. Whether you are embracing the changes or fighting them, share with us. It can be big, say a move across the world, or small (ever change a diaper?) And, as the lady says, creative interpretations welcome!

Tell us about CHANGE.

So easy! Come, Link Up folks!



Looking for comments? To read or leave a comment, click on THIS post's title, or HERE, to bring you to the post's page view. Comments should appear below.

Just a Mom

Yesterday at thelink-up Jen from The King and Eye hosts once a fortnight (that's every two weeks to folks on our side of the big pond), the directions were seemingly simple:

"Link up a post about parenting, being a mother or a father."

I am a mother and I blog, should be a piece of cake...  But as I started sifting through my past posts to come up with an appropriate one to link up, I kept coming upon every other thing. I write a lot AS a parent, but not so much about BEING a parent, in general.

I am all too often very specifically identified:

Autism Mom... Older Mom... Special Needs Mom... Sandwich Generation Mom... Twin Mom... Grieving Mom... but, seemingly, never just a Mom.

The post I finally dredged up? This one: Mom is not allowed to be sick -- a somewhat whiny post about trying to parent vaguely effectively while I was sick as a dog.  Not my most shining moment, but at least it fit the bill.

But thinking about all this? Made me a little sad.

Sometimes, I just want to simply be a mom, a plain old mom, a generic mom among other moms. Sometimes I just want to write about my kids as a mom, not wear my specificities on my sleeve all the time.

So, as plain old Mom, here are some small thoughts about my children...

We had our first truly warm spring day today, here in New York City. As the layers peel off and limbs are once again exposed, I observe my boys and marvel at how close to the cusp of big-boyness they have advanced over this long cruel winter.

Ethan is growing leaner, rangier; the shadows of what will one day be muscles starting to take shape across his body; the angles of his face fully emerged, not an ounce of baby-fat left.

Jacob is well on his way to becoming a (gentle) giant. Every time I hug him I marvel at the solidness of his eighty plus pounds.  He still asks me to pick him up, twirl him around; and for the life of me, I just can't.

Both boys have sprouted over an inch each in the last three months, as the penciled and dated lines in our doorway will testify.

Ethan, after a number of highly energetic kickball games and an unusually long spate without a bath (don't ask), developed a very grown up smell in his armpits, about which he was inordinately pleased.  He is in an awful hurry to grow up and become a teenager, and I am silently begging him to slow down.

But still, thankfully, the little boys remain.

Jacob holds my face in his two hands, locks my brown eyes with his gray-green and says "I love you." I just swoon; hope someday a girl will know this feeling, but for now he is still all mine.

Today, walking to school, Ethan slipped his hand into mine, as he does most days. Strolling down Broadway together, this effortless affectionate bond between us intact, I was keenly aware that it would all too soon be tossed by the wayside, a victim of "uncool."

But now, not yet. For, still, Ethan is happy to fold himself up, catlike, to lay claim to my lap; still content to kiss my cheek hello and be briskly kissed goodbye by me, his mom.


I am linking up this post to the lovely Shell's: 

Looking for comments? To read or leave a comment, click on THIS post's title, or HERE, to bring you to the post's page view. Comments should appear below.

Have you any Blog Gems?

My lovely friend across the pond, Jen of The King and Eye (and Irish Autism Action) hosts a fortnightly (that would be bi-weekly to us Americans) link-up on her blog. She calls it:

Blog Gems - Air your Archives

It's a chance to get fresh eyeballs on your great posts from the past.  Each time there is a specific theme, and you select a post from your archives that fits the prompt.

But, being the generous, kind-hearted person that Jen is, it's a lenient rule. She states: "Broad interpretations of the prompt are encouraged so this could be a good chance to be creative!"

This week, for Blog Gems #12, the directions were:

"This week is about favourite posts. Link up a post that you love or that got more attention than you expected, or continues to get hits loooong after it has been posted!"

My first thought was to link my most "famous" post From Autist to Artist. But then I thought, nah, most of the folks there have seen that one before.

So I went rummaging about my blog (always a fun Sunday evening activity) and settled on this one, fairly recent (January 2011) but with a lot of good juju to it: Baggage. If you haven't read this yet? What are you waiting for? Click. Read.

So if you blog? I highly recommend that you go over to Jen's blog and join in the linky, it's a nice way to get to know each other all over again.

And if you just read blogs? Still go over there and find some great new reading material from the linky-list.  It's a nice chance to meet some kick-ass women from Europe and Australia, too.

And while you're there, stay and visit Jen for a while.  She's going through a rough patch with her middle son, the one on the autism spectrum. He's having an unsettling and unexplained physical health problem, and she could use some support. So go, listen, and give her a virtual hug. Thanks.



Looking for comments? To read or leave a comment, click on THIS post's title, or HERE, to bring you to the post's page view. Comments should appear below.