Links to a Fourth Decade

Happy birthday to me. Here's some other people's thoughts on the subject.

• 11 Of The Smartest Things Anyone Ever Said About Getting Older
• Facing Forty
• 40 Effed Up Things About Being 40
• What To Know About Turning 40
• 5 Warning Signs That You're Finally Getting Older
  

And of course, some freebies:

• Baskin-Robbins free scoop
• Free dessert at Jack In The Box
• Free coffee drink at Starbucks

A post regarding great organization ideas

I started with Pinning one suggestion from Buzzfeed DIY: 52 Meticulous Organizing Tips For The OCD Person In You. Then I pinned another. And another... and it was soooo good!

I used to get this kind of satisfaction from Martha Stewart, but the items seem to be on repeat and in rotation for the last many years, so I've stopped browsing.

Fun with laser cannons (with or without cats)

I was disappointed to find out that the laser cannon pictured below is not military-grade. I had high hopes to cook up a house-sized batch of Jiffy Pop.

The ISS program is amusingly named, though, as it is about CATS in space. Unfortunately, it's only an acronym and the project is to gather data about airborne particles. I suppose it'll save lives 'n stuff, but the previous two assumptions are just so glamorous.

Read more about it on iO9.

Mapping the internet

What says "world wide web" better than a map?!

Lies, damn lies, and statistics

I tend to regard all "expert" reports with several grains of salt. Thanks, Redditor Jasonp55, for putting this together to illustrate a point:

It's all in the way you spin it.

With eyes as bright as the sun

io9, one of my favorites on Feedly (my RSS feeder of choice; I file it under "entertainment") showed off a palette of galaxy-themed eyeshadows today. Props to the artist who connected the powder packs to the solar system.

However, didn't we all look like martians with these same colors in the 80's? Shout out to Juneau Drug and Max Factor!

(Re)Discovering MacPaint

c|net recently reported the re-emergence of MacPaint on CloudPaint.

Kids, this was cutting-edge when I was in elementary school! You just stuck a disk... that is, an oversized USB key... into the front of a whitish-grayish box with a teeny, built-in monitor and... voila! You were master of all matter graphic and capable of creating wonders like that which is pictured above!

Oh, how the memories flood back! At the time of this new technology, my mother taught part-time at the university and shared an office with Linda Rosenthal. Linda was clearly cutting-edge and had this magical device on the desk. On those random nights when I would accompany my mom to class and wait out the period in the office, is fiddled with these controls and created wonders from the seemingly unending palette of black-and-white offerings.

Someday I'll fill some pages with my love affair with Logo

What technology do you remember wowing you in your childhood?

Librarian blogs

I'm not a consistent blogger, but I'm a frequent blog-reader!

I've followed a few family and personal blogs here and there, thanks to the ease of the Google Reader app on both my computer and my Android. My reading world expanded tremendously, however, once I read This Book is Overdue and discovered the joy and amusement of librarian blogs. Perhaps I'm living vicariously through these people, imagining the Utopia that is accessing and handing the public information that helps them grow. Perhaps I need to find a better hobby.

If you're looking to start your list, you can take inspiration from This Book. I also recommend taking a look at the Salem Press Library blog awards and nominees... which I read about on a librarian blog (thanks, Swiss Army Librarian!).

Blog park

I just finished This Book Is Overdue!: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All, by Marilyn Johnson. I chose it because I read Free For All: Oddballs, Geeks, and Gangstas in the Public Library, by Don Borchet, last year, enjoying the behind-the-scenes look at a local library, and wishing I could join the librarian ranks... the fun parts, at least!

While I rolled my eyes at Johnson's liberal leanings in her book, it was nonetheless an interesting layman's perspective of "library 2.0," and all that libraries offer beyond the casual use I personally enjoy. I'm enthused enough to look further into some of her web-based references, which I'll park here for my easy access:

Libraries

• New York Public Library
• American Kennel Club
• Darien Library
• Westchester Library System
• WorldCat.org (combines library catalogs worldwide; FYI - there's an iPhone/Droid app)

Library-related blogs (in no particular order)

• Feel-good Librarian
• Swiss Army Librarian
• The Effing Librarian
• Miss Information
• The Obnoxious Librarian from Hades
• Shhhh!!
• The Society for Librarians Who Say Motherfucker
• Info Babe
• InfoFetishist
• Information Wants to Be Free
• Tame the Web
• Free Range Librarian
• librarian.net
• Librarian in Black
• Librarians Matter
• If I Ran the Universe
• Lower East Side Librarian
• Awful Library Books

Other links:

• Wolfram|Alpha ("knowledge engine"; check out the YouTube video)
• Easy Travel to Other Planetsby Ted Mooney (author's reference to "information sickness")
• Bokomaten (like a book ATM; 9-minute YouTube demonstration)
• St. John's University - Master's in Global Development and Social Justice
• Archee Mcphee (in case you, too, need a Nancy Pearl action figure)
• Second Life

Evolution video

Like so many around the world, I was entranced by the Dove brand commercial on YouTube. I always suspect as much when I see beautiful women in advertisements and it was interesting to watch this time-lapse. Disclaimer: I don't know if there's a backstory to the video and I can't claim that it's an accurate portrayal.



I can't help but also post this snotty rebuttal. Enjoy!

Heard somewhere: haikus

Sharing: Invisible moms

It all began to make sense, the blank stares, the lack of response, the way one of the kids will walk into the room while I'm on the phone and ask me a question. Inside I'm thinking, "Can't you see I'm on the phone?"

Obviously, not.

No one can see if I'm on the phone, or cooking, or sweeping the floor, or even standing on my head in the corner, because no one can see me at all. I'm invisible. The invisible Mom. Some days I am only a pair of hands, nothing more: Can you fix this? Can you tie this? Can you open this?

Some days I'm not a pair of hands; I'm not even a human being. I'm a clock to ask, "What time is it?" I'm a satellite guide to answer, "What number is the Disney Channel?" I'm a car to order, "Right around 5:30, please." I was certain that these were the hands that once held books and the eyes that studied history and the mind that graduated summa cum laude - but now they had disappeared into the peanut butter, never to be seen again. She's going; she's going; she is gone!

One night, a group of us were having dinner, celebrating the return of a friend from England. Janice had just gotten back from a fabulous trip, and she was going on and on about the hotel she stayed in. I was sitting there, looking around at the others all put together so well. It was hard not to compare and feel sorry for myself. I was feeling pretty pathetic, when Janice turned to me with a beautifully wrapped package, and said, "I brought you this." It was a book on the great cathedrals of Europe. I wasn't exactly sure why she'd given it to me until I read her inscription:

To Charlotte, with admiration for the greatness of what you are building when no one sees.

In the days ahead I would read - no, devour - the book. And I would discover what would become for me, four life-changing truths, after which I could pattern my work:

• No one can say who built the great cathedrals - we have no record of their names.
• These builders gave their whole lives for a work they would never see finished.
• They made great sacrifices and expected no credit.
• The passion of their building was fueled by their faith that the eyes of God saw everything.

I closed the book, feeling the missing piece fall into place.

At times, my invisibility feels like an affliction. But it is not a disease that is erasing my life. It is the cure for the disease of my own self-centeredness. It is the antidote to my strong, stubborn pride.

I keep the right perspective when I see myself as a great builder. As one of the people who show up at a job that they will never see finished, to work on something that their name will never be on.

The writer of the book went so far as to say that no cathedrals could ever be built in our lifetime because there are so few people willing to sacrifice to that degree.

When I really think about it, I don't want my son to tell the friend he's bringing home from college for Thanksgiving, "My Mom gets up at 4 in the morning and bakes homemade pies, and then she hand bastes a turkey for three hours and presses all the linens for the table." That would mean I'd built a shrine or a monument to myself. I just want him to want to come home. And then, if there is anything more to say to his friend, to add, "you're gonna love it there."

As mothers, we are building great cathedrals. We cannot be seen if we're doing it right.

And one day, it is very possible that the world will marvel, not only at what we have built, but at the beauty that has been added to the world by the sacrifices of invisible women.

Excerpt from The Invisible Woman, by Nicole Johnson
www.freshbrewedlife.com