Everyone is talking about mommy blogs (ahem, like mine) and how it is all the rage to be a mommy blogger as of late. But we’ve forgotten about a significant portion of people who could also be working to raise little humans: Daddys. And, as I’ve just discovered from July’s Parents issue, it may be worth a few daddy blogs.
Here’s what Parents magazine rated as the top five, and it’s a good place to start:
daddy-dialectic.blogspot.com
dadsanddaughters.blogspot.com
dadcentric.com
dadwagon.com
dadtalk.typepad.com

I think I’ve mentioned it in this blog before, but as of January 1 of this year, I went gluten free for a variety of reasons. My immune system has been mad at me, and I’m hoping that by reducing the load of chemicals and known agitators (like gluten, and dairy) it will settle down and my overall health and well being will improve. I know, it’s a drastic step – most people only go gluten free if they have celiac disease, or other serious issues. However, the more I research this – the more I feel that in general our world is overwheated. (Like that word?) Look at what is on the kids menu at most restaurants – mac and cheese, spaghetti, pizza, grilled cheese … wheat, wheat wheat. Where are the veggies, people? And by the way, there’s WAY more than just one grain out there. Quinoa, anyone? (If you do not know what quinoa is, go to the store RIGHT NOW and buy it, go home, cook it, and then eat it. Then wonder why the hell you haven’t purchased this amazingly tasty grain ever before which by the way is a complete protein and is INCREDIBLY good for you. PLEASE kiss the white rice goodbye!)

That being said, I’ve spent time patrolling the bookstore looking at gluten-free recipe books. And there’s a lot. And they cost a lot. And you know what? There’s also a zillion, billion, kajillion (ok, so maybe not that many !) blogs out there with gorgeous photos and wondrous recipes that won’t cost you a dime. Here’s a few of my favorites, so spend some time checking these out in your iPhone blog reader, or online, and save some of these recipes to your hard drive or to your favorite recipe software to try out on your own. And don’t forget to leave a comment on the blog to let them know how much you love them. We all appreciate a little comment love. (hint hint!)

http://glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com/ One of da best. Her photos of her recipes are like food porn. And her archive of recipes is to die for, and beats the hell out of any recipe book you’d buy at the store.

http://glutenfreegirl.blogspot.com A wonderful resource of recipes and great photos. (Am I the only one who wants to see a picture of something before I dedicate time and money to making it?)

http://iamglutenfree.blogspot.com Another great resource of recipes and gluten-free goodness.

http://holdthegluten.net Food reviews, not just recipes, make this a great blog. Gluten-free stuff is expensive, let someone else try before you buy!

Another fave technology blog of mine, LoopInsight.com, had a great game feature recently on the top 30 iPhone and iPod games, and their blog merits a mention here.  They offer across the board mac technology news, covering the iPhone, iPod, games, music, software and all things relating to the Mac platform.
This is not your ordinary mac/iPhone blog.  Jim Dalrymple, the author, has written for Macworld and PC World, appeared as a technology expert on CNN, Fox, CBS and ABC and has been following Apple and it’s products for more than 15 years.  The Loop says their goal is to “dig into the headlines to provide readers with some thoughtful, well-balanced coverage.”

Add Loop Insight to your daily blog feed and get in the loop!

One of my fave  blogs, SmashingMagazine, featured an excellent post from Louis Lazarus yesterday – a review of best practices for design for kid’s web sites.  It’s not just that I work on sites for kids (and love that so many Disney’s sites are all over this review – yay!) but also that I have two kids under age 5 and I’m concerned about what they are looking at on the web.

The best information in this post?  His list of conventional and non-conventional best practices (Add voices to navigation rollovers, Create depth in the design, and Use Flash animation abundantly to name a few) but it’s well worth the read-through and well screen-shotted  article.

Yet another one of my weekly stops in the blogsphere is the CNN App of the week blog.  Each week they feature a few apps with a brief review.  This week’s app feature is on photography apps, and it’s where I learned of a Photoshop app for the iPhone that’s FREE. That’s like the holy trinity of my fave things: Photography, Photoshop, and my iPhone.

The CNN reviewer had complaints, but let’s keep it real – it was nice of Adobe to build an app and provide it at no charge.  I’ve spent lots of little bits of money here and there downloading photo apps that attempt to compensate for the fairly crappy picture the iPhone takes (hello, onboard flash perhaps?  Seriously, the phone I had three years ago that flipped open and only made phone calls took a better picture).  I have apps that crop, apps that recolor, apps that apply filters – but I’d prefer to work with Adobe’s tools, something I use on a daily basis and have confidence in the end result.

An added perk?  Photoshop.com offers 2GB of free online photo storage.  In the very least, add this free tool to your iPhone arsenal for the color correction tools alone.

I think no matter how much stuff you have, and how big your house may be, you never really have enough space for everything.  For the past 15 years, I’ve lived in as large of a home as I can afford in the Los Angeles area – which isn’t very large.  I’m also a recovering packrat, which makes things even harder when you add two kids into the mix.  I purged tons of my stuff when we moved into our current little home, but picked up so much extra when it comes to baby stuff.  My youngest is about to turn two, so the purging has finally begun of baby things we won’t need anymore.  It’s beyond exciting to watch the garage empty out of pack and plays,  bouncers, swings, changing tables, plastic bathtubs, and activity toys that say they fold up for storage but rarely really do. 

I know I’m not alone in my quest to reduce clutter, there are lots of us out there who are trying to simplify our lives, make it easier to navigate our hallways and meet our schedules.  (You know what I’m talking about, always being late because you can’t find your left shoe or the house keys or your coffee commuter mug …)  One of my favorite blogs, Unclutterer, is clearly focused on this topic.  I love that they feature lots of photos of cool ideas for storage, reviews of products, and inspirations for purging.  And one of my very favorite features is their weeekly Unitasker post – where they find an object that has only one purpose, review it, and usually make crazy fun at it.  This week’s unitasker is poo-freezinng spray.  I mean really, who would spend eleven bucks on something just to solidify the poop you have to pick up from rover?  

And although I can rarely afford the really awesome tools they feature for organizing, it’s always a jumping off point.  So maybe I can’t go to Pottery Barn and buy that neat wooden storage rack, but I can go to home depot, buy some wood, brackets and a can of paint and come up with a close fascimile.  Another example?  A recent post reviewed the Butler Bag, a purse with organizer built in that you can buy starting in the hundreds of dollars.  I’m barely upgraded from diaper bag, this is nowhere in my price range.  However, a quick google brought me to a PDF with a pattern and instructions on how to make my own purse organizer that I could put into any purse.  (If you’re curious, here’s the blog link to the pattern: http://thegivingflower.de/?p=920.)  So use Unclutterer for inspiration, and then use google to facilitate the organizing that you otherwise coudln’t afford.

 
The Expensive bag, via Unclutterer blog

The just about free-version purse organizer, download the pattern and sew this yourself and insert into existing bag

And while I’m on the topic of purging, I am continually finding people who don’t know what Freecycle is and that is a darn shame.   I can’t remember how I came across it, but this mailing list service for locally donating things you don’t need anymore rocks.  Keeps things out of landfills, and instead of dropping off your stuff at the nearest goodwill for them to sell it and attempt to raise money for their organization (not that there is anything wrong with that!) you can hand over items you don’t need anymore directly to other people in your neighborhood that do. 

The philosophy of freecycle.org is both to help limit useful things going to the dump, and to directly help your neighbor.  I have both given and received items on freecycle, from moving boxes to clothes for my kids to excess bath products.  Here’s how it works – you sign up onto your local freecycle’s mailing list (the list I’m on uses Yahoo as their mailing list engine, other local freecycles might use different systems, just check the site for instructions on how to sign up.) and then post items that you have that you want to directly donate – and if anyone wants it, they’ll email you and then you get to decide who to give it to.  The biggest problem is usually that there’s a lot of people in need, and not nearly enough stuff.  I posted that i had baby gates to donate, and within a half hour, fifteen people had replied saying they needed them.  Pity I only had two! 

The other cool thing about Freecycle is that you can post WANTs as well as OFFERs.  Someone posted that they needed a small dog carrier, and it just so happened that I had one in my garage that I used to use for rescues … something that I’m just not able to do anymore with two kids in tow.  So I responded, and she picked up the carrier and put it to better use than it collecting dust in my garage.  

Here’s the statement of purpose directly from the Freecycle main site: "The Freecycle Network™ is made up of 4,750 groups with 6,755,000 members across the globe. It’s a grassroots and entirely nonprofit movement of people who are giving (& getting) stuff for free in their own towns. It’s all about reuse and keeping good stuff out of landfills. Each local group is moderated by a local volunteer (them’s good people). Membership is free."

So what are you waiting for?  Start with uncluttering, and then  head over to Freecycle and sign up, and start contributing and saving the planet at the same time.

I’ll start this post with a disclaimer – this blog is from a friend/co-worker of mine.  But it’s still great, and I’m going to feature it as my first "favorite blog" within my blog.  So there. 

Favorite Blog: GreenWeddingShoes.com

If you’re getting married anytime in the future, and this applies to gals who may not even have met their match yet but still dream of their weddings, this blog is for you.  My friend Jenny has AMAZING taste, which makes sense because she’s an incredibly talented creative director/web designer.  She updates her blog a lot more than I update mine (which really isn’t saying much since i just started posting here LOL) and it has lots of juicy, beautiful photos.  Eye candy for the bride to be is really the best word to describe her blog.

She features all kinds of things related to tying the knot: photographers, locations, dresses, floral arrangements, cakes, and incredible inspirations for themes and decorations.  Never in my life would I have thought to use name tags stuck into apples with wooden picks as seating place cards, until I saw it on her site.  My favorite posts are when she features amazing photographs from talented photographers, and it just makes me really mad that I did absolutely nothing creative for my wedding.  I’ve got your standard "everyone standing at the table smiling" photos, and these people do crazy things that just never occurred to me, so take her site as inspiration and do better than I did.   

My 10th anniversary is approaching, and I’m going to keep digging on her site for ideas – maybe I’ll take this opportunity to tie the knot again and get some more creative photos!