My Project Unveiled

As I've mentioned before, I have been working on a side project.  Last year, I realized that my kids have gotten old enough to free up a little space in my weeks. I decided that I needed to invest some time in building up my "career capital." It took a little bit of soul searching to figure out what, exactly, I should do- there were so many options! In the end, though, I decided that I wanted to refresh some of my technical skills. I will eventually refresh my programming skills, but I wanted something a little smaller for this project, since it is the first one I've tackled in quite awhile.

So I decided to refresh my web skills. The last time I created a web site from scratch was in the late 90s. CSS didn't exist. Content management systems didn't exist. I'd flirted with learning Drupal the last time I was laid off, but I got a job, and I didn't really have a compelling use case to explore with it... so that effort fizzled out. I decided that I should try again.

Around the same time, I started to get frustrated with how hard it was to find short eBooks to read,  particularly if I wanted to go outside of what Amazon's algorithms picked. I think short eBooks have the potential to provide a way for a wider range of people to share their ideas and get paid for it... but only if there is a better way for people like me to find their work.

From these two things, Tungsten Hippo was born. You can read more about my motivations for creating a site dedicated to short eBooks in my first post there. I have no idea whether Tungsten Hippo will gain any attention or actually help make it easier for authors of short eBooks to get the word out about what they have written. However, it will have been worth the time I put into it even if it falls flat on its face,since I have now set up a Drupal-backed website and learned enough CSS to change details of the layout.

There is a blog component to Tungsten Hippo, but Wandering Scientist isn't going anywhere. My plan is to write a post related to short eBooks once per week, and post it on Tungsten Hippo. I will reference that post here, too. I'll also post a new entry about a short eBook most Wednesdays and a new quote from a short eBook most Fridays. You'll have to follow Tungsten Hippo to get notified of those, though. I'll still write about other topics here, at Wandering Scientist.

The links to eBooks over at Tungsten Hippo are affiliate links. I'll keep any money they generate, with the hope of making the site pay for itself (I've had to pay to set up hosting and the like). I've set up a separate account for those, so the affiliate links here at Wandering Scientist will still fund diapers (I just bought another box today).

I've set up Twitter and Pinterest accounts for Tungsten Hippo: you can follow me at @TungstenHippo on Twitter and Tungsten Hippo on Pinterest. I may set up a Facebook page, too- I'm on the fence about that.

So go on over and take a look at Tungsten Hippo. Come back here and tell me what you think, if you'd like, and definitely share the link with anyone you think might find it useful.

Weekend Reading: The Cool Things in My Feeds Edition

I had a wonderful day off. I didn't take a nap, and I decided to delay the beer until 3 p.m. instead of lunchtime so I could go for a run by the bay- it was a beautiful day!- but I wouldn't change a thing.

I got so much done on my project that I am confident in saying that I will show it to all of you on Monday. I don't want to overhype it. It is, after all, the side project of someone whose job and family consumes most of her time. But I'm happy with how it has turned out, so I am excited to show it to the world.

In honor of that, I thought I'd share some of the other cool things people in my feeds have been doing.

First up, the bean-mom is shutting down her blog... but the bean-writer is starting hers up! The new blog is called It's a Jumble, and I look forward to hearing more about her writing.

AskMoxie's blog was the first thing I found that made me feel like maybe I wasn't a terrible failure as a mother for having a baby who just didn't sleep the way everyone said she should. I've gotten far more confident as a mother since those early days, but I keep reading her blog. She's started doing something she calls MoxieTopics, which are PDFs about the topics she's gotten the most questions on over the years.

I was thrilled when Kathy Sierra came back to the online world as @SeriousPony, and it was via her tweets that I discovered the series of tech books she helped to create, the Head First series from O'Reilly. I bought the Head First HTML and CSS to help me learn CSS, since I'd let my website authoring skills get more than a bit out of date.  I've learned a lot of technical topics over the years, using a variety of different types of books. The Head First method seems a bit hokey at first, but it is by far the fastest and most painless way to learn something new. I'll definitely check for a Head First book on the topic the next time I want to learn a new tech skill.

Finally, Calee Lee of Xist Publishing (the company that published my books) is one of the two finalists for the "mompreneur" award from Parenting OC magazine. I don't love the "mompreneur" portmanteau, but I am still thrilled for Calee and Xist!

Have I missed anyone who has cool things to share? I'm expecting a baby announcement from Alyssa at Apple Pie and the Universe any day now.... what else is going on out there? Don't be shy- share your news (or other people's news! I'm not picky) in the comments.

I Think I'll Name My Pet Peeve Pete

I had typed out most of a post about a dilemma I face at work right now, and I deleted it. Even though my boss would not have been surprised by any of the information in it if he were to stumble across the post, I realized I wouldn't have wanted him to read it. I have a rule that I should not post anything I would not want my boss and my mother to read, so I deleted it. It is too bad, because I could have used your advice!

Oh well. I'll have to settle for your sympathy instead. I have a dilemma that is making me very unhappy, and I unfortunately could not hide that it is making me unhappy even though I do not have a solution to suggest- and that breaks the cardinal rule of never bringing a problem to your boss without a suggested solution. Oops. At least my boss agreed that there doesn't seem to be a good solution, other than me just sucking it up and dealing. He would definitely prefer I just suck it up and deal. I am not sure I have it in me to do that, though, because this particular dilemma rubs on one of my work place pet peeves.*

I am increasingly convinced I will just slowly kill off my current career by making mistakes and not handling dilemmas just right, and will have no choice but to pursue an alternative in which I can start fresh. And maybe that won't be a bad thing, but I am not quite ready to do that yet, so hopefully I can figure out a decent approach by Monday. It won't be the right approach, because I never seem to land on that, but maybe I can find the least wrong one. Or something like that.

I have until Monday because I had previously scheduled to take tomorrow off- so hooray for that! I plan to work on my project, which is sooo close to being ready to share, so hooray for that, too! I'll probably also lounge in the backyard and enjoy the sunshine and read a book. I may even take a nap. I will almost certainly have a beer with lunch. So, you know, my life does not completely suck. Not at all.**


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*And now I have to share this tweet of a pet peeve, from Sandra Boynton. Maybe if I print it out and post it by my desk, I can find the capability to just suck it up and deal.

I have a pet peeve. (They were all out of gerbils.) pic.twitter.com/mAws93UEBq
— Sandra Boynton (@SandyBoynton) September 26, 2013

**It would suck a lot less, though if my very soon to be 4 year old hadn't wet her bed at 3:30 in the morning. Getting that cleaned up woke me up so completely that I couldn't go straight back to sleep, and then I started thinking about the dilemma, and then it was almost 5 a.m. before I finally got back to sleep. She almost never wets her bed unless she's sick, and she is not sick right now. So this was just a random tweak on the nose from the universe, and the sleep deprivation probably didn't improve my handling of the discussion with my boss at all. Sigh.

However, I had the sense to recognize that my heightened sense of drama about the dilemma might not be completely grounded in reality, so as soon as my meetings were done for the day, I left and went and sat at the beach rather than marching in to anyone's office to confront the dilemma and/or quit my job. Back when sleep deprivation was a constant companion to me, I made a rule to never make any life changing decisions while sleep deprived, and that rule has served me well.

(For the record, I did make life changing decisions during the first year of Pumpkin's life, when my sleep deprivation was most profound- for instance, I changed jobs. But I always arranged to get more than the usual amount of sleep before doing so, usually by sending Mr. Snarky out for a long walk with Pumpkin while I took a long nap.)

Fashion Show

The news is depressing right now, and I've got some unbloggable work-related things weighing on my mind. So I'm going to leave the serious topics behind for now, and post about something completely frivolous- my wardrobe. Yes, it is time for another one of my weird headless fashion shows.

Long time readers might remember that I am not an enthusiastic shopper these days, and that I tend towards a uniform of dark bottoms with a solid color top. There is nothing wrong with that, per se, but I tend to wear t-shirts past when the point when I should retire them to finish out their days as weekend grubbies, and I also find it hard to put together appropriate outfits on the rare occasions when I need to look a little sharper. So one of my goals this year was to spruce up my wardrobe. I tried out Stitch Fix, and got some good things from them (and will probably order another fix soon- I enjoy the surprise aspect of their service).

I also took advantage of the trip to New Zealand to add some new items to my wardrobe.

Here's the dress I mentioned earlier:

I also found this shirt, which I almost didn't try on because of the horizontal stripes, but which I love:

I wandered into a Veronika Maine store, and was helped by a sales associate who definitely earned her pay that day. I came out with a new blouse (that is probably as close to a peplum as I'll ever get) and skirt:

And also this shirt, which I love even though (or perhaps because?) it reminds me of a Star Trek top:

But my favorite clothing purchase in New Zealand may actually be this t-shirt with a pohutukawa on it, purchased at the last minute in the Auckland airport, to round out a "buy two, get one free" deal (we were buying the kids souvenir t-shirts), shown here in action on our recent weekend away in Orange County:

I also did a little shopping when I visited my friend in San Francisco. We were mostly just wandering around exploring, but we wandered into a couple of shops, and I ended up with this top:

That picture neatly shows the main problem with this top- I have a hard time keeping my bra strap from peeking out. Still, I like the top.

You might notice in the above that I mostly bought tops. I decided I needed to do some directed purchasing of some bottoms. I tried out eShakti and bought a skirt, which I love all the more because it actually has pockets:

It makes a good twirling skirt, too:

On my first half day decompressing at the mall, I bought these pants at The Gap:

 I ended up liking them so much that I went back and bought two more colors:

Actually, I bought the blue ones, and then on the very first day I wore them, I got what looked like several ink stains on them at the hip. I didn't think I'd get that out, so I went online to replace them, and couldn't... and ended up with the burgundy ones. But then the ink stains faded well enough that I can continue to wear them. So now I'm pretty well set for ankle length pants. 

That picture also shows two pairs of shoes I bought recently- some red mary janes (also seen in several pictures above) and some multicolor flats that I love. They seem funky in an age-appropriate way.

On my second decompression afternoon, I picked up a new pair of black trousers (boring, but essential), another blouse and an awesome casual blazer, which is something I've been wanting for a long time:

That's the new blouse peaking out, and there are those red mary janes again. They may be my favorite shoe right now.

Here's a better view of the new blouse:

Believe it or not, I don't think I am quite done. I had let my wardrobe deteriorate quite a bit, and I had to give away a lot of my favorite tops after facing the sad fact that my chest is NOT going to go back to its pre-kids size, so those tops will never fit again. I still often find myself standing in front of my closet trying to find a top that both matches a clean pair of pants and fits. I think I have enough bottoms now, and just need to decide what sort of tops I need, and whether I should let Stitch Fix surprise me with some or try to pick out some for myself on eShakti or a similar site. Anyone know of a good place to buy shirts online? No way I'm going back to the mall.

Zenbit: The Beauty of a Flower

Once again, I find myself in need of posting something beautiful.

I tried several times to find the right words to write about the Navy Yard, Cornell Square Park, Nairobi,  and Peshawar, but I could not find them.

Location: Butchart Gardens, Vancouver Island, Canada

Date: October 3, 2004