fussypants

Blissfully Domestic is taking new applications!

  To know me, is to know my baby, Blissfully Domestic. You've seen me disappear while staying up too late for weeks at a time working on it. You've heard me promote shamelessly. You've stuck with me when our servers crashed every hour. Good times, good times...

 Thanks to the most amazing web developer ever, Daisy Olsen, we are kickin' butt in 2009. Ready to do wonderful things and grow by leaps and bounds!

 Our vision for Blissfully Domestic is simple. A magazine written entirely by 'real' women, who bounce babies on their knees, monitor homework, work all day, and still manage to stay sane. No corporate money, no bosses; just a family of writers working together and sharing a vision. We combine our knowledge in an upbeat, helpful and entertaining way and share it with the world.

The writers are the rawk stars and Blissfully Domestic is the stage on which to shine.

We are thrilled to announce that we are launching new channels this month. We are accepting new writers for each channel. You need not be an expert, just have a passion for the topic, and a desire to help share knowledge with women everywhere. That's pretty awesome, huh?

Here are our new channels-

• Blissfully Blended- for stepfamilies and beyond
  
• Timeless Bliss- for boomers & empty nesters who are living it up
  
• Blissful Pets- all things about the kids with fur
  
• Blissfully You- all about taking care of yourself
  
• Military Bliss- We love our military families
  
• Special Needs Bliss- A topic so close to our hearts.
• Blissfully Divine- We will be featuring the best of Divine Caroline articles

Please send your email to Katie@blissfullydomestic.com to apply to join the Blissfully Domestic family. Be sure to include a link to samples of your writing, your twitter name and a brief blurb telling us how much you rawk. You need not be a professional writer, just have a desire to join our vision.

Also, be sure to follow Blissfully Domestic on Twitter. We tweet our posts through out the day so you can click over to read the articles you love.

Love you all!

xo, alli

Baby Love (May)

May 14th, 2008. My sweet baby arrived. He arrived as the youngest of five boys. Bless his heart.

 

{What? You don't have 'birthin' pearls', too?}

"Security"

"Brother Love"

"Belly Snoozin"

"Delicate"

"toes"

"Perfection"

 

Navelgazing on a New Dawn

Hindsight is always clear. I woke up this new day, this new year, with the usual thoughts of how I will do things differently. But, seriously, who am I kidding? As soon as I plan the diet, I decide chocolate is the only thing I need for breakfast. When I decide I will be come a super organized mom, we all get the flu. When I decide I will become 'better' I am quickly humbled by my own limitations. Then it hit me. The little things are tangential. I'm ok with that. I yam who I yam. This year, I'll stick to what really matters.

So what is my 2009 plan in a nutshell?

"Do the most good for the most people."

It is a simple challenge to myself. A challenge to think about my actions, my words, my business decisions and choose the greater good. This year is full of new opportunities, growth and challenges. Full of people I have yet to meet, people who I will quickly grow to love. Projects that have yet to come to fruition.

I look forward to climbing the mountains, clutching to my faith in the valleys, finding more people to love, enjoying the work of my hands and hopefully not embarrassing myself too much in the meantime.

Thank you for joining me. Let's take on 2009 together.
All my love, Alli

*your turn* Share your thoughts, ideas and goals with me and our friends in the comments. I'd love to hear them. If you have a 2009 post feel free to link it so we all can read. ;)

Even I have an enemy list. (April)

In April I knew I needed to publicly share my list of nemesi, nemesises, nemesii, enemies...

Recently an article in doshdosh taught me that my blog needs a nemesis. Enemies are supposed to help me rally my base and give us something to stand against.

Y'all know Fussy can't be left out of a new trend in blogs. Time to round up some arch enemies.

1) Hip Hop Culture-

It could be glamorized videos on BET or upper class white boys in Peoria, it makes me nauseous. At least we have the Internet to tease these fools for a lifetime.

2) The Devil.

This one is pretty self explanatory. He's been harassing me my whole life.

3) MTV.

MTV is like watching the on ramp to the Apocalypse. I had to add the rubber duckies to keep my site family friendly!

4) The Doodlebops.

You can add Yo Gabba Gabba, Teletubbies and Calliou. No explanation necessary.

5) Internet Trolls. 

These people are a special group of life's losers. Of course, if I was 40, working at Walmart and living in my parents basement maybe I would be testy also. Don't feed the trolls!

6) Irresponsible Parents and their Obnoxious Offspring.

Prime example- the pack of evil cheerleaders and thugs who attacked the poor girl in Florida. It is not only the parents, it is the culture that these kids are immersed in. You can't keep putting garbage in and not get garbage back. ~OK, I feel better now!~

7) All Things Victoria's Secret.

Those blasted commercials, soft p*rn catalogs, and fashion shows. Need I say more?

8) Whiners and Complainers.

The kids and adults who always have something negative to say. Conversations revolve around the latest downers in life and how they have been given the short end of the stick. Avoid these types like the plague.

9) Everything involved with Getting out of Bed.

All mornings are a bummer, but I'll give a special shout-out to Monday mornings. Sadly, as parents of young children we are often awakened to a nightmare of preschool proportions. ~Shudders~

10) Weight.

Couldn't our bodies just be all fit and trim all the time?

So there ya have it, Friends of Fussy. The official list of my enemies. Join me in the fight against these evil forces.

Now it is your turn! Take stand and  list your official enemies in the comments. I can't wait to hear them.

Love, Alli 

High class decorating. I haz it. (March)

I displayed my hoity-toity decorating tricks in March. I keeps it classy.

I am a big believer that it doesn't matter how a job gets done, just get it done. I have a 'special' homekeeping style. Some would call it messy or disorganized, I call it my life.

Look at my fancy-schmancy furniture and my supa-cute baby boy #4.

I tried to do a beautiful photo display like Nester. This is the best I could do. You may be wondering where the storage part of this post comes in.

Brace yourselves for the impending messiness...

The fabric is just a cover over my Target buildable storage cubes! I keep my beloved collection of thrift store/ yard sale fabric, random books, lamp shades and random junk in the cubes. All hidden away!

Because I can't sew, this is a no sew project. I take my trusty glue gun and some safety pins and simply wrap a huge piece of fabric around the cubes. I drape an extra piece of fabric over the top to cover the top neatly.

Also, I use a piece of cardboard from boxes from our last move as the 'table top'. This provides a smooth base over the metal cube pattern.

I have the little storage-unit furniture pieces all over the house! One is behind the couch as a table. It holds books and magazines. Under the fabric it holds diapers, wipes, extra baby clothes, and toys. Keeps it all handy in the family room and out of site.

With some cute matchy-matchy fabric, these are great in the kids rooms! Denim or patchwork prints for the boys or cute florals for the girls. It is adorable.

There ya go, Friends of Fussy, this is my favorite easy and inexpensive storage idea!

Love, Alli

Five Handy Ways to Spoil Your Children. (February)

I loved this post from February. ;)

1) Spend more money than you make to give your children everything their hearts desire. Tell yourself that you do this because you want to give them a happy childhood. If all their friends have it, it would be wrong not to give them the same things. Even though the more you buy for them, the more they complain of boredom.

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2) Schedule every free moment with 'enrichment'. If they get bored, make sure to fill their time with every possible activity possible. You may also want to get a second job to cover the cost. Hey, it's for the kids, right?

(albany.edu.net)

3) Give constant praise and compliments. Constantly work to reinforce your children's self-esteem. Lavish praise and compliments of all kinds. Tell your children how special, smart and wonderful they are with out any effort put forth.

(360dgrs.net)

4) Always take your children's side, no matter what. When any problem arises in your child's life be sure to always take the position that your child is a victim of other's misdeeds. 

Childhood squabbles? Tell your child how awful the other child is and call the offenders parents and let them have it!

Teacher is mean? March up to the principle and file a complaint.

Be sure to disregard any evidence that refutes your position!

Let 'em have it, Mamma!

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5) Take away all chances your children have for personal growth. Take away the opportunity your children have to overcome obstacles and for learning to tolerate frustration and delay gratification. Look at childhood as a time of pure bliss and without responsibilities. Give your child the childhood you wished you received.

The best way to remove all opportunities for growth is be a proud Helicopter Parent and hover above your children ready to take away all stress!

(dubuque.K12.ia.us)

Enjoy the fallout from these tips!

Love, Alli

PS- Hey, Beautiful People,  notice all those little hyperlinks randomly put in the text? They each link to a parenting article that I recommend. Why put them in? Because I love you, of course.