More Eighties Awesomeness

Writing for Like Totally 80’s is such a blast in every way. I’m still doing my test-writing, too, and have submitted one romance novella and have another underway. Fingers crossed…

By the way, there is quite a collection of 80s costume ideas on LT80s if you are thinking of dressing up eighties style this Halloween. I have contributed a few, but there are a ton of great ideas on the site.

There were thirty million and three music videos in the 80s, but here’s a list of my favorite high production videos. Costumes, plot lines, way cool sets. Yes! It’s probably the obvious choice, but I think my have has to be “Take On Me,” for its comic-strip awesomeness and cute boys.

I wanted to write an article about the handful of sugary cereals from the 80s that are no longer around. I mean, how many could there be, right? Turns out, A LOT. It was an artificially colored and super-sweet OPUS. Fancy a heaping bowl of Cabbage Patch Kids or Gremlins this morning? Yummy!

This breakdancing article was SO fun to write. I think the Alfonso Ribeiro commercial is a hoot. It reminds me of the instructional dance video in Napoleon Dynamite. And yes, I did a lot of practicing the wave and the moonwalk while writing this. Obviously.

fuzzy

Remembering sweater dresses in all their figure-concealing glory at Like Totally 80’s this week.

Take a minute to click on the link to Seventeen magazine covers through the years. Amazing what famous faces started out on the cover of seventeen, like Whitney Houston and Milla Jovovich (at age 13!).

retro-rama

On LT80’s, you can find my articles about vintage Elastic Belts and Boy Bands (awww, check out cute little Ricky Martin in Menudo!).

Also check out these 80’s costume ideas: Where’s the Beef?, Milli Vanilli, B.A. Baracas, and Ralphie from A Christmas Story.

http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=4468646140097101005&hl=en&fs=true

(is it just me, or does the girl look like she’s biting the inside of her cheeks to keep from laughing at the beginning of this video…?)

The option doesn’t currently exist to leave comments on the site, but you can friend Like Totally 80s on Facebook and join the conversations there.

Also, don’t hesitate to suggest any 80’s article or costume ideas. I have a blast researching and writing them. 😀

crime fighting duos on television

I just had a piece I wrote published on Like Totally 80’s about crime fighting partnerships of the 80’s. As always, fun to research and write, but what fascinated me about this one was how evocative all the theme songs were. EVERY ONE, even Cagney and Lacey, which I didn’t even watch (I think as soon as I heard the song, I switched the channel) is super-familiar to me.

My vote for best crime fighting pair was Maddie and Dave from Moonlighting, but Crockett and Tubbs are strong contenders.

retro-rama

I can’t even tell you what a hoot it is to write for Like Totally 80s. Like, I kind of can’t believe I get paid for it. (I would say, Don’t tell the boss that! except I’ve been friends with her since 9th grade, so I’m sure she knows. This is nothing but fun for me.) Writing this eighties stuff is A BLAST. I get to reminisce, shop, email with people selling vintage and like-vintage stuff, and watch Taylor Dayne and Poison videos. And then write about it!

Between this and the standardized test work, which has me writing every kind of reading passage for kids grades K-12 and which I madly enjoy, and with Rainbow loving his daycare so much that he begs to go even when I choose to keep him home, I’m kind of in work hog heaven. And I totally don’t take it for granted.

Anyway, I have a couple of new articles up on LT80s:

First up, Bermuda Bags. Did you have one? I LOVED mine. O, yes. And the Mommy and Me ones that All About You design offers? Yeah. I KNOW. I might have to get some for my nieces and call them Auntie and Me purses.

Next are Rock Star/Model couples of the 80’s. ALSO super fun. I’ve always been intrigued by the pairings, especially when the rocker is less, um, cosmetically gifted than the girl, like Rod Stewart and Rachel Hunter (a 90’s couple) and Ric Ocasek and Paulina Porizkova. I know I shouldn’t assume that models are vain and stupid and only want to be around physically beautiful people, but it’s hard to get past that when they’re so, you know, physically beautiful.

That’s all for now, but there are a few more in the chute that should come out in the next day or two. I hope you enjoy them a little bit, because I enjoy writing them a lot.

Note: there is not an option to leave comments on the Like Totally 80s site, but you can like them on Facebook and join the discussions there.

balancing

It’s been a wildly productive week. One of my big accomplishments was learning that three days in a row of daycare for Rainbow is JUST TOO MUCH for me. I thought I could handle taking him four days a week, but I… just can’t. I miss him too much and feel all agitated thinking about him being away. I think it’s too much for him, too; I considered taking him on Wednesday this week, after having taken him on Monday and Tuesday, but he seemed a little out of sorts and I really wanted to hang out with him. So I did. And yesterday, too.

(Yes, I’m feeling incredibly blessed that I have that option.)

So, there ya go. I think we’ve found the sweet spot for now: daycare on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, with flexibility built in since we went ahead and paid for five days a week and Goonie still keeps him every now and then.

I played taskmistress today and had the big boys clean the downstairs windows, and it’s amazing how much nicer the world looks. I can’t stop myself from taking a deep, contented breath when I look at that sparkly-clean glass. They were good about it, really; I only had to crack the whip a tiny bit to get them going. They were firewood stacking helpers for Daddy yesterday, too; we’re stocking up for the winter.

Knoxville cousins (at least one set) are coming in this weekend. There’s a town cookout and fireworks on Saturday, then a family/friend’s party on Sunday night. Party, party, party. It’s the full summer social season around here, which is nice.

(hmm, I’m ready to have a cookout…)

And I’ve been working a lot on the 80’s site this week. Here’s a new piece about makeovers in TV and film with some fun musical clips. And I’m about to wrap up another and send it off before I go collect a little honey pie.

And… I feel like I’m catching my breath a bit. I’m getting more of a handle on the work/childcare/housework balancing act. I was pushing it a bit after our DC trip, and I think I’m going to pull back and shoot for three solid days of paid work a week and play with Rainbow on the others, reserving those days’ naptimes (when they happen) for housework and cooking and that sort of thing. And if some sort of work crisis or deadline pops up, I can always work more.

The work from home thing is awesome; it just takes pruning and tweaking to get it just right. The nicest part about it is the way-cliched “quality time”: Like, I get it now. When I’m with him, I’m totally more fun and engaged and appreciative than otherwise. And when he’s at daycare, he’s with loving adults who are fully attentive as well. It’s leading me to be more in-the-moment and less assertively multi-tasking when we are together, and I’m so grateful for that.

It’s a wonderful summer.

puff, puff, puff

Before I go get Rainbow from his crib (where he is happily reading books and flopping around, having sabotaged his nap ONCE AGAIN with the poop-and-fling-the-dirty-diaper-then-soak-the-bed-and-fail-to-sleep-after-mama-cleans-it-all-up trick) I thought I’d share the latest 80’s article I’ve written.

It’s about the puffy sleeves we loved on ladieswear in the 1980’s. There are some choice vintage pics in there, but I love the dress Jennifer Connelly got to wear in Labyrinth the very best:

Love Lift Us Up…

Just had a new piece published on Like Totally 80s about the romantic duets of that decade. Oh, man, there were some great ones! I hope I included your favorite in my list.

This was mine:

Love, love, love it.

really good busy-ness

It’s been a happy blur of a summer so far. Rainbow has been going to his daycare 3-4 days a week, and actually likes it a lot. He sleeps there, he eats there (things he does not eat at home – bonus!), and he talks about it happily when he’s home. I take him about 9:00 and pick up about 4:30, so it’s not a tremendously long day, but plenty long enough for me to get some work done.

Which I’ve been doing more of. And loving. The standardized test work for Discovery is incredibly satisfying. I kind of can’t believe I get to do it, it’s so awesome. I started working for them, what, maybe four years ago? Doing practice item writing, data analysis, and test revision and creation. But for the last couple of years, I’ve gotten to keep it strictly to passage writing, which, for me, is the fun part. I get orders for needed reading passages with skills to embed, and write them for grades 1-10. Poems, biographies, plays, informational passages.

Also doing some freelance as well, which is super fun, too. Here’s an article for Like Totally 80’s about Speak and Spells. And I’m still submitting when I can to parenting magazines, although I have a little less time for that since I’m doing more test work.

(Oh, my poor romance novel characters, stuck in their relationship limbo. They still need to have their big fight, then realize they can’t live without each other. Hang in there, Chelsea and Marcus.)

We took Brad and Rockinrolla to Washington, DC, a couple of weeks ago. Awesome big boy trip. We did a VRBO house and are now converted: it’s definitely the way to travel with the whole family, since the teenagers need their own hotel room anyway. We stayed here and loved it.

adoptive breastfeeding

Here’s an article I wrote about adoptive breastfeeding for Adoptive Families magazine. It’s in the May/June issue, but I didn’t know it was internet accessible until today.

The responses to my attempt to breastfeed Rainbow were telling; 9 out of 10 times, they were, Wow, adoptive breastfeeding! I didn’t know you could DO that! I’m really hopeful that it gets easier and more common for adoptive mamas to do it in the future. I blogged about my efforts quite a bit here, so you could poke around if you wanted and see more of what went on when we were trying it.

It was really fun to get in my first paper magazine, by the way. I’m all excited. They sent me two copies, and the the blurb about my breastfeeding article is right there ON THE COVER.