Tour the Blog

Welcome to my blog! My profile says that my blog has as many interests as I do... and it does. It has evolved with me over 7+ years, too.

Long story short: there are a lot of different types of posts here. And I muddy the waters further by commenting on a lot of different types of blogs using this identity.

I write a bit about being a women in a STEM field. My background is science, I took a left turn that led me into a career at the interface of science and computers... and I recently took another left turn when I quit my job, became an independent consultant and also started working on other ideas, like the somewhat crazy idea to become a publisher.

My kids are getting older, so there are fewer posts about them these days, although I do still write about motherhood sometimes. If the parenting stuff is what you're looking for, you'll find that I used to have a lot to say about sleep (or the lack thereof) and food, breastfeeding and the general feeding of babies, and feeding toddlers in addition to the usual cute stories about my kids. There are a few posts about having a preschooler and an elementary school kid, too.

If you've landed here from one of my comments or tweets about science, you may find my posts about science or working in industry more relevant. Or maybe you'd be interested in my posts on women in science.

I comment on a few general "working mother" type blogs. If you came from one of those, you may be most interested in my many posts about working motherhood. My post about ambition and motherhood was popular, but probably the most popular post I have ever written was about men, women, and chores. That would probably make you laugh if you could see the state of my living room right now.

Believe it or not, this blog started as a place to write up stories about my travels, including a "big trip" that Hubby and I took pre-kids. I considered starting a new blog when I changed my focus, but I decided that the blog could change with me. I'm glad I made that decision- I get a few grins out of the fact that at least once a week, someone lands on my blog because they want to know why American toilet stalls have gaps.  I still don't know the answer to that one. If you, do, by all means, email me so that I can share that knowledge with the folks who are searching for it! Also, I do still write about traveling, it is just that I now have kids in tow. Along those lines, a post I wrote about how we enjoy traveling with kids has been popular, The posts that are stories about our travels are less popular, but I enjoy writing them, so they'll keep coming.

Another great way to get a sampling of what I write is to check out a year in review post.

Finally, I've also written and published four books- three with a publisher, and one on my own. You can find the books via my Amazon author page or my GoodReads author page, but since this is a tour of my blog, here are the posts I wrote for the release days, in chronological order:

  • The Zebra Said Shhh - the book that started as a desperate attempt to get my older daughter to go to sleep
  • Taming the Work Week - a short ebook about getting a lot done in a 40 hour work week, so you can enjoy the rest of your life
  • Navigating the Path to Industry - a short ebook about job searching, aimed at academics who have decided to look for a job outside of academia
  • Petunia, the Girl Who Was NOT a Princess - the book I wrote partly because if my older daughter had a book, my younger daughter had to have one, too, and partly because I got so fed up with how we talk about princesses and act like princess-y girls can't ALSO like to build towers and stuff. 

I've got two more kids' books in progress, and at least two more ideas after that... so I expect this list will grow. I'm not sure if I have any more books for grown ups in me, but you never know.

Here are some of my older posts that are "greatest hits":

Maybe someday I'll get around to updating that list, but I wouldn't hold your breath.

If you're still reading this page at this point, you are probably my mother. If not, and you still want to read more, poke around the archives- or send me an email if there is something in particular you are trying to find: wandsci at gmail dot com.