We’ve had a little distraction by fire this week – it’s that time of year in these parts. I Tweeted updates about it on Monday and Tuesday and blogged about it at the LA Moms Blog on Friday; also, here’s SoCal Mom‘s “annual fire post” from the northern end of the San Fernando Valley. That, coupled with a shortened workweek and getting ready to move in just over two weeks (!), has caused me to run a bit behind on Google Reader.
Bulletin Board
***** We are on the move to end Alzheimer’s this morning in Thousand Oaks, CA, and I wanted to mention that a few regular readers here at The 3 R’s made generous donations to support our team’s fund-raising efforts – thank you SO MUCH, folks, from my mother’s daughters and their families! You helped boost our team into the Top Five fund-raisers (for awhile, anyway).
Also: FYI, the Alzheimer’s Early Detection project was the first-place winner in the American Express Members Project voting – $1.5 million goes to the Alzheimer’s Association to implement it!
>> The Members Project second-place winner is DonorsChoose.Org. The Los Angeles Moms Blog (along with its sister sites) is participating in the DonorsChoose.Org “Blogger Challenge” till the end of October. Through our leader board, you can make a donation (or two) to provide direct assistance with teachers’ needs in Los Angeles-area public schools – any amount is welcome, so please consider helping to fund a project!
New in Google Reader
Worducopia
Random reading, with a serving of economics
Possibly Useful Site of the Week: The Money Meltdown. Via my Monday-morning e-mail from VeryShortList.com (another useful site, BTW), it’s
“a smartly simple website that helps you make sense of the financial crisis in even less time than it takes for the Dow to perform its morning plummet. Started a few weeks ago by an enterprising online journalist named Matt Thompson, TMM points you to the essential articles, podcasts, and studies.”
I’ve bookmarked it for reference – you might want to take a look for yourself.
The Silicon Valley Moms Bloggers tackled the economy on all of their sites this past Monday. My own contribution is here; the Los Angeles Moms Blog also features Kim’s post on the value of financial education; Elizabeth’s pondering about stock market crashes and October; Sarah’s thoughts on having goals and “making do;” Jessica addresses her financial fears; and Nina’s perspective that not much has changed for her family. Themed posts from all of the SVMB sister sites are rounded up and recapped here.
While “Economy Topic Day” sprang from a need to talk and blog about the immediate crisis surrounding Wall Street, it happened just a couple of days before the long-planned Blog Action Day 2008 spotlight on Poverty this past Wednesday. April talked about single parenthood and how poverty limits choice at It’s All About Balance, while Los Angelista emphasized poverty’s affects on children, and Margalit of What Was I THINKING? delved into poverty as a local community issue. Mauigirl collects assorted findings about the poor, and the MOMocrats made various aspects of poverty a group project. Career, HR, and personal-finance bloggers participated in Blog Action Day too, and the Wednesday “tip day” post at The Happiness Project proposes combating poverty through generosity.
While we’re on the subject of money matters, 10 savings suggestions and 10 phases of personal-finance awareness.
Discussing politics and religion with your kids – how do you approach it, and how is it influenced by your upbringing? Also: what fuels a new political junkie
Anyone up for trading Columbus Day for a holiday on Election Day?
Hey lady (or mister)! Can you use a little help with basic HTML?
The human lifespan starts out like this, according to one 14-year-old:
0 – 1 Year
Still the pooping, screaming bundle of joy.
OK, she is pretty much on-the-money about this one.
2 – 5 Years
Growing up, but still can’t do much.
Kinda right, but both she and her brother were able to do plenty. I have the gray hair and pictures to prove it.
The 14-year-old is Tall Girl, my stepdaughter – you can read the rest on her dad’s blog.
Some people get offended when children are compared to puppies, but if you’ve known both, read this and then tell me you don’t see a resemblance.
Remember that question I asked about Bloglines a couple of weeks ago? Apparently, it’s not my feed – it’s really a Bloglines problem. I feel slightly better now about the fact that Feedburner says I only have 10 Bloglines subscribers…
Book notes/wish list
Another Way Home, by Christa Parrish
The 19th Wife, by David Ebershoff (quite a few bloggers have reviewed this, but Natasha’s post offered some interesting perspective)
I think just the mention of Santa Ana winds set off the fire season this year. I guess it is the price we pay for living where we do.
I cast my absentee ballot last week. I’ll be glad when the election is over. I know the economy is first and foremost in everyone’s minds right now. Thank you for all the links about the discussions out there this week on the topic.
Columbus Day isn’t a holiday for me (while my agency is closed–my particular office is not), but I do think it would be a good idea, switching out Columbus Day for election day. Chances are, I’d still have to work either way though.
I hope you have a good weekend, Florinda.
I must confess that I am getting a bit frustrated with Bloglines. There always seems to be something! Hopefully they will get it fixed and soon.
Wendy (Literary Feline) – You may be right about those Santa Anas. What surprised me about the fires earlier this week was that the weather wasn’t really that hot, or the winds especially strong, when they flared up.
I’m going to try to get my absentee ballot done this weekend. My agency doesn’t close for Columbus Day either, so I’m getting my long weekend now.
Marg – I use Google Reader myself, but I have been noticing weird things with my Bloglines subscriber numbers, which is why I was wondering about it.
Your team did a good job raising money. Being in the top five is not easy. Hope you had fun.
Glad to hear the fires are under control. Hope they stay that way.
You only added one site to your Google reader this week? I’m disappointed. 🙂
Mike – I was starting to think I might not add any new blogs to Reader this week! I usually find new blogs via blogs I read already, and I got really backlogged on that this week. I actually did the “mark all as read” thing last night so I could start fresh.
Thanks for your help in getting our team to that ranking in fund-raising! The walk was fun for most of us, although probably less so for my brother-in-law, who had to spend part of the the 5K distance carrying my 5-year-old nephew.
Hi Florinda! Thanks for the linky love. I’d be interested to hear your thoughts when you read The 19th Wife.
Natasha – You’re welcome! I’ve seen a few reviews of the book on blogs, but yours was particularly substantive. I doubt you’ll see my thoughts on The 19th Wife very soon, though; unless someone offers me a review copy, I’ll be waiting for the paperback.