So, whatchu wanna know?

Okay! So I was sitting here thinking “Oooh I should write a blog!” and then I realized “I am not even sure what to blog about.” Which is a problem if I want to do this for at least 30 days in a row, right? So I thought, “I’ll poll the audience!”

So! Questions! When it comes to technology, what subjects do you want to learn about or explore? Do you only want details of this website and how its created and how you can do cool stuff on it? Or do you want other stuff like… tutorials on how to merge your favorite actor with your favorite actress into a 100 x 100 icon? Or do you want to learn little html tidbits to make your myspace page look cooler? Or all of the above?

Are there any other subjects that you’d be interested in hearing about from moi?

That’s about it! Gimme some feedback!!!

xo
tabby

SEX

Hey Ladies,

Being a new mommy I have been thinking about parenting and was wondering if teens talk to their parents about sex?

I remember in school we had sex-ed class with the typical demonstration of putting a condom on a banana and the teacher asking us if sex was apart of a typical conversation at the dinner table with our parents. “GROSS! Gag me with a spoon!” was my first thought. At the time I couldn’t even imagine talking with my mom and dad, especially my dad about sex! I am sure he would of sent me to an all girls convent if I even uttered the word PENIS. ahahaha! I could just imagine sitting at the dinner table, “Hey Dad could you pass the salt, oh and what is an erection?” But no seriously, where do teens turn to get the answers to their questions and learn about sex?

As a new parent, and I know I have a lot of time to figure this out, but I want my kids to be feel they can talk about sex with me. Don’t all parents say this? But how do you think we as parents can encourage our kids to be comfortable around us about sex? No matter how much we want our kids to come to us with these questions they may choose not to. So then I wondered where would they get the answers to their questions?

My first thought was the Internet, so I Googled what I thought a teen might Google, keys words, like ‘Sex Questions”, “Teen Sex” ect. OMG! NO! MY EYES! MY EYES! there are certain things that you just cant unsee, you know? All kinds of Pornographic sites come up. OK then I freaked out a little, imagining Marcus at the age of ummmm lets say ten, sitting on the computer curious, like little boys are and Googles the word “Breasts”…so I Googled the word ‘Breasts” Surprise, Surprise more Porn! I don’t want Marcus to come across these types of sites and think that this is what sex IS and this is how women want to be treated intimately! Can you imagine if this is the way boys and girls learn about sex? Well maybe it is, is it?

Ok then I thought well when I was a teen I talked to my friends, but now as an adult looking back I realize that I was getting advice from those who were just as confused as I was, hahahaha. But I least I felt safe to be open and honest with my friends, but was this my best source to learn about sex?

Ok to add another layer to this puzzle…what if…what I have learned about sex all of these years aren’t correct either? What if my views of Sex growing up aren’t accurate? How do I know? This is something I need to further investigate. I mean in school they teach you the science of sex and how to be safe, but how do we learn about intimacy, and values when it comes to sex?

What do you guys think? Any insight?

Xo
Kendra

Half Ton Man

Man, so I was watching some tv show today called the half-ton man. It’s about a man who weighed a thousand pounds. Its so interesting to watch because the doctors were talking about all of the excuses they always hear from people who come in who are that obese and there was this moment of realization for me when I heard the same excuses I’ve used in the past before that… regardless of what physical issue one may have, the bottom line is that the problem is that I ate myself overweight to begin with. I mean, I used to say ‘well my metabolism is off.’ That may or may not be true, chemically speaking, however if that were true then to maintain a healthy weight I should have adjusted my eating and exercise to compensate for it rather than blame it on the metabolism.

Anyway, watching the tvshow really kind of kicked me in the butt, so to speak. Its a reality that I could continue to choose to eat poorly at any given time. One of my mentors often says “Once slice of cake doesn’t make you fat.” The same person took it a bit further last night by saying “If you’re thinking of eating the cake, put on your tightest underwear, stand in front of the mirror, and jiggle yourself and then ask yourself if you really want the cake.” It was the funniest thing I’d heard in a long time because its not one slice of cake that I’m talking about here, its a continued decision to eat poorly over a long period of time. To deny that and make periodic exceptions is what ultimately un-does my diet and hard work.

I don’t know if any of those ramblings made sense but there ya go. My thoughts for the night!

Love you all! Hope your New Year was as wonderful and as amazing as mine!

xo
tabby

Happy New Year!

YAY! It’s finally the end of 2008 and beginning of the new year! Can you believe that we’re just one year away from a new decade into the second millennium? Me either! Man! Where did the time go?

I wanted to take a moment to reflect on this last year in GBD terms! Fun, eh?

Starting back in January, I came up to Vancouver to have a planning session with the K’s about how the alpha version of the site will work. We made oh so many plans and began to discuss design and development options, but really kept most of it in the overall way the site will work. In March, I moved up north to Vancouver to overtake work with GBD and gather necessary requirements to be able to work with GBD’s amazing graphic designer and art director, Cory Crowther. We spent all of March and April refining our previous version of the site to allow newsletters and videos to be posted and viewed. At this time we had a lot of interested people coming to the site on a regular basis, but knew that we wanted to see more visitors.

Along came May and June and the days were getting pleasant in Vancouver… just pleasant enough to enjoy the lovely commute from Burnaby, where I lived, to Vancouver, where I worked. Cory and I worked together to create version two of the site which brought to you the beautiful aesthetics featuring our girl, Holly, and the ability to make comments, sign-in, and the beginning of the community feeling that we want to create here at GbD. Marianne continued to work on our facebook and marketing research and got us some really awesome data.

July brought us our MySpace account layout, which allowed us to begin utilizing the account and our site visitors continued to grow and grow.

In August, our business cards were finally ready to be printed and dude, they look amazing. Rounded corners, sleek design (what else can we expect with Cory at the helm?) and a lot of TLC and we were equipped with information at hand!

The forum then came up for everyone to enjoy and we began opening the blog posts up to more than just ourselves.

September and October proved to be fun months for us on the inside as we worked hard behind the scenes to get a lot of important planning finalized… well that was the plan. There was a few breaks here and there as Kristin and Kendra each shopped for very special additions to their family… Dublin and Marcus.

Marcus arrived in a very special Halloween costume, which we shall refer to as his birthday suit costume (hehe, I’m funny sometimes) and the GbD Kingdom rejoiced at the arrival of the newest and most male member of the team. Kathy stepped up to the plate and began to post lots of lovely information on our blog (and aren’t we ever-grateful!!).

Over the course of the year, I lost about 45 pounds and reported in during that journey to you all, and am ever grateful for the wonderful support that everyone has been throughout the journey. Aside from my own personal journey, we now have a very large consistently growing number of subscribers to our newsletter that we send out as often as possible.

This year, we hope to be able to bring to you more exciting adventures and wonderful community building opportunities. May the year be filled with growth, friends, happiness, and new shiny things on girlsbydesign.com.

Love you all!
xo
tabby
(oh and Kristin and Kendra and Marianne…. and we’ll include Kathy too!)

SEKRIT MSG TO KRISTIN KREUK….

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LOVE!!

May your 26th year be filled with love, joy, happiness, and lots of wonderfulness and gooey goodness! And more kick-ass haircuts!

Love,
Kendra, Tabby, Marianne, Kathy, and pretty much the rest of the world!

PS. this is the entry for you all to post your birthday wishes to Kristin! YAY!

Movie Madness Mondays – Cleopatra

At a most critical time in history, a young woman uses her brains and beauty to save her country from ruins. She is Cleopatra, the rightful heir to Egypt’s throne. Though history portrays Cleopatra as a manipulative ambitious woman who schemed her way to rule Egypt, as well as the Roman Empire, Cleopatra, the 1963 movie starring Elizabeth Taylor as the historical Queen of Egypt, gives heart and soul to the misunderstood ruler who wanted what was best for her country. Cleopatra, a lush epic movie, takes place right at the point where Caesar storms into Egypt and ends at her tragic death years later by a serpent’s poisonous bite. A classic “big” movie by all means, the movie is a scrumptious feast for the eyes in colors of gold, purple, and turquoise…colors known to be worn by royalty. Detailed ornate sets, elaborate costumes, and rich dialogue gives the film the feel of a well-acted stage play. A sympathetic portrayal of the doomed Queen, Taylor played Cleopatra as a level-headed intelligent young woman, wise beyond her years, and a capable leader equal to the greatest of men. She was noble, respected among world leaders, well-loved by her people, and was a full-bodied woman who made no apologies for being a woman. In other words, she was a woman’s woman and also a man’s woman…the original bombshell, who spoke 7 languages, was schooled in science and math, and “if she was not a woman, she would be considered an intellectual.”

I always felt Cleopatra was misunderstood. She was a strong woman born into royalty at a time when women were thought of as inferior to men. Because I wanted to show the vulnerable human side to the greatest woman leader in history, I portrayed a young innocent Cleopatra at age 17 in my tween fiction book, Lucy and the Beauty Queen. The book provided a slice of life view of a girl being transformed into the ruler of a powerful country immediately following the death of her father, the pharaoh. Despite a few critics telling me I’ve got Cleopatra all wrong…she was an evil wicked ambitious woman, I’m proud of sticking to my guns in portraying Cleopatra sympathetically, despite the critics and their view of Cleopatra. Although I didn’t go into as much detail as the movie, I did show how she was like any teenage girl her age out to experience adventure and love, but bonded by royal blood to do what is best for her people. Do you think if Cleopatra wasn’t born a girl, but a boy, she would have been written into history books as a brilliant political strategist and great ruler, rather than a manipulative woman who was more known for her remarkable allure and tragic love affairs with men? Do you think it is necessary and fair to see Cleopatra in a different perspective other than our world history books? If you were suddenly challenged to run your country at a time of civil unrest and possible war, would you and could you set aside your own dreams to do what is best for your people? Is it acceptable for women to be ambitious? Your thoughts?

Kailin (aka Victoria London)

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This is a long movie at 4 hours so get a big bag of popcorn, or rather, a barrel lol!

Movie Madness Mondays- Cleopatra

Hey Ladies,

So this Mondays Movie to watch is “Cleopatra” and will be reviewed by our friend sparklesoup 🙂

xo
K

One last Mission for Parker

Some of you may know that a while back my wee little friend Parker passed away of Cancer at a very young age.  This little dude lived life with “Character” and I say “Character” because truly was a snuggle monster, a funny monster and at times and (very rarely) hahaha!…he was…well, lets just say…he was hell on wheels out to cause some trouble….just the way I liked him best! A true little MONSTER! HA!

Parker was Smallville’s #1 FAN.  So his funeral was very fitting when it was a SUPER HERO themed service where we all had to dress up like our favorite Super Hero’s. Parker sat at the front on the room, not in urn, but instead tucked away in a Play Station Box…TOTALLY his style!…like I said the kid had character.

Alex, Parkers mom did an amazing job at fulfilling every dream a kid could have in one very short lifetime.  Parker’s life was filled with the most amazing journeys and experiences thanks to the compassion of people and his mom’s hard work.

A few short months after Parker passed away I hung out with Alex and her son Broody at the Aquarium in Vancouver…during a quiet moment Alex dug into her purse and pulled out a tiny travel Advil container, and announced, “here is bit of Parker!” “WHAT!?” was my answer, “WHAT DO YOU MEAN? PARKER?  HE IS IN THE ADVIL CONTAINER!?”  “Yup” Alex said with a big smile on her face…”I have a mission for you, Parker Style.”

Ok soooo, I could handle this one or two ways…first I could get all WERID that I was holding parking in an Advil container or I could try and see thru the eyes of child and imagine what he must have been thinking, when he requested this.  So I pushed aside being uptight, took a swig of my Aquafina water, dove into my imagination and was quickly seeing the world thru the eyes of a child. FUN! I gotta hang out in this demension more often!

“OK” I said “I  will accept the mission.” “Great!” Alex said, “here’s the deal, I have been spreading Parkers ashes in ALL the places that he loved, and one of the places he loved most was SMALLVILLE. Do you think you could find a place at Smallville to sprinkle a few of Parkers ashes?”

Could I?…Would I?…Should I?” would Smallville be cool with this?  Dare I even ask? Could others step back and see thru the eyes of a child?  I wasn’t so sure…I didn’t know what to do.  I knew exactly where I wanted to do it…but wasn’t sure if I COULD do it…I mean this is a BIG deal…A BIG DEAL! I had Parker in my hand…Parker!…in an Advil container!…I couldn’t let him down…so, I put Parker in my purse and told Alex I would find a way!

The next few weeks I carried Parker around in my purse with me…I kinda liked him in there…but was a wee bit worried that someone might dig thru my purse looking for an Advil only to find Parker AHHHHHHHHH!  NOT FUNNY!  I mean, listen, I don’t think everyone would be that cool about this, some might be down right offended! But, I was ok with this…this was between me and Parker now.

Soooo late one night on the set of Smallville, Parker (in the Advil container in my back pocket) and I were cruising the sets.  I knew exactly where he would want to be, a place where all the action, drama, tears, and memories happened on Smallville. I wanted to full fill his wish, as crazy as some might think it is, Smallville has touched they lives of so many people, and here I was a messenger for a little dude who wanted to make a permanent tribute to the Smallville cast and crew…I realized in that moment it wasn’t up to me to judge this wish or decision, nor was it up to others to claim if this was a good or bad thing to do.  So I quietly did what I had come to do and sprinkled Parkers ashes in a very special place where he will be high up like an angle looking down on the cast and crew.

Marcus!

Here is the very first image of Kendra and Terry’s babe… He is awesome… I am in awe.

I visited today, and everyone is healthy, happy and tired. Kendra will write you all as she gets settled.

Love,

Kristin (and Kendra and Marcus)

Movie Madness Mondays – The Others

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Sooo…to stick in line with Halloween, I thought a great scary movie to watch over the weekend and review would be THE OTHERS! Check out the trailer gals….FREAKY!…maybe a good scary movie will scare me enough to get Extra Little (Big) to come on out of the womb. Tee hee!

xo
Kendra