The Best of The Internet

The week's best, links that had me saying, I gotta share this.

Have a beautiful week, guys.

--An eye-opener: An hour of sitting affects our heart health, but a study reveals that just 5 minutes of walking every hour can help. "Five-minute walks prevented the decline of blood flow and arterial function during sitting. Walking does not erase the effect of sitting, it just does not allow sitting to be as harmful." Read more here 

--What happens when 2nd graders are treated to a 7-course, $220 a person meal. From the NYT: and absolutely delicious. Watch and see.

--Just for fun, and an interesting read, who wants to know how hard life is for a billionaire? A handful tell us here, and one of the most common complaints? "What adds to the stress: billionaires can never publicly complain about how tough their money-filled lives sometimes are, because everyone else will freak out." How right they are.

Peace.

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Google Search Lessons

It's a miracle I didn't break my neck jumping over the chairs from the kitchen to get to the family computer this past weekend when I heard littlest clanking out on the keyboard and shouting out, "Mom?! How do you spell Poseidon?" As I'm about to answer, I hear him begin to tap keys and spell out loud, "P - U - S ... " I was in the kitchen stirring spaghetti and just like that, he was about to open the door to every perv in the world to come up to my little boy saying, "I'LL TELL YOU!"

I had been baptized by the internet fire years, ago, and I've got a WARNING! DO NOT GOOGLE! list taped to my forehead about what is off limits for a google search when it comes to kids doing homework. My two oldest are teens, and thanks to the iron fist of experience, I can share this compilation with you.

I remember my son’s fifth grade nutrition project where his assignment was to create a hot lunch menu. Just Google it honey, I told him. See what other hot lunches are out there. My sweet baby typed in “hot lunch” and SHAZAAM if Ice-T’s wife doesn’t pop up carrying her hot biscuits up on a lunch tray. Click out! Click out now! I shouted but it was too late, his retinas burned to the age of a 30 year old along with once dormant parts of his brain now awakened.

Google Search Lesson #1: NEVER GOOGLE anything with the word HOT in it.

Two years later, the second son is working on a book report for Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. The final step was to find cover art for his paper, so we Google *Mice and Men* And we get just that: but with a switch to a tiny word, you know, Mice in Men.

Searching for the word shape is another one that will do you in. My third son was working on a math paper regarding ::shapes::

Google Search Lesson #2: Never Google anything shape-related: big, large, small, floppy, little, fat. They're all bad shapes when people are in them. Naked.

Our internet world has become so perverse that seeking information on cuttlefish results in an emergency visit to the family therapist.

Anyway, my NEVER GOOGLE list for you here. Keep it handy. Why find out for yourself?

[Cut and Paste]

DO NOT EVER GOOGLE:

• flash drive
• nerds
• rugged
• hairy
• girl
• fire
• hunger
• farm boy
• Goya
• exciting
• peeps
• hand exercises
• tiger
• strange
• shackles
• natural
• lumberjack
• farmhand
• good

This list will keep your children’s souls safe, but keep it to yourself. You know human nature, the kids find this list and they’ll sell copies of it at school for a quarter.

Now, please, don’t google human nature without me there to supervise. I’ll be able to hear your screams six states away.

 

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Mama's Comfort Camp

My friend Yael Saar is a mama on a mission to remove guilt and shame from parenting in order to make room for joy and love. With this in mind, she created Mama's Comfort Camp, and this month, she is celebrating the one year anniversary of this baby -- and I don't think she's been prouder of any other thing in her life.

She is the Founder and Keeper of the Mama’s Comfort Camp, a Facebook community that functions as a safe haven and refueling station for hundreds of moms from around the world. This community is free and open to moms of kids of any age, and we share our laughter, tears, and triumphs, all the while normalizing our motherhood struggles and bridging the gap between expectations and reality in a uniquely judgment-free environment.

Follow Mama's Comfort Camp on Facebook, where you'll find a community of acceptance, talk without judgment, and an openness to communication that may be just what you're looking for. Yael is an example of how the internet saves our lives.

I'm proud to be one of the Campers there today, and I would love for you to join us. 

Social Media Saves Woman's Life!

Sensationalism in that post title? Not really.

The internet did save my mental life. Since logging on four years ago, I have found friends, become happier, skip instead of walk, and wear a lot more red than I used to. I've donated half the black blazers in my closet to Goodwill and replaced them with Smiley-Face T-shirts.

All because I've found my place in this world through the internet.

Care.com sent me a very welcome request to be interviewed for their Being A Social Media Mom series: 5 Moms Speak on How Social Media Has Changed The Face of Parenting. Once I made sure that this meant they weren't looking for technologically literate social media moms, I excitedly said yes.

This interview series is an interesting look at the pros and cons of social media and whether it affects our lives as parents. My take is this: I wish for anyone who feels out of place, unheard, lonely, lost, wishing for a sense of belonging and connection, to take that jump on the internet and follow some blogs, or start their own.

I'd love it if you'd click over and read my story at  Care.com, as well as what the other women interviewed for this series have to say about Social Media and their role as mother.

I can't say it enough times and in enough places: I love you guys.

Thank you.


xo