Aug. 2: Day 2 of 31DBBB—my weekend

I’m combining today’s 31 Days to Build a Better Blog exercise with my weekend summary post. You don’t mind, right?

Using ‘lists’ has always been a popular and effective technique among bloggers wanting to write content that gets spread from one person to the next. Just look at pages like the front page of Digg, TweetMeme and Delicious and you’ll see that many of the ‘hottest’ content on the web at any given time are written in this style.

So… I’m supposed to write a list post. I already write a LOT of list posts, so I’m using the exercise as an excuse to sum up my weekend in a list format. It’s sort of like what I do on Fridays. I don’t expect this list to get spread from one person to the next, so in that way I guess I’m not writing the ideal type of list for the exercise. Am I being a bad 31 Days to Build a Better Blog participant if I say I don’t care and I’ll do it the way I want?

(Because I really don’t care and I’m going to do it the way I want.)

• We were at Darlene and Wellington’s almost every one of the past five days for one reason or another. We celebrated Vic’s birthday on Thursday, enjoyed a visit with Chris and Sonya on Saturday, and said our goodbyes on Sunday. Sally and Presley were there most days too, and we had a ball catching up with them. Happy, happy family time. I loves it.
• However, I do not like the saying goodbye part of our visits. Sonya and her family will be back for Christmas, so it won’t be long until we see them again, but I still hate our goodbyes. The kids get so sad to be apart again; it’s a bummer to watch.
• We got some new annuals for the yard and planted them yesterday. When I say “we,” of course, I mean that I arranged the plants beautifully and then Victor dug holes to plant them. He be my yard boy. There are now even more lovely bright spots in our yard. Yay!
• Jack starts swimming lessons today. He whined about it all day yesterday, but I think I was able to reason with him and hopefully he won’t be a total poop about going. I’d really like him to pass two levels this summer, and his incentive is Theo’s pool party in a couple weeks and a Great Wolf Lodge trip later this month. Fingers crossed for us all, please.
• We did a little bit of school shopping today. Jack got skinny jeans, which he’s been begging for since I don’t know when. He tried on the smallest pair at Macy’s last year and they were too big, so he was quite happy to find that now he fits into the smallest pair of skinny jeans they make for boys. When Stephen said that it’s easiest to buy girls’ skinny jeans, Jack suddenly thought his rockstar cousin was a little less cool. (Don’t worry, Steve; I think he’s gotten over it.)
• The only thing Katie can talk about is her upcoming trip to Colorado to spend a week with Appie (Auntie Kathy). Kathy asked me to send her with a mostly empty suitcase so she’ll have room for lots of new stuff. I’ll make sure it has room for a new Coach bag for me; if there’s room for a few of Katie’s things I don’t mind sharing the space. Me:   Kathy: and
• (What do you want to bet one of the 31 exercises is going to be something about NEVER USE ANIMATION ON YOUR BLOG BECAUSE PEOPLE WILL HATE YOU FOR IT?)
• After many years of trying to get an easily shared electronic calendar for the family, I finally did it! I use a Google calendar two-way sync with my Outlook calendar, I’ve given access to Victor to view and modify my Google calendar, and he made a Google calendar icon on his phone. He can make changes on that calendar and I can see them in Outlook, and vice-versa. Ta-da! Whew.
• Coming up this week: swimming lessons every day, a little bit o’ work, some PTO stuff, more school shopping, a visit from Mom and Gilly, a birthday party and a wedding. Busy-ness.

Have a great one!