LAmom

MY READABILITY LEVEL

When I worked at Daniel Freeman Hospital, my job was to write educational materials about health maintenance and the physiology of pregnancy and childbirth at a 4th- to 6th-grade reading level.  And I did it quite well.

SOME PRO-LIFE LINKS

I should have done this one a while back: You are invited to sign a petition supporting the Pro Every Life, Pro Woman, Pro Reproductive Justice for All manifesto.  The manifesto was brought by Mary and Jen and supports both the sanctity of life of the unborn (and everybody else) AND the dignity of women and their right to self-determination when it comes to preventing pregnancy.

And this one is just in: Jen is proposing a Pro-Life, Pro-Contraception Blogswarm on May 31, 2008.  If you are anti-abortion and pro-contraception, blog about in on May 31st!  See you then!

PPJ WEB RING IS BACK UP

I don't know how, I don't know why, but at some point the Pro-Lifers for Peace and Justice web ring had been closed out by webring.com.  It was somehow merged into another pro-life ring that was (gasp!) inclusive to everyone, not just liberals.

But I have rectified the situation!  The PPJ ring is back.  If you were previously a member of the ring, or if you are a pro-life liberal and wish to join, this is your invitation.  I think all you have to do is click over to this page to get started.  Your site doesn't have to be a blog; it doesn't even have to talk about pro-life issues or politics or anything.  If you yourself are a pro-life liberal, we would love for you to join.  Thanks.

IT TAKES TIME TO REALLY SAY STUFF

As my life has gotten significantly more busy lately, I've begun to realize how much time I used to put into writing some of the blog posts that I am most proud of.  An hour or more writing and rewriting my own thoughts until I feel like I've expressed myself the way I want to.  Sometimes taking almost half the day (including life-related interruptions) to research an idea or get good link.

Several times in the past few weeks I've wanted to blog about things, but I didn't do it because I didn't want to write haphazardly about important topics, and I didn't have time to write about them really well.  The result has been not writing anything.

I don't want my busyness to result in not blogging, because I really like blogging.  So my plan is that for the present time I'll be writing about less important stuff.  More kid blogging and garden blogging, less saving the world.  I'm sure I'll get inspired to pontificate now and then, but not as often as before.

BLOGROLL TRIMMING: PLEASE DON'T TAKE IT PERSONALLY

Real life has been seriously intruding on my computer time, and it was getting to the point that I actually dreaded going over to Bloglines.  So I think it's time to cut back.

I'm not dropping any of the blogs in my pro-life liberal collection, but some of the more prolific bloggers in other categories I will sadly bid farewell.

COME OUT, COME OUT, WHEREVER YOU ARE

I see from visiting some friends that this is De-Lurking Week.  Any LAmom readers who don't comment (or don't do it often) are warmly invited to stop by the comments section and introduce yourselves.  Tell me:

• Who you are
• Where you live
• How you found me
• Why you read here
• Who your favorite Muppet is (I love Grover)

NEW YEAR'S NARCISSISM

I went through my year's posts and picked out my 10 favorites.  These are just posts that I liked and that reminded me of why I enjoy blogging.  In chronological order:

• Encounters at the counters
• "I certainly did"
• The other side of progress
• Mother's Day 2005
• The farm is with me
• Caring about strangers
• Yesterday in history
• All right, ladies, let's get with the program!
  
• My turn to declare a fatwa
• Whoever predicted it, inflicted it

Happy New Year, everybody!  Don't party too hearty out there!

I'll be at church for Watch Night Service, as usual.

MY NEW PICTURE

Now that I have a working digital camera again, I was able to get the graphic that I've wanted for a long time for my blog -- a picture of Dolly (in the photo she's sitting on my printer).

Dolly was given to me years ago by a friend and former client (I was her labor coach).  She lives on my desk most of the time.  JG and BT play with her occasionally, but I make it very clear that she's Mommy's toy.  She's a great companion and she looks much more like me than that other picture did.  Imagine Dolly with glasses and a little bit of gray hair and you'll have a pretty good idea of what I look like.

THE KVETCH INDEX

Do we bloggers complain excessively?  Are we always bashing wrongdoers while ignoring the good around us?

I wonder this about myself sometimes, so I conducted a little survey, which I am calling the Kvetch Index.  In my very unscientific sample, I went through my blogroll, which is listed in my left sidebar.  I did not include the links that I have categorized as Information Blogs.  For each blog, I looked at the posts that were currently visible on their front page at the time that I dropped by (either yesterday or today).  I excluded posts where people were talking about their personal lives, and I left out some of the farcical stuff.  I made a judgment call on whether I considered each remaining post to be:

• Positive: Primarily expressing approval of a person or event.  This includes praising the efforts of someone who takes action against a negative force.
• Neutral: Information, insights, or questions that weren't really positive or negative in tone.  I included in this category any calls to action concerning current events.
• Negative: Primarily expressing disapproval of a person or event.

The results?  Out of 250 posts, 71 (28%) were positive, 45 (18%) were neutral, and 136 (54%) were negative.

So we spend a significant amount of time complaining.  What does it mean?

Most of the blogs I read are by left-leaning types.  With Republicans in control of the government and a war going on, we have plenty to complain about.  The only (very few) conservatives I ever read are people who focus mainly on pro-life issues; and they, of course, have complaining to do about the high numbers of abortions that continue to take place.  What I'd like to do next is to find a blog that's at the opposite end of the spectrum from mine (a pro-choice conservative) and see what the Kvetch Index looks like on that person's blogroll.

Is it the current political situation, or is it just human nature?  Do we focus more on things that we want to see changed and less on things that are we think are OK?  Is it "cooler" to criticize than to applaud?  Any thoughts?

HOMESCHOOL BLOGGER AWARDS

I rather doubt that many people come to LAmom to get homeschooling information, but for those who are interested, SpunkyHomeschool is now taking nominations for the Homeschool Blogger Awards 2005.  They have several award categories and nominations are open until December 11.

I suppose that their motivation for this is to be able to introduce people to a wide variety of homeschooling blogs.  So go nominate somebody!