Posts by Ashley:
- “We Got Issues” by Rha Goddess (This was absolutely my FAVORITE essay of them all. “Because it is not up to America whether I live or die, nor is it up the so-called leadership of this nation whether I thrive or prosper. And the moment that I decide that my fate is governed by what America thinks of me, I give up my power, and my life becomes about the struggle for validation, recognition, and entitlement – on America’s terms” (41). SO EMPOWERING!)
- “How Art Can Heal Broken Places” by Lily Yeh
- “Embracing the Other: Cultural Diversity and Resilience” by Kate Kendell
- “Circles of Mutual Mentorship” by Nina Simons
- “V to the Tenth” by Eve Ensler
To Honeymoon or Not To Honeymoon? That is the Question.
April 21st, 2011This past weekend, Tim and I attended one of my friends’ weddings and it was absolutely beautiful. The bride teaches across the hall from me, so we spent a lot of time talking about weddings this year – as you can probably imagine – and different ways of doing things. I was really impressed with her attention to detail and her grace and beauty throughout the night. I felt like a bumbling idiot in my dress a lot of the time, and I remember thinking I’d really like to change into a hoodie and sweatpants about an hour into the reception. (That feeling faded, though, when I started to loosen up a bit and, consequently, started to feel pretty.) My friend, however, just looked like she was born in that dress – so comfortable and perfect.
One of the things we had talked about while standing in the hall, between yelling at kids to get to class on time, was her excitement for her honeymoon. She’s in Jamaica this week (and I hope she brings back some of that warmth with her!) and left right after her wedding. My best friend, Christina, also took a honeymoon right away after her December wedding to a warm, relaxing location.
Tim and I… well, we didn’t take a honeymoon right away, and when we did, we went to Napa Valley and San Fransisco, CA in December – two and a half months after the wedding. While it was warmer than it was in Chicago at that time, it was absolutely not the tropical beach destination you think of when you think “honeymoon.” And it was far from relaxing. We did what Tim and I do best: stayed hella busy the entire time, drank lots of wine, and came home needing a vacation from our vacation.
Everyone is different when it comes to honeymoons, though we’re the only couple I know (in real life. I’ve talked about this with many online friends) who waited to take a honeymoon. Part of our decision was practical: after that hectic planning period, the thought of creating a week’s worth of lesson plans for both of our classes on top of it was torture. Frankly, the week before the wedding, I was absolutely, 100% ready to just get back to normal. I wanted to go back to school, teach, have time to hang out with Tim and my family, write, and read books. We also hadn’t quite gotten our budgeting under control, so we weren’t sure how much money we’d have to spend on a honeymoon. And, in traditional Ashley and Tim fashion, we wanted to do something huge during the summer and go to Europe for a few weeks rather than take a short vacation, which we are now no longer doing because we got impatient and went to Napa two months after the wedding and spent too much money there.
Waiting for a honeymoon, to us, seemed like the right thing to do at the time. And, in all honesty, I was super happy to get back to work and get some sense of normalcy back in my life. Though, I will say, I was in a total daze for at least a week. I felt like a zombie with nothing to do, and I had so much fun at the wedding and was surrounded by so much love that not going somewhere and doing something big afterwords seemed, well, weird. Not to mention that any time anyone brought up anything about the wedding or showed me the pictures they took or I had to throw away my bouquet, I cried! Like, for real. Which could have been avoided, I think, if I had just taken some downtime away from it all.
So, that week, we decided to go to Napa Valley for our honeymoon in December and not wait until summer to go to Europe. And I’m glad we did. Looking back on it, I might actually do it differently if I had it to do again. (Which, as much fun as it was, thank goodness I don’t have to do it again. I know, it’s hypocritical, but if you’ve ever had a big wedding, you probably know what I’m talking about.) The honeymoon is the time you get to spend rediscovering each other after months of wedding obsession and, though Tim and I had that, we had it at home, which is very different.
It’s up to you what you decide to do, of course, but if you’re looking for some to-honeymoon or not-to-honeymoon advice, I’d urge you to take some kind of a break after the wedding, no matter what that looks like. Maybe it’s a few days off of work where you just turn your phones off and relax. Maybe it’s a stay-cation in a local B&B. Maybe it’s a week in an exotic location. But do give yourselves that time to relax and recuperate. You won’t regret it!
If you had a wedding, what did you do afterwards? Do you have any advice for brides to be on the topic?
More Changes to the Site
April 20th, 2011If you’re an RSS fiend and you haven’t stopped by Small Strokes lately, please do so. I completely revamped the theme, and I’m really happy with it. It’s more website-y than journalistic. And it’s totally girly.
Also, I’ve (or I’ve tried to… we’ll see if this works out) fixed the RSS feed so you only get a little bit of each post at a time. This is designed to force you to visit the site more often. I’m trying to make a bit off of ad revenues (I know, I’m greedy), and I can’t do that unless you click over and actually see the ads. Plus, I’m hoping that, once you’re actually on the page, you’ll be more likely to leave comments. I <3 comments.
AND! I’ve added a category for Books! So you can see all of my book posts in one place. That’s pretty sweet.
So, please continue to enjoy Small Strokes, and I’ll stop writing all these meta posts and start writing some actual content. 🙂
#Chifems Book Club: Day After Night Discussion Questions
April 19th, 2011
Day After Night by Anita Diamant
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Instead of a review, I’m going to post my discussion questions for the Chifems Book Club (meeting on May 1! Come join us!!). There are spoilers in the questions, so don’t read them if you haven’t read the book yet! Also, keep in mind I have a Kindle, so there are location numbers, not page numbers. I’ll try to include a quote when possible.
Again, THERE ARE SPOILERS IN THE QUESTIONS! Do not read further if you don’t want spoilers!!!
1. How do you feel about the bits of information we get with the flashbacks? Do you enjoy this style?
2. How do you feel about Diamant’s straightforward narrative rather than a use of emotion so common in Holocaust novels?
3. How do you feel about this statement: “It was so quiet in the barrack, Zorah could hear the soldier clear his throat and the wind of the cypress trees outside. It was a sound, she supposed, that others might find beautiful and soothing but to her, it was just more proof that the workings of the world were random, that beauty, like suffering, was meaningless, that human life was as pointless as waves on sand” (location 296).
4. What parallels do you find in the situations of these women to modern-day issues?
5. “Love has nothing to do with time, not in this world anyway” (Said by David, Location 1115). What do you think he means by this.
6. How do these women succeed in making sense of their lives? How do they fail to do so?
7. Do you find it extraordinary that people will keep their religious traditions and beliefs in the face of such horror? Explain.
8. There are many interesting discussions about luck in the novel. Some women believe they are lucky for having escaped the camps. Some believe they are lucky not to have had the fate of those outside the camps. How does luck play in this novel? What does the characters’ beliefs about luck say about their personalities?
9. What differences do we see between characters who share their grief publicly and those who share their grief privately?
10. Why do you think some characters want to show kindness and others don’t? Does this have something to do with their grief? Their pasts? Their dispositions?
11. “‘Even women with numbers on their arms, the ones who never used to smile, even for them, I see the light come back to their eyes when they hold a baby.’ ‘That puts a terrible burden on the children,’ Tedi said” (location 2894). Does it put a burden on the children?
12. What different ways of coping with the past do we see in these characters?
13. What parting advice would you give each of these women we’ve met in the book if you were there at the time of the breakout?
14. Why do you think the women went the extra mile and killed Lotte, the SS spy?
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What’s up with all these book posts?! (And some updates on my life!)
April 19th, 2011You may have noticed that I’ve been writing quite a bit about books lately. If you haven’t noticed… well… then you haven’t been reading! You may be over there wondering why this is (or simply enjoying the brilliance of my reviews). Honestly, I get on reading kicks sometimes, just like I get on writing kicks, during which I’ll read voraciously for weeks on end and finish literally tons of books. And then, suddenly, I won’t want to read anything at all for months. So, this is a reading kick. Probably brought on by the 10 minutes of silent reading I’ve been doing at the beginning of the class with each of my classes recently. Once I start a book I don’t want to stop! I promise this won’t turn into a book blog (though there will be another book post coming shortly, but that’s the reading guide for the Chifems Book Club book! You should come this month!!) and I’ll probably be back to writing hilarious and heartwarming stories about my marriage within a few weeks.
But, truthfully, nothing has really been going on in my marriage lately that has been blog-worthy. We went to Michigan the other weekend, spent some quality time together, came home, and things have just been… nice. I think we’re finally finding that groove they say you eventually get into as a couple. I’m sure that will change in time, and we’ll have some adjusting and figuring-things-out to do sometime in the near future. But, for now, things are just good in that department. And I’m happy.
I’m working on finding a new groove with my job at the moment, though I don’t feel comfortable talking about that on here just yet.
But I can finally announce that I’m one of the new Senior Editors at Gender Across Borders! I’ll be writing a few columns a month there as well as working with contributing writers and taking on other, editorly, duties. Don’t worry, Small Strokes fans. This blog won’t be going anywhere! I won’t be blogging about relationships over there like I do here, so I’m keeping this blog and just spreading my horizons a bit. Horray!
And that, friends, is a brief update on my life. And now, I’m going back to reading. 🙂
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Day of Silence
April 15th, 2011Today is the National Day of Silence during which students who choose to do so will remain silent all day to draw attention to anti-LGBTQ name calling, harassment, bullying, and violence in schools.
Today, many of my own high school students are courageously remaining silent all day to bring light to these important issues, and for that, I applaud them.
Today, however, I have decided not to remain silent. As much as I believe in LGBTQ rights and in preventing anti-LGBTQ violence and harassment, I simply cannot remain silent today. Of course, some of this is practical – when you teach high school students, a warning glare on a Friday only goes so far – but some of it is a sense of responsibility to pick up where the students’ silence has left off and make other students in my classes aware of what these students are doing and why. I began each class this Friday by talking about the Day of Silence and its importance in my classes, and I plan to continue this all day.
This is something I’ve, admittedly, never done before. Usually, I just tell my participating students that they’re doing a good thing and move on. For someone so involved in activism, this is unusual, I know, but keep in mind that I teach in a very conservative community. We are lucky enough to have a Gay-Straight Alliance in our school (which I assisted in sponsoring last year), but it is met with some contention in the community. So, as an untenured teacher in our district, I was weary of ever saying or doing anything more. This year, however, the Day of Silence falls while all of my classes are reading A Raisin in the Sunby Lorraine Hansberry – a play about racism and discrimination in 1950’s Chicago. The link was too strong to ignore, and I felt it was time to make the link between discrimination based on race and discrimination based on sexual orientation more clear for my students.
I expected my little spiel to be met with at least some contention today, but so far, I’ve been pleasantly surprised. My students have been engaged in discussion about the Day of Silence and about what they see around them regarding these issues in school. Some students have taken on being silent for the rest of the day because they’ve seen some of the silent students being antagonized for their actions today. Some of them are silent to support a friend who is being silent. Some of them are silent and are coming out to their friends for the first time. Some even gave me tips about how to be a silent teacher next year.
My students continually amaze me with their compassion and courage. Today, it may be a little quieter in my classes, but that has allowed for some amazing discussion and important activism. And, most importantly, it has made some students think about what they say and how it affects people and what they can do to take a stand if they see bullying or harassment in their community.
This post is cross-posted at Gender Across Borders.
The Feminist Lens: The Magicians
April 14th, 2011
The Magicians by Lev Grossman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Well. I read this book because Jillian recommended it to me and loaned me the book. And I am absolutely not sad I did. However, I do think the book was very problematic in some ways, although it did keep me completely engaged until the very end.
Watch out, kids…
They’re not big spoilers, but even itty-bitty ones can ruin your experience if you hate them. So I’ll hide the rest of the review after the jump.
And that we will love.
April 9th, 2011Six months ago today, I was busy primping and pampering myself, trying to make myself look more beautiful than I’ve ever looked before.
I arrived at the bridal suite nervous and a little cranky. Anticipation has never been my thing.
I put the dress on and began to cry. I was so nervous. My mom and bridesmaids played hinky pinkys with me to keep my mind occupied.
And then, I was waiting to walk down the aisle and I heard the familiar strains of fanfare that begin “All You Need is Love” and I started walking with my parents. And I saw Tim. And nothing else mattered anymore.
Six months ago today, I married my favorite, my only, my love. I didn’t become someone new or shed something old. I didn’t step through a portal that transported me to Wedded Bliss. The earth didn’t move under my feet.
Weddings are not transformative. Love is. And I am lucky to be so transformed by so much of it. Love from family, friends, Tim. Like a child, it takes a village (and lots of hard work) to raise a baby marriage, a baby family. And we have been blessed with a village.
For six months, I have grown and changed. I have remained the same. I have been a contradiction. I have been a feminist domestic. I have blended old and new. I have discarded and added. I have reflected. I have looked forward. I have been filled with love.
For six more months, we’ll take it day-by-day. And before we know it, we’ll be on the other side of another October, looking back and looking forward. Maybe we’ll be looking in completely different directions, but if I have faith in anything, I have faith that we will meet in the middle. And that we will love.
Reality Bites Back: A Reading by Jenn Pozner
April 8th, 2011On Sunday, I had the good fortune to hear Jenn Pozner read from Reality Bites Back at Women & Children First Bookstore. I was very excited to hear her read, and to hang out with some Chifems, especially since this was the first book for the Chifems Book Club. Plus, I’ve had the good fortune to be able to converse with her on Twitter occasionally, so I was sure this would be an amazing event, and I was right.
Jenn Pozner is an engaging speaker. She didn’t just read dryly from the book as some authors are apt to do. She read a bit from the introduction and then asked us to vote on what we wanted to hear more about. She then read pieces of the chapters and supplemented the text with information from her research that didn’t make it into the book. She was funny and in tune with the audience while reading and, afterwards, while answering questions. The discussion fostered by the Q&A session was also lively and engaging, and probably could have gone on for another hour if time allowed.
It was an absolutely fantastic reading. If you ever get a chance to see Jenn Pozner read in person, don’t miss it!
Any other Chifems who were there have anything to add?
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House Hunting
April 7th, 2011Tim and I viewed our first houses in our house hunt on Monday. And believe it or not, we found a house that was absolutely gorgeous. Perfect neighborhood, perfect yard, perfect kitchen, perfect basement, perfect bathrooms, perfect fireplace… it was almost perfect. Even the price was something we could afford. We would be left with nothing in our savings account after we put a down payment on the house, but we could do it.
Of course, though, since I am… well… me, I started to freak out when we started talking about actually putting an offer on the house. What if this wasn’t the right choice? What if we wanted to move to the city later? And the biggest question of them all: What if we didn’t want kids? The house has four bedrooms and a huge yard. What the heck would we do to fill this house if it was just us two for the rest of our lives?
Cheese alert: I know that the love Tim and I have for each other could fill any space. But what would we practically do with four bedrooms?
I buried my head in research and budget-number-crunching. I tried to figure out all of the things that could go wrong and what we would do if they did. But even that didn’t help. The question still loomed: What if we don’t ever have kids? This house will just be too big.
I then started thinking of all of the things I could do to help make this house more affordable. I could teach summer school (which I really don’t like doing, and didn’t want to do because I wanted to put some serious work into my book and some other projects to be announced this summer). I could be a part-time freelance writer. I could get a retail job. And then, I thought, these are all things that I would think of to do not to make the house more affordable, but to get out of the house so I didn’t have to face it’s emptiness.
I wish I had some great story about how Tim and I had this big, long discussion about this and came to a conclusion that worked for us both and how we were able to hash it out and work together as a married couple. Or about how we fought about it incessantly and ended up with a happy ending.
We did talk about it for a long time, but it was clear from the beginning of the conversation that we were on the same page: Now isn’t the right time for us to buy a house. We like our apartment. We like our routines. We like being able to take vacations and go out to eat and buy stuff at Crate & Barrel whenever we want. We’d like to save some more money before we move into a house, and we’d like to take some time to rethink our priorities and what we want out of life. We were in sync on this one and, although we really did love that house, it didn’t feel 100% right. So we’re going to wait.
But here’s a nice story for you: This morning, I said: “So… if we aren’t buying the house, should I teach summer school anyway to make more money?” And Tim replied: “You’d better not. You have a book to write.”
I married a good man.
The Feminist Lens: Good Enough Is the New Perfect
April 6th, 2011
Good Enough Is the New Perfect by Becky Beaupre Gillespie
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I’m going to start this review with two important admissions:
1. I am not a mother.
2. I consciously decided not to finish the book.
Allow me to explain why you may think these two things are very important, and why I think you are wrong. 🙂
1. I am not a mother, so any time I don’t like a book (or anything, for that matter) about motherhood, I am told, “You just don’t understand yet. When you have kids, you’ll get it.” But here’s the thing: This book was about so much more than motherhood. It was about being a perfectionist (which I am), being a wife (which I am), keeping up domestic duties (which I do), and being a part of a family (which I am). I’m actually not sure if I want to be a mother, ever, and I was excited to read this book because I am almost afraid of having children because I value my career so much and am SUCH a perfectionist and this book promised to explain to me how I could have a career, a child, and not be miserable. So, although I am not a mother, I do feel this book applies to me in some way. However, I found myself disappointed in the portrayal of these issues in the book. Which is why…
2. I decided not to finish the book. I found myself becoming angry and disappointed at the portrayal of societal issues, mothers in general, and husbands/fathers (believe it or not, and more on these in a minute) and I wanted to stop now and write a thoughtful, intelligent half-review rather than an angry full-review.
Let me pause here before I go any further to say that I think the issues of motherhood that are brought up in this book are incredibly important. I have immense respect for Becky and Hollee for tackling the do-it-all mom phenomenon. There are so many mothers out there who feel the need to be perfect and do absolutely everything and who run themselves ragged trying only to end up feeling like failures. Heck, I’m so afraid of this that I don’t even want children, period! So these issues are important, and it is important as women of this generation to consider these issues and find ways to be what we want to be and not lose our sense of self.
That said, I took issue with the way these mom-issues were portrayed. First and foremost, this book absolutely reeked of privilege. To their credit, Becky and Hollee say this right away in the introduction: “We intentionally chose to examine only a slice of the maternal population – mothers who had the privilege of education and a certain amount of choice regarding work, including the ability to temporarily scale back hours, switch jobs, or take time off. Almost all the women we interviewed… were college-educated and relatively secure financially” (x). While I am glad that the authors admitted to the bias in their research, I’m still left knowing that this excludes SO MANY MOMS. I don’t know many women who have these options, and those are the moms who stress themselves out trying to do it all. Because they have to. Even as a teacher, for example, I can take maternity leave and negotiate longer, unpaid leaves, but when my toddler throws a temper tantrum in the morning before school, I don’t have the luxury of being a few minutes late because I had to deal with it. And I can’t go part-time unless a part-time position opens. Also, it seemed that so many of the women interviewed for this book had such financial luxury that they were able to hire nannies who could cook dinner or cleaning services to take some of the stress off of the domestic responsibilities. Again, this is an absolute luxury that many women cannot afford. I felt that it was unfair to say that there are ways to avoid doing it all and then only discuss the options that worked for the upper-class.
I also took issue with the language that was used to address these issues. There was quite a bit of ableist language going on. Do-it-all moms were described as being faced with crazy behavior or insane schedules. This, coupled with the overwhelming idea that contemporary moms are obsessed with the little things, gave the overwhelming vibe that women are hysterical and just need to calm down. It makes me wonder, then, just how far we’ve come from the 1950’s housewife mentality. Or “The Yellow Wallpaper” for that matter. If we’re just going to tell do-it-all moms that they are making themselves “crazy” and they need to calm down, how far away is that from the belief that women are, by nature, hysterical beings? It also sounds a bit like victim-blaming. You’re making yourself feel this way, so you need to figure it out or ask for help – don’t expect anyone to jump in and step up with the responsibilities.
There was also a section of the chapter titled “The Inheritance” that discussed this modern phenomenon of women feeling like they HAVE to work AND have babies. The argument here is that contemporary moms are, literally, the daughters of the women’s rights movement; their moms fought desperately for the right to work outside the home. Because of this, the argument is, women today feel they need to work outside the home or else they will let down their mothers. And not only that, according to Becky and Hollee, it’s their mothers who make them feel this way. The section ends by saying, “Guilt and inspiration. The proud legacy of any mother” (33). To top it off, the language that surrounds any discussion of letting go of responsibilities or making decisions is problematic. The decisions the moms make in this book are almost always referred to as “sacrifices” rather than “choices.” The language and arguments work together here to perpetuate the mom-as-martyr stereotype, which is troubling. Sure, moms have to make choices and prioritize, but so does everyone. Teaching your child the value of choice is certainly different than “sacrificing” something because you have too much to do.
So, at the point that I saw women set up as hysterical martyrs, then we get a description of the helper-husbands, or Disney-dads. These are guys who absolutely cannot do anything right, and their wives need to take over for them or nag them incessantly. Think Everybody Loves Raymond Or Sarah Haskins’ Target: Women episode. Now, don’t get me wrong. I know plenty of women who just don’t trust their husbands to do anything, and they make themselves run ragged trying to do the things their husband should be doing and the things they need to be doing. This is wrong. Women do need to let go and trust their husbands. However, there was a significant portion of this section devoted to the notion that men “don’t do it right” and women need to then lower their standards. You know, sometimes the guy will leave dishes in the sink or clean the fridge but leave streaks on it. “Let it go, ladies!” was the overwhelming message. However, I ask you this: When hubby calls and says he’s picking up his parents and bringing them over for dinner after work, who gets to run around doing dishes and re-cleaning the fridge? If you guessed the woman, you’d be correct. Here’s the thing: There’s no right or wrong way to clean, really, as long as the stuff is clean. But if you’re leaving streaks on the fridge or dishes in the sink when you said you’d do the dishes, the job has not been done correctly or done at all. The implication of saying that women need to “let it go” may be correct in some ways or some instances, but truly says, “Honey, men will never learn. Don’t even try to teach ’em.” Which is untrue! Let me give this example: We don’t have a full sized washer. Tim did the laundry the other day, having never done it before in our place because that is typically my chore, and added a full load worth of detergent. The clothes came out of the dryer all stiff because of the extra soap. Did I let it go? Did I sneak behind his back and redo the laundry? NEITHER OF THE ABOVE! I told him doing laundry in our place is like doing half of a load because of the size, and told him to use half the detergent. Why did I do that? Because I didn’t marry an idiot. He’s a smart man who knows lots of things and can learn how to do laundry in a half-washer. It wasn’t a put-down; it wasn’t something to just “let go.” It was a learning experience. To assume that women need to “let go” when their husbands do something around the house that isn’t “up to par” just perpetuates both ideas that women are crazy and men are idiots.
You may be wondering at this point why I gave this book 3 stars. As I said before, these issues need to be tackled, and I absolutely applaud them for trying. However, I wish they hadn’t spend so much time subconsciously perpetuating gender stereotypes in their breakdown of modern motherhood.
#Chifems Book Club – Vote for April!
April 4th, 2011What book should we read in April, Chifems? Vote any time between now and Friday, April 8. The book will be selected on Friday, and we ARE going to read it this month, and we ARE going to meet! I PROMISE! Also, join our Goodreads group if you haven’t already!
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The Feminist Lens: Moonrise: The Power of Women Leading from the Heart
April 3rd, 2011
Moonrise: The Power of Women Leading from the Heart by Nina Simons
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
A review copy of this book has been on my desk since the end of December, and I feel terrible that I’m just getting around to reviewing it now, but with school and play-directing and house-hunting, I couldn’t find time to sleep let alone read. But that doesn’t mean I found this book difficult or boring. I actually really loved it and missed reading it while I was so busy.
From her bio on the back of the book: Nina Simons, the editor of the book, is the co-CEO and cofounder of Bioneers, a national nonprofit that identifies, gathers, and disseminates breakthrough solutions to environmental and social challenges. It makes sense, then, that so many of the essayists in this book were focused on leading through environmental agencies or were actively working toward environmental change in some way. It was partly because of this that I find myself giving the book a 4-star rating rather than a 5-star one. I am very aware of environmental issues, but when I think of women and leadership, I think of so much more than just that. And I believe that there are so many women out there doing so many wonderful things – I just wished for a more diverse set of voices.
The other reason behind my 4-star rating was that many of these essays read a lot like advertisements for whatever programs these particular women were leading at the time the essay was written. As great as it was to read about all of the wonderful things these women did with their leadership skills, I wanted to read more about the actual leadership, not the program they were leading. Personally, I think women are told by society that whatever their creation – their art, their program, their work, their children, or whatever other contribution to society – is more important and should be celebrated more than the work they put in or the process they use to get to that contribution. Thus, I wanted to hear more about the women themselves and their leadership processes rather than the fruits of their labor.
On the other hand, though, and much more importantly, it was inspiring and empowering to read about these women’s accomplishments. The fact that most of these women started with a gut feeling that they needed to fix a problem, make a connection, beautify a space, or make a difference in big ways and then reading about how they actually did it was absolutely uplifting. It is so important that, in our society where women are not always shown examples of leadership or empowered women role models that we actually get a whole book of examples right in front of us. I may think about teaching some of these essays to my students next year!
For anyone who picks this book up and wants to read just a few of the essays, may I suggest:
While all of the essays were phenomenal, I did love these five, and would highly recommend them – and the book – to all women.
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Ultimate Spring Cleaning
March 31st, 2011Yesterday was our very first family Ultimate Spring Cleaning, which is like normal spring cleaning but with more yelling. 🙂 I kid – we actually didn’t yell at all yesterday, and the spring cleaning was – admittedly – kind of fun. Though, it was definitely made more fun because I persuaded Tim that we should head to Crate & Barrel to spruce up the place as a reward for our cleanliness. More on that later.
We actually split up our cleaning into phases, which I highly recommend. It helps to break down any large task into smaller pieces so you feel more accomplished at every stage. So, here is a brief description of our phases, and some pictures!
Phase 1: Purge
We moved in together in August, and were married in October. We had both also lived on our own for two years prior to moving in together, so not only did we have to merge all of our stuff, we also got lots of new stuff for the wedding. So, our guest room closet (and every other closet… and the laundry room… to be totally honest) became a holding ground for stuff we weren’t sure we’d ever need again, or couldn’t part with right away. In fact, this was so much the case, that I made #24 on my 30 Before 30 list to clean out the guest room closet. So, we started there – looking through old files, filing new things, paring down old things, and throwing a lot away. We also got rid of a lot of very old utensils (and some lingering yellow plates… don’t ask) by donating them. And I found two old computers from a LONG time ago that we recycled. And now we have space in the guest room closet and we have a place to put our Christmas decorations! Finally!
Phase 2: Organization
In Phase 2, we both did our separate organization. We organized desk drawers, kitchen drawers, bathroom drawers, china cabinets, bookshelves – you name it. We found all sorts of goodies and stuff we didn’t even know was there, which was awesome, and then we organized the hell out of it. Now, we can find things with ease. And this makes me happy.
Phase 3: Springy Decor
At that point, we headed to Crate & Barrel to spruce up the place. This probably should have been after the cleaning mania, but we got a late start (for which I blame Jillian T. 😉 ) and Crate & Barrel would have been closed by the time we were done cleaning, so this became Phase 3. We got all sorts of great stuff that helps make the place look new, without actually adding any large pieces. Here, I’ll show you!:
New pillows in bright colors!
Matching candles in bright colors! We moved the candle holders from the kitchen table centerpiece to the end table next to the couch with the new, bright pillows on it, which really ties the room together nicely.
A matching vase, which now sits on the breakfast bar where our fruit bowl used to be. We now no longer have a fruit bowl, which is doubly good: It was too big for the space, and we get bugs sometimes from leaving our fruit on the bar. I put a candle in this vase, and it looks really cool when lit.
This is now the centerpiece on our kitchen table. It’s a Waterford crystal bowl that we had sitting on our living room table (on which there is now nothing, which is nice) that I put (matching) green stones in the bottom of and put on a (matching) teal placemat. Score.
These are actually from Target, but the color scheme matched so well, I couldn’t pass them up! Multi-colored napkins and placemats. You know, for my next dinner party.
And, finally, a few new bathroom accessories. We know a few of you bought us our lovely bathroom accessories that we registered for for the wedding, and we liked those a lot better, but the “stainless” steel of those was not, in fact, stainless. We had two soap dispensers, and after the first one became totally rusted-over in a matter of weeks, we tried the second one, and the same thing happened. So, thank you to those who kindly bought us what we asked for. We just had to replace it because it was impossible to keep it from staining.
Phase 4: Cleaning Mania
In this phase, we cleaned like we’d never cleaned before. I took the dusting and the vacuuming. Tim took the kitchen and the bathroom. Needless to say, our apartment is SPOTLESS, disinfected, and there is not a speck of dust anywhere.
Phase 5: Pizza and Beer
Because every good project should end with pizza and beer.
So, that’s a recap of our very first Ultimate Spring Cleaning. I think it was a success! And, very feminist if I do say so myself. We split every responsibility up completely equitably.
What about you? Do you have any spring cleaning rituals or techniques you’d like to share?
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Half-Review: The Dirty Girls Social Club
March 28th, 2011
The Dirty Girls Social Club by Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I really, really wanted to like this book. I really, really wanted to finish this book. The fact of the matter is, though, that I’ve never really been a fan of the chick-lit genre, and I’ve absolutely never been a fan of Sex and the City. I find the women in those types of books, shows, and movies to be a little – for lack of a better word – whine and man-obsessed. And I sort of felt this book was headed in the same direction.
Definitely an easy read, though, and I might pick it up again at the pool or the beach.
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The Importance of Importance
March 26th, 2011I had the good fortune to attend and present at the Connections Conference last week. The awesome thing about presenting at conferences like these is that my registration fee is paid and I get to attend all sorts of great sessions. Plus I was lucky enough to be provided a sub for both days of the conference by my school, so I had an amazing opportunity to see many professionals and educators speak about some awesome and inspiring tactics that I am going to try to put to use in my classroom.
The best session, though, was one I found applicable to my classroom as well as my relationship with Tim. It was about how students associate past experiences with their present ones and how that creates different logic in their minds than the logic in our minds. Let me give you the example we were presented with:
A father reads to his son every night. Every single night. They sit down and read together. One night, the doorbell rings. Dad says: “I’ll go talk to them and I’ll be right back.” He goes and talks to his guests and comes back. Another night, the dad and son are reading and the phone rings. It’s Grandma. Dad says: “Let me go talk to Grandma for one second and I’ll be right back.” He goes and talks to Grandma and comes back. Another night, the dad and son are reading and the mom needs help with something. Dad says: “Let me go help Mom and I’ll be right back.” He goes and helps Mom and comes back.
Dad’s logic: “I read with my son EVERY night and no matter what happened, I always came right back to him.”
Kid’s logic: “Dad and I read unless something else happened.”
This puts reading as important, but not as important as the other things that were going on.
So what’s the solution? Set aside time for reading and only reading. No matter what happens. Even if your neighbors come to the door with pie. You keep reading until you’re done – because nothing is more important than reading. The kid’s logic will change, because he will see that he is the most important thing to you at that time, and so is reading.
It took a few days, but something clicked. And it had nothing to do with teaching.
OK, so that’s not entirely true. Tim and I are both teachers, so very little in our lives actually has nothing to do with teaching.
For those of you who don’t know, teaching is an interesting profession unlike any other in that you have to work with people all day (even on days with meetings, you’re still working with your fellow teachers), you’re often asked to sponsor extra curricular activities which take up quite a bit of time after school, and you have to take a lot of work home with you in the evenings, on weekends, and during break because you’re surrounded by people all day and your after-school time is taken up by extra curricular activities you’re sponsoring.
From January through March, Tim and I both sponsored extra curricular activities. We were often at school until 7:00 at night, and then we had to eat dinner and get some grading done and then get to bed so we can wake up at 4:45 in the morning to get in a brief workout because there’s no way that’s happening after school.
We tried to spend time together, but it was tough as you can probably imagine. But I, trying to be the perfect wife, often put off grading until I was at school, trying to cram in any 5 minutes of grading at a time that I could so I wouldn’t have to take it home, giving me absolutely no downtime at school, all so I could cook dinner and tend to my husband. In other words, I wanted to be the perfect wife – able to literally “do it all.”
Tim’s quest to be the perfect husband in this time had the same heart as my quest to be the perfect wife, but took on a different manifestation. While my domain was the home like a good little girl, his was work. His goal this year, and one that we’ve been talking about and working through, has been to earn as much money as he can. He coaches two sports, does bus duty, and takes on any extra job he can find to make more money so we can save faster for a house. But, for him, working at home comes with this territory. If he isn’t 100% at his job all the time and making tons of money, he doesn’t feel like a good husband.
So, while he told me I was the most important thing in his life, almost every time I asked him to watch a movie with me or go out to dinner with me, he couldn’t because he had work to do.
In a way, I started to become resentful of his job. We started fighting a lot, and I started finding other things to do while he was busy. I couldn’t understand why I was feeling this way – why was it that I always had plenty of time for him, but he so rarely had any time for me? And how could I be so important to him if he was never spending time with me? The answer was staring at me in the face: we were both trying to show each other how important we were to the other in very gender-typical ways, and our logic about the situation was completely different.
Tim’s logic: This relationship is the most important thing to me, and that’s why I have to do all this work. She’s putting her work off because she just doesn’t want to do it right now.
My logic: This relationship is the most important thing to me, and that’s why I have to put my work off – so I can make dinner and tidy up. I know I’m important to him, but I must be less important than his work because he’d rather do that than spend time with me.
As soon as we realized this is was what was going on here, we were able to talk about it and work some things out. Tim was able to put aside his work and spend more time with me a few days a week, and I was able to respect his psychological need to do work to feel useful on other days. Of course, it wasn’t as nicely done as all that, but you get the picture.
It’s truly wonderful when you find ways to balance your work and your personal life, and it’s awesome when something you learn about your work can be transferred to your relationship. It took some fumbling, but during our seasons, we were able to eventually talk and get our relationship back on track.
Now, of course, things are changing again. We’re on spring break, which means we’ll both be home for 9 days and constantly in each other’s presence. After working out our busy schedules, I’m almost excited to work out being constantly around each other.
Have you been in a situation like this with your partner? I’d love to hear about it!
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I’m baaaaaack!!
March 25th, 2011I can’t even tell you how good it is to be typing this right now. I’m really excited to be back!
I waited for a few days and, seeing no more spam links, I devoted some time to getting rid of all of the links on all of my previous posts. That’s 300 posts (this post makes 301!), so it took a while, but I feel very good about it now. I’m still cautious; I swear if those links show up again, I’ll scream, break things, and quit. But, for now, my site is clean. If anyone has some ways to prevent this sort of thing from happening again, I’m all ears.
As I was cleaning the site, I took some time to update a few things. I totally revamped my blogroll to reflect the blogs I actually read on a regular basis, and blogs that actually still exist. If your site isn’t on there and you think it should be, feel free to drop a link in my comments and I’ll be happy to add your site. I’m also now showing all of the blogs on my blogroll instead of a random 5.
I also added a few badges to the far right sidebar to highlight some of my more popular and ongoing series. There is now a badge for my Feminist Weddings series, one for my Feminist Wife series, and one for my Teaching Feminism series. These series are ongoing (well, except for the Feminist Wedding… the wedding is definitely over), so this will make it easier to find and easier to subscribe to the stuff you like.
I also added a badge to donate to my Avon Walk for Breast Cancer 2011 (and got rid of that bulky thermometer thing). Please consider donating! I don’t ask for money on here, but if all my readers donated to this cause, we could make a real difference.
A brief update on my competitive drama season: We took fourth place (out of seven) with two students receiving individual medals for their performances at the Sectional competition last Saturday. The weekend before at the tournament my school and I hosted, we had two students medal, as well, (one of them the same as the Sectional tournament) and won an award for our teamwork setting up and tearing down the set. All in all, I learned a lot and am excited for next year!
In the meantime, I’ll be fully back here, writing about marriage and teaching and, hopefully, how the two intersect. Look for posts coming about how both of us being SUPER BUSY ALL THE TIME (he was coaching, too, this season) affected our relationship, as well as how it’s made us stronger. And now that we have time to spend together, I’m sure I’ll be writing about how much of an adjustment that is. Oh! And look for a bunch of awesome guest posts! (And submit your own!)
I’m excited to be back, and I hope you’re excited to have me back! Drop a note in the comments if you are so inclined. It would make me happy. 🙂
So… I Got Spammed Again…
March 20th, 2011… or maybe I just never actually fixed the problem in the first place.
I was working with my host to fix the problem with these spam links, and they said it would be fixed if I removed the Global Translator. So I did that. And then I had to manually remove the links from the posts, so I did a little bit of that. Then I got really busy in my life and I didn’t actually look at my blog for a while. Then I looked at my blog and found spam links again. They appeared in all of the posts I had taken them out of, and in all of my newer posts, as well.
So then my host company told me that the problem was with two themes I wasn’t using but had installed. So I deleted those and they told me the problem was fixed.
I’m not sure the problem is fixed, and I’m not sure how much more of this I can deal with. And I’m certainly not sure if I can find the time EVER to manually delete all the spam links in the posts. So I’m really not sure what to do from here.
So, if more spam links show up in this post (this really is a test to see if it will happen), I may just give up and port my stuff over to another blog and work from there. My writing is taking a new direction, anyway. If no spam links show up and I really have fixed the problem, then I’ll probably try to clean up this blog and devote myself to blogging once again now that my extracurricular drama thing is over.
Just so you all know. 🙂
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Running on To-Do Lists, Compliments, and Love
March 9th, 2011I’ve posted some posts here, but, let’s face it, I haven’t really blogged on here in almost a month.
Many of you have asked what I’ve been up to, and have told me that you miss my blogging and feel out of touch with my life since I haven’t been blogging so much lately. Honestly, I feel out of touch with my own life, lately, since I’ve been so busy. I’ve literally been running on to-do lists, compliments, and love.
Allow me to explain (and provide you with a bit of an update!):
To-Do Lists
This year, I took on directing the Contest Play at my school. The Contest Play is a competitive play that runs for 40 minutes with a traveling set. We travel to different schools and compete in tournaments (usually two – Conference and Sectionals – and if you make it in the top two at Sectionals, you go to State) and it’s actually kind of cool. I did it at my old school, and I was excited to take it over this year. But, long story short, our school was asked to host the Conference tournament this year, even though it’s not our year. The guy working with me didn’t want to do it, but, since I have an addiction to large-scale projects (and doing good things for the kids, of course), I said I’d love to be in charge of it. That meant holding meetings, talking to coaches, creating programs and packets, calling judges, setting up workers, setting up the school, reserving rooms, scheduling teams, managing workers… all while directing my own show. That competition is this Friday-Saturday, and I’m ready. I think I had more on my to-do list for this thing than I did the two months before the wedding. But, today, I crossed off everything that can be done before Friday! And that is good.
Compliments
With any event, while managing people, you’re going to butt heads with someone. It just happens. Especially when people don’t believe you can pull it off in the first place, mostly because you’re a woman. A small woman, at that. A mostly quiet (at work), small woman who is a teacher without an administrative certificate and who looks like a senior in high school. So I had to stand up for myself, which got ugly, and then got better. And now I feel like I’ve busted into the coaching boys club, and for that, I’m extremely happy. Compliments in that respect mean so much more knowing I surprised a few people and earned some respect.
Love
The only thing that has gotten me through these busy few weeks has been knowing that, at night, Tim and I will get into bed and he’ll always put his arms around me. And I always fall right asleep with Tim’s arms around me. Love.
Long story short – I’ll be back soon. I promise. 🙂
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Avon Walk for Breast Cancer: Seven in ’11!
March 2nd, 2011Did you know that every three minutes, another woman in the United States is diagnosed with breast cancer?
On June 4-5, I’ll spend the weekend walking, along with thousands of other people, in the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer. I will walk at least the distance of a marathon (26.2 miles), and I may choose to walk as far as a marathon and a half. Either way, it’s a very long walk.
I’ll have to spend the next few months training, fundraising, and preparing for the event. It’s the biggest challenge I’ve ever taken on, but I’m very excited about doing it because I know it will make a real difference to the millions of people affected by breast cancer.
The money raised goes to the Avon Foundation Breast Cancer Crusade, a 501(c)(3) public charity whose mission is to provide access to care and to work toward finding a cure. They provide funding to organizations all over the country in five areas: medical research, clinical care, support services, educational and advocacy seminars, and community-based, non-profit early detection breast health programs. Much of the money raised will stay right here to help people in our city.
I’m required to raise at least $1,800 to participate, but I’m setting my goal even higher, and I plan to raise at least (personal fundraising goal). Please help to support me and the breast cancer cause by making a generous contribution to my efforts. You can make your donation online by simply clicking on the link at the bottom of this message, which will bring you right to my personal page. Please remember as you’re making your donation that in less than the time it took to read this e-mail, another woman in the U.S. was diagnosed with breast cancer.
You can donate online by visiting my personal fundraising page: http://info.avonfoundation.org/goto/alsamsa2011 or you can click on the huge pink goal badge on my far left sidebar. 🙂
Thank you for your support!
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Spammed
February 21st, 2011So. Small Strokes was spammed. There are links to purchase drugs showing up in almost a years’ worth of posts. And I didn’t put them there.
I contacted my host company, and they discovered that the problem was with the Global Translator plugin (so if you have that one, you should get rid of it!). So as much as I wanted this blog to be accessible to people who speak other languages, I can’t have that anymore because they made it possible for spammers to inject links into my site.
Needless to say, I’m frustrated. I have to manually delete the links from all of the posts which, frankly, I don’t have the time to do. Nor the patience. So I deleted the links from the posts that were through this December, and that has to be good enough. Maybe if I’m looking through archives for some reason I’ll idly delete some more, but I cannot sit here and manually delete links from 200+ posts right now. I just can’t.
If anyone has any better ideas, I’m all ears.
This plus everything going on in my life right now, and in our country right now taking away the rights of workers, women… plus the fact that I need to get into school today to put a set together… I’m cranky and stressed and upset. I think I’m just going to walk away from the computer for a while, take out some aggression (and anxiety) on set-“building” (I put building in quotes because I don’t really build anything. I just glue and paint.) and maybe come back and write a little tonight when my head is clearer.
Let’s end this on a positive life note, though, shall we? I’ve been battling an injury in my side for about four weeks now. I’m pretty sure I tore a muscle in or over my ribcage on my right side, though we’ll never know because I don’t go to the doctor unless I absolutely have to. But I could barely even walk for a while there, and I couldn’t lay on that side to save my life. For four weeks, it’s been really painful. I managed to get out of bed in the mornings to walk a few miles just to stretch it out and that seemed to be helping. Yesterday, I thought I’d do some yoga because it was feeling better enough to give that a shot. Today, I have zero pain. NONE. So that is happy.
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