Two years before getting pregnant I started surfing. I got so passionate about it, I surfed almost every day. As soon as I got more confident at it, I was off to new surf spots, reef breaks, and big swells. I even wrote ¨Let´s go big waves!¨ on the back of my longboard.

And I was really all for the big waves. I´d drop anything to surf a swell (a swell is when we have bigger waves hitting the coast and it may last from 1 to 4 days, more or less). I had fun with my wipeouts too. I really loved it when it was huge and I could feel my whole body do a summer salt underwater – COOL.

Then I got pregnant, which made me surf more carefully. I still had a go once when I was 6 months pregnant.

But surely too, after having Luísa, I became such a wuss. I no longer went for the bigger waves, I no longer had fun with my wipeouts, I was more scared and getting hit by my board more often (because in surfing, hesitating is the biggest cause of injuries with your own board). I no longer went for just any size of wave.

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A couple of years ago, I read an article written by a married man who was describing marriage as work. Work that he happened to come across just to realize that he was having the choice between keeping at it or quitting. I wish I could remember where I read this article, or the name of the author.

When I read it, it first struck me as pretty odd to see marriage not as a relationship, but as a job… At that time, I had been married for just a few years, and yes, of course, there were obstacles and differences, yet I couldn’t imagine my married life as a sort of work.

Over the past half-decade, I have been pretty much looking into myself, inwardly, because I felt the urge to do something about the way my marriage had shaped itself into. My husband is working all day, but he still finds the time for the people and things that matter most to him.

He’s a very hard worker, and a good family man. One you can depend on. The real sweet one. Every woman I know loves my husband for exactly these traits. Perfect? Oh sure, until you’re gonna marry a person like my husband and find out one day, that you’re not on the top of his favorite list.

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Ever wonder why the world’s population has been growing at a ridiculously fast rate during the past 2 decades? It’s because 2 is the new 1. In other words, having 2 kids is now like having 1. Despite China’s one child law, the rest of the world didn’t get the memo. Worse yet is the fact that the poorest regions of the world have the most children.

In fact, research has shown that in the U.S. those that are the most educated have fewer kids. There’s a whole host of reasons for this, but I’m beginning to wonder why this trend doesn’t seem true in my minuscule little slice of the world. We actually have more friends who have 3 kids than 2.

My Man and I have two kids and that second one, we’re not exactly sure how that happened since the first one took a bit of help from an infertility clinic. We took a hard look at what it would cost (financially, time, and energy) to have kids.

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STILL BABES IN BOY LAND

Considering all the recent press about the increasing role of women in the high-tech world, “booth babes” would seem an anachronism.

Not true. “This industry is sort of the odd man out. It still is strongly driven by sex appeal,” says Eileen Fridkin of The Group, which provides tradeshow talent.

At other industry trade shows, companies such as Kraft will specifically request women whose looks would be mostly unremarkable next to the everyday company employees, Fridkin says. But when it comes to high-tech, vendors are looking for something more – something such as the “catsuits” that prettied up Crave Entertainment’s E3 display. As the nickname implies, each woman wore a black, form-fitting, zip-up one-piece.

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For all blog platforms, even if you choose a hosted blog platform, you want a domain name. Rather telling people to go to myblog.mybloghost.com, you want a shorter and easier to remember name. If you can’t host your blog on your own domain, at least redirect the domain to the hosted blog domain.

It just looks more professional. After all, you are running a business.
Forget all the cheesy suggestion of obtaining a long and keyword full domain name. It used to work, but now search engines know better. It only contributes a small fraction point to your ranking, if at all.

In fact, using a short domain name gives you benefits. It is easier to remember and tell your friends about. Shorter name is easier to remember. If all you target is search engine traffic and regular readers who consume your RSS feeds, then domain name matter less.
Here are important factors to consider when choosing a domain name:

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Ever since starting my job I’ve become a lot more peeved at certain things, people, actions etc.

I don’t know whether it’s because there is a lot of pressure on me to do my job right, or whether I’m not seeing my friends as much as I’d like to, or whether I’m just unhappy in my job… I just don’t know.

First off, pressure. This month’s campaign is a huge one. December is the busiest time for gyms and I happen to work for a national gym chain. The second largest in the country.

This month we’re all about slamming the competitors and saying what’s bad about them in our campaigns. We’ve had a video created by our digital agency and it’s great – it’s funny, and it shows us, as a company, in a very good light. And me?

Well, I’m the digital marketing executive. I am responsible for making it go “viral” as my director says. He wants me to get it 15,000 views in one month on YouTube alone. That might seem like a hell of a lot, it might seem very little, I don’t know. But bear in mind that we’ve never tried this tactic before. It’s completely new to the company.

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I’ve been thinking, while spending a great deal of time in the Market parts, since the weather has taken what seems to be a prolonged turn for the Good-Better-Best, about how I’ve been generally conditioned for social settings, social interactions, by my upbringing the Suburbs. Don’t get surprised if also modern-day Gender Statistics will be influenced by recent demographic developments.

To me, the Suburbs represent a growing trend not just in terms of physical expansion, but of a strangely hyper-civilized and “Western”, though I promise to stick away from that capitalization from here-on-in yet animalistic Mode Of Rearing.

They seem to me to exist as Reefs, where parents retreat in their mid-twenties to raise children and go through a secondary coming-of-age process following their adolescence.

Interestingly, this mass retreat (and I’m referring here to the first or second generations of real retreaters into the Suburbs) has a secondary effect which I perceive to be quite detrimental.

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This Is Who I Am
Imagine an amiable, energetic young man who is helpful and sensitive to the feelings of others.  He’s eager to learn, does well at school and is proud of his accomplishments.  “Cops” is his favorite TV program and he’s a purist when it comes to rock & roll music.  He enjoys a variety of activities and is especially fond of the great outdoors.  Most remarkably, he welcomes each new day as if it were the beginning of a great adventure.

Now that you’ve had a chance to form a mental image of this young man, would it change if I were to also tell you he has Down Syndrome?  Does having a disability somehow lessen those qualities one may possess?

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Last night I drug the hubs kicking and screaming through the movie theater to see Eclipse. Whatever. He loved that shit.

We inevitably ended up at Walmart. AGAIN.

Tim has to go to the bathroom, so I go, too. I’m clingy like that, except I went to the little girl’s room. Watch out. I’m about to go off.

Stepping foot inside the bathroom is an assault on the senses, one. Secondly, at 1 a.m. kids should be in bed asleep instead of pulling all the damn paper out of the dispenser by the sinks, twirling around like a ribbon dancer, and using the horror movie set public restroom as their own personal wonderland.

Because I couldn’t see past the sandpaper paper towel mess, I almost walked back out, but come to find out there’s no going back once I’ve shown my bladder the possibility of a toilet. So I picture myself with a machete going through the Congo and make my way to the nearest open stall.

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I don’t normally blog about stories in the media, especially celebrity stories, but this one has really caught my eye last year and I need to get this off my chest. So let’s start with the background information.

John Terry – England football captain, club captain, and an all-round good talent… so everybody thought until allegations of his personal life came out in the press. It was revealed that he had a 5-month affair with one of his teammate’s ex-girlfriends.

He failed to get an injunction through the courts so all of this has completely blown up – think Tiger Woods and you’ll get the picture. Terry has a wife, 2 kids, and a huge career but not anymore. Last year he was dropped as England captain and this still angers me in a way – I honestly don’t think it’s fair. In no way am I condoning the fact that he had an affair – that’s wrong especially when he has children. But to be sacked over it? That’s wrong.

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