Friday, March 29, 2013

Weekend Reading: The Great Stuff from My Feeds Edition

I've finished reading Lean In, and I have lots of thoughts about the book and the flurry of criticism it has attracted, but I think that post will have to wait for another day. I will say that on the whole, I liked it, and it had some useful ideas. If you are on the fence about reading it, I recommend it. If you think that you aren't the audience for it... well, then don't read it. I do not understand why so many people who think they aren't the audience for it have to announce that so loudly, and in a way that implies that the book is somehow flawed or that Sandberg caused someone harm by writing it. There are a lot of books that I don't want to read, for one reason or another, and I have not felt compelled to announce that to the world. Hey, everyone! Guess what? I don't want to read Winning.  Does that make it a bad book or mean that Jack Welch's footwear is up for ridicule? I wonder if his advice is applicable to less privileged people? Does he address that? And what about his gardener? Does he talk about the challenges his gardener faces?

Oops, I'm starting to rant.

And geez, maybe I should read Winning or something like it just to see once and for all whether male business leaders are more inclusive in their advice than I'm crediting.

So... on to my shiny, happy links for the week! There was a lot of awesome-ness in my RSS feed (I use Netvibes as a feed reader and rather like it, if any Google Reader refugees are still looking for a home...) and in my Twitter stream.

Alyssa's take on shopping is hilarious, and a good example of one of the reasons I don't really like to shop.

Oil and Garlic made an awesome frugal substitutes flowchart. At first, I thought I didn't have any frugal substitutes, but then I remembered one- I have a tendency to go out to lunch on Friday, because I want to reward myself for a good week. Or comfort myself after a bad week. Whichever. This is bad for the budget and bad for my attempt to eat more healthily. So I've started giving myself a little treat on Fridays- I ditch my usual yogurt and bring a small thing of chips or some other treat food, and I bring in a can of diet Coke (the other days, I drink water). Voila! A cheap and relatively low calorie treat, and I still have time for my lunchtime walk.

Tragic Sandwich discovered the alarming specificity in toddler food classification, something we've run afoul of many times. I really liked this post.

I also really liked Reedster's post about childhood magic, and when it ends. Even beyond the end of the magical things like the Tooth Fairy, I mourn the end of the innocence of childhood that I know is coming. Soon, I need to start filling Pumpkin in on some of the crappier things about our world. It is going to break my heart to do it. On the bright side, once she knows, she'll take care of telling Petunia for me, because Pumpkin loves to teach Petunia things. Sometimes this causes problems, but sometimes it is beautiful- like this morning, when Pumpkin decided to teach Petunia how to build her Duplo Cinderella castle. She tried so hard to make sure they built it together, rather than just building it for her, and Petunia was so happy building with her.

Of course, they fought over that same castle this evening, so yeah, magic can't last.

On a completely different topic, this is an awesome post if you're at all interested in programming. If you aren't, you can just marvel at the fact that people like me find this stuff interesting.

Finally, in Zebra news... you can now buy the eBook directly from my publisher. The print version is also available from Barnes and Noble and IndieBound.  My publisher says it should be available for the Nook and from the Apple eBookstore soon- those distributors are just slower to publish than Amazon is.

Also- it has a GoodReads entry. I was more excited than it makes sense to be when it got its first (and so far only) rating there.

14 comments:

  1. Thanks for the shout-out! And while that programming article is way above my head--I have taken exactly one HTML course and am just beginning Codeacademy--I do get its appeal.

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  2. Read the Princeton letter in your twitter feed. Found it hilarious because one of my colleagues is a Princeton undergrad and that level of school spirit gets a wee bit annoying. I love my undergrad university as well, but not quite to the same extent. I do wonder how he managed to marry a non-Princeton alum. (Though her credentials are also ivy.) So, no the snippet was not the same as the full interview, but boy did it remind me of every single person I know who went to Princeton. They also have a really low dropout rate and possibly the highest annual giving rate of any college. (How do I know this? My colleague loves to talk about how Princeton is better than any other school.) I kind of wonder if they're running a university or a cult in that little town in NJ.

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    1. My thoughts exactly!

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    2. It's a little bit of both, really. Though they are persistent on the annual giving/nagging campaign!

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  3. Thanks for the shout out! Lean In is now on my to-read list mostly because of what I've heard from others

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  4. Anonymous6:10 AM

    DC2 thinks the Zebra said shhh tastes good. DH: Or you could fold the cover and start chewing on it... that works too...

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  5. Sarah2:00 AM

    I'm curious to read the childhood magic post, but you've got the macaroni and cheese link up there twice by accident!

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  6. Thanks for the link!

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  7. Here are some excerpts from Welch's book here.
    Note the last paragraph, one about work-life balance as envisioned by your boss.

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    1. Ha! I guess I am not surprised. My boss actually doesn't think like that at all... but I know those bosses are out there.

      Someday I'll write my manifesto about why I think that fixing our approach to work would make us more competitive, not less... but not tonight.

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  8. Totally feel your pain on the end of childhood innocence, quickly approaching. My little guy is such a deep feeler it kills me to burst his innocence bubbles, weather it's because he asks (Mommy, why is Mufasa not moving? Is he coming back?) or inadvertently, like the time I showed him an old photo of my mom when she was a young girl and my grandmother as a young mother. DS looked at the photo and then looked at his Grannie & Great-Grannie (who is in her late 90's) and started crying - immediately understanding the aging process. I felt so bad...it never would have occurred to me that at 3 (his age at the time), it would be so overwhelming for him to see that, let alone understand it. He was immediately worried about me getting that old.

    So yeah, trying to keep those magical things going as long as I can. Loved the link by the way and the idea to show kids how much wonder and magical things there really are around us.

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  9. Thank you so much for mentioning my post about childhood magic - so bittersweet to watch them grow up :)

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    1. the milliner9:25 AM

      Bittersweet really is the best word to describe it.

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