To start this piece, I’ll just admit that I have been seriously AWOL on blogging for the past few months/year. I get a hermit-induced cave built around me in the latter stages of pregnancy, to the point that I am sincerely avoidant after the baby is born. There are a number of reasons why this happens: first off,I don’t feel particularly well being so gigantic, and I just get tired of “it all.� I get tired of feeling worn out, and I get tired of talking about how worn out I am. Ben can tell you best of all how unwilling I am to talk about my feelings. They are just an albatross around my maternity belt, and I go out of my way to wear extra-baggy clothes to hide the dumb bird.

So, that being said, I’m working on recovering both physically and emotionally. I am actually able to *walk* without being in stupid pain (stupid pain: (adj.) pain that is not detrimental to the body, nor is a symptom of any other underlying problem, but merely exists to cause pain because the baby is sitting on top of your spinal cord, and thus, all the nerve endings attached to said spinal cord). I am also working on getting out of the house and inviting people over to visit more often, which is helping in working me out of my hermit cave.

In doing so, I am also able to use my brain more....which is AWESOME! If you have ever heard a woman complain about “mommy brain,� I assure you it is real. Your body is so flooded with hormones and UFIs (unrecognized floating ideas) that you really can’t discuss anything lengthier than how long the wind blew that day: “A long time...? I think...?� I thoroughly enjoy thinking, so this period of unthinking is tedious and exhausting; because I still try to think, but halfway through trying to think about thinking...I lose my train of thought. This gets old quickly, I assure you. I have had to write lists of things I am actively doing around the house so I remember to finish the load of laundry that I put in the washer, but forgot to shut the door; finish unloading the ENTIRE dishwasher before getting sidetracked and making corndog muffins for the kids; brushing my teeth after I put toothpaste on my toothbrush, and not start reorganizing the closet behind me. Stuff like that. If you have been a pregnant woman, or have spent any time around one...you’ll know “mommy brain� when you see it. We just look lost, but busy doing something. While lost. It’s weird.

All right, so I’m getting back into reality, and I’m starting to read parenting blogs again. Cool. I am always open for new ideas. Except, my body isn’t entirely back to 100% yet, so I’m yelling at my computer....

Why do mothers have logos?! This just dawned on me the other night (which greatly amused, and kind of frightened, Ben). I’m reading these blogs with super hip graphics and vintage photos of mothers all tatted up in aprons wearing a bandana on their head, stirring a bowl of something while wearing converse shoes. I can assure you, they are all way cooler than me. I get this impression with every new page. The thing is, I am not intimidated by magazine pictures of size 0 women frozen in a moment of glamorous beauty: I really don’t get fazed by them. Firstly, it is their profession to look beautiful (not mine). Secondly, they’re all photoshopped on top of it. I have seen enough “before and after� shots of the pictures, and the pictures in magazines are illustrations of women, not pictures of women. So I’m not intimidated by that.

I am intimidated by mothers who have crew cuts, tattoos, groovy clothes and 3 kids. In a clean house. I hate pictures of houses that don’t have jelly streaks on beige shag carpet, or dust building up on the unused piano, or coffee rings on IKEA tables. I don’t know what they are doing with their time during the day, other than cleaning (and being groovy by molding old vinyl records into cereal bowls...but I am a craft junkie, so I look at those in painful admiration).

Now, we had to have our carpets cleaned last year, and the carpet guy spent a good amount of time trying to get the tempra paint out of our floors. I was a little bummed that I was responsible for making this guy break out his industrial spray bottles normally used to treat oil spills in Alaska; but Ben was very encouraging and noted that the stains were made by our creativity spilling over or mud tracked inside after the kids were building forts in the backyard. So, really, these stains showed me where our priorities were: certainly not with cleaning (although I am getting a LOT better at this), but with giving our kids projects to create and build and explore. And there will be some consequences from this, such as slightly stained carpets. But what would the consequences be if we preserved the carpets and kept our kids clean all day? Where would the 5 foot tall fort be built then, or the dandelion/grass/mud soup be cooked? Where would their pictures of gnomes and transformers be painted? Not in my home, and not on my carpets...and what a shame that would be. I can buy new carpet eventually. I can’t buy Nova’s 8 year old period of painting back, or rebuild Glenn’s imagination. Those are our priorities. (end tangent)

So, back to logos. I guess I can’t be too upset with all the amazing graphics on websites. We were created to see, and we love to see things that are interesting...so inherently, there is nothing wrong with jazzing up your webpage. The thing that got me was that mothers had logos. And I was just thinking that it seems like mothering used to be something that we did, and now it is something that we market to each other. Mothering blogs have taglines now. It’s just...different, and I’m working with that. Because it feels like if you have a logo or a tagline, you are trying to convince the reader that this person has value...and I am already firm in my value of myself. Perhaps in the back of my mind is the seed of doubt which might suggest to me that if these mothers have more value with a logo, that mothers without a logo and a catch phrase have less value. Something silly like that, but if you’re human you know these little silly ideas can be the small trickle of a stream that might eventually take down a forest by the roots. I think this is the bottom of my logo-hate.

Beside all this, though, brings up the most interesting thing I have noticed with the blogs recently which is the language. I am not an advocate of Puritanical speech, by any means. I absolutely have my moments of verbal piracy, with the childhood phrases of “yars� and “down the hatch with ye� turning into...more colorful versions (we’ll just say). But when do parents mature, exactly?

“9 Things I Learned In The Parent Encouragement Program, AKA Shitty Parents Anonymous�

This is known as “edgy parenting�. This is a parent who goes to the same classes and buys the same Target sippy cups as everyone else, but they swear in their blogs to be above typical parenting (I’m guessing). It’s edgy and modern, and it assures the reader that “this isn’t your parents’ blog.� I’m actually okay with this, and it is honestly a nice break from some of the typical reading I see, where every child is a delicate flower and you are the humble gardener....stuff like that. So I don’t mind a little grit in my day. However, there is a pretty big difference between “a little grit� and “I. Am. IronMom.� :

“Accept that your children are going to do annoying shit.�

“Never get locked into a power struggle...Because now you're in a power struggle with a kid, and you won't want to lose because you won't want them thinking you're a pussy, and they won't want to lose because, hey, what's an hour wasted to them?�

“Never do for a kid what a kid can do for him or herself. This was the big one. Sometimes, your kids will stand there for eight hours before they brush their teeth and you're just like FUCK IT, and you grab the brush and assault their mouth because it's EASIER to do things for them.�

“No drive-by parenting. You have to get down face-to-face with your kids to ask them to do shit. You can't stand at the bottom of the stairs and yell at them to stop fisting the dog. They won't give a crap. Dog-fisting is too much fun.�

These were just a few examples from one page. The dog fisting metaphor was really the straw for me. But I am finding, in general, if you want to be an edgy, hipster parent who is cool and awesome and has the best hand-made paper garland headbands for your two year old daughter...you are going to swear and your are going to use weird metaphors which you would normally reserve for adult conversations.

So that’s when I thought: when do parents grow up? When do we stop using inappropriate language and humor to describe parenting, and start using more mature language to describe what we do for a living? Are we going to be “fisting the dogs� and complaining about “stupid shit� our kids do, or will we grow up and be leaders of our households, instead of just another kid who complains about having to do the dishes every night?

Do we mature when we are adults?

There was another blog I was browsing which had a big topic on having to get dressed nicely in order to take kids to preschool.

“And then I dutifully changed out of my pajama pants, put on a pair of workout pants, because everybody knows that workout pants are like Manhattan and pajama pants are Brooklyn in the world of pants without zippers, pulled on a hoodie, fixed my hair, snatched my flip flops and walked out the door.  I do this almost every morning that I take my son to school, and every day I secretly hope to see some mom who has decided to break our self imposed “no pajama pants� dress code.�

And at the end of a long list of comments of mothers who admitted they also, secretly, hated getting dressed when they dropped their kidlets off at school, there was a voice of reason (no, it wasn’t mine) who reminded everyone that in order to be good role models for their kids, they also must dress for the part. You wouldn’t take a CEO seriously if he was in purple sweatpants, and your kids shouldn’t take you seriously if you never get dressed either.

Now....I am writing this in kick-around clothes. I’m not saying you should be a fashion nazi about this. I’m just suggesting an “overall demeanor� of authority. There has to be balance in life between relaxing and working.

Under the umbrella of our position as mothers, though, it is our responsibility to be the role model for our kids first, and our appearance and behavior will guide them into becoming an adult who is cognizant of their own appearance and behavior; as opposed to adults who are completely unaware that their behavior could be obnoxious or at all unpleasant, for instance.

Role models and social influences are a big deal for your kids. Your kid will emulate their surroundings, so it is pretty crucial to be selective with what/who is around them. This is not only for how the child responds acutely, but also in the future how their influences and role models will shape whom they will become later. And some ideas will change over time, and some will take you by surprise. When I was in high school, The PowerPuff Girls were AWESOME. So I played a few episodes for my daughter, because it was like, empowering...and stuff. So, ya. I’ll just cut to the chase and say that The PowerPuff Girls are banned in my house. But Ninja Anime isn’t. It just depends on what you want your kids to focus on that will determine what you will and won’t allow around them.

This means sometimes you shelve certain language for certain times, and you put on some unwrinkled clean clothes on to take the kids to the park, and you display some good maturity to pass along to your kids as their primary role model.

But, in the long run, if you are parenting deliberately and not randomly, you’ll probably raise good kids anyway. I’m sure you already knew that

I am totally convinced that I can make anything I used to buy in a can, by myself. If a machine can do it, I can do it. The other day I was looking at my pantry and trying to think what else I could make with beans, other than refried beans (which I have seriously and thoroughly mastered).

What about baked beans? I haven't bought baked beans in ages because it just doesn't last that long. One can can feed about two people for lunch...and although that is a great deal economically, it just doesn't get much bang for the buck in my opinion.

So I looked up the recipe online, and I found one that didn't involve any canned foods. You know the recipes that say "made from scratch" but they use canned beans, canned chili, canned soup? That's not from scratch, that's from a can. I want to make dinner from SCRATCH baby.

So here is what I did....and it isn't going to be the same process I will use next time, but this will give you an idea of how easy this recipe is.

First, the ingredients I was supposed to use were these:

1 cup dried navy beans 4 cups water 1/4 cup ketchup 1/4 cup maple syrup 2 tablespoons brown sugar 2 tablespoons molasses 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper 1/8 teaspoon chili powder 1 small onion, chopped

However, I didn't have everything I needed. And I am a little too busy to do all the "Cover, and bake in the preheated oven for 10 minutes, then reduce the heat to 200 degrees F (95 degrees C), and cook 6 hours longer" kind of stuff. So here is what I did:

I took a bag of navy beans, 1/2 cup of lentils and 1/2 cup of split peas (just for some variety in flavor and texture. Why not?). Boiled them for an hour in a pot of water until the top was very frothy....this breaks down the beans and you don't get gas. Yes, this really works. You could also soak them in a covered pot of water overnight, but I was in a rush.

So you drain and rinse the beans, then throw them in a crockpot and add 1 chopped yellow onion, garlic powder, kosher salt (Cheers, Alton Brown), pepper and maybe a little paprika or chili powder (just a little). Then take a pork roast and throw it in the middle. Go ahead...just throw it in. Now cook for the day, and you should be ready for the next step.

Here is where I deviated. That night we were just bushed, and it was a long day and we needed to get out of the house. So I just turned the crockpot on low and we went out to chinese food. We came home and I put the food in a bowl and put the bowl in the freezer. Because that was the only place that I had room enough for this sucker. Two days later I got the courage to take the bowl out and defrost it. So this is how I finished the recipe:

You spoon the beans and onions into a huge sauce pan (not a pot). I had a ton of beans, and I actually filled 3 mason jars for later use (and put in the fridge). I then realized that we are out of ketchup. No worries! I put in a can of tomato paste and some white vinegar instead. Then I added 4 tablespoons brown sugar, 2 tablespoons molasses (except I didn't have molasses, so I used honey), 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce (I might have added more...I just kept pouring), 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper, 1/8 teaspoon chili powder.

First I boiled all the beans in the saucepan to get them going. Then I put them in a silicone bread pan (it was the only thing I had clean) and baked it for about 20 minutes or so. In the meantime, I put the pork in the pan with a little bit of the beans, and just heated it up a bit.

But here's the thing: when all was said and done, they were the best tasting baked beans I have ever had. They were just PHENOMENAL. And I could eat about 1/2 cup of them, along with a small piece of pork. They were just astoundingly filling! It always amazes me how much more filling actual food is. I don't know what manufacturers do to their food, but food from scratch is hearty. Seriously hearty. And this is coming from a heavily pregnant woman. Plus, a 7 year old, a 6 year old, a 2 year old and a 14 month old ate every bite I gave them. And Ben LOVED it.

So that's what I did! It is an amazing recipe, and I would encourage anyone to try this!

Apparently Alton Brown is taping his last Good Eats show (it will be covering dark chocolate, if you were curious). Ben and I have loved his shows since they began, and anytime I have a question about something I reference Alton. Because he will tell you WHY you need an ingredient. I was won over when he explained why you need eggs in batter using synchronized swimmers and inertubes. It was just the fact that he explained the "whys" of cooking, instead of just accepting the recipe at face value. For those of us who agonize over why something is done, he has been a godsend.

His series, "Feasting on Asphalt," was equally amazing. I loved seeing where he ended up, and what he ended up eating. My favorite shows were when he was touring the South and getting in biscuit arguments with people.

"This lovely woman doesn't think I know what a biscuit is...EVEN THOUGH I GREW UP IN THE SOUTH."

"Honey, you don't know a biscuit from a dumpling."

I'm pretty sure there were wrestling matches when the camera was off.

To Alton Brown: We Salute You! (and thank you for all the recipes!!!)

ALTON BROWN FACTS

#1. Alton Brown grinds his own peppercorns. With his teeth.

#2. Alton Brown's chili cheese fries are healthier than raw carrots. Even after he adds the bacon and lard.

#3. Alton Brown brushes his teeth with wasabi and gargles with pickle brine. But still his breath smells like lemon merengue.

#4. Alton Brown can boil a three-minute egg in thirty-seven seconds.

#5. When Alton Brown was born, he collected the hospital slop they'd left for his mother and made it into an zesty, appetizing goulash. The dish fed the entire maternity ward for a week.

#6. In the first, as-yet-unaired episode of Iron Chef America, Alton Brown single-handedly defeated an all-star team of Bobby Flay, Cat Cora, and Hiroyuki Sakai. The secret ingredient was 'whimsy'.

#7. Alton Brown doesn't reduce sauces. He demoralizes sauces.

#8. Alton Brown prepares his fugu blindfolded, with one chopstick and a plastic spork. Alton Brown ain't afraid of no chump neurotoxin.

#9. Alton Brown's blender has four speeds: 'stir', 'mix', 'frappe', and 'plasmify'.

#10. Alton Brown can split a pineapple in half using only his pinkies. For coconuts, though, he has to use his thumbs.

#11. Alton Brown knows where capers come from. And he grows his own, on a Chia pet in the pantry.

#12. On Rachel Ray's show, she shows people where to eat for less than forty dollars a day. When Alton Brown eats, people pay him.

#13. Alton Brown slices ham so thin, it can only be seen using an electron microscope.

#14. Some knives can slice through a tin can and still cut a tomato. Alton Brown's knives can slice through a Pontiac, and still cut a tin can.

#15. Grown men have been known to weep for joy in the mere presence of Alton Brown's vinagrette. His hollandaise sauce can kill a man from sheer ecstacy at forty paces.

#16. Alton Brown can eat just one Lay's potato chip. If he ever bothered to eat food he didn't make himself, that is.

#17. Alton Brown once got carried away slicing carrots, and julienned his cutting board. Undaunted, he sauteed the splinters in olive oil and spices --and they were delicious.

#18. Every Burger King Alton Brown has walked into has immediately closed forever --try as they might, they simply can't 'do it his way'.

#19. Alton Brown can pair a wine with any food --including hot dogs, ice cream, raw eggs, Alpo, sawdust, and soylent green.

#20. Alton Brown's cakes don't rise. They ascend.

#21. Some meats are so tender, they seem to melt in your mouth. Alton Brown's meats are so tender, he's had entire turkeys vanish into thin air.

#22. Alton Brown's no saint. But if his chicken Kiev cures one more kid's leprosy, the church will reconsider the evidence.

#23. Alton Brown doesn't whip potatoes. Alton Brown's potatoes whip themselves, if they know what's good for them.

#24. Alton Brown's other car is the Wienermobile.

#25. Alton Brown's show is called 'Good Eats', because 'Multiple Shuddering Mouthgasms' didn't play with the network's target demographic.

#26. Alton Brown's freezer operates at minus-twenty-seven degrees. Kelvin.

#27. Alton Brown once prepared shrimp gumbo for a cooking competition, using only salt, water, canned Spam, and a packet of Arby's 'Horsey Sauce'. He took second place. He would have won, but one of the judges was allergic to shellfish.

#28. Alton Brown can fit three hundred and forty-two cookies on a standard-sized baking sheet. Without any touching.

#29. When Alton Brown slices onions, the onions cry.

#30. Alton Brown was once asked to participate in a blind orange juice taste test. He was the only person able to successfully identify the brand, style, vintage, temperature, pH level, distance to the orchard, age of the grove trees, and the names of the workers picking the fruit. Including the one who needs to start washing after bathroom breaks.

I wrote a beginner's guide to gong gluten free a while ago, but after reviewing it this morning I decided some changes needed to be made.

So here is the updated version!

The first thing she needs to know is that everything pre-made has wheat/gluten in it. Be prepared to become the crazy lady reading labels on everything in the store, because that will become your life. You'll start finding it in things that really shouldn't have any wheat in it, and you'll yell at boxes going "why are they putting wheat in rice/salad dressing/yogurt?!" And it's because it is not only a filler and a thickener, but it adds some nutrients to foods that don't have much nutritional value. It's a big commercial thing, and it's cheap. So start reading labels. Even a little bit of wheat/gluten will affect you. Like soy sauce: you are going to have to find a gluten free soy sauce. Salad dressings: you are going to have to avoid caesar salads like it is death (seriously, my worst reaction was on a freaking caesar salad). So start checking everything, even if you think you're sure. Chocolate, ice cream, cereal (even corn flakes), juice, yogurt, bread (obviously), noodles, rice...if it comes in a bag, a box or a bottle, you have to double check.

The second most important thing she's going to be battling is her habits. People like to eat what is familiar to them, and when you have to change that drastically, it sucks. Food and eating is part of our lives and part of our culture, and having to re-learn this is annoying on a day-to-day bit, but it also throws us off our personal heritage enough to bug us. She's going to both give up and re-learn eating, and for a while it's a pain in the neck. I'm used to it by now, but for the first few months you're just constantly reminded of what is forbidden, and that gets old fast. Nothing breaded, nothing fried, no doughnuts, no pizza, no regular noodles, no normal hamburgers, no corndogs, no sandwiches. She can give GF bread a shot (tapioca starch/flour makes the best texture), and there are a few brands out there that make really good GF stuff (write these down: Pamelas, Amy's and Namaste are the BEST. Betty Crocker also has GF cookie mix/cake mix/brownie mix which taste normal, and Bisquick now has a GF box which is amazing for scones, biscuits, etc.). But she's going to have to replace these substitutes for what she's used to. That just takes patience, and it takes about 2 or 3 weeks to really get the hang of it.

Also, just a side warning: she is going to get hungry more often, which isn't a side effect of anything. She is removing the foods that fill and expand, and hunger is going to be surprising. Make sure she thinks of her meals as a balance of foods that nourish and foods that fill. So, rice and potatoes are very helpful in that area. Snacks are also very helpful, and I usually had high protein snacks like nuts or apples around. She probably already knows this, but filling a hungry stomach which is already being deprived of food that it is used to with sugar/junk is just going to make you feel like crap. Avoid this, because it is just a slippery slope. Fresh food is the best option to good health.

So, I've been doing 100% gluten free for about 7 years now, and my methods are different than other people's methods at this point. I make just about everything from scratch, because I got absolutely sick of surprises. The book I use to make anything gluten free is "The Gluten-Free Gourmet Cooks Comfort Foods" by Bette Hagman. She has a few other books that I'm going to be getting, but this is THE BEST resource. You use her recipes for mixes to make everything in the book; so I have 5 big jars in my cupboard with her "potato bread" mix, "sourdough bread" mix, "featherlight" mix. From these I can make cakes, scones, muffins, bread, rolls, hamburger buns, pot pie dough, etc. But the biggest thing for me is that even though it costs a little bit to buy all the different flours and starches to make the mixes, they will last you all year. This is much more economical than buying a $7 bag of french bread mix. I can't recommend this highly enough.

As for noodles: rice noodles are horrible. They are gray and they get soggy and fall apart. Unless you are covering them with something that will make them taste okay, they're not really worth it. You have to try them first, of course, to see this. However: corn noodles and quinoa noodles are the best. Corn noodles are great for spaghetti, hands down. Quinoa noodles are great for anything else, including cold pasta salad. Both of these hold their shape and taste good. Feel free to try out stuff on the gluten free aisle, including Amy's pizza (even though a small one is freaking $12). It's okay, but I still haven't made a pizza that tastes like a pizza. I've made my own crust, and if you add a TON of oil under and on top, it gets a pretty good pizza crust.

For recipes: my best advice is to start with meals you already cook and just remove the wheat portion. Replace bread with corn tortillas or lettuce wraps. You can use store bought bread, but that will be a one-time thing. No one can stomach the cement that is store bought GF bread. Oats are a gray area, because biologically oats don't grow gluten. However: they are so thoroughly contaminated from both the field and the processing, that I avoid it completely. Bob's Red Mill has gluten free oats that are good though, and you can make oatmeal or whatever from those.

I think that's about all I can think of! Mostly when you're first starting out I would say, give yourself time to adjust. It might seem daunting on some days, but once you get used to a new rhythm, you'll see that it's really not that complicated.

Good luck :)

I'm trying to keep up to date on what is going on with Greece these days. It's really frightening how underwater the country is, financially. And even though they're halfway around the world...their country is making the EU sink, and the euro is tanking because they're tanking; and that burden doesn't stay isolated in a global market. It eventually effects everyone (except maybe China).

So I really wanted to understand "austerity" better, because it's one of those almost-abstract words that I get the idea of, but since I've never witnessed it I don't fully understand. Wikipedia was very helpful:

"In economics, austerity is a policy of deficit-cutting, lower spending, and a reduction in the amount of benefits and public services provided.[1] Austerity policies are often used by governments to reduce their deficit spending[2] while sometimes coupled with increases in taxes to pay back creditors to reduce debt.[3] Austerity was named the word of the year by Merriam-Webster in 2010." (which is saying something for global finance and economics in 2010)

So what are some reasons for pulling the austerity rope?

"Austerity measures are typically taken if there is a threat that government cannot honor its debt liabilities. Such a situation may arise if a government has borrowed in foreign currencies which they have no right to issue or they have been legally forbidden from issuing their own currency. In such a situation banks may lose trust in government's ability and/or willingness to pay and refuse to roll over existing debts or demand exorbitant interest rates. In such situations, inter-governmental institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) typically come in and demand austerity measures in exchange for functioning as a lender of last resort. When the IMF requires such a policy, the terms are known as 'IMF conditionalities'.

Okay, so that's the scoop. Greece is really going under because of its socialist welfare state, and just isn't generating enough money inside to support itself financially, and is financing its system with borrowed cash. If you understand the economics of this better than I do (which I can already say, you do), don't flame me in comments :D

But here's the thing that threw me for a loop:

Examples of austerity

Argentina, 1952[15]

California, 2011[citation needed]

Cuba, 1991

Czech Republic, 2010

Germany, 2011[16]

Greece, 2010[17]

Ireland, 2010..........

Woah woah woah......what is CALIFORNIA doing on the LIST?! We passed an AUSTERITY BUDGET TODAY?! wth??

California Legisture passes austerity budget

shit. Seriously. For all the technical geniuses and innovation, universities, world-knows hospitals and medical experts, not to mention Hollywood and the gigantic money-making machine it is.....California should be swimming in gold plated pools and driving on diamond studded roads. And it just passed an austerity budget. That's just great.

(for the record, it was inevitable and we've all seen this coming. It just is astonishing to see California on the same list of nations with austerity budgets)

Chances are, if you're reading this...you are some percentage of geek. I'm honestly pretty low on the percentage, but I LOVE geek culture. It's so much more interesting than literary culture (I am actually not even close to being angsty enough to even like to be *around* literature nerds). Geeks are inventive, creative, smug (which can be good or bad, depending on your own smug %), and brimming with knowledge. This is where I excel: I know stuff about lots of stuff. If you have ever seen the Hepburn/Tracy movie, "Desk Set," which is very unlikely....BUT YOU SHOULD WATCH IT....I would love to have Bunny Watson's job. Her job is to know stuff so other departments can use her as a reference, and she works in the reference library, so she just researches stuff all day. She's pre-google, I guess.

It's beautiful. I would love to do that for the rest of my life. But anyway.

So, Father's Day is coming up...and the thing about geeks is that they are really particular about what they like, and how they like what they like. If you think you are getting them hardware for Father's Day (because they like hardware, don't they?), you're making a HUGE mistake. Huge. I guarantee you'll be getting the wrong thing from the wrong vendor, and it's the wrong model in the wrong color. That's just the way it is, so don't even think about getting them anything in this area, UNLESS they have given you the link themselves. This is how I got Ben's sliderule from some remote dude in Germany. There is only one of these in the world, and Ben sent me the link. That worked, and I still wrapped it. Mostly for me.

So hardware is out, software is probably out...if they wanted software, chances are they already have it, have already ordered it, have it on backorder or is waiting for some special sale/day/discount/the planets to align to buy it already. So software is out.

Geeks are really hard to buy for. Especially on days like Father's Day when you genuinely want to show them how much you love them, and give them a gift of gratitude. What on earth do you do?!

Okay, I'm not a pro at this yet (surprisingly), but here are some ideas I have. And I'm not putting up what we're doing for Ben. Because that would just be dumb. Ben can find out what he's getting on June 19th.

1. Gamer Dad T shirts from CafePress

2. You could always go the Think Geek route in their "pamper the Patriarch" theme. You can never go wrong with Think Geek.

3. There is Newegg, but you're really going to have to do your homework before ordering from this one.

4. There is Geekologie. The functional arcade buttons, alone, are worth checking out. I am already trying to figure out how to replace my doorbell with one of these. Or put one outside my bedroom door. Or in the kitchen and hook the garbage disposal to it. Or put it in the bathroom and wire an airfreshener to it. Heck, what can't you do with a button??

5. Then there is just the simple Geek Dad site. Ben already has all the Geek Dad books and a Geek Dad shirt, so I have no where to go with this one. But you should check it out.

6. Cards: I don't know how it is with your Geek, but we aren't really card people. Now, despite this fact (that we actually just came to realize over a conversation the other night when we finally looked at the list of "5 Languages of Love" that has been going around for years and years, and I've just guessed at until we said to each other, "have you actually read the list/book? Ya, me either." Anyway, we found out we aren't card-people.) we still get cards for special events. It is a good time to write something epically poetic, and I guarantee you...Ben is a master at flowing words. I looove his cards because they are just so beautiful to read. So, if you are going to get your Geek a card, at least get him something geek-worthy. Zazzle.com is a good option.

7. Finally: make sure you let him know how much you appreciate him as a husband and a father. Have the kids make cards for him with unicorns and robots on them, cook steak and have Guinness on hand. Let him know you know what he really wants, and ....you know...."show him when the kids go to bed."

Hope this helps! :)

It is astonishing how many board games families have. I've visited people's houses where there were entire rooms devoted to storing board games. They have a "board game night" once a week. It is impressive...and daunting. Soooo maaanyyyy boards....

Mainly because we're not a board game family. At all.

I used to play board games when I was growing up, but it kind of ended when I was around 11 or so. Since the kids have gotten older, I've gotten a few games for the house; but they don't stay together, and we're missing most of the pieces. I just noticed the Chutes and Ladders box is actually holding other papers in the schoolroom. I've played Candyland a few times with the kids, but it wasn't impressionable enough that they have ever asked to play it again.

They're just such simple games...we need something better suited for us.

And I was thinking: we need an RPG for the kids. No, we TOTALLY NEED AN RPG FOR THE KIDS. We need an RPG night.

I was first thinking about making an RPG for Candyland, and I actually found a tutorial for it (here), but it doesn't make much sense (to me, but I also have marshmallow-brain today, so who knows).

So then I googled "kids rpg," and found a trove of goodies:

List of RPG resources for kids

Firefly Games

Memento Mori Games...lots of themes available here, from Harry Potter to Dragons to Dinosaurs

"Monkey, Ninja, Pirate, Robot: the Roleplaying Game" That's all I'm saying.

Here is a Dad's introduction of RPG to his 4 year old daughter

So, there is a ton of links (some working, some not) on the List of RPG resources for kids here. We're going to have to visit a few of these and see which ones work for us!