Banners, we got banners!

Okay, it's really nothing to brag about. But I made the banner at the top. I wouldn't call it pretty. I'm certainly no designer. But I'm just so happy to have made something that fit up there, that wasn't too small or way too wide.

I'd like to give a shout out to The Pioneer Woman, who decided to share how she makes her banners. She posted instructions here, which took me through the patterns and basic backgrounds. Then I just started fooling around.

And while I'm thanking people, how about Cathy Zielske who not only inspires my scrapbooking but also linked me to The Pioneer Woman? Please visit them both.

So much to think about at Converge South

Scoble: great info about ways to broadcast video on the Internet. Sites to check out: stickam, ustream, kyte, mogulus. Need to ask Santa for a flip camcorder.

Anil Dash: Social media's future. It's converging. Don't rush to try to join every network, worry about aggregators, etc. The information you need will generally come to you through your network.

My Cousin the Saint Book Giveaway

And while I'm telling you about contests to enter, you should head over to Bleeding Espresso and My Bella Vita. Not only are these blogs written by fabulous women who are now living in Italy, but they are also giving away autographed copies of Justin Catanoso's My Cousin the Saint: A Search for Faith, Family and Miracles.

Full disclosure: I am helping Justin get the word out about his book, published recently by Harper Collins/Morrow. It is a wonderful story - part travelogue, part memoir, part quest for faith. I encourage you to read it!

Handbag Contest

Okay, so I totally entered the contest at HandbagPlanet to win one of their giveway handbags.

I would suggest that you enter too, but wouldn't that lower my chances of winning? Oh, shoot. Go ahead and enter. Just don't pick my lovely green bag!

Polite Punk

So you know my oldest goes to parochial school. We've discussed the plaid. It's coming up on Halloween and it's time to figure out the costumes. Which is getting kinda tough because although she's just made double digits, she's tall for her age and doesn't fit into kid sizes. Heck -- she's about 1 size away from fitting in my shoes.

And you know what comes after girl costumes don't you?

Teen slut costumes.

Sure, the name of the costume is Little Red Riding Hood, but it's the Little Red Riding Hood equivalent of a French Maid costume. Since when did Strawberry Shortcake become sexy?
And Alice in Wonderland is downright disturbing.


Luckily, the Tween picked being a punk rocker. Ordinarily, you wouldn't think that was such a relief, but it's better than any midriff-baring, stocking/garter skimpy thing that you can pick up at one of the Halloween stores that pop up in empty spaces in shopping centers this time of year.

So, we found the cutest punk rock shirt at T.J.Maxx. She already had jeans that feature a huge hole in the knee. A rummage through some costumes a friend gave us yielded fishnet and stripey hand warmer/glove things. I have a belt from the 80's. She has a headset/microphone from a friend's birthday party makeover session. We've got a punk in progress.

Things we need to complete the look:
1. Pink hair dye spray
2. Dog collar choker
3. Black nail polish
4. Willpower for her not to bite her nails for the next 3 weeks
5. Black jewelry

We did find some cute punky high tops tonight at Payless. High top converse-style, with some graffitti near the heel and black and gray laces. The Tween thinks she's so stylin! I'm calling her look "Polite Punk" since she'll get to wear her costume at school.

Feeling All Red, White and Blue. And Sometimes Pink.

So we've been enjoying the Olympics at my house. We cheered on Michael Phelps and the U.S. swim team who destroyed so many records. I stayed up WAAAY too late to watch gymnastics, both men's and women's team competitions. And then the all-around. I know it was an individual competition, but I still wish Nastia Luikin had worn a red/white/blue leotard instead of a pink one. But I cheered for her anyway -- she makes the sport look graceful in addition to strong and plucky.

But the judging seems all wacky. Disclaimer: aside from cartwheels, backbends, and the occasional handspring (front only, I was never able to do a back handspring) I know nothing personally about gymnastics. I'm the armchair gymnast (like an armchair quarterback, you know) who relies on the commentators for information. But I have been watching gymnastics since about 1973. It's like art. I know what I like. I know when there are mistakes even before the commentators say, "Ooooo, slight bobble there. That's a one-tenth deduction."

So when a Chinese gymnast went down On. Her. Knees. during NBC's not quite live gymnastics coverage of the individual vault competition, you'd think she would score less than a U.S. gymnast who had done a perfect vault with a very similar start value. (Start value. See, I could be a color commentator!)

Yeah. No. She actually scored better than the U.S. gymnast (Alicia Sacramone in this case.) who got bumped down to 4th. No medal.

In all fairness, it wasn't that gymnast who bumped her to fourth. It was 33-year-old Oksana Chusovitina who bumped her to third. Then a Romanian gymnast bumped Oksana to silver.

While I feel bad for Alicia, I'm totally psyched for all the thirty and forty-somethings who are medaling. Can you believe a 33 year old woman just medaled in gymnastics? This is a sport where 19 year old women are considered almost too old, and there are many rumors about the underage Chinese gymnastics team. If they are true, Oksana is almost two decades older than some of her competition. And Oksana's story -- a Ukranian competing for Germany -- just melts my Mommy heart.

My husband isn't as interested in gymnastics as I am. He feels the same way about ice skating because both sports are judged, which is really subjective. Kind of like trying to get hired or evaluated in TV news ... but I digress. He's been totally into the swimming.

He's even been DVR-ing some of Phelp's races so he can see just how close the finishes are. I missed the one he won by one one-hundreth of a second, and he played it back for me. And again.

The PR pro in me just ate up all of Michael Phelp's interviews. Both him and his mom. I know they have been in the spotlight for a while, and they are used to all the media attention. But boy, they handle it like pros. If they got media training -- it was really GOOD media training. But I think, deep down, that they have the right personalities for these interviews. That kind of sincerity is really hard to fake. And during the Olympics, fake isn't fun.