Prissy Melissa, weight loss instablogger, has a message so important it had to be filmed while driving. And what was this message? Everything in moderation, and also she eats all the snack packs.

i’m just joking in this video, but seriously though…. everyone’s body is different. i can’t tell you how many times a day i have people tell me that i need to eat in moderation and not cut out any one type of food…if i were to eat 100 calorie snack packs not only what i eat every snack pack in the box but would proceed to finish all the snacks in the cabinet…

Is this really a rant that could not have waited until she was at home? Or really anywhere besides behind the wheel of a moving vehicle? WHY DO BLOGGERS KEEP DOING THIS?

Lacey Spears, the mommy blogger accused of poisoning her 5 year old son with salt, has been convicted and sentenced to 20 years to life. Westchester County assistant district attorney Doreen Lloyd says Spears administered the final doses of salt into her son’s feeding tube while he was in hospital, and according to WFAA.com he suffered hours of “explosive bouts of diarrhea” when his body “tried to expel the poison”.

The BBC reports that Spears “administered salt into her son Garnett’s feeding tube from infancy while writing a blog about his illness”. Supreme Court Justice Robert Neary said Spears suffers from Munchausen by proxy syndrome and sentenced her to 20 years to life rather than the max 25 years, reducing the sentence due to her mental illness.

Hey Natalie Jean, totally almost Jewish, bids you Gut Shabbos with a timely and hilarious Anne Frank post to her instagram. Live from her hashtagged European tour we present a totally ok joke to make on a Saturday of all days.

You have to hand it to her – she really knows how to close out Pesach, am I right?

Pippit, the ‘social media app’ developed by Mr. Love Taza, his wife, and Oh Joy!, has quietly died. An email sent out to users announced they have ‘discontinued support for the app’.

When we first came together in 2012 to brainstorm ways to bridge the worlds of blogging and social media, we laid the foundation of a new app, Pippit.

Our vision for Pippit has always been to create a beautiful social media platform that highlighted strong blog content with tools for discovering and sharing helpful information as a new framework for social commerce.  We shared the prototype of that vision last summer. With your wonderful support, Pippit was ranked as the #1 paid lifestyle app and #2 App of all paid apps.

Because of our other work, family life and commitments, we have not been able to maintain Pippit and its community at the level that we envisioned. While we have seen great success with the app in many areas, the tech world is new territory for our team and we want to be able to dedicate the appropriate time, energy, and resources needed to carry Pippit to the next level, which we cannot do at this time.

We have discontinued support for the app, but we thank you for your time, energy, suggestions, feedback, and the wonderful support that has come in many forms as we poured ourselves into this new endeavor!

We look forward to seeing you again soon in the online world.

With much gratitude,

Josh Davis, Naomi Davis, and Joy Cho

Co-founders, Pippit

Today in blogger health news, Jordan Reid, still not famous, had a horrible moment recently.

…a few weeks ago I was just hanging around the house with Kendrick and the kids and suddenly I got this searing pain in my chest, and I swear to god I started thinking that I was having a heart attack, it hurt so badly. I was sort of pacing around the house rubbing my chest and telling Kendrick that I thought we were going to have to go to the hospital..

Described as “a can’t-move-can’t-stand-someone-call-me-a-taxi-because-I’m-done pain”, she “all of a sudden…remembered” it felt the same as an ulcer she’d had previously. Thanks to Dr. Google she diagnosed herself with heartburn. Evidently it keeps happening “‘like once a week” and it “shuts me down for a good hour or two”.

Her solution?

I don’t think I can drink coffee anymore….This is so. upsetting…Coffee is everything…I have to stop drinking coffee, I think.

Jordan blames it on “trying to pack and find a house and deal with the logistics of a major family move essentially alone”. So apparently now she is going to drink hot water and lemon rather than coffee. Instead of going to the doctor to see what the issue is, I guess, because as she says, “you know, doctor’s visits to prep for the procedure, the procedure itself, the follow-up…what to do with the kids…ugh”.

Jessica Quirk, wears stuff, wants people to know she wears the same things over and over because she is super real. Saying “Yea, I wore the dress last week and I like it, so I’m wearing it again!” she then proceeded to rant about how blogland kind of sucks nowdays.

I’ve been a little disenchanted with the blogging world lately with all of it’s perfection. The outfits have become astronimically expensive and disposable. I don’t have the budget or desire to wear things once. Sure, I have a dozen designer pieces I’ve invested in, but I’ll wear the same $25 dress on repeat too.

That’s right – Messica owns tons of designer stuff, ok? All those other bloggers wear free designer stuff like Messica used to, but not Ms. Quirk. She no longer has the money for care/of Oscar de la Renta. She’s keeping it real now because she’s starring in her “own little real reality show”. Too bad nobody’s tuning in anymore.

Love Taza, as a family, is apparently selling off her clothes. She says she is in “crazy spring cleaning mode and wanted to sell a few favorites here before donating the rest”. For just $15 in shipping the highest bidder can own some used Anthro/Forever 21/J Crew/Zara clothing.

The fire sale comes on the heels of the announcement that Pippit went to the big app farm in the sky. If nothing else, it’s amusing to see how much fangirls will pay for used clothes just because they touched the skin of Almighty Naomi.

TGIF Hams! It’s time for another liveblogged book. This time we are reading ‘Oh Joy! 60 Ways To Create & Give Joy’ by Joy Cho. I’ll be honest – I’ve been trying to read this thing for a week. I’ll get one or two pages along and just think ‘wut? who is this written for?’ but in my defense I’m neither crafty nor particularly into Pinterest type crap. So let’s get started! As always, I will update as I go…

I will say I like the cover a lot.

Check out my totally on purpose styling.

I’m pretty partial to bright colors, so based on the cover this is something that would make me pause if I saw it on a shelf. Unfortunately, that’s where my enjoyment ends. The book begins with a chapter about ‘Pattern‘. It’s 4 pages of black and white patterns with bright colored accessories, and two of the facing pages feature the exact same advice.

ECHO ECHO

Huh? I guess that was an editorial oversight issue, but it’s kind of glaring so I’m not sure how it was missed. Joy informs us she used to work for Cynthia Rowley and thus loves pattern play. She basically says if you want to mix patterns you should have a common color in both and use a simple pattern with a more complex pattern so there’s no ‘optical illusion’ problems. So, pretty exciting stuff right out of the gate.

The next chapter is ‘Whimsy‘ which is also 4 pages. Joy tells us art prints and accesories can be super wacky because that’ll make everyone smile – her examples are a huge print of a giraffe face and a couple of animal shaped vases. You can also add flowers to weird places in a room, and brooches on sweatshirts add ‘wearable whimsy’.

Then she moves into ‘Creating A Color Palette‘, which is one page telling you to pay attention to what colors you like and then use them as your inspiration. Then there’s a couple of pages for a project about ‘Dotty Wall Art‘ – this project is basically thumbtacks in a circle on your wall around which you string colorful yarn.

Whimsical cat hair and lint catchers!

After that there is a project for ‘Edible Confetti‘ – you are instructed to attack fruit and vegetables and herbs with a hole punch and add this to ice cubes or cream cheese. I am so confused as to who has time to do something like wrestle a hole punch around in that manner, but ok.

In ‘Floral Friends‘ we get two pages of flowers in people and animal shaped vases. Basically seems like an instagram dump to be honest. There’s a couple of pages about printing out twee stickers with cute messages…to stick on fruit. Yes, you are supposed to print out stickers with ‘I chews you’ and ‘So Good’ on them, and then decorate…your fruit.

Then we have ‘Thow A Pillow Party!‘ which is pretty much just about inviting your (presumably busy adult) friends over to sit on your floor with a bunch of pillows and eat cupcakes and mini-marshmallows because ‘slumber parties were so great when you were a kid’.  She then tells us to ‘Surprise Someone‘ by ‘adding flowers to an otherwise gritty corner’ (accompanied by a picture of a decorated chicken wire fence…) or leave some balloons on someone’s doorstep. I assume these are activities to do after all your pillow party friends are hopped up on sugar, because I for one have no desire to stand around decorating some abandoned lot with paper lanterns. But I’m a fun killer so maybe it’s just me.

The first person who does this to my fence will get a different kind of surprise on their porch.

She seems to have a fetish for sticking things on walls, because next up we have a project about making plaster letters to tack into your wall for a 3-D message. After that we have 4 pages of using contact paper to stick plastic flowers up on your wall as some kind of nightmare garden wallpaper. At this point I’m going to make this week’s drink and I’ll be right back to finish the second half of this increasingly bizarre book of projects.

This week’s book club drink – Prosecco and Monin Rose Syrup

So next up, we have a full page and a half photo of Joy’s daughter and her dog with a paragraph about how her daughter reminds her to ‘be silly’. Because obviously no blogger book is complete without at least one picture of their kid, I guess. I really can’t figure out any other reason for this mid-book shoutout.

Skipping to ‘Flora On The Go‘, which is a project about painting a travel toothbrush holder and affixing velcro and duct tape so you can…carry around a flower on your bike handlebars. Or on your lawn chair. Or anywhere, I suppose. They sell things at the 99 cent store for this express purpose so I don’t know why you would go through all this trouble unless you just really want to make a point about how crafty you are.

Then we have a whole 4 pages about…contact paper. I guess contact paper is the new washi tape?

Please don’t.

Joy says she could ‘make a book of just things to do with contact paper’, presumably because she hates me and wants to make me suffer through that review. Anywtfs, there’s a picture of a desk covered in diagonal gold foil contact paper stripes, and a poor step trash can who never asked for any of this covered in gold and hot pink contact paper stripes. Then a lovely wood dining table covered in more gold foil contact stripes, and a lovely mid-century desk chair with gold foil contact paper striped legs. Why not.

Joy says we should ‘Visit Fun And Inspiring Places‘ because it’s ‘bound to give you a new perspective’ even though it’s easy to sit in front of the computer all the time. I totally agree! I try to go get inspired at the wine store at least twice a week! Then a project about ‘Party Puffs‘ which is just telling you how to spend 3 hours making those honeycomb paper balls available pretty much anywhere for about a dollar. Which sounds like a good use of time for busy adults.

In ‘Tasty Toppings‘ we get a list of mini-marshmallows, popcorn, chopped cookies, etc to keep ‘on hand’ for cupcakes and yogurt. I guess for all those pillow parties you’ll be throwing. If that’s not enough encouragement to overthink your sugar delivery systems, she then gives us ideas for things to stick on wood skewers for party food – more fruit and candy.

We get a one paragraph page of ‘Grouping Things In Clusters‘, saying ‘multiples of one simple thing’ grouped together ‘feels more lush’ than just one thing. Probably because it makes it clear you have money to lushly spend on more than one thing, but yeah, this idea is as old as HGTV so whatever. Then we are on to the next project – painting scooped out melons ombre in order to use them as flower vases.

But why is the rum gone and replaced with styrofoam?

I come from a world where hollowed out fruit is filled with alcoholic punch, so forgive me if I’m completely lost as to why anyone would ruin a perfectly good inebriation vessel this way.

Now it’s time to drink some more as we learn how to make a ‘Farmer’s Market Bag‘. This involves taking heavy gauge wire and stringing rope around it.

Everything about this screams ‘Alice in the ER’

Then we have a page of ‘My Favorite Flowers‘ which is…a list of Joy’s favorite flowers. Basically dahlias, which I can’t ever use because I just think about that poor woman’s fate, and mint and freesia. Which is fine. But it’s not really expanded on in a way that helps the reader discover their own favorite flowers. So it’s pretty much just a list for no reason. Hey publishers: I like carnations, where’s my lifestyle book?

(Making another drink and reading more, brb)

‘Inspiration Vacation‘ is pretty much Joy sub-bragging about going on vacation for inspiration. Which is fine. I’m not bitter that a vacation for me would be being able to shower without a cat staring at me or anything. But hey, good for her getting to hit tropical islands for the purpose of getting ‘ideas’.

And that’s it. The remaining 68 pages are just templates for letters, a ‘Resources’ section with lists of crafting and home project stores, and some recipes she mentioned in the book (cupcakes, cake, etc).

Thoughts: This is very clearly a book created for a niche of people who enjoy (in my opinion, pointless) projects for projects sake. Most of the ideas in this book are for things you could buy for much cheaper than you could make them, and the design/decor ideas are pretty much rehashed advice I’ve seen and heard everywhere for the past 10 years. The pictures are nice and high quality, which is nice; but it basically feels, as I said above, like an instagram dump. And I say that as someone who follows the Martha Stewart and Domino instagrams. Worth a buy if you just want to support Joy, but there’s really nothing useful to the average busy adult beyond ‘ideas’ or ‘inspiration’ for folks who don’t follow Pinterest.

In the spirit of fairness, you can purchase Oh Joy! on Amazon if you like. Not an affiliate link, btw. And now, time to drink!

Intern Loliverdog says ‘Til next time!’

Cary Randolph, husband hunter, seems to have finally nailed down a man. Just six months after moving back to Missouri her boyfriend apparently finally stepped up and proposed – and she’s already starting a wedding diet.

Her man finally popped the question 3 weeks ago, but without further confirmation I thought maybe it was a joke. Especially since a mere month ago, following speculation of a breakup, she was spewing rapture about life in St. Louis.

STL is pretty amazing. I love it here. My apartment sits right across the street from Forest Park, and on weekend mornings, I go for a jog and then pop around the corner for coffee. Saint Louisans take their coffee so seriously! I see my family at least once a month, thank God, and have a fantastic group of friends to see every other day and night. And when you factor price and convenience into your lifestyle plan, there’s so much more to do here than in New York.

With her fiance based in NYC I assume she will be moving back for what will be the fourth or fifth time now. But hey, congrats! All that hard work finally paid off!

Cupcakes and Cashmere, provider of elevated lifehacks, has shared her secret for those times “when someone’s service dies or they accidentally hang up and you spend the next ten minutes frantically dialing each other at the same time and can’t get through”. She and her best friend have a system that will forever alter the way you deal with dropped calls.

…simple things like phone conversations carry more weight, which led us to develop a bit of a strategy for those annoying times when calls drop…Our solution is simple: whomever initially dialed the other person is in charge of calling back. That’s it!

You guys. YOU GUYS. I don’t about you but I literally never thought of having a system for those times someone goes “sccrrr static sound driving into a tunnel *click*”. Usually I just text and say “call back if you want” or one of us, ya know, picks up call waiting if we are trying to dial them while they dial us. Now I can inform the other party of my phone pre-nup before the conversation even starts! In a world full of questions and confusion I say brava to Emily for continuing to post amazing content that the internet sorely needs.

I do lol things on the GOMI Hamgram. Come join us!

Smugnom archives are finally back online. Sorry for the delay, I had stuff going on. If you want to complain or speculate about the delay there is a thread here. I’ve just migrated and updated the Smugnom backend and Conch should have rights again this week sometime, and then I’ll figure out why the comments are corrupted. I really appreciate the patience and apologize again for the delay.

The upcoming Book Club books are Brit Morin’s ‘Homemakers’, Cuppy’s ‘Cupcakes and Cashmere At Home’, and that Brittany Gibbons‘ book ‘Fat Girl Walking’. There will be weeks I don’t do a book club liveblog because I have to wait for stuff to be released, or that dumb actual job work stuff gets in the way (dear boss: love my job, thank you for employing me, my job isn’t dumb!) I’ve been alerted to a few other blogger books coming out and I’m adding them as well, so do please keep me updated! And yes, e-books qualify!

Some of you have informed me your comments are going to spam, and I’m keeping an eye on it. There’s been a ton of spam around here lately so my lockdown measures may be a bit too tight. I promise I’m checking the spam and approving legit comments. Though if you want to know whether phone ever got in touch with phone, or need to speak to some woo doctor about getting your husband back, I’m happy to approve those as well.

I’ve been working on GOMI’s back end for the past couple of weeks which apparently has caused some locking (site not updating) for some folks. Thank you to everyone who let me know, I’ll sort that out. GOMI was ass yesterday because apparently like 9000 bloggers posted/linked to GOMI as an example of OMG BULLYING, and I tried to deal with it but I was sort of working at that job thing (dear bloggers: I’ll explain what a job is later ok kiss kiss). I was up until 2am last night reconfigging crap so hopefully it ran faster today. (Not saying I was up for headpats, trying to express my dediction, I’m happy to do it.) But I’m still tweaking, so keep the info coming in about your user experience. It helps me a lot.

Sooooo…what else. Oh, a big thank you to all the hams who asked about Pancakescat’s UTI recovery. He is doing great, all clear, and using the litterboxes with the new litter with no um…outside the box issues for two weeks now. And for folks asking why I don’t approve everyone for my @partypants twitter account, honestly, I don’t know. I feel like I want that space semi-locked for now. It is nothing personal against you hams at all, and I assure you nothing interesting is going down there anyway because I mostly just use the @gomiblog twitter/instagram. Please don’t be hurt if I refuse right now.

And now, open post because I have work tomorrow so there probably won’t be another post until the liveblog book review Friday afternoon after work, so knock yourselves out.

Belle Gibson, cancer liar, has admitted to Australian Women’s Weekly that she lied about having cancer.

The interview is titled “My Life-long struggle with the truth” and comes complete with a softly filterered photo of Belle doing her best sexy apology face. When asked if she ever had cancer, she replied “No … None of it’s true.”

Belle then went on to complain about how mean everyone is being to her just because she lied about having cancer.

In the last two years I have worked every single day living and raising up an online community of people who supported each other … I understand the confusion and the suspicion, but I also know that people need to draw a line in the sand where they still treat someone with some level of respect or humility — and I have not been receiving that.

Belle is blaming it all on a troubled childhood, saying “I didn’t have any toys.”

It’s Friday, hams, and you know what that means – it’s time to read another life changing book by a blogger. This week’s offering is “Homemakers: A Domestic Handbook For The Digital Generation” by Brit Morin.

For those of you who need a bit of backstory, Brit started a blog called ‘Hello Brit’ about 4 years ago. Freshly engaged to Dave Morin, the photogenic Brit had all the time and money in the world to start a lifestyle brand. She quickly rebranded to ‘Brit & Co’, and is now apparently ‘BRIT + CO‘. She spent a long time calling herself ‘the Martha Stewart of Silicon Valley’ until it stuck, because it’s important to have a schtick.

So last month her book was published and I am here to liveblog a review. From the woman who suggested you use cut up used yoga mats to recork your wine, here is “Homemakers”.

Loliver’s raccoon toy is already rolling its eyes.

Brit starts off with her life story, which is about as thrilling as the life story of a pretty white middle class girl can be, I guess. She played with crayons and markers, played Oregon trail, then she got a job at Apple, then Google, and then “something changed”.

I left my job at Google to start a tech company of my own, but first I decided to give myself a break. Those six months may have been the most transformative of my life.

She conveniently leaves out that this break happened around the time she locked down a man with a net worth of $100 million, as if everyone can just quit a great job and faff about waiting for their bliss to come to them. Then she starts talking about how the digital generation basically doesn’t know how to do anything – we don’t know how to use our ovens or put up wallpaper or fold sheets or keep our inboxes clean. To remedy this, she starts right off with these gripping tutorials in her first section, called “Kitchen“.

I’M LEARNDING!

Several pages on how to cook eggs. Thank goodness, because I have no idea how google works. She then moves on to tell us that most people “never learn how to properly…frost a cupcake” followed by pages of how to frost cupcakes and how to frost an ombre cake. After that it basically turns into a recipe book, because people in the digital age don’t know about Allrecipes.com I guess.

Section 2 is “Dining Room“. Here we learn “Five Ways To Fold A Napkin”, “Three Ways To Set The Table”, and how to “Decorate With Tea Towels”. In keeping with her digital thing she recommends some photo apps because “No party is complete without capturing a few photos”. Then some DIY crap about painting your own table runner with fabric paint.  Then there’s this.

TWEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

In part 3, ‘Living Room“, a wealthy woman will proceed to tell you “How To Decorate WIthout Spending Money”. Her advice includes rearrange your furniture, paint your walls, and use accessories. Correct me if I’m wrong, but at least two of those options require spending money. Then we have this.

Contact paper attack!

What is it with people and contact paper? And why would you stick it all over an Ikea table? The first time a drink sweats that stuff will peel up, right? Speaking of drinks, it’s time for me to make one and then come back for the second half of the review.

This week’s Book Club drink – a Bay Breeze. Pinapple, cranberry, and vodka. Because I’m tired of waiting for summer.

Rounding out the Living Room section she has a DIY for a “Concrete Serving Tray”. Yep, you pour concrete into a cardboard box to make a tray for serving things. Because nothing says domestic hostess like “let me break your femur when I trip carrying this to the sofa”. Then there’s the obligatory pages of how to hang art on a wall, in which you are encouraged to mix “quirky with beautiful”. And be sure to make your own washi tape wallpaper because ugh.

Part 4 is “Bedroom“. We have illustrated instructions on “How To Make Your Bed Using Hospital Corners” and “How To Fold A Fitted Sheet”, although I think most of us just use this handy method for fitted sheets already. She recommends using blues, greens, and lavenders as your bedroom colors to encourage relaxation, and shows us how to saw up a nightstand to install a wireless charging mat for our phones. Then we are treated to this.

Welcome to your rainbow Bonnie Tyler video set.

Ripped and tied jersey fabric curtains, in case you want to sleep in a world where “Total Eclipse of the Heart” takes place in Willy Wonka’s factory.

Moving on to section 5, which is “Closet“, we are greeted with this.

Classic fashion blogger ‘pee pee dance’ pose.

And my first thought was ‘honey if you gotta go, GO, we’ll wait’. Anyway, in classic feminist tech lady fashion she declares a woman’s closet is her “favorite place in the house” or “the space she most abhors” because “getting dressed is a ritual”. I pause at this point to assure myself I’m wearing clean underwear under today’s combined $75 dollar outfit choice because now I feel like I should change into ritually chosen clothing to read this section. She provides one page of “Closet Organization 101″ which is basically fold underwear, jeans, tshirts, and sweaters, and hang everything else, and now my raging compare-self-to-Pinterest insecurity really kicks in because I hang my jeans. Then we get a page about body types…with a page about wardrobe essentials including Spanx. And then…this.

Suddenly it turns into ‘Hey Natalie Jean’.

The pages after this are more of Brit posing in a little black dress. Then we get a DIY “20-Minute Shoe Rack”. Because you are expected to actually build one rather than go to Target and spend $9 on one I guess. (Seriously, there is plywood and wood glue involved here, just, why?) Then a DIY for a “Woven Chain Statement Necklace” and woven chain bracelets because digital age homemakers don’t know about Etsy. Basically we get one page of closet organization and 15 pages of Brit posing and how to make jewelry. Helpful.

Part 6 is “Bathroom“. Fear strikes, as I tremble at the thought of what digital age homemaker apps she will suggest.

Suddenly, Flower Drum Song.

The bathroom section kicks off with a bunch of pages about makeup and beauty basics, which is great because it never comes off as humblebraggingly condescending when a naturally gorgeous woman preaches to me about moisturizer and lipstick and sunscreen. She then does the ‘natural’ schtick, suggesting oatmeal, avocado, olive oil as beauty treatments, and telling us about hemorrhoid cream as a depuffer because no one who has read a magazine since 1983 knows about that trick.

Then we get a tutorial on a crown braid, and also beach waves – shhhh pro tip, big barrel curling iron only on the ends of your hair. I know, I just ruined the book for you. This is followed by several pages of how to do nail art which gives me ‘Loliver hears a fire alarm downstairs’ face because…it’s not good, if you want DIY nail art tutorials, google machine.  And it wraps up with a DIY “Leather Makeup Brush Organizer” which is just cut holes in some leather and stick your brushes in the holes, and her tech recs are hey there might be a sunscreen pill and a grey hair pill someday. And now, second drink intermission.

Doing my secret gross thing on the fire escape while I try to figure out what that strip of white cloth is.

Part 7 is “Workspace“. Because “9.5% of the country” (yes 9.5%, not a typo) has an area of their home they consider designated workspace. She starts off by suggesting you put ribbons and colorful tapes on paper towel holders, I guess because people who work at home are doing crafts as their job. You can also organize your beads and buttons and furbelows in ice cube trays and egg cartons, and get this – plastic trays and drawerganizers designed for organizing. Then she suggests a chalkboard wall because everyone who works from home enjoys chalk dust all over the place. A “Color-Blocked Pegboard” is the first DIY, and you’re expected to spraypaint pegboard in trendy colors so you can hang all those ribbons and scissors all us work at home women need within reach.

You can also make “Concrete Planter Bookends”.

Today, in more heavy objects with which to injure yourself.

Maybe I have too many friends with 8 year old sons, but all I see are “things they can use to hasten a trip to the emergency room”. And that’s it on how to workspace your space for working. Personally I use file boxes and folders and a magnet board, and I did not DIY either of those things because as a digital age lazy ham I know about amazon Prime and etsy, but ymmv.

Part 8 is “Gym“. There’s a AIN’T I HAPPY pic of Brit and then info about interval workouts. A mention of raw foods, and a suggestion of measuring tapes. A DIY of yoga mat carrying straps, as if they DON’T COME WITH THEM YOU USELESS UNFEMINIST WORD HERE. Recipes for green smoothies because again, not available online.

The book closes with part 9, “Back Porch“. First page involves “Cake Pop Mosaic” which does not say back porch to me, but ok. Then you should make “Colored Pencil Crayons”. And also tie a bunch of flowers around your porch light, because nothing keeps the skeeters off like…aromatic things.

LET’S INVITE ALL THE CRITTERS

Then the book moves on to “Acknowledgements” and to be honest I’m two Bay Breezes in at this point and don’t give a contact paper’s sticky butt.

Overview: Same crap, new book,  from yet another rich pretty lady with too much time and money.

Pancakescat says TILL NEXT TIME!

Dooce, valedictorian of self-importance, has announced she is moving on to “different sources of professional fulfillment”. Apparently “these sources have become so numerous” that they require what is possibly the ugliest website I have seen since GeoCities shut down – heatherbarmstrong.com.

It seems Her Royal Mommyblogness just isn’t finding the same joy in personal blogging that she used to because writing is hard, and also there are meanies.

…what makes this livelihood glaringly different are not only the constant creative strains of churning out new and entertaining content—content we cannot delegate to anyone else because our audiences read our stories for our particular voice and perspective—but also the security systems we’ve had to set up as an increasingly more diverse group of people throw rocks at our houses with the intention of causing damage: passersby, rubbernecks, stalkers, even journalists. We have separate security systems for those who take every word and decision we share and deliberately misinterpret it, disfigure it to the point of it being wholly unrecognizable, and then broadcast to us and to their own audiences that they have diagnosed us with a personality disorder.

Ever the drama queen, she goes on to say online life “looks completely different now than it did” back in ye olde days, and that the “emotional and physical toll of it is rapidly becoming a health hazard”. Yes, blogging in an era of critical communities is becoming a health hazard, as opposed to the anti-vax community which is improving the health of the world, I guess.

She assures the internet she won’t be shutting down dooce.com.

I have no intention of shutting this space down. There are too many memories in these pages, and frankly, I still like to write stories. I still have a few contracts that I need to see to completion, and I will continue posting here.

So…basically she will just keep on posting sporadically on no real schedule, when she feels like it? Like she’s been doing for the past 2 years? Uh, ok, thanks for the update.

Anyway, her new site features a bunch of press mentions, all but one being from her heyday of 2009-2011. The front page lists her “actively engaged audience” and 1.5 million twitter followers, and then says the mommyblogger title “is a digital pigeonhole” because “Heather is actually a writer, a speaker, a consultant, and a huge fan of Britpop.” Not to mention a fantastic url chooser – if she ever wants to rebrand may I suggest Barmstrong Industries?

Cary Randolph, finally getting married, has announced she will be getting married June 20th in Bridgehampton. She also shared the amazing love story that has led her to this ultimate achievement.

For our first date, Doug invited Cary to dinner at Tamarind in downtown Manhattan. She didn’t know this was a test of compatibility–was she adventurous enough for Indian food? Nearly two years later, the answer is yes.

She goes on to say “[f]rom the start, we knew we would get married on Long Island’s East End”. We all knew she would as well, because Cary’s been obsessed with the Hamptons for years.

The happy couple, engaged about 15 minutes ago, have also set up a Bloomingdale’s registry. It features such must haves as a $600 Waterford “Vodka Set and Chill Bowl” and Ralph Lauren nut bowls, as well as a $130 “eye massager”.

So it begins, Cary’s life as the next…I don’t know, whoever the current Hamptons socialite du jour is, I stopped caring around the time Devorah Rose started at Social Life Magazine. I’m more interested in trying to figure out why Cary made a big deal about moving to St. Louis to ‘found’ her own website only to get married and move back half a year later, but, whatever.

Jenna, of Eat Live Run, joins the ranks of bloggers who are shutting down their sites to move on to non-blog jobs. Yesterday she announced she will be retiring from blogging at Eat Live Run.

…I’m just going to be real honest with you all right now and say that I haven’t been passionate about writing this blog for a long time now. I don’t know what turned the switch, to be honest. I just know that you guys deserve more than me writing mediocre blog posts every three weeks. I would rather write nothing at all, than write something without passion in it. I’m sorry, but that’s the honest to goodness truth.

She says she has felt guilty for not wanting to keep up the blog, but “felt like I owed it to the world to continue” and it seemed silly to quit, adding “why would you walk away from a perfectly great job you created for yourself”.

The ELR archives will apparently remain online, though comments will be disabled. She leaves to launch her “new business as an online health and fitness coach”.

That Wife, encourages imaginative play, is shaking up the blog world with some awesome news. After less than 5 months of disabled comments, she has graciously decided to let people leave comments on her posts once again.

So let’s give comments on That Wife a try once again!  Be nice…That Wife Blog will forever remain my little corner of the internet where I am reigning Queen of Everything and get to decide what it’s like to be in this space…

She says she wants her blog to be “an experience, not a broadcast”, and feels “comment-free posts felt a bit cold and impersonal”.

I’ve seen other bloggers do this flip flop of comments off, comments on, and it’s usually because traffic nosedives when you force your community to another platform to interact. When will bloggers learn ain’t nobody got time for that? I’m not going to twitter or facebook, no blog is worth that kind of effort. Just leave the comments on and be done with it, we all know you’ll turn them back on anyway when you need your stats back up.

Apparently a new instagram account appeared the other day. Its purpose seems to be providing sources to items featured by bloggers using the ‘liketoknow.it‘ affiliate link system. The account is called ‘whereubuyit‘ and bloggers are already pissed at this circumvention of their affiliate income. The two day old account already has 300 followers, and climbing. I don’t see the account lasting too long because surely some litigious blogger or RStyle rep will have it shut down.

I don’t have much to add here but wanted to see what other people think of this. I’m not a fan of denying people income, but on the other hand, there should be more clarification on how the affiliate link cookies really work. What say you, hams?

Happy May Day, hams! It’s time for another Book Club liveblogged book review! I decided to go with Cuppy’s book. So sit back, ready the F5 finger, and curate your secret work flask as we experience ‘Cupcakes and Cashmere – A Guide For Defining Your Style, Reinventing Your Space, And Entertaining With Ease’ together.

I’m a huge proponent of curated vignettes.

First Impression: It’s a hardcover book  and the binding is about the same quality as ‘Hey Natalie Jean’ – hard cardboard glued together. The pictures seem to be decent quality. The font size seems to veer between normal and small. The book is broken down into seasonal sections.

Spring starts off with a ‘Spring Closet Checklist’. She recommends things like ‘nude sandals’, a ‘colorful skirt’, a ‘striped shirt’. It’s basically a one page list of yawn. She moves on to a page of tips for ‘Navigating Flea Markets’ in which you are advised to wear ‘comfortable, casual clothes’ – in case you were thinking of gearing yourself up like Alexis Carrington to go dig through old street signs – because she claims if you are ‘wearing something that looks expensive’ you ‘won’t be able to bargain’ as well. You should know the dimensions of your home in case you want to pick up some art or furniture. She then explains how to bargain with vendors with tips like ‘ask for the price you want’ and ‘if the vendor asks for more’ then you should ‘begin the bargaining process’ but if you really want it you should buy it because ‘you won’t regret it’. I’m pretty sure telling myself I wouldn’t regret it is how I wound up buying a Miata right out of college, but whatever you say, Cuppy.

For Spring beauty she recommends NARS blush, MAC lipstick, some blue Essie nail polish, and Petite Cherie perfume which is a scent I also love but seems to have taken over the blogosphere lately. Then she explains how to blow dry your hair – spoiler alert, run the dryer over your hair as you brush it.

Spring’s home section begins with ‘Office Organization’ and we’re told to file things into labeled folders and put things away where they belong.

Spring entertaining includes instructions on creating a bloody mary brunch bar and ’20 Ideas For How To Spend A Spring Day’ with Cuppy suggesting we ‘re-cover books with beautiful paper’ and ‘bring a stack of magazines to read at a coffee shop’. And then, this.

I’m a huge proponent of being basic.

Evidently Cuppy is ‘a huge proponent of playing good music when you have company’. You should make sure your playlist has ‘a beginning, middle, and end’ by starting off with upbeat music, moving into mellow music, and then slow music to ‘signify the party is coming to an end’. So I guess just approach it like a DJ at a Homecoming dance. She closes out the Spring section with a mint julep recipe. Personally I have another drink in mind.

This week’s Book Club drink – lavender prosecco.

Section two is ‘Summer‘. The ‘Summer Closet Checklist’ includes a ‘retro-inspired swimsuit’, a ‘straw hat’, and ‘dainty gold jewelry’. It is accompanied by a picture of Cuppy making the blogger face that everyone is tired of.

I’m a big proponent of shartface.

Then we get a page about picking the perfect vintage dress, and ‘When To Splurge Or Save’ where Cuppy tells us to spend our money on bags, shoes, jeans, a trench coat, and cheap out on sunglasses and trends. With advice like that I assume she’s angling to take Eva Chen’s place at Lucky Mag or something.

The ‘Summer Beauty Must Haves’ are Tarte cheek stain, Surf Spray, ‘light pink gloss’, Neutrogena Build-A-Tan (which, I am big ole Neutrogena fangirl but their self-tanner is Crap with a capital crap), and ‘coral/orange’ for nails and toes. Then we are shown ‘How To: Manicure’ which is so basic I can’t even bother to recap it. If you want to do beach waves Cuppy will show it on the next page – repeating the spoiler from ‘Homemakers‘ it’s just using a big barrel curling iron on the ends of your hair.

Then there’s an oddly placed thing about ‘Defining Your Interior Design Style’ featuring a full page picture of Cuppy in full on Lady Hamburglar garb for no reason I can figure out.

I’m a big proponent of dressing like the Glamburglar.

We are told to determine our style, work with what we’ve got, display our favorite items, use fragrance…bored now. Then there is a page about treating your bookshelves not as a place to house the books you’ve read and enjoy, but as some kind of decoration opportunity. This includes ideas like mix old with new, get creative, use books with ‘unique covers’ as ‘displays’, and grouping books together by color. I’ll wait while all you bibliophiles ragestroke.

The Summer section rounds off with entertaining, and it’s all about ‘Summer Nostalgia’ – sugar cookies, pies, and her drink rec is orange-lime margaritas (have you ever had one? it’s disappointment in a glass, just saying).

And now I take my halftime break.

I’m a big proponent of offending people with my vices.

Not one to be outdone by that upstart Kate Middeton, Rachel Parcell of Pink Peonies has begun the process of producing a hashtagged ladybaby from her body.

Let the name guessing begin!