Believe it or not, completely unrelated to the domain outsidecat, I got this awesome mother’s day card from GitHub.
Our logo is an octocat, and of it.
I’m a momtocat
May 11th, 2012Why get married
March 20th, 2012When Jason and I decided to get married, it wasn’t because we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together. We knew that without needing paperwork. Besides making some family members happier about our sin-livin’, I wanted to get married for one reason: a KitchenAid mixer.
Once we sent out the announcements, we went to Target to make a gift registry*. After choosing some modest additions to our existing belongings, we went to see the mixer.
Here’s the plot twist: I got cold feet — about the mixer. It’s so expensive, and we didn’t *need* it. So I chickened out.
Four years of lamenting later, this came in the mail:
And here it sits, happily ever after:
* people will buy you gifts if you want them to or not, so a registry means no guessing on their part, or returning on yours.
How we say “I love you”
February 22nd, 2012With a 75% clearance box of sparkly Darth Vadar chocolate-covered caramels.
Gourmet chef
February 1st, 2012
Making dinner last night. “Crab-stuffed grouper with polenta and spinach in a spicy cream sauce” sounds way better than “two frozen things from Trader Joes”, and yet they are the same.
In an otherwise empty apartment …
January 6th, 2012“Stop meowing at my scarf!”, I shouted to the deaf cat.
Level up: talking
January 5th, 201280′s just hitting the phase where she says new words every day. It’s exhilarating. It seems to surprise all of us. “Tail! Tail!”, she says, as she excitedly hurts the cat.
Wadsgreen love
January 4th, 2012Buying a = love for Jason
Paying the extra $5 for three-day delivery = irrational love for Jason
Venn diagram: New Years travel with a toddler
January 3rd, 2012
It was easier to draw than explain.
Whoa, GitHub!
December 27th, 2011Welcome to a new fork in my life — at the beginning of December, I started full-time work as a Support octocat at GitHub.com. I still haven’t come up with an easy way to describe GitHub for those not in the techy world.
I’ll bypass what it does, and tell you about what I’m doing there. Like any big company with a well-used website, GitHub gets a lot of questions. You know when you find the Help link, or you email support@thewebsiteyou’relookingat.com? I’m one of the people who answers all those questions — from “I lost my password” to “How do I remove a repo from a watched list?”. There are questions we get that I’m unable to answer, because my technical abilities just don’t encompass much more than some weak computer programming skills. BUT, what I am awesome at is replying to people’s questions in a way that makes them feel listened to, and cared for.
One of the awesome things about the GitHub community (and there is a community — GitHub lets anyone host their open-source code for free, so there are lots of people who work together to make awesome code for the betterment of everyone) is that most everyone is a software developer, so the collective sense of humor tends to skew towards Interne Nerd. “Like what?”, you ask.
When it was , someone quickly checked out this blog, noticed the photo of 80 and I on the bike, and altered it to . If you’re not familiar with the concept of a meme, . Suffice to say, I feel cozy and at home in this awesome GitHub world.
Tank Girl doula
November 3rd, 2011I’m using Spotify to pump music into my ears as I work. Lots of music is at my fingertips, and I’ve been using free association to choose what to listen to next. I found myself realizing I NEEDED to listen to the Tank Girl soundtrack (as it is my favorite movie of all time, or maybe second to Beetlejuice).
And then I remembered the time I was in the natal ward of the hospital, having given birth the previous day. Our post-partum doula came to meet us and we were chatting. I mentioned my favorite movie was Tank Girl, and she said, “Oh, I have a song on that soundtrack.”
THAT’S RIGHT. My post-partum doula was Tanya Donelly. I was already high on mama hormones, but that was just an awesome feeling. My daughter is being ushered into the world with two awesome parents, and a member of Belly. Perfect.
That’s Tanya modeling the mobi wrap, and me looking skeptical about the whole thing.
If you think Tanya’s music is great, you should see her be a doula. She rocks.