16 ways to expand your brain with free online courses
Are you a potential brainiac who can read/watch/absorb via online methods? Then free online courses may just be your window to the world. Or even the way you can get a professional certificate or an actual degree. You can be the brains of the ball with these 16 sites to take free courses and/or explore free ways to learn. Learn what exactly? Think coding, technologies, languages, music theory, social sciences, arts, and tons of others. Some of these courses are even through Ivy League universities! For you, for your kids, for your book club… anyone can learn if they’ve got the drive and an internet connection. Let’s see the sites, shall we?
A letter to women struggling to get pregnant
If you’re trying to get pregnant, there is a lot going on. You may become overwhelmed with emotions. Anger and envy over those who you assume became pregnant easily. Frustration and sadness over another negative pregnancy test. Fear and anxiety that you’ll never get pregnant. It may seem like nearly every woman around you is pregnant and you may wonder when you’ll have your turn.
Here’s my letter to you…
Is polyamory a lifestyle or an orientation?
My husband recently told me that he is thinking more and more about a polyamorous lifestyle. He told me that he feels he needs to come out of the closet as poly. Aside from all of the considerations for the relationship itself (I saw you already address that well here and here), I’m more interested […]
What would be different if we were all allowed to have tantrums?
My daughter threw a 30 minute tantrum today. I say tantrum, but I look at it through more of an RIE parenting lens, so really, she had a 30-minute emotional release. When we were about 20 minutes in, I started to wonder what the world might be like if everyone were able to have such emotional releases. If there was a judgment-free, intervention-free place where adults, teens, or children could express their anger or frustration or confusion or sadness or whatever else they might be feeling and have others quietly and courageously bear witness.
Real talk lessons from the first year of marriage
Six months in, amidst the busy chaos of our lives I find myself thinking back to this summer when we were road tripping through a foreign country with nothing but sight seeing on the agenda. I long to have completely full days of her and I. But, like all good things, the honeymoon had to come to an end. I have always read the first year of marriage is the hardest. Together, you work on finding a rhythm and finding your place in their world. The first year is a balancing act and I have learned a few things so far I thought I would share…
To my (unhappily) single friends on Valentine’s Day
To my unhappily single friends on Valentine’s Day (happily single friends, you won’t need this one!): I love you. I wish I could look you in the eyes and tell you, without a doubt, that someday the void you feel today will be filled in exactly the way you want it to be. That if you just stop looking for a partner, one will find you. Bliss will be forever yours. I know we both wish the future was as predictable and happy-ending filled as a movie.
I think perhaps this May, on Mother’s Day, I will feel the same way you do today. Last Mother’s Day I was blissfully looking forward to becoming a mother; a month later I lost that pregnancy.
Make breastfeeding punk again with these bad-ass nursing shirts
When it comes to breastfeeding-friendly fashion, you’re probably feeling a wee bit limited right about now. So when I ran across these bad-ass nursing shirts from Etsy seller And Out Come The Boobs (h/t to reader Colleen!), I knew I HAD to share them. These thrifted tees are upcycled with zippers to allow access for your up-and-coming punk babies.
My home’s art has themes of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll: is that okay if I have a child?
I love the artwork in my home, and I’ve never given a second thought to the themes of sex, drugs, and rock and roll in my collection until having a child. Now that my husband and I have welcomed a little one into the world, I give more pause to the content of our collection and future art purchases.
Will the large print of Brigitte Bardot with a cigarette carelessly dangling from her mouth make my son more likely to take up smoking? Could the Mcbess drawings of scantily-clad ladies lead him to objectify women?