Visit the Shaks

Looking for some good mommy blogs? Or how about just the best blogs from around the web? Check out Alltop.com, then. Alltop is a site by my hero, Guy Kawasaki.

Guy was cool enough to include Love Shak, Baby on Alltop, proving his incredible taste in mommy blogs. Alltop is a really neat site- it takes the best of the blogs from around the web, categorizing them, then putting each category on a page with feeds from each site.

This is perfect both for the technophobe- "I don't know what a feed reader is and I don't want to learn" and the lazy techy type like me who want to read some interesting posts, but don't want to face my feed reader telling me I have 1000+ posts to read.

This is definitely a site to keep in your bookmark bar. Want to read something from the mommy blogosphere? Got ya covered. Want to read some celeb gossip? Got ya covered. Politics? Of course it's there.

Go spend some time poking around Alltop! And thanks again for including us, Guy!

A theme park based on vomit and dog poo jokes? It doesn't seem real, but those crazy kids at PopFi assure us it is:

Number 1 on their list is a park devoted to cartoon characters throwing up. The Danish themed park named Bon Bon Land is all about vomiting, dog flatulence and poop. You will be titillated by naked cows, mice who are using the bathroom and some of the most messed up stuff you will ever see. I cannot imagine seeing this amusement park making it in the southern United States, but it’s a huge hit in Denmark.

And what about copyright infringement park?

The most interesting park might be Shijingshan Amusement Park in Beijing which looks very similar to Mickey Mouse’s world but don’t you dare say it’s the same thing because it’s not and park administrators will tell you it’s not. So there..

Yeah, there is the character Duck who suspiciously looks like Donald Duck’s brother and there is a character named Kitty (if you are thinking Hello Kitty, then you are correct, campers) but the park might be more apt to be called Copyright-Infringement-Without-A-Bit Of-Irony land.

There's a whole lot more, too. A theme park based on sex? Dickens Land? (Hey! That's not the one based on sex, that's the one based on Charles Dickens) As for me and my family, I think we'll stick with Six Flags and Disney World. Head on over to PopFi for more wacky amusement parks.

I have mentioned a time or two that I have been wanting to quit smoking. I have done it! I would like to share my story with you and maybe it will inspire someone else to quit smoking too.

I woke up Saturday morning and the first thing I thought of was that I had bronchitis! My son had been sick the week before and I must have caught it. I ended up feeling really rotten and my chest hurt horribly. I had a fever and slugged around all weekend. I had two cigarettes on Saturday. The last one I had Saturday hurt and I threw it out before I even smoked half of it. I went the rest of the day without smoking.

When I woke up Sunday, I figured I might as well not smoke because it hurt too darned much. I went all day Sunday without smoking. I woke up Monday and thought, I am this far into a quit so I had better not smoke today either. It was really very easy compared to other times probably because I was sick so I went with it.

Today is Thursday and I am on my fifth smoke-free day!! I have absolutely no desire whatsoever to smoke. Sure, I have felt withdrawl and have heard "that voice" a time or two. The difference is that I truly do not want to smoke this time. My chest is still in an uproar from the bronchitis and now from not smoking.

I am so excited because I know that this is it! I never want to go back to the smoking lifestyle. I do not want to go outside in the freezing cold to get my fix. I don't want to go out on a warm summer day and ruin the fresh air by smoking. I refuse to harm my lungs any further. From now on, I will let my body heal and hope I did not do too much damage.

After I stopped smoking, I came across a website called WhyQuit. If you have not been there, go now. It scared the living crap out of me! Sure, I have heard it all before but for some reason this site really made it sink in. It helped to diminish the feelings of withdrawl. Maybe it was my recent birthday that helped me this time. I am not getting any younger...... the time to quit for me is now. I did it and I will never go back. Not one puff, not ever!

We got another snow day today, which would normally be great, but I have another appointment at the gynecologist's office today. This time, it's for an ultrasound.

No, no congratulations are in order, they just want to look inside and make sure everything is okay. The problem is that because of the snow, I don't feel comfortable leaving everyone at home with my 13 year old. That means I have to bring everyone with me to the appointment. This should be fun.

I was sitting in the waiting room on Monday and this woman was there struggling with three very small children. I thought, "Thank God I'm past that stage, and thank God for school." Heh. It all seemed great at the time.

While I don't have three small children, three bigger children can be just as bad. The 4 year old riles them all up and the fighting will begin. And then there'll be another mom in the waiting room thinking, "Thank God I don't have to deal with all that." Ah, the circle of life.

Wish me luck.

It seems as if Ivy and I were both sick at the same time. I wish I had read her post If She's Upright, She's Fine a little sooner because that might have helped! Unfortunately, it would not have mattered too much in the end.

This all started with my son who got the flu which progressed to pneumonia. I got sick next with the flu and bronchitis. My oldest son was the next victim and had a sick birthday weekend. Then it claimed the the worst person possible..... my husband!

My husband is the biggest baby when he is sick. He holes himself away in the bedroom and cannot be disturbed. He is grumpy and acts like the only person that has ever been sick. Yes, I am still annoyed by it and cannot hide that fact. If I got more help when I was sick then it would not bother me so much.

How is your husband when he is sick? I would love to hear that my DH is not the only big baby around.

Yesterday, I woke up feeling okay. A little puny, but okay. I went to the gynecologist for my yearly checkup and while driving home, I suddenly felt like I had been hit by a truck.

I hadn't- my car was okay, it was just me that felt terrible. I managed to get home, and I dashed through the living room, telling my husband the gynecologist appointment went fine, I have to have an ultrasound on Wednesday, and I suddenly feel sick and am going to bed.

And for four glorious hours, I slept. Until I woke up to a big kid fight. I got up and immediately was accosted by complaints. Flip said HelloKitty was being mean to Spidey and HelloKitty said Spidey was jumping on her bed, and, and, and. I was feeling woozy and a bit confused. My husband started telling me about all the people who had called and sent IMs. I sat down for a minute to try to sort all this information out, and gave up.

I IMed a friend who said something very wise. "If you're upright," she said, "Everyone assumes you're fine. Go back to bed." That may have been the single best piece of parenting advice I have ever been given.  I could look like death warmed over, but if I am standing or sitting, my kids and husband assume I'm okay, and start piling on. It's not that they mean to pile on the problems, it's that they are unused to dealing with everything themselves, so when I come back from the land of the sick, they want me to sort things back to normal.

So, I went back to bed. I woke up this morning feeling puny, but otherwise okay. And the feeling has held so far today, so I think I'll make it. If I get that hit-by-a-truck feeling again, though, I'm off to bed.

As KellyBax pointed out, Shak is a year old today! I've been around since nearly the beginning (March 11 was my start date) and I have been loving blogging here ever since. Since I started, several other bloggers have been added, and I am honored to be working with such great bloggers!

Let's take a look at some great posts from the past here at Shak:

My first post here, about kids growing up.

We let you know about the danger of taking Sudafed PE while pregnant.

What to do when your child witnesses a terrible accident.

An update on this post: I ended up talking to the dad, who said he was working on the problem. The parents are in the process of getting a divorce- dad wants custody, mom's not fighting him. Kid's in counseling.

I share a story about one of the tornadoes I've been in. That's right, one of them. And I don't even live in Kansas.

Things to do when you just need to get out of the house.

Kathylynn writes about teens and dating. I'm just now beginning to deal with this myself, so I can relate.

First, my 13 year old breaks his finger. Then my 4 year old nearly breaks his finger. Then my 13 year old breaks another finger. 2007 was a bad year for fingers at Chez Ivy.

KellyBax writes about controlling what  video games your kids play. I agree. Have them play the good games- Grad Theft Auto Liberty City Stories is great fun, 50 Cent: Bulletproof is a yawn-o-rama.

Dan Fogelberg died, and we were sad.

Kathylynn writes about MySpace. Luckily for me, my 13 year old's dad has outright prohibited MySpace, so I don't have to worry about it too much.

And finally, KathyLynn writes about her scary road rage experience.

There's good stuff happening all over Shak, too, not just here! Put all the Shaks in your feed reader. Happy birthday, Shak, and many, many more.

Shakadoo celebrates its first birthday today! Time flies and it is hard to believe that a year has already passed since the start of this wonderful site.

Shakadoo has grown in many ways over the past year. The most recent addition of Animal Shak has given readers one more reason to get their daily dose of the Shak!

Congratulations to Kathylynn and Kathy H. on the one year anniversary of Shakadoo! It is a great site that many people are happy to have as part of their daily routine.

Last night I had a conversation with my 13 year old, Flip, that finally clicked something in my brain. I think I "get" teenage boys now. It's about 20 years too late, but at least I get it now.

When I was 13, I'd send lengthy notes to my boyfriends and when they bothered to write back, it would be short, one or two sentence notes with almost no content at all. And yet I treasured these notes like they were gold. I thought all the time about my boyfriends and wondered if they were thinking about me.

Now I know that they weren't, a thought that would have crushed me back then. I check Flip's text messages every now and again to make sure he's not getting himself into trouble and to get some insight into what's going on with him. Flip's cool with that, and it often sparks really productive conversations.

Last night I checked Flip's text messages and had to laugh. His girlfriend is doing the same thing I used to do, only in a more modern medium. She sends him copious text messages and he replies with "LOL" "OK" and "I love you too." She sent one that said, "I bet you love Madden '08 more than you love me." He responded with "lol".

I laughed with Flip about that. I told him that would have driven me crazy back then, and it's probably driving his girl crazy now. He said, "Yeah, but what was I supposed to do, text back and say, 'Actually, I love God, my family, hot wings, my PSP, my cell phone, the Wii, PS2, Madden '08, and cars more than I love you?' That wouldn't even fit in a text message, Mama."

That's when my brain clicked. I get it now. Girls are just a blip on a much larger radar for boys. Sure, they love you, but they also have a whole lot of other things on their mind, and you're just not that high on the list. I wonder if I had known that when I was a teenage girl, if I would have wasted less time on boys and focused on more important things?

The funny part was when I mentioned his cat, Spike. "What about Spike?" I asked, "Do you love Spike more than your girlfriend?" He laughed and told me that Spike is part of the family. Then he started re-ordering his list of things he loved more than his girlfriend.

I said, "I'm glad I don't have to worry about you getting into some grand commitment with this girl." He said, "Nah, I'm a ramblin' man, it'll be a long time before I settle down." And we laughed the rest of the way home.

We all know that kids can say really funny things. I found a few Cute Kid Stories:

"I had just read an article on the destruction of the rain forest and was talking to my son about ways to avoid fast food restaurants and other ways we can protect the planet.
He says to me, "Mom! You'd be so proud of me! I got at least 7-8 kids to stop using paper towels in the bathroom at school!"
All excited, I look at him and say, "Wow! Honey, that is great. How did you do that?"
He says, "I just taught them all to wipe their hands on their shirts like I do!"

Check out that link if you want to read a few more!

Karen's thinking about which school to send her little monkey to:

The move to Richmond has been challenging. The new school, Stony Point, hasn’t lived up to our expectations. For the price we’re paying we want to be not only satisfied, but wowed. At this point, we are neither.

So our hopes for next year are pinned on Steward, a fabulous private school that we can afford only by making some significant sacrifices. If he doesn’t win admission there, we’ll send him to public school. For the money, it’s a better choice than Stony Point and we can make up the deficiencies with private music and art programs.

We want so badly to give our son the best education and social opportunities possible. How do other parents handle this?

I (kind of) can relate. I have finally decided if my daughter doesn't get into the magnet school, I'm going to homeschool. I'm still afraid of my lack of teaching skills, but someone recently pointed out how she learned to read on her own. If she can manage such a tough concept on her own, everything else should be fairly easy. And if it's not getting through, there's always tutoring.

How do you deal with schooling your child? Are the public schools working for you?

BTW, don't you love how I tied the picture in with the post? Little monkey, haha. I just wanted to use a monkey picture today. ;) 

My son is just getting over the flu. I was talking about it with my dad on the phone yesterday. He asked me if I knew what factor lowered the body's immunity the most. To my surprise, he told me it was sugar intake.

Of course, I know that sugar is bad for you. I really did not realize how much it weakened your immune system. I decided to research it a little and discovered that my dad was right. (Dad, I never doubted you for a second, you are always right, lol.)

Geocities.com explains it very well in "TO Arms With Your Immune System:

"Refined sugar is nothing but pure carbohydrate stripped of any nutritional value. It is what we call empty calories. Like a recreational drug or alcohol, sugar affects the brain first, is addictive, and causes your energy to bottom out. Sugar depresses the immune response and is toxic to immune cells. Sugar lowers our resistance. Think of sugar as lowering the walls of our fortress, letting the invading army march over the top. One teaspoon of sugar can inhibit natural killer (NK)cells and macrophages for up to six hours. "Sugar clogs the system. It hinders the working of the living machine."

I had tons of Little People toys when I was a kid- we had the Sesame Street playset and the Main Street playset and the house and the farm, but we definitely didn't have the HOLIDAY INN!!

Aunt B has a whole photo set of her old school Little People playsets with some hilarious captions, go check it out.

The flu season is in full swing. Widespread flu activity has been reported in 44 states. In the state of Maryland which is where I live, the flu is running rampant. In fact, the University of Maryland is experiencing their worst flu outbreak in 10 years, with more than 400 flu cases being reported.

Two of the three main types of flu bugs now in circulation were not a match for the this year's flu vaccine. Also, a significant percentage of this year's type A flu bug have become resistant to one of the two flu drugs. Flu viruses have mutated so much that The World Health Organization suggests that next year's flu vaccine be completely changed.

One of my sons came down with the flu last Friday. His symptoms have been a horrible headache, sore throat, slight cough and high fever. His fever has been 103 to 104 degrees each day. Luckily, he has not had any vomiting or diarrhea. Today he woke up fever free for the first time, so I am hoping he is on the mend. I am keeping my fingers crossed that the rest of us don't get it as well.

My daughter and I adore Hello Kitty. The first thing she wanted to know this morning was if we could go to the Hello Kitty store since they had today off school. No, we couldn't go, I don't have time today. But I might could MAKE some time to play a Hello Kitty MMORPG.

MMORPGs, for the uninitiated, are massively multiplayer roleplaying games. MMORPGs have been mostly the domain of games like World of Warcraft and City of Heroes, but they've been branching into more girly territory lately with things like Second Life. And now, the girliest territory of all, Hello Kitty. Hardcore guy gamers everywhere are vomiting in their shoes. Hardcore super girly gamers like me are jumping for joy.

I can't wait until it becomes an open beta.

My hubby and I just got back from a get away in Orlando, Florida. I have to say it was quite an adventure due to the fact that we could have been shot at.

The very first night we were on our way to dinner and witnessed some major road rage. Two men that were right in front of us were out of there cars and going at it. They banged on each others cars, pushed each other, screamed and while doing this they were holding up the rest of us from getting were we were going.

With that being said I looked at my hubby knowing that his face was starting to turn red. I warned him "don't you dare say a word" but do you think he listened? Nope. He stuck his head out of the window and yelled at the men to get back in there cars or he was calling the police.

The next thing I saw was one of the guys walk over and open his trunk and pulled out a gun. My whole life flashed in front of my eyes. I thought we are dead. Luckily, the other guy freaked out and jumped in his car and took off. The guy with the gun took off after him. We called the police and gave them the license plate numbers.

The moral of the story is keep your mouth shut. People are crazy and you never know what they are going to do. I already know this, I can only hope that my hubby learned a big lesson.

I used to do a lot of buying and selling on eBay. Mostly, I sold my kid's stuff once they outgrew the items. I would also buy a lot of their clothes on eBay. It has been a long time since I have listed on eBay due to the rising prices to list an auction.

I just learned that there is a planned week long strike by eBay sellers. Apparently there have been many changes on eBay that have upset a lot of sellers. These changes include the way searches are ordered and the rating system.

I am curious to know if this is mostly a "Power Seller" type of strike or if it includes regular moms that periodically list on eBay. What is your take on the turmoil surrounding the site?

Love Shak, Baby and Mason & Matisse are  excited to announce the winner of the Cubina Chair!

Drum roll please........

The winner is, Mandy from Mandy 52 and Artsy

Mamas. Congratulations, we hope you enjoy this fabulous find. Be sure to check out more great products at Mason & Matisse and visit us here often at Love Shak, Baby and all our other fine Shaks here at Shakadoo.com!

Be on the look out for more great giveaways coming soon, so if you weren't the lucky winner this time, try, try again.

Thanks to everyone for your entries and for spreading the word about our site and great giveaways. Until next time...

No, I'm not blogging from Africa, but several bloggers I really enjoy reading are. Compassion International has brought 15 bloggers to Africa to experience Compassion's ministry in Uganda. It's an important project to bring to light. Compassion "rescues children from poverty in Jesus' name". There are so many children in Uganda and other developing nations that need our help. Shaun Groves writes:

We nearly drowned in the statistics alone:

 

But today we saw nothing but hope.

[Photo: Shannon at Rocks In My Dryer]

Happy Valentine's Day! Today is a day for expressing your love to those that you hold most dear in your heart. Give your kids extra hugs and kisses. Tell your spouse how much they really mean to you.

Kids really like Valentine's Day. Here are  Valentine's activities from Kaboose.com that make this day of love even more fun!

This sounds like a great thing to get your child's school involved with!

From The Official Google Blog:

"Doodle 4 Google gives U.S. students in grades K-12 the opportunity to design a doodle for the Google homepage. Students will be asked to draw a doodle that best represents the theme "What if...?" We ask ourselves this question every day when we build our products, so we thought we would ask the same of the future doodlers.

A panel of expert judges and Googlers will select 40 regional winners, who will be invited to the Googleplex in Mountain View, California, in May. Four national finalists will be announced as the result of a public vote. From there, Dennis will select one lucky student whose doodle will be on the Google homepage for a day in the U.S. This winner will also receive a $10,000 college scholarship and a technology grant for his or her school.

Check out www.google.com/doodle4google for more details. All you need to do to get started is to have a teacher or principal register your school. Registration closes on 3/28/08, and entries must be postmarked by 4/12/08.

So gather those art supplies. All it takes to enter is a drawing on paper using your favorite medium (crayons, markers, colored pencils, whatever!) -- and encourage your kids to enrich us all with their imaginative vision. We look forward to seeing the creative doodles that are submitted!"

Yes, Yankees, they call off school for just this much snow here. Unless your kids go to Metro Nashville Public Schools (sorry, Metro Nashville friends!), in which they need at least a half inch of snow in order to call it a school day.

Northerners everywhere laugh at how little snow it takes to shut down school here, but there are two reasons for this. First, Nashville is really hilly in many parts of it- I don't know if you can see it in my picture, but I live at the bottom of a fairly steep hill. So if there's the slightest bit of ice, getting up and down hills are a nightmare.

The other reason is because we don't have a heck of a lot of salt trucks and snow removal equipment. Several years ago, I heard Williamson County didn't even have a salt truck, they just borrowed from surrounding counties. This news shocked my Minnesotan uncle so much that he nearly fell out of his chair when I told him.

I'm off to build a "Scout and Jem" snowman!

Marriage troubles, I have had a few. Most notably my first marriage which ended in divorce. The fact was, we were never going to work out, we were married less than a year.

Now, my second marriage has fared far better than my first marriage did. We were married 8 years this past January first (that's right, we got married on January 1, 2000. We totally flew in the face of the Y2K fears), some of those years good. ;)

The fact is, to have a good marriage you have to work at it. Anybody that says marriage is easy is either lying or lying. That's why I love Mrs. Fussypants' new blog, Marriage Hacks. There's lots of good tips there to help keep your marriage going strong. Go see for yourself!

Image: Wikimedia Commons

If you ask any parent what their favorite sound is, most of them would answer that it is the sound of their child laughing. If you have not seen this video already, you should watch it. It is the cutest little boy just cracking up! His father is so happy hearing his little guy laughing this way.

My oldest son handed me an invitation to a birthday party on Wednesday. He said "Mom, you need to call them back right away because the party is Saturday". Huh?

I thought he must have forgotten to give it to me but that was not the case. When I called to RSVP, the mother told me she was sorry for the last minute notice. Wow, that is pretty last minute!

Oh well, no harm done. There is nothing like changing your schedule around to run out and get a last minute birthday present. I hope I am not sounding too grumpy about it.

I enjoy taking my kids to birthday parties. I think it provides a wonderful opportunity to meet the other parents of my son's friends. It gives me a chance to see the faces of the children that my son talks about. Which reminds, me... I need to make some calls to make a reservation for my own son's pa