Annual reminder: As you buy the items on your holiday list this year, keep your favorite bloggers in mind!
If you're shopping online at Amazon.com, you can shop through your favorite writers' affiliate links and give them a little holiday gift, too!
Buying through an affiliate link works just the same for you as shopping by going directly to the Amazon site. You don't pay any more than you would otherwise, but the store itself funnels a few cents over to the blogger as a thanks for the referral.
Do you know bloggers who are struggling this season to make ends meet? Are there writers you'd love to reward for being particularly timely and touching in what they share with readers? Do you just want to spread the holiday love and cheer?
Then make it a point to shop through an affiliate link this season and throughout the year!
To make it easy for you, we have a linky list of bloggers' Amazon affiliate links.
If you're a blogger, sign up with your links!
To help you remember to shop through an affiliate link, bookmark a few! Simply drag two or three favorites into your bookmarks bar, and name them "Amazon." Now anytime you want to go to Amazon, click on one, and you'll be set to give that blogger a little tip for being awesome!
He's the same age as my blog,
since my journey as a parent started with him
and inspired me to write about the
new road we were on together.
Looking back is always bittersweet,
seeing all the adorable stages gone in a blink,
but I love all the years we've had with him so far,
and enjoy and appreciate
the unique, determined, compassionate person he is.
UPDATE July 3: Photobucket keeps sending me autoresponses and demands for payment, so that's no help. BUT, I did find a viable workaround for myself, so I've updated what I'm doing at LaurenWayne.com.
I try not to blog too much about blogging on here for fear of having it get too meta. However, there's a situation going down with my archive images that warrants a head's up. I explain it all over on LaurenWayne.com — here's an excerpt:
The pirate's sign that you must
pay the ransom or forfeit your photos
A few days ago, without any advance warning, Photobucket sneakily changed its terms of service to disallow third-party hosting, or hotlinking, on nearly all of its plan tiers. Most people use Photobucket explicitly for the ability to link from images on Photobucket to other locations such as blogs and forums, so this seems like a baffling move.
Until you realize the scam that's afoot: The only way to get your images to show up again is to pay Photobucket $400, upfront, as an annual subscription to its most expensive plan.
Ah, I see. It's a ransom demand.
I'm livid. I'd been using Photobucket to host my images on my Blogger blogs for ten years. For several of those years, I paid Photobucket an annual subscription for the benefits of unlimited bandwidth and extra storage.
The day I am writing this, I am at Seattle Center, the campus where the iconic Space Needle stands, enjoying the filtered shade on a bench on a 75-degree May afternoon. Pink blossoms from the spring-sprung trees are dropping softly down on my arms and shoulders. I've spent two hours working on my latest novel, and an hour wandering the well-groomed grounds, admiring the works of art strewn generously throughout and smiling at the sight of so many other people enjoying the beautiful, illusory weather while it lasts.
I am alone, kidless for this brief period of hours. I am free and thrilled and rested and content.
And also miserably guilt-ridden.
Do fathers feel this way, or is it a culturally or biologically instilled mandate that mothers experience guilt at enjoying time away from their children?
Last night I was breaking down in tears from stress. Alrik had a wonderful opportunity (with scholarship!) to attend a homeschool drama class downtown for the spring. It's an incredible program, and we couldn't pass it up for our creatively minded kid when the doors opened for us.
But I worried how we would all cope with getting three kids and me up very early and out the door, onto two to three buses for the ride downtown, and then whiling away the time Alrik was in his class before picking him up and doing the bus dance on back.
I've had nightmares about those bus rides. It's currently cheaper enough for us to ride the bus (only Mikko and I pay at the moment) to beat parking. Plus, we can stay longer and go on other adventures after if we desire, and we often do. And it makes sense to bring Karsten and Mikko with me so Sam can work and we can play. We have memberships at the children's museum and science center, and there's a fun playground, and soon the fountain will be spraying, and the three of us have a grand time while Alrik's having his own fun in class.
I've enrolled all my parenting ebooks into a special promotion at Amazon called Kindle Countdown Deals. Starting today, each one is available starting at only $0.99 for a limited time. You can see the time left on the countdown timer. For the next week, each will gradually rise back to list price, so grab them at a discounted price while you can!
It's interesting to think about pre-parent me and who I was six and a half years ago compared with today. It's incredible the ways being a parent has changed me — not just in terms of stretch marks, a higher tolerance for being peed on, and the adopting of phrases my mom used to say that I swore I never would — but in ways that affect my deepest core and have brought me into my true self.
Pre-kids Sam and me could do pretty much anything, and so we did. We didn't have much money, but we still traveled a lot, went to plays and concerts and museums, started businesses, moved across the country just because, watched multi-day marathons of TV shows on DVD, practiced music and wrote songs, volunteered long hours, took continual adult-education classes, and enjoyed it all.
I don't regret who I was then, and I don't regret that my life has changed. I imagine some of it would have changed with age and circumstances in any case, but I can definitely see how before becoming a parent, I had pretty much my own inclinations to consult for what I wanted to do on any given day and in my broader life planning. I wasn't selfish or thoughtless — that's just how my life was.
As you buy the items on your holiday list this year, keep your favorite bloggers in mind!
If you're shopping online, particularly at Amazon.com, you can shop through your favorite writers' affiliate links and give them a little holiday gift, too!
Buying through an affiliate link works just the same for you as shopping by going directly to the Amazon (or another shop's) site. You don't pay any more than you would otherwise, but the store itself funnels a few cents over to the blogger as a thanks for the referral.
Do you know bloggers who are struggling this season to make ends meet? Are there writers you'd love to reward for being particularly timely and touching in what they share with readers? Do you just want to spread the holiday love and cheer?
Then make it a point to shop through an affiliate link this season and throughout the year!
To make it easy for you, we have a linky list of bloggers' Amazon affiliate links, as well as a linky of affiliate links to other popular online stores.
If you're a blogger, sign up with your links!
To help you remember to shop through an affiliate link, bookmark a few! Teresa shows how in her innovative tutorial. Simply drag two or three into your bookmarks bar, and name them "Amazon." Now anytime you want to go to Amazon, click on one, and you'll be set to give that blogger a little tip for being awesome!
To switch things up a bit this month, the Simply Living Blog Carnival cohosted by Mandy at Living Peacefully with Children, Laura at Authentic Parenting, and Joella at Fine and Fair is running a blog hop! Link up all of your old, or new, posts about money. This may be a post in which you talk about how you keep purchases in check to live a more simple life in tune with your goals, about your budgeting skills, how you talk about money with your children, or more. If it deals with money and finances, we want to hear about it. Simply add your link to the handy linky tool below before October 15, 2013.
I've added in a few of my favorite posts about finances and how we make things work, money-wise.
Here's a selection of what I've written about money if you're interested in a particular topic:
The wage gap hurts mothers & babies — women and their wages support their families, and the mothers I know could really put that extra $10,622 per year to good use.
I'm so happy to introduce you to my newest book, What Will We Learn Today? — an ideabook of more than 550 quick and simple homeschooling activities.
I've put up a post over at LaurenWayne.com with a full description and plenty of juicy excerpts, so head over there if you're interested in learning more!
There are days when you want to do something fun — and educational — but you can't quite figure out what it is. I have good intentions of natural-learning activities to do — but then I don't always remember them.
So I wrote this ebook to be a collection of idea-joggers. You can keep it on your computer, phone, or tablet (it's a PDF, so easy-peasy) and then anytime you're having one of those "What should we do now?" moments, just pop that puppy open and choose an activity.
Welcome to the Sunday Surf, a tour of the best blogposts I've read throughout the week.
Summer means going outdoors — a lot. It's such a brief season here that I feel guilty if we miss even a day of it! This day I took the kids on an "adventure" to a Kidd Valley hamburger place on Lake Washington. Kids love running around in grass, crossing bridges, and ogling naked sculptures. Score!
Alrik liked pointing out that these statues could poop if they wanted to.
He's an excellent nakey-bum potty learner.
Another day, but for your amusement:
Babywearing pirates at the Seafair Pirates Landing!
I love these! And despite living in an age where dresses from the neck past the ankles were the norm, no one was telling these women to cover up or go to the bathroom to feed their babies.
At a time when when modesty was considered fundamental in women, the above images depict an unlikely fashion amongst mid-19th century mothers.
According to Gwen Sharp, an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Nevada State College, ‘The use of wet nurses had never been as common in the U.S. as in Europe, and it became even less popular by the early 1800s; breastfeeding your own child became a central measure of your worth as a mother. ‘Cultural constructions of femininity became highly centered on motherhood and the special bond between a mother and her children in the Victorian era.’
Given that the images are daguerrotypes - the first commercial photographic process - the subjects do not appear quite as at ease as their modern counterparts might. The women and their babies would have had to sit still for approximately ten minutes while the image developed on a silvered copper plate - presumably a challenge with small children involved.
Peggy O’Mara’s description of (uncomfortably) moving from punishment to cooperation, with succinct explanations on why gentle parenting is not out-of-control parenting, and ideas for what to do to parent gently.
Being humble, however, does not mean that we give up our authority. A parent’s authority is based not on being right all the time but on being the one in charge. You do not have to give up your authority as a parent or be permissive to parent in a more cooperative way. However, you do have to learn a new language, and it takes time. The more you practice cooperation, the more skilled at it you become.
In the month of April and into May, a group of intrepid poets and I explored parenting through poetry. It was a glorious, inspirational time, and I was so pleased to share the journey with these writers:
Today marks the start of the fifth and final week of the Weekly Parenting Poetry Workshop! One last week of prompts to inspire your poetry.
We're each writing at least one parenting-themed poem a week on an overarching parenting theme, which I post on Mondays. On Fridays, I post a linkup so we can all share what we've been working on, and then we enjoy reading each other's work. It's been inspiring for all of us!
I also post daily prompts for the week in advance, both to give you more of an idea of what the theme represents, and for any overachievers who want to write more than one poem a week! Remember, anyone who writes and posts a poem for each day of the challenge automatically wins a signed prize copy of Poetry of a Hobo Mama, and anyone who writes and posts at least weekly will be entered into a drawing for one.
This week — our next to last! — we're considering the move into our confidence and rhythm as parents even as we navigate the uncertain waters of discipline, spirituality, and seeking answers to big questions.
If you have a poem or poems posted on your blog, link up below, or paste your poem(s) in the comments!
We're each writing at least one parenting-themed poem a week on an overarching parenting theme, which I post on Mondays. On Fridays, I post a linkup so we can all share what we've been working on, and then we enjoy reading each other's work. It's been inspiring for all of us!
I also post daily prompts for the week in advance, both to give you more of an idea of what the theme represents, and for any overachievers who want to write more than one poem a week! Remember, anyone who writes and posts a poem for each day of the challenge automatically wins a signed prize copy of Poetry of a Hobo Mama, and anyone who writes and posts at least weekly will be entered into a drawing for one.
Happy Tax Day to my fellow US taxpayers! Today is still surprisingly auspicious, since it marks the third week of the Weekly Parenting Poetry Workshop!
We're each writing at least one parenting-themed poem a week on an overarching parenting theme, which I post on Mondays. On Fridays, I post a linkup so we can all share what we've been working on, and then we enjoy reading each other's work. It's been inspiring for all of us!
I also post daily prompts for the week in advance, both to give you more of an idea of what the theme represents, and for any overachievers who want to write more than one poem a week! Remember, anyone who writes and posts a poem for each day of the challenge automatically wins a signed prize copy of Poetry of a Hobo Mama, and anyone who writes and posts at least weekly will be entered into a drawing for one.
I'm Lauren Wayne, writer and natural parent. I embrace attached parenting with an emphasis toward green living.
Riding the rails with my husband, Crackerdog Sam, and our hobo kids, Mikko Lint Picker (born June 2007), Alrik Irontrousers (born May 2011), and Karsten (born October 2014). Trying every day to parent intentionally and with grace.
It's interesting to think about pre-parent me and who I was six and a half years ago compared with today. It's incredible the ways being a parent has changed me — not just in terms of stretch marks, a higher tolerance for being peed on, and the adopting of phrases my mom used to say that I swore I never would — but in ways that affect my deepest core and have brought me into my true self.
As you buy the items on your holiday list this year, keep your favorite bloggers in mind!
To switch things up a bit this month, the Simply Living Blog Carnival cohosted by Mandy at Living Peacefully with Children, Laura at Authentic Parenting, and Joella at Fine and Fair is running a blog hop! Link up all of your old, or new, posts about money. This may be a post in which you talk about how you keep purchases in check to live a more simple life in tune with your goals, about your budgeting skills, how you talk about money with your children, or more. If it deals with money and finances, we want to hear about it. Simply add your link to the handy linky tool below before October 15, 2013.
I've added in a few of my favorite posts about finances and how we make things work, money-wise. 
We're sharing our final poems from the Weekly Parenting Poetry Workshop:
We're sharing our poems from the Weekly Parenting Poetry Workshop:
Happy Tax Day to my fellow US taxpayers! Today is still surprisingly auspicious, since it marks the third week of the Weekly Parenting Poetry Workshop!
I'm Lauren Wayne, writer and natural parent. I embrace attached parenting with an emphasis toward green living. 
