My blog reading list has changed of late. I’m currently fascinated by craft blogs and by parenting blogs – isn’t it nice how there’s a blog (or a dozen) for every phase in your life, every interest you acquire?

My daily blog reading time has been heavily curtailed by the amount of time taken up by our new baby, but here are a couple of my current favourite reads:

  • SouleMama – this mother of three blogs about sewing, embroidery and other craft projects she does alone and with her kids, and post photos and descriptions of family moments that allow me to dream of my ideal visions of family: you know, the ones where we’re all constantly happy, beautiful and creative and I’m the perfect mother always. And have a great career too of course, but that’s sort of a bit vague in the background in these dreams. SouleMama also recently published a book, Creative Families, which I enjoyed – although it sometimes makes me frustrated that Jessica’s too young to do this stuff with (only one month old after all) and my big girl’s big enough that she’s mostly got her own projects… Ah well, it’s sort of like reading cookbooks, I suspect, more about the dreaming than about necessarily actually doing it all.
  • Karen Cheng is a Perth-based designer who also writes about life as a mother, and has a beautiful looking blog to boot. Karen is more likely to post a tutorial on how busy people take great photos rather than explaining how to embroider French knots, or she’ll post a quick recipe or explain how she organised a social event for the other mums at her son’s preschool rather than how to make binding for edging fabrics, but the fragments of joyful life with children are there, and just what I want these days.
  • Clancy “CultureCat” Ratliff is a colleague whose baby was born just a week after ours, so of course I’m following her blog these days – and she actually blogs about her baby, unlike me (Jessica is however heavily documented on Scott’s (and to some extent on my) Flickr stream, though mostly for friends and family only I’m afraid). Clearly Clancy’s life is also baby-focused rather than work-focused right now, though I think she has to go back to work much sooner than I do.

Jessica’s waking up, so I’m going to leave it at that. And generally that’s where I have to leave it while blog surfing, too…

6 thoughts on “my current blog favourites

  1. Albertine

    Er det veldig uh¯flig  kontakte deg her? Uansett, hÂper du koser deg. Kan jeg f sette deg opp i kontaktnettverket i PhD-s¯knad?

  2. Hans

    Hi Jill.
    The Vancouver hospitalís latest venture (to a cost of $55,000) is an online community site where theyíre blogging on (or up) baby. Their target audience is pregnant women and new mothers. Something for your list?
    http://yourbabyyourway.com/

  3. Kristine Lowe

    "Isn’t it nice how there’s a blog (or a dozen) for every phase in your life, every interest you acquire?" jill/txt http://tinyurl.com/5dobzt

  4. Kristine Lowe

    Not that I share Jill's new found interest, but great quote/perspective – right on the money, full url link: http://tinyurl.com/5dobzt

  5. Lilia Efimova

    Smiling reading this – the only blogs I read regularly now, in the midst of finishing my dissertation, are baby blogs (my list from a year ago – http://blog.mathemagenic.com/2007/04/17.html#a1889)…

  6. Jill Walker Rettberg

    Lilia, that’s amusing – I think I read that post of yours back then but completely forgot it. And yet neither of us are WRITING baby blogs! Unless you have a secret one. I keep thinking maybe I should but really I’m entirely happy just reading 🙂

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