Gimme a V! Gimme an O! Gimme an X! What's that spell? VOX!
What better way to tell the world how much you love Vox than to announce it on Facebook? That's right: Vox now has an official Facebook page! Become a fan of Vox.com on Facebook and let your friends know what you really care about: staying connected with friends and family through blog posts, photos, videos and comments.
Once you're a fan, you can also add photos and videos to the page, write on the wall, and connect with other Voxers in ways you may not have previously. Plus, it's a great opportunity to let people know about your Vox blog, or start discussion topics. To become a fan, just visit the official Vox.com Facebook page and click the "Become a Fan" button in the upper right hand corner.
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If you want people to stop giving you unsolicited advice, stop behaving as if you need it.
I said that to myself recently after feeling like I was being handed another prescription for a social affliction I don't believe I'm infected with.
I complain a lot about feeling as if people are telling me what they think I should do all the time. It was only recently that I realized why perhaps this seems to happen so frequently. Perhaps it's because I've gotten way too comfortable with my own melancholia. In fact...knowing what I know, and trusting myself as I do...I'm beginning to feel a bit like I'm walking around in a suit I might have worn 100 pounds ago. I look ridiculous, but for some reason, I think it's more comfortable than the new suit I've been revealing layer by painstaking layer for the past three years or so.
My journey over time has been the voyage back to my true self. Uncloaking my beliefs and my wishes and wants and desires and marrying them to the notion that I can indeed create the reality I wish for myself. I can accomplish and complete whatever I choose. I get to pick my story. Problem is, in a world full of know it alls, it can be very easy to slip on the banana peel of someone else's experience. Especially as we age, we are eager to impart our supposed wisdom on the choices of others. Sometimes it's a pearl of wisdom that saves you in the nick of time. Othertimes its a big floppy neon yellow hat that is three sizes too big for your head. It just doesn't fit. The point is not to get too offended. People mean well more often than not.
The way I see it, I have a choice. I can either choose to embrace what I believe and get on with getting there...or I can sit with my back to the future crying over old hurts that I refuse to let scab and fall away. I can tell myself I have no idea what the hell I'm doing and I need someone else to tell me who/what/where I am complete with blueprints and ten step programs, or I can acknowledge that I am not lost. I am not unclear. I am not broken. I can swim like mad, or flail about acting as if I'm going to drown. Perhaps if I did more of the former and a little less of the latter, I'd stop wasting time.
Enough with the shenanigans. I've got somewhere to be. How I get there may not be the way you get there. But then again, your reality ain't necessarily mine. I'm good with that. Here's hoping you are, too.
Although we typically post on Team Vox to let you know about things that are going on with Vox (to, uh, state the obvious), once in a while, we like to let you know about other cool things that are happening around the blogosphere. And we think the idea of four hilarious mommy bloggers traveling across the U.S. on their way to the BlogHer '08 conference - all the while blogging and video blogging the journey - is one trip you will not want to miss.
Four adventurous bloggers from the Silicon Valley Moms Group were selected to participate in the Summer Road Trip '08 and blog about their travels, hotel stays, media appearances, time away from their families, and life on the road. Six Apart helped them partner up with General Motors, who provided the blogging mommies with a Chevy Tahoe Hybrid SUV to help make their journey comfy, safe, and a little more green.
In case you're not familiar with them, SV Moms is a group of over 200 bloggers who showcase the ups, downs, outrages, struggles, victories, and everyday humor of motherhood. There are currently nine regional and demographically tailored sites that give mothers from D.C., New Jersey, the Deep South, Rocky Mountains, L.A., and Silicon Valley a powerful voice and sense of camaraderie across the country. Whether you're a mother, a child, or just a person who enjoys a good blog, you'll really love reading the words of these amazing women.
The moms buckled into their Chevy Tahoe Hybrid SUV on July 11th and even got an encouraging message from Katie Couric to kick things off! They are currently somewhere in the middle of America making their way to San Francisco where they'll attend an SV Moms Group Party, as well as BlogHer '08.
You do not want to miss these entertaining and irreverent bloggers -- or their spontaneous contest giveaways! -- as they blog from the road. Experience the journey at MomRoadTrip.com.
And let us know about your summer road trip - or plane/boat/bus trip - in the comments! (I like to live vicariously.)
I think this one is one of my favorites to date. Did some different stuff with the glazes, looking forward to doing some other stuff with them.
Haven't been sharing too much of my stuff online lately as I'm improving some techniques and trying to throw items with more size and personality. I've also been working on some glazing techniques. Stay tuned.
I turn my back to you, crouched low so that I am out of all sight. Even yours.
You hold my hand behind your back. The pulse from your fingertips is the only indication you feel any anxiety at all. I wonder about snatching my hand from yours. You tighten your grip just as I get dangerously close to taking the last of what you cling to.
I wonder if anyone knows I am here. I wonder how long you think I'll let you keep me.
Your prisoner of purpose.
Okay, if you aren't in the wacky RPM bloodline, then that headline will likely mean nothing to you. I will change the names to protect the innocent.
Once upon a time, when I was about 20, I used to frequently babysit the children of one of my Dad's dearest friends. "Clara" who was about 7 or so at the time of this story, and "Chris" who was about 3 or 4, if memory serves me correctly. It was a Saturday afternoon, and I was entertaining the kids by fashioning pirate hats and swords out of newspaper. My sister and I were laughing hysterically at Clara and Chris play pirate about my parents livingroom when Chris was showing signs of fatigue as a larger result of Clara's playing a pretty aggressive and sturdy pirate.
Clara tackled him as he was making his way to the safe confines of my lap and he burst into tears as she gleefully trapped him on the floor. Rather than get up to rescue him, I called to him and told him to tell Clara to get off of him. I tried to make light of it by talking to him using the "pirate voice." A voice you'll never hear me duplicate, so don't even ask. I wanted to divert him from being a victim and take some of the 'drama' out of his reaction.
He turned to Clara in a moment of comic genius, and using his pirate voice he growled, "Get off my butt, matey!!"
Still whimpering and eyes welled, he laughed a bit as my sister and I nearly passed out from laughter. Clara started to giggle, but she left him go and he finally climbed back into my lap for a rest. I'm willing to bet that's just not something you hear too many pirates utter when braving the dangerous seas. Not even Depp himself could be so demonstrative and direct. To make light of the situation and to curtail the wailfest that was about to begin, I began bouncing him on my lap and turned his battle cry into a song. A very clever song that went:
"Get off my butt, matey! OOOP OOOP."
Go ahead. Sing it like a bad seventies track. Imagine whistles blowing with the oop oop. It was fabulous. Soon Chris began singing it in his pirate voice which sounded a bit like cookie monster on acid. The ooop, ooops got the party started, and pretty soon we were all singing "get off my butt, matey. Ooop! Ooop!" like a bunch of well intentioned idiots. We had a great time. And I'm sure Chris has probably forgotten it...but I'm willing to bet you if I called Clara, who is about to enter college this fall, and started singing that to her, she'd fall to the floor laughing.
I guess you had to be there. But suffice it to say...when I start feeling ganged up on to be something, or change something, or to adjust what otherwise feels right and natural for me....I remember Chris sitting on my lap, lopsided pirate newspaper hat and broken sword belting..."Get off my butt, Matey!!" And it makes me smile. I chant it in my head when I know the only direction I need is my own.
If there's someone in your life today trying to make you into someone other than who you truly are...fashion yourself a newspaper pirate hat and tape together an impressive sword, then in your best piratey growl, you tell them to get off your butt, matey.
Ooop. Ooop.
Do you live in or around Cincinnati, Ohio? If so, you're in luck because Scott and the Queen City Voxers Group have organized a Vox user meetup!
WHERE: Ault Park Playground. 3600 Observatory Avenue, Cincinnati, Ohio 45208. "We'll look for each other at the playground marked by the red X below. If it's raining, head for the shelter to the north of the [red] X."
To RSVP (which is not essential, but is appreciated), reply to Scott's announcement or send him a private message. All Voxers, as well as their friends and family, are welcome to attend.
If you do attend the meetup, have a great time and please take lots of pictures and send them to me so I can post them in Team Vox for everyone to see!
Thank you so much to Scott for organizing this meetup. Wish I could be there!
Lately, I think I've lost my regular blog mojo to micro blogging services like twitter and plurk. Something about the immediacy of typing my rants, snarks and moments of fleeting insight just when they pop into my head appeals to me. I also love being able to catch up with the up to the minute happenings of the world around me. Micro blogging has made regular blogging seem cumbersome. But I suspect that's a feeling for me that will fade in time.
But this isn't a post about that. It's a post about something I learned WHILE microblogging. A friend on Plurk asked the people in his network what their Myers-Brigg personality type was, and to take the test here, if they chose to. At the time I could not for the life of me remember what my personality type was, so I decided to take the test again.
I'm an INFJ. And reading the profile told me everything I already knew.
I'm reclusive. Private. Complicated. Intuitive. Caring. Nurturing. And generally not open to letting too many people into the soft gooey center of me (or any other parts, either). I'm also very stubborn about what I believe, and inclined to go with that, even if it seems foreign or even absurd to people around me.
The highlights/lowlights from my obsessive reading on the type on a quiet Saturday night:
INFJs are deeply concerned about their relations with individuals as well as the state of humanity at large. They are, in fact, sometimes mistaken for extroverts because they appear so outgoing and are so genuinely interested in people -- a product of the Feeling function they most readily show to the world. On the contrary, INFJs are true introverts, who can only be emotionally intimate and fulfilled with a chosen few from among their long-term friends, family, or obvious "soul mates." - Introverted iNtuing Feeling Judging, by Marina Margaret Heiss.
Counselors are scarce, little more than one percent of the population, and can be hard to get to know, since they tend not to share their innermost thoughts or their powerful emotional reactions except with their loved ones. They are highly private people, with an unusually rich, complicated inner life. Friends or colleagues who have known them for years may find sides emerging which come as a surprise. Not that Counselors are flighty or scattered; they value their integrity a great deal, but they have mysterious, intricately woven personalities which sometimes puzzle even them. - About Four Temperaments - Keirsey.com
INFJs operate within themselves on an intuitive basis which is entirely spontaneous. They know things intuitively, without being able to pinpoint why, and without detailed knowledge of the subject at hand. They are usually right, and they usually know it. Consequently, INFJs put a tremendous amount of faith into their instincts and intuitions. INFJs have uncanny insight into people and situations. They get "feelings" about things and intuitively understand them.
Consequently,
most INFJs are protective of their inner selves, sharing only what they choose
to share when they choose to share it. They are deep, complex individuals, who
are quite private and typically difficult to understand. INFJs hold back part
of themselves, and can be secretive. - Potrait of an INFJ
What's your personality type? Does it fit you?
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