Getting all crafty.

I have been working on a skirt. But being sometimes careless, I neglected to retake my measurements before cutting fabric and sewing the initial seams and putting the zipper in. It was too small. At that  point I was ready to give up and scrap this beautiful fabric I’d bought. Until Miranda, the amazing person who made my wedding dress, offered the suggestion of adding a panel or some ruffles. Because of the sewing machine being a pain in the ass and refusing to properly sew when I was doing the zipper, I had to hand sew it in and was not about to take it out for anything. Which means I was left with only one side to unpick and add something on.

Way too many ruffles later, I had a side panel. Unfortunately now the darts were off and I had to redo two of them. One dart is still off but I decided to hell with it. And my skirt is finally done! Huzzah!

I know it’s not as good as it would have been what with the doing and the undoing and the redoing, but it still turned out pretty cute.

Yeaaaahhhh…

So sometimes you know how you do something and it seems like a good idea at the time, but then you think about it and realize that what you did could be misinterpreted as kinda douchey due to the awesomeness that is internet communication? Yeah. Me too.

And you know there’s nothing else to do because you already did what you did and doing more will probably just create a spaghetti bowl of insanity, so you shut up* like you should have done in the first place and deal with your anxiety.

*Except for whining to your husband about you not being sure what you did and then sending your best friend an email about how anxious you are now. But you shut up to the original person! Well done you.

Adios.

The year 2011 is gone. While I realize I’ve been a crappy blogger this year, there’s not a whole lot I can do now other than apologize and explain. For one, I am largely happy, which gives me fewer things to blog about. For two, some of the things that did cause me angst were caught up in a web of self-censorship because they involved a close friend and issues that needed to be hashed out between the two of us, and money, which just sucks to talk about because who wants to hear me whine about being poor? For three, I spend all day on a computer and when I get home I try to stay off the computer and read or do stuff or hang out with Matt.

So that’s why, for the three readers I have left, I have been gone.

With that, here we go…

January: I bought an effing house! Also, my niece was born.

February: Ummm… Nothing really happened.

March: I plead for less suckage from humanity. I do a 30-day photo challenge in an attempt to jump start my blogging. The attempt fails, as you know, because I continued to suck at blogging. Monster turns three.

April: I get to meet my dear niece and spend time with my awesome family. More strange conversations with friends. Matt turns 26. He is an old man…

May: Pretty much a whole lotta nothing keeps happening.

June: We break the cardinal rule of marriage. I do not claim responsibility for my sleep-talking actions. Zim turns three.

July: I wax thoughtful. Eve and I meet Ira Glass and take ridiculous photos. I turn 25, which totally boggles me.

August: I start a new job! We continue to be poor, but at least I don’t loathe going to work. That is a step in the right direction.

September: We celebrate our first anniversary with Weird Al. We adopt a dog, originally named Rusty, now named Gizmo.

October: I write about adoption. We actually get trick-or-treaters since we are in a neighborhood. Unfortunately we underestimated how many we would get and had to do the whole pretend-not-to-be-home thing.

November: Thanksgiving with my family. My brother brought home a girl! She is cool.

December: I take insane photos of my animals. Christmas is good, family-filled and busy.

If you* can take ridiculous pictures of your children, so can I.

I got some balloons at work the other day. As you can tell Gizmo is not particularly pleased, but the kitties seemed unfazed. And then the ribbons I had just sitting around from Christmas wrapping.

* Generic “you.” I am allowed to take insane pet pictures for every parent that takes insane child photos. That’s sound logic, I promise.

Great literature.

For those of you that read with Google Reader, you probably saw a now-deleted blog show up in your feed. I was helping a friend’s brother -in-law figure out WordPress, so I was creating a blog while on the phone with him and had to publish it to make sure the photo showed up the way I wanted it to. I basically had not thought about the blog, and used the text and photo that were most immediately available. The text was Wuthering Heights, from this hilarious Book-A-Minute Classics site that I had been reading when he called, along with a photo of my niece. So imagine my amusement, when in my Reader (I subscribe to make sure it publishes correctly) this pops up:

The juxtaposition of giant smiling baby over Heathcliff screaming was just too much and I laughed my butt off.

Secret cat strategy.

*Matt, in the bathroom*

Matt: Zim, why do you always come in here while I’m poopin’?

Me: It’s because he knows you have no choice but to pay attention to him. You’re a captive audience.

Matt: Sneaky…

So cliche.

Things for which I am thankful:

1. Awesome husband. I’m not gonna give you some bullshit about how he has to “put up with me,” because I think I’m pretty awesome. But he’s pretty awesome too. This is not to say we see eye-to-eye on everything, but we CAN talk about everything and I really value that.

2. A job that I really like.

3. Cats that snuggle up with me in the night. And wake me up in the morning by sticking their noses in my face and tickling me with their whiskers.

4. A spastic dog that is also adorable.

5. Finding a Chinese place in Salt Lake that is affordable, nearby and delicious.

6. New video games. I have been mega short on sleep this week because of Assassin’s Creed: Revelations. SO GOOD!

7. Bathtubs. Nothing like a long bath with a good book to take your mind off anything.

8. Family. So cheesy, I know, but I like mine, and I even like Matt’s! They are good peeps and I love them.

9. Speaking of cheese. I’m also thankful for cheese. Yum!

10. Crunchy fall leaves and people who don’t rake. I love rustling through leaves as I walk the dog.

11. Space heaters and offices that allow them. I am once again stuck in a freezing cold office, so it’s really nice to be able to press a button and be at a comfortable temperature.

12. Hair that is growing. So close to being able to stick it in a ponytail. I really want to see if I like long hair again.

13. My friend Ben is coming to visit in January! I haven’t seen him since we were both in Denmark.

Mike Winder, you are no Ben Franklin.

I know I’m a bit late writing about this, since the news broke almost a week ago, but I want to go into a little more depth about one of the more interesting Utah news stories this year. The one in which the mayor of Utah’s second-largest city wrote stories under a fake name about the city for which he is mayor.

This is one of those spectacular, unbelievable stories that seems particularly bizarre until you start thinking about it. Then it seems depressingly plausible. Mayor Mike Winder says he began submitting stories to Deseret Connect, a citizen journalism (read: cost-cutting) effort that contributes to the Deseret News and KSL.com, under the pen name Richard Burwash. What gets me is why.

The mayor said he was frustrated that the newspaper had drastically reduced its city government coverage after layoffs last year but not its crime coverage and wanted to “try to restore balance.”… “In a three-month period, 16 percent of Salt Lake Tribune stories that mentioned West Valley City were about crime, but 56 percent of Deseret News stories about my city were about crime.”

As he told my friend, Emilie: “I just care too much about my city, I guess.”

And here’s the thing. I can sympathize with that reason. After the DNews cut its staff last year, the info I’ve heard is that the guy who was editor over reporters for about 10 cities along the Wasatch Front became the sole reporter for 10ish cities along the Wasatch Front. Some people have suggested Winder should perhaps focus on reducing crime as a way of getting crime stories cut. I’m sure there’s a little something to that, but I don’t think it’s the real issue. So yeah. With such dramatically reduced coverage, it’s inevitable the only stuff that will get covered is the big stuff, which also tends to be the bad stuff.

But that’s not a good enough reason to lie, Mr. Winder.

I do give him credit for having an attack of conscience (which he says was brought on by the recent death of his mother), and coming forward of his own accord to tell Deseret Connect editors of the deception. At the same time, in follow-up interviews, he kept defending his decision to lie. That, combined with previous ethically questionable missteps, makes me wonder if he just has a really short-term memory, if generally doesn’t get what he did wrong or if he’s just a morally sketchy person and stereotypical say-anything politician.

Winder is also a director at a prominent PR/advertising agency who have said publicly they are disappointed in him. The Public Relations Society of America actually released a statement specifically condemning his actions.

What is equally troubling to me is the lack of oversight on the part of Deseret Connect. It has basically become an un- or low-paid army of community contributors. The fact that he was able to fool them speaks really poorly of their citizen journalism experiment and of their journalistic efforts. He also was taken on as an official West Valley City contributor earlier this year, post Burwash, but pre-revelation. Which I think disturbs me just as much, because it shows that the management there really doesn’t get what is wrong with that. It strips what little credibility they have away, and does a huge disservice to the principled, good journalists still employed by the Deseret News.

Mike Winder violated journalism and public relations ethics and flat-out lied. Even if, as he claims, every part of the story is true, the use of a pen name to promote the city he is mayor of is still rife with problems and conflicts of interest. Someone with the agenda of making a city look good will write a story differently than someone who is just telling the story. And by making the city look good, he makes himself look good. Yet he still doesn’t quite seem to get it.

He defended using a pen name, citing famous authors who wrote under pseudonyms, including Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison.

Mike Winder, you are no Ben Franklin. And loving your city too much is not an excuse for lying and violating professional ethics.

Reproductive freedom.

I once got into a blog debate (argument?) with a high school friend of my sister about what reproductive freedom means. To her it was a term used to justify abortion. To me it means that women should be allowed the right to determine when and how many children to have, whether through the use of birth control or not, abortion or not. I firmly believe that women and their partners (although that is a whole side discussion) should be free to make decisions free from pressure.

Which is why I find many reactions to the announcement that Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar are expecting their 20th child a little frustrating. There are a lot of jokes about her being a “clown car” or wondering about the state of her vagina and his sexual satisfaction. Horror that people are “breeding like rabbits.” And while I personally NEVER want 20 (or more!) children, I don’t feel like I should have a say in whether or not they do unless their children are being mistreated or neglected. The Duggars are clothed, fed, loved and cared for. Their conservative religion is not, as some suggest, a basis for removing children from the home, neither is the amount of care the older children give the younger children.

I understand people expressing concern about Michelle’s health. She developed preeclampsia in two pregnancies, one of which was a really short-term pregnancy. She is going to have a planned C-section. And she is 45. All of those are reasons for concern.

Yet. Those are decisions she and her family get to make. Not me. Not you. Not anyone. Because that’s what reproductive freedom means to me. If I want the right to have a family when and how I want, I need to extend that right to others.

Reason I Love My Husband #239

Yesterday he was the one who reminded me today was voting day and when I walked in the door, asking if he was ready to go to the library to vote, he informed me he had already done so. Politically active husband ftw.

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