Author Archives: Stephanie

Halloween Treats

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Just saw an article on Yahoo about the 10 most disappointing Halloween treats. And some stuff I personally love is mentioned. You can read the article here.

Candy corn? A disappointment? Really? I know it’s not everyone’s favorite, but I’m a fool for candy corn. My brother used to trade me all his candy corn for candy bars I didn’t like, like Butterfingers. I always thought I got the better deal because there was way more candy corn for him to give me than Butterfingers for me to give him.

Smarties? Who doesn’t like a roll of smarties? I know they go kinda fast, but they are just sugary fun.

Laffy Taffy? Now I am not a big laffy taffy fan personally, but my tween can’t get enough of this stuff.

The other stuff on Ed’s list I agree with: Necco wafers, raisins, apples, toothbrushes, pennies. Confession: my parents used to give out pennies for Halloween. One for each year of the kid who trick or treated. I spent several years after I was done trick or treating, helping them count pennies into trick or treat bags until I was able to convince them to just give out candy. I think we switched to fun size snickers.

And I do think they’re fun size, Ed. I really do.
Aside from Candy Corn and Fun Size candy bars (except Baby Ruth. Yuck) I’m guilty of sneaking Nerds, Skittles and Twizzlers from my tween’s haul. You can see last year’s booty above. What are YOUR favorite Halloween treats? Tell me in the comments.

Stuff I learned or figured out from ConvergeSouth

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I had a great time at ConvergeSouth on Friday. Hosted again by NC A&T State University (Aggie Pride!!), the conference was a full day of ideas and accessible thought leadership, tip sharing and affirmation.

I’m sure it’s being blogged about more articulately than I am doing here, but it was really interesting to meet Robert Scoble (who is sure to add my business card to his 8 or 9,000 collection of them, even though they are just cold artifacts and old technology that does not add to the dialogue) and learn so much more about broadcasting. Because, you see, that’s what I am.

I’m a broadcaster without a studio, without audio, without video. And it sort of drives me crazy. After 20 years of “casting”, I stopped when I left TV. I think that’s why I’ve been dashing so hard towards web, new media, social networking and these tools. That’s why I say you can take the girl out of the newsroom but not the newsroom out of the girl. That’s why I’ve been telling people for three years (since BlogNashville 2005) that blogging is like our Founding Fathers — it’s like Benjamin Franklin getting his own printing press and spreading his message. (And didn’t I just feel so vindicated when Chris Rabb said blogging was like what Thomas Payne did with his pamphlets?)

What makes it so tough for me is that most nights, not five feet away from where I type is a Sony DSR-500. And I can’t pick it up or use it. My husband’s still in TV and shooting video. He’s editing stories and posting them to the web. And I couldn’t.

But, actually, I can. I own a cheapie digital point and shoot camera. A Kodak Easy Share. With a big enough memory card, I can shoot some stuff and edit it together. It’ll be kinda rough. No lavalier mikes = crappy audio. Oh well. No light kits, no mixing audio channels, I don’t think. But that’s okay. And now I’ve learned all the places I can post it on the web.

I sort of thought I was too late for the party. So many people are doing so many interesting things with these tools.

But Anil Dash spent a good part of his time at ConvergeSouth letting us know that it’s never too late to join the conversation, and that you have to communicate in the way you love to communicate. Some of it could be broadcasting, some could be social media, some could be blogging and it is going to converge so that going from platform to platform will be more effortless.

So I met some new people, regrouped with others I’d met before, found some new people to follow on Twitter and have had some more follow me. (Confession: I totally love Twitter!)

There is just one thing left to figure out. When the heck am I gonna sleep?

Banners, we got banners!

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Okay, it’s really nothing to brag about. But I made the banner at the top. I wouldn’t call it pretty. I’m certainly no designer. But I’m just so happy to have made something that fit up there, that wasn’t too small or way too wide.

I’d like to give a shout out to The Pioneer Woman, who decided to share how she makes her banners. She posted instructions here, which took me through the patterns and basic backgrounds. Then I just started fooling around.

And while I’m thanking people, how about Cathy Zielske who not only inspires my scrapbooking but also linked me to The Pioneer Woman? Please visit them both.

So much to think about at Converge South

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Scoble: great info about ways to broadcast video on the Internet. Sites to check out: stickam, ustream, kyte, mogulus. Need to ask Santa for a flip camcorder.

Anil Dash: Social media’s future. It’s converging. Don’t rush to try to join every network, worry about aggregators, etc. The information you need will generally come to you through your network.

My Cousin the Saint Book Giveaway

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And while I’m telling you about contests to enter, you should head over to Bleeding Espresso and My Bella Vita. Not only are these blogs written by fabulous women who are now living in Italy, but they are also giving away autographed copies of Justin Catanoso’s My Cousin the Saint: A Search for Faith, Family and Miracles.

Full disclosure: I am helping Justin get the word out about his book, published recently by Harper Collins/Morrow. It is a wonderful story – part travelogue, part memoir, part quest for faith. I encourage you to read it!

Polite Punk

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So you know my oldest goes to parochial school. We’ve discussed the plaid. It’s coming up on Halloween and it’s time to figure out the costumes. Which is getting kinda tough because although she’s just made double digits, she’s tall for her age and doesn’t fit into kid sizes. Heck — she’s about 1 size away from fitting in my shoes.

And you know what comes after girl costumes don’t you?

Teen slut costumes.

Sure, the name of the costume is Little Red Riding Hood, but it’s the Little Red Riding Hood equivalent of a French Maid costume. Since when did Strawberry Shortcake become sexy?
And Alice in Wonderland is downright disturbing.


Luckily, the Tween picked being a punk rocker. Ordinarily, you wouldn’t think that was such a relief, but it’s better than any midriff-baring, stocking/garter skimpy thing that you can pick up at one of the Halloween stores that pop up in empty spaces in shopping centers this time of year.

So, we found the cutest punk rock shirt at T.J.Maxx. She already had jeans that feature a huge hole in the knee. A rummage through some costumes a friend gave us yielded fishnet and stripey hand warmer/glove things. I have a belt from the 80’s. She has a headset/microphone from a friend’s birthday party makeover session. We’ve got a punk in progress.

Things we need to complete the look:
1. Pink hair dye spray
2. Dog collar choker
3. Black nail polish
4. Willpower for her not to bite her nails for the next 3 weeks
5. Black jewelry

We did find some cute punky high tops tonight at Payless. High top converse-style, with some graffitti near the heel and black and gray laces. The Tween thinks she’s so stylin! I’m calling her look “Polite Punk” since she’ll get to wear her costume at school.

Feeling All Red, White and Blue. And Sometimes Pink.

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So we’ve been enjoying the Olympics at my house. We cheered on Michael Phelps and the U.S. swim team who destroyed so many records. I stayed up WAAAY too late to watch gymnastics, both men’s and women’s team competitions. And then the all-around. I know it was an individual competition, but I still wish Nastia Luikin had worn a red/white/blue leotard instead of a pink one. But I cheered for her anyway — she makes the sport look graceful in addition to strong and plucky.

But the judging seems all wacky. Disclaimer: aside from cartwheels, backbends, and the occasional handspring (front only, I was never able to do a back handspring) I know nothing personally about gymnastics. I’m the armchair gymnast (like an armchair quarterback, you know) who relies on the commentators for information. But I have been watching gymnastics since about 1973. It’s like art. I know what I like. I know when there are mistakes even before the commentators say, “Ooooo, slight bobble there. That’s a one-tenth deduction.”

So when a Chinese gymnast went down On. Her. Knees. during NBC’s not quite live gymnastics coverage of the individual vault competition, you’d think she would score less than a U.S. gymnast who had done a perfect vault with a very similar start value. (Start value. See, I could be a color commentator!)

Yeah. No. She actually scored better than the U.S. gymnast (Alicia Sacramone in this case.) who got bumped down to 4th. No medal.

In all fairness, it wasn’t that gymnast who bumped her to fourth. It was 33-year-old Oksana Chusovitina who bumped her to third. Then a Romanian gymnast bumped Oksana to silver.

While I feel bad for Alicia, I’m totally psyched for all the thirty and forty-somethings who are medaling. Can you believe a 33 year old woman just medaled in gymnastics? This is a sport where 19 year old women are considered almost too old, and there are many rumors about the underage Chinese gymnastics team. If they are true, Oksana is almost two decades older than some of her competition. And Oksana’s story — a Ukranian competing for Germany — just melts my Mommy heart.

My husband isn’t as interested in gymnastics as I am. He feels the same way about ice skating because both sports are judged, which is really subjective. Kind of like trying to get hired or evaluated in TV news … but I digress. He’s been totally into the swimming.

He’s even been DVR-ing some of Phelp’s races so he can see just how close the finishes are. I missed the one he won by one one-hundreth of a second, and he played it back for me. And again.

The PR pro in me just ate up all of Michael Phelp’s interviews. Both him and his mom. I know they have been in the spotlight for a while, and they are used to all the media attention. But boy, they handle it like pros. If they got media training — it was really GOOD media training. But I think, deep down, that they have the right personalities for these interviews. That kind of sincerity is really hard to fake. And during the Olympics, fake isn’t fun.

Pink-ifying

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I’m on the prowl for presents for Babycakes who is turning 1 next week. She’s at that age where the wrapping paper and the box would keep her just as enthralled — maybe even more — than the actual present. The first birthday is for the parents, really. And for the adorable picture of cake frosting smeared on baby’s face.

I’m looking for presents that don’t say they’re going to teach my daughter her ABCs, colors, shapes, sounds, numbers with lots of flashing lights, computer chips and electronics. She’s 1 for crying out loud. She needs entertaining stuff like wooden blocks, mega blocks, and I even considered the Fisher Price Rock a Stack.

True, it says its for 6 month olds, but I remember kids playing with it at older ages. It’s rainbow-hued stacking rings were perfect for chewing, floating in a bathtub or banging on the floor. But that’s when I found this classic toy had been pink-ified.

I enjoy shopping the adorable pink aisles of Babies R Us or Target, don’t get me wrong. I don’t hate pink. We’ve got all kinds of pink stuff at my house. But I couldn’t believe this classic toy needed a gender-specific makeover. And I didn’t see a blue one anywhere around. There were two. Rainbow, and this. And then I saw the pink school bus.Was the yellow school bus clashing with the decor of little girls all over our country? Is that why there would be a need for a pink school bus toy, exactly like the yellow one? Was there a blue school bus? No? I guess the yellow, multicolored school bus is masculine.

Next door was the pink Little People plane.

Perfect for those girls’ getaways … to a spa or a bachelorette party, right? The Sex and the City girls probably flew to Mexico in one of these after the big wedding scene. I’m going to New York this weekend and if my jet isn’t pink, well, it just won’t seem right. Again, no blue plane. Just the regular multicolored one. What was next? The pink Little People Barn? The pink Little People Tractor? The pink Little People Fire Truck?

As I came to the end of the aisle, one more surprise awaited.

The pink corn popper. While this little toy is the bane of some parents for the delight toddlers get in constantly wheeling it around the house to the incessant pop-pop-pop-pop-POP-pop, I secretly love the popper. Which is why I bought one for 25 cents at a yard sale this summer and have already given it to Babycakes. A regular, multicolored popper with red, yellow, blue and green balls and a blue handle.

Sigh. It will clash horribly with her pink bedroom. I hope she still knows she’s a girl.When she’s old enough to realize there’s a difference.

Way less than 8 and gr8tful!

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So I have been watching a lot of Jon and Kate + 8 on TLC recently. Have you seen this show? It’s my guilty pleasure. Jon and Kate had twin daughters and thought they’d try for one more. They had fertility issues so they got pregnant with assistance both times. Turned out the last time, Kate was pregnant with sextuplets! Eight kids. When I started watching it, the sextuplets were under 3 years old. Now they are either 4 or about to turn four.

Anyway, Kate keeps them on a schedule, which is no mean feat. I mean we’re talking eight children under the age of 7 plus at least one photographer, sound operator and a producer! On some shows, I know they’ve got to have more crews. Sometimes she comes off a little harried, but I utterly sympathize. On my worst day with two kids, I’ve got a walk in the park comparatively speaking.

I bought Lexie shoes on sale at Stride Rite a month or so ago. $29 bucks. On sale. Now multiply that by six. Buy some more shoes for the older girls. Double it. Not to mention the toys, the clothes, the laundry, the dinners, the potty training, the books, the diapers, the pull ups, you name it.

How does this show make me feel? Grateful. So very, very grateful.