1- Match Day!
It is today. I received the (secret) list of soon-to-be residents that will be finding out they matched with us today — and it was a great list! Hopefully they will be just as excited to join us . . .
I have to create a very last-minute poster so that I can show them all off to our faculty & current residents once the names are announced later this afternoon. It will be a fun day I think.
2- Moving Day.
Nope, we don’t have a date. My almost-neighbor texted me and asked when we were moving in. Apparently another family that closed on a house down the street a month after we did has already moved in! I asked Josh if the Lowes team had gotten started on our floor. He had no idea. We are so bad at this!!! But we really really need to figure out the timeline as our rent is month to month and I just cannot stand that every day that new don’t move, we are bleeding needless $$$. Maybe I will take it upon myself to call Lowes today (but: I HATE MAKING CALLS LIKE THAT SO MUCH).
3- A commenter asked about which “mom blogs” I read!
There are several, though not a ton (and very few of the shiny polished SEO-centric ones that actually have business success).
A few of my favorites:
Lagliv. Her updates are no longer that frequent, but I will rush to read anything she puts up!
Rising*Shining. A blog from Kelsey of the Girl Next Door Podcast.
Not a Wasted Word. An anonymous SF blog that is often raw and honest.
Elisabeth Frost. Elisabeth is a longtime reader here and I really enjoy her (often long!) and insightful posts.
Laura, of course! I read her blog every day and especially enjoying learning from how her complex weekends fit together.
Our New Journey. Coco is a full time working mother who lives abroad. Her lifestyle is fascinating to me (and fine, makes me jealous on the regular)
Grateful Kae has a very positive voice and I love her travel recaps.
The Frugal Girl, “cheerfully living with less” . I love her spirit and seeing her lifestyle which is very different from my own.
A Healthy Slice. A more business-driven blog than many above, but I’ve been following Brittany for years and still enjoy reading. Her lifestyle is also a total 180 from mine (she homeschools) but I find it interesting!
The Hawaii Plan. This is a new read for me, but I picked it up from the Frugal Girl! Sort of a FI/mom blog.
These are all essentially ‘old school blogs’. What can I say . . . I like to read about people who come across as real. It is so much healthier for me than Insta-scrolling image after image of perfection.
4- Screen free month is more than half over!
Annabel did spend some time shopping online yesterday (she wants a giant hardware drawer set for her rainbow loom supplies . . .) but we’ve been quite consistent. I reminded A yesterday that she’s more than halfway through! I really hope we will be able to continue to moderate things better going forward after this mini-cleanse.
5- “Marketplace day” at school.
Omg this felt so normal and 2019! A’s entire class did an entrepreneurship project which culminated in a marketplace day — all the parents and some siblings came and shopped for goods. Thankfully this did not fall on a patient day and I was able to go. It was so cute and Annabel has drawn up further business plans . . . so I guess she was appropriately inspired.
Happy Friday! Feel free to share additional mom/parent blog recs — especially those that feel authentic and from the heart!
40 Comments
I used to read A Healthy Slice (mostly for recipes) but stopped after she admitted that she was unvaccinated (after getting Covid). A “healthy” living blogger during a public health crisis….
Seriously… she wouldn’t get the vaccine but then when she got COVID she took Ivermectin… the hypocrisy is stunning.
Genuine, good-faith question: why is that hypocritical?
Heather may come at this from a different direction. For me, reading blogs from people with different perspectives can be really interesting & I certainly don’t stop reading because of disagreements.
However, there is so much good scientific evidence that the COVID vaccine is safe and effective and also lots of scientific studies showing Ivermectin is NOT effective.
Ignoring lots of science makes me not super interested in reading that blogger’s opinion on heath or education (which seem to be the main focus of her blog).
Oh, I totally get finding it distasteful or something that turns you off of someone’s blog. I guess I just don’t see how it’s hypocritical, specifically, especially since many Covid vaccine skeptics are equally highly invested in health and wellness in general. (They just draw different conclusions, some of which may be right, some wrong.) But I’m just being pedantic. 😉
Well, ‘your opinion about vaccines and ivermectin based on googling’ and ‘scientific evidence based on the results of multiple randomized controlled trials’ aren’t equally likely to be true. I’m a biology professor and spend a lot of time teaching this. It’s frustrating to see people equate them. Makes me think we need to work quite a bit harder teaching science and data interpretation. 🙂
I’m not sure if you’re reading more into my comments than is actually there (or if I am of yours), but I’m not saying that at all.
She said “oh I’m not going to get the COVID vaccine because I don’t put chemicals into my body as a ‘healthy living blogger'” and then she takes Ivermectin, how is that any different? It’s also a chemical – including the inert components of the medication – that she put into her body.
Ah! Now I see what you’re saying.
Same. Not trying to be judgy but it’s just not the kind of thing I wanna support- I don’t support it in my everyday life so not continuing to read blogs that encourage that🤷🏼♀️ Immediately unfollowed!
Same. Her attitude about the whole thing was cavalier in a gross way.
Ok, here are some more blogs that update fairly regularly and and are frankly lovely.
They’re more “family-style” rather than strictly “mom-style” and several of the bloggers have an education/academic focus like my own.
http://www.chiconky.com/
https://girlinaboyhouse.com/
https://nicoleandmaggie.wordpress.com/
https://www.harrytimes.com/
http://something-remarkable.blogspot.com/
https://allfortheloveofyou.com/
https://www.stirrup-queens.com/
Oh yes Something Remarkable I read regularly!!
+1 for stirrup-queens.com. This blog was invaluable during my pregnancy loss; it provided much better information than I received from my doctor and connected me with others writing about loss and infertility. She also has fantastic book recommendations and very thoughtful reflections.
Thanks for the mention, Sarah!
A shout-out to lawyer and Mom extraordinaire, Katie (who blogs at Law and Creative about work + life + motherhood: https://lawandcreative.wordpress.com/).
I love her authenticity and great insights into balancing work and life.
Yeah, I used to read a A Healthy Slice occasionally, but stopped because she 1) was unvaxed, 2) recommended Ivermectin to treat Covid, and 3) deleted comments that weren’t 100% supportive of those covid decisions.
Completely agree. Many posts recently felt quite out of touch with the world at large (and sometimes I almost felt like she was using her kids and homeschool as content generators), but when I read her Covid post, it was the last straw for me. For a blog focused on healthy living, I would expect someone to be more aligned with science and basic health recommendations.
I didn’t agree with her covid management (at all), but I do still enjoy her voice and content. I guess I am trying to be accepting of other views even if I am very much not in agreement with them. There are probably some out there that find my views overly cavalier when it comes to COVID too (ie basically not thinking much about COVID at all these days when making my plans/decisionos, though all in the family who are old enough are vaccinated and boosted when eligible and will continue to vaccinate when recommended. Also subject to change if/when rates and severity change again). There is definitely a broad spectrum there . . .
Now I actually feel guilty for including her on my list because I know how horrible it feels to read about yourself in a negative light on another site, but I also felt bad excluding her because I honestly still do enjoy reading. And I pretty much never censor comments, it feels disingenuous.
I also followed Brittany for years and stopped as soon as she posted she was unvaccinated. I didn’t need to consider it further, I simply never went back. Her choice is irresponsible and I cannot square marketing yourself as a ‘healthy living blogger’ if you cannot do the basic research necessary to understand how important the vaccine is from a personal and public health perspective. She wrote that she could not find evidence that vaccinating reduces community spread, which I found appalling, as the evidence is overwhelming, prolific, and solid.
Carolina Charm actually *just* announced this morning that she quit her non-blog job – she has a great blog and I was going to recommend her as a good working mom blog but I’m sure she’ll continue to be an all-around good mom blog now! https://www.northcarolinacharm.com/
The Fox Family Den – Blogs mostly book reviews and some musings on life, she’s a SAHM in the Chicago burbs: https://www.thefoxfamilyden.com/blog
Sarah is a “Vintage Mom blogger” with 5 kids with an age span similar to Laura’s, but she’s an academic living in Madison, WI: https://www.harrytimes.com/
Oh my goodness, THANK YOU for recommending my blog (and for reading along)!! 🙂
Cup of Jo is a business-blog, but the content is well-written and genuine for Moms ❤️
Love, love, love Cup of Jo! Although it has grown so much since I started reading it in 2008 it still feels genuine, like you said. And the comment section is always worth a read to.
I love Lisa’s Yarns, which is very old school. Lisa seems so nice and relatable! Same with Peanutbutter Runner, though a bit more business-y.
Not to pile on, but I used to read A Healthy Slice – and even found this blog through that one! – until she inferred she was a Trump voter in the midst of the election being contested. I try very hard to find common ground with people who have different views, in real life. But on the internet, I just can’t be bothered.
Lisa’s Yarns is great! And she leaves SUCH insightful comments (something she said on my blog actually helped push our family toward a 6-month work sabbatical)!
And Girl in a Boy House is hilarious; her posts always leave me in stitches while also feeling enlightened. Also, she’s a fellow Canadian for which I award her bonus points 🙂
Aww, thank you so much! You just absolutely made my day! 🙂
Happy Match Day! I hope your residents are all happy with where they end up! I bet this is a really rewarding day for you!
I hope you can figure out what is going on with the flooring so you can set a date and move ASAP! Paying double rent sucks! We were lucky to buy a house in late October, put it on the market in early Nov, move in late November, and close on the sale of our house in mid-December. Our house was paid off so it was more about having to manage 2 properties, especially during the winter. Both houses were corner lots which = lots of shoveling when it snows!
Now I have a bunch of blogs to check out thanks to your recommendations and the comments above!
I need to subscribe to your blog
Lisa! I always enjoy when I read it!
I hate to say this, but I stopped following Kelsey as much when she left her job to become a SAHM. Good for her, but it was a bummer to lose one of the few working mom bloggers out there. It especially stung because she was in a very similar line of work to mine. I admittedly have a hard time relating to the SAHM lifestyle, as it’s so different from my own and many concepts don’t translate well. The working-parent juggle affects every decision we make about how we set up our family life. I wish there were more working mom bloggers, but I completely get why this content area is so lacking. Nobody has the time!
I wonder if you and your nanny would be interested in reimagining her role to include some “house manager” kinds of duties. Things like following up with Lowes on the install date and the like. Maybe over see movers and packers when y’all get to that stage.
it is not a bad idea! she already does some of it . . but to formalize it a bit . . .
You will have to pay her more if you formalize it… which may be ok with you. Just be aware. 🙂
I do NOT need more blogs to read. Haha. (I especially don’t need more blogs featuring perfectly curated lives, though I suspect our definitions of this might differ.)
I also find I have to interact with Trump supporting anti-vaxxers in real life, people who have been carrying on as though there is no pandemic, AND people who are still basically sheltering in place and/or boycotting local businesses for lifting the mask mandate during a low incidence time period. It’s genuinely a challenge to navigate and not terribly enjoyable to face criticism no matter what you say!
One of my favorite working mom blogs (other than yours!) is https://emformarvelous.com/ – she lives in the Raleigh, NC area and works for Cultivate what Matters. I think she has a great voice and I also think I just really relate to her a lot b/c her kids are almost the same age as mine (although she has three to my two) and lives in the Triangle area like me. I have found somewhat hilariously my favorite working mom bloggers are all moms of 3 which is probably a sign!
Oh I recently found this blog as well and she is great! I’m surprised/bummed I didn’t find her sooner!
Thank you so much, sweet Kristen!!
Thank you for including me, Sarah! A few of these blogs are new to me and I’m looking forward to checking them out. I’m so glad that quite a few people are still blogging.
Also, I love this idea above of asking your nanny to take over some household management duties!
How do you organize the blogs that you read ? I used to use the google list, but haven’t in years!
I use Feedly!!
Wooo! So honored to be featured. I fully agree with you liking old school bloggers which is a record of real life ups and downs. Thanks for the recommendation of other bloggers of similar style, they are getting rarer these days.
I know I am a few days late to this post, but old school mom blogs are my favorite! I can’t wait to check out some of these that are new to me, and thought I would add MixandMatchMama.com and AndreaDekker.com as two more that I didn’t see mentioned yet. I also use Feedly to organize blogs. Have a great weekend!