narrating kayoz

"When Transparency comes to town"

Because I don't have time to blog properly... I bring you some more link love instead:

When Transparency comes to town:

Along with this President Obama asked agencies to use tools that make the government transparent, collaborative, and transparent. These tools can be wikis, government databases, blogs etc. but the overriding principle is the open and free access to public information in order to create a more dynamic and active participatory democracy.

It's exciting stuff, I reckon. (Of course, I'm a little biased about anything to do with Obama or web 2.0 in government, but still...)

More on motherhood and artistic pursuits...

The Mood Back Home: an exhibition inspired by Womanhouse (at mothering.com news bulletins):

A new exhibition at Momenta Art gallery in Brooklyn, New York addresses the challenges women face in simultaneously pursuing artistic careers, motherhood, and domestic lives. Once thought to be mutually exclusive pursuits, traditional gender roles and stereotypes about what it means to be an artist continue to suggest that women artists can't quite have it all. "The Mood Back Home", on view February 12 through March 16, 2009, disputes that notion, featuring topical work by 12 contemporary women artists.

(more of the article by Laura Andre at the link above)

Happy LGBT Family's Day

I missed this yesterday, but it's still the 2nd in some parts of the world, so I'm quickly posting this link now before running out of the house!

Reusing soft plastic (eg bags)

Via Riana I just came across this etsylabs tutorial on how to reuse plastic bags (or other soft plastic). It's all about how to fuse several of them together, using an iron, and then make them into all sorts of things - reusable shopping bags being the most common thing mentioned, but I was thinking maybe I could make some big and heavy enough to cover part of the chicken run. Someone else suggested covering a greenhouse, but didn't actually report back on whether it worked.

The only problem of course is that we mostly use fabric bags now for our shopping, so we don't end up with many plastic bags, and the ones we do get are used up on dog poo or general garbage pretty quickly. But then someone mentioned the bags dry cleaning comes back in, and bread bags. Other people commented that they found the slightly heavier bags (Target got several mentions) more reliable than the thinner, cheaper bags (I assume supermarket bags) which sometimes wrinkle. So it might take some experimenting.

And I would also only do it outside on the deck, where we conveniently have an outdoor powerpoint, to avoid fumes - someone posted this warning in the comments:

What a cool idea! I hate to spoil anyone's fun, BUT I think it should be mentioned that this should be done in a

WELL VENTILATED

area or that you use an organic vapor mask or a respirator. Melting and potentially burning plastics creates sometimes harmful fumes, some of which are linked with embryonic mutagens.

Better safe than sorry.

But all in all, I have to say I'm feeling inspired. Better finish my dishcloth first though... not to mention my masters project!

protecting privacy

Last night I cooked dinner from a recipe I found on another blog. Later I heard Liam telling Chris this on the phone (Chris being in Melbourne for work), and I starting thinking about Liam and blogging.

I remembered that Dawn mentioned a while ago that Noah wanted his own blog, and I thought - that will be Liam one day in the not so distant future. I've already started talking about blogging to him, a very little bit, so the idea that I am talking all about our lives on the world wide internet won't come as a shock down the track!

But then I started thinking: if Liam will want his own blog, probably some of his friends will as well. Which means they'll be reading blogs. Which means they could, conceivably, come across this blog. With funny (and not so funny) stories about Liam from the moment of his birth (leaving aside for a moment the unlikelihood of a prepubescent boy reading the blog of a boring middle aged women, with no sexy photos or nothin'). And while I haven't put many photos of Liam up since he was about three, it wouldn't take long to figure out that it was him I was writing about. So maybe, I thought, I should have used pseudonyms for the kids.

So I'm wondering, if you blog about your kids - do you use pseudonyms? And why do you, or why don't you? And are you happy with that decision?

De-cluttering - the dilemma

The problem with trying to de-clutter my house is that in conflicts with my other plan to not buy anything new, to try to reuse as much as possible. How can I throw anything out/give anything away, when it might be useful some time? This is the problem I've always had, of course - it's why I am such a pack rat. But added to taking the compact, trying to teach Liam about reduce/reuse/repair/recycle, and trying to save money all at once? The urge to keep everything is even stronger.

I have managed to get a bunch of stuff out of my closet to give to Vinnie's, but even there I was less ruthless than I meant to be, and kept thinking But maybe I could use that to make something else, for the kids even. This from the woman who uses iron-on patches because sewing ones on seems far too complicated. Yeah.

On the other hand I just found a new blogger (new to me that is), who talks about sewing with fleece, which apparently doesn't even need hemming, and is fairly forgiving of mistakes. So maybe, maybe... And she did a week's worth of grocery shopping for $67 (for four!) how impressive is that?!

Yet More Link Love: Freecycle

I think I've been meaning to blog about the wonderful thing that is Freecycle for a couple of years now and I think haven't done it, so instead, since I am clearly in a link love sort of mood (while what I should be doing is concentrating all about motherhood, maternity, in/fertility and whatnot, or at the very least playing scrabulous), I give you Freecycle. (If you don't live in Canberra you will have to search yahoo for Freecycle in your part of the world, but there probably is one.)

This is one thing that has helped me, a very little bit, to let go of my attachment to material things. I've given some really good stuff away on Freecycle (really good stuff that we had never used, but who knows? Some day we might!), and I've also received a few useful pieces.

More Link Love*: A slow year

Riana on not shopping any more:

One thing is for sure, anyone can do this. If I: a total shopping whore who drove an SUV, worked in a business that involved shipping alcohol containers into the states on major polluting cargo ships (2000 times more polluting than a big diesel truck), flew to Europe and beyond ten or more times a year- hell, I flew to Paris for the weekend from the West Coast to see my boyfriend (now my husband), then so can you.

More at These Days in French Life.

_____
*I think I stole this term (link love) from Trish.

More on that sustainable, ethical living theme

After the post I wrote a week or two ago about sustainable living, I started to think - maybe we should start doing the 'no new purchases' thing - where you don't buy anything new except groceries and underwear. Anything else you need you have to find second hand. We could do it for six months and see how we go.

The next day I checked my credit card balance, for some reason, and it was more than $3000 higher than I expected - turns out where I thought I'd paid last month's horrific balance, apparently I hadn't (probably I paid online and walked away from the computer before it got to the 'confirm' screen). So our bank balance was suddenly a lot sadder than I thought, and not getting any better, what with me not earning any money until July.

So, we are now on a real spending freeze. The deal is that at least until July we buy nothing new except groceries, underwear (only if we really need it) and shoes (again, only if we really need them, but both being trained in the bodywork industry, we both feel the importance of wearing shoes that aren't too unevenly worn - which means Liam gets bought new shoes when he outgrows the last ones and I get mine resoled over and over until they simply can't be worn any more). Also, we're not allowed to buy anything second hand unless we both agree that we really need it or we buy it out of our own spending money (and $20/week doesn't go very far). Because this is not just about sustainable consumption any more, it's also about sustaining our bank balance. Also we're cutting back significantly on grocery money, plus not buying any more cling wrap!

So there it is.

And on the topic of sustainable consumption here's Jackie French:

I’m a bit suspicious of a lot of so called ‘green tips’. Badly made backyard compost can lead to global warming methane and cockroaches (The methane is the global warming culprit, not the cockroaches). And sometimes keeping your old stuff is a heck of a lot more earth friendly than buying new ‘green’ versions of cars or clothes.

A lot of ‘ green tips’ remind me a bit of a girl I knew back in the 1960’s. She decided not to eat any more chocolate till the Vietnam War ended.

It didn’t make any difference to the war of course. But she felt nice and virtuous because she was giving something up. Which is what most ‘green tips’; are meant to do- to make us feel virtuous about doing small things for the planet- recycling paper, or not having a good long fragrant soak- while we still roam the world for holidays and consume more household ‘goods’ (or bads, or just plain sillies).

50 Quick, Painless Ways You Can Help the Environment Today

There are some things here I hadn't thought of: The Action Blog - 50 Quick, Painless Ways You Can Help the Environment Today.

Tomorrow is Blog Action Day, so I'm off to draft my post.

Being an anti-racist parent

One of the wonderful things about blogs is how they make me think about things I might otherwise miss. Of course, talking to other people IRL and reading books does this too, but I guess through blogs I get exposed to people I might not come across in my every day life.

For instance, a post by Robyn ages ago on DotMoms about the books her kids have that could help "broach discussions of diversity" made me take another look at my own bookshelf, and realise how sadly lacking it was. Most of Liam's books are either hand-me-downs, gifts, or left overs from my own childhood. So despite the fact that my best friend is a lesbian parent, there were no books with two moms. Also no books with adopted children, few books with children of colour... you get the picture. I know, it's shameful to admit that I hadn't noticed that before, but while I've tended to scrutinise books fairly thoroughly before (or while) reading them to Liam for things I wanted to avoid, I hadn't looked at them in terms of things I wanted to foster.

That post sparked a new series of trips to the library (and even a new purchase or two).

And now, what this post is actually all about: The other day, Dawn linked to her introductory post on Anti-Racist Parent, "a blog for parents who are committed to raising children with an anti-racist outlook". What a wonderful idea for a blog.

The inner lives of mothers

Another post via a Raising WEG post: a current survey by Suniya S. Luthar, Ph.D. at Columbia University, who is exploring the inner lives of mothers.

Kids and Consumerism

Does anyone have any tips or reading suggestions on how to educate young children about the connection between "our personal behaviour and our environment" (see below for full quote)?

We try to talk to Liam about not wasting water, in particular, but of course he doesn't really get it. And I don't actually want to scare him about the state of the planet (according to the Steiner education principles the first life phase - until about age 7 - should have the theme "the world is safe"), but I do want him to get a sense of the importance of not over-consuming - water, electricity, packaging, toys... (And yet I just gave Chris the go ahead to buy an iPod - am I a complete hypocrite?)

"[A] study... from the Earth Institute at Columbia University, found an ominous silence when it comes to educating American K-12 students on the relationship between our personal behavior and our environment: that the size and inefficiency of our cars, homes, and appliances, our profligate fuels, our love of disposables, and the effects of buying more than we need actually undermine our prospects on earth. Slightly more time is spent teaching kids how the environment can affect us, overpowering humanity with floods, droughts, storms, earthquakes, climate change. But in our overall failure to illuminate the interdependence between Homo sapiens and earth we withhold critical knowledge from those whose lives depend upon it most.

"Many of today's kids recreate in the unwilderness of the shopping mall, where messages of prudence and wisdom are overwhelmed by the consumerism that feeds global warming. We send our kids to the mall because we fear the dangers outside. We could hardly be more wrong in our assessment of risk."

Thanks to Suzoz for the link to The 12 tipping points of global warming, by Julia Whitty in Mother Jones.

Get them blogging!

Here's a plug for a new service for American bloggers (as in, bloggers with a US address)  and PR people... Bloggers get free products to try out & review and marketing people get real live people reviewing their products.

Get Them Blogging! is a service to connect PR/marketing people to bloggers to get product and service reviews. Bloggers answer a detailed questionnaire and then get put in a database. Dawn says "Big bloggers, smaller bloggers — we are happy to have them all because we know that behind every blogger is a real live person with real influence!" There’s a detailed FAQ on http://www.getthemblogging.com or people can contact Dawn through that site with questions.

Walk Against Warming

Okay, so y'all couldn't make Car Free Weekend work for you. That's okay. How about taking a short walk this Saturday for the Walk Against Warming then? Everyone in my family but me is sick right now, but assuming that at least some of us are okay by then, we'll see you there. Well, if you can make it to Canberra anyway. ;) If you're elsewhere in Australia check the website for details of local walks.

Care Free Weekend

I've been meaning to post about this for ages. Car Free Weekend is on in two weeks time on 14 & 15 October. Take the challenge!

Don't call

Here's a lovely quote from week 2 of 'Tending Violet' - journal of new mom's first year:

Here's some advice for those with friends or loved ones with a newborn baby: Don't call them. Just don't. Send them an e-mail or a card, or offer to drop by with some food if you need to see the baby that badly (and then get out within a half hour or you'll be making a mighty mess of that day's schedule). Every second of every day is promised to the baby, or to sleeping off the effects of taking care of the baby. If you think a new parent has time for you, you're sorely mistaken.

(And lest you think she jokes, please note I am typing with babe in arms - the third time she has woken up in this sleep period... And the only reason I've had time to write so much today despite this wakefulness is that Liam & Chris have been out most of the day.)

Bush's resume

Like Tamar, Trish is helping me to post entries without having to write anything myself... Very thoughtful of them isn't it? Trish has posted W's CV. What a great man to have as president of the United States! (She also has a very funny post about chucking trantrums, if you need a good laugh after that!)

"Facing the Moment of Truth"

Tamar has an essay up at http://www.autismspeaks.org/: "Facing the Moment of Truth".
Go read it, you're sure to be glad you did. :)

But does it make sense?

This is really cool (with thanks to Blogasmic for the link).