motherhood is hard. admit it.

I have a new blog obsession. At times hilarious, poignant, scary and right on, the True Mom Confessions blog has become my new lunchtime reading. The concept is that "moms" (although many posts have nothing to do with motherhood) can anonymously post things about their lives, pretty much anything you want.

They can be hilarious and self-baring like:

Or sad, enraging or self-effacing like:

And they can be short and sweet confessions:

You can't respond to posts with comments, but you can click on "me too" to show that you've been in the same situation or feel the same way as the writer. People often respond to certain posts by writing their own post.

Hundred of posts appear daily, meaning that you can never read them all...unless you stayed on the site for hours each day...but there is always something entertaining to read....

And you learn a lot. Or at least I have. I've learned that there are others just like me (and some much worse!), and that I'm not the only constantly worried, daily harried, overprotective, neurotic mom out there. I've read about things I've never experienced myself. I've read things that disgusted me, things that empowered me, things that inspired me, things that made me crack a smile or even chuckle.

And the cool thing is, even though the site is called True Mom Confessions, and many of the posts do concern motherhood, many of them do not. This site really reaches all parts of women's lives, written by women for women, read by women ... it's just really cool, and addicting.

Check it out!

pandora's music box

Pandora is quite possibly the best music site ever. It creates music playlists for you to enjoy based on your particular interests. It doesn't just create any playlist for you, it sorts your particular favorite artist or song into a particular music gene pool and selects the perfect songs that you would love. It's AMAZING! It's a great way to listen to some of your favorite artists and to discover new similiar artists in the meantime. Pandora gives you the album and artists information about each song that they select and also gives the option of purchasing that particular selection from iTunes or Amazon. So convenient! If you haven't already discovered the genius of this site, don't wait any longer! You've got a personalized music station out there waiting for you!

deviant behavior

The Improv Everywhere site was passed along to me about two years ago. Their logo, "We cause scenes," is what the group's "missions" are about. They focus on deviant behavior in public places, mostly crowded areas in NYC. They recruit large groups of people, or agents, and have them cause a scene in a place where lots of people tend to gather. The picture above references a mission in which they had about three hundred people infiltrate the subway system without wearing pants. Very few sites have made me laugh as hard as this one has. My favorite mission was the Best Buy bit where they had about eighty agents dress in the traditional Best Buy employee uniforms and sent them into a large Best Buy store in NYC. With eighty fake employees in one store, the customers quickly became confused as to who were the real employees and who were the fakes. You'll have to check out the site to see how it all unfolded...

ultimate color wheel

I can't believe I forgot to include this in my top 5! However...that would have made it a top 6.

This IS the bee's knees (guest blog trivia! where did the saying "bee's knees" come from? 1st to post the correct answer wins!). Adobe's color wheel (FREE to use!) lets you view other ppl's creations by popularity, newest, tagged word index and even create your own palette! But that's not even the coolest part! It gives you the color schemes in RGB, CMYK, LAB and HEX! SWEET!

-Mandy

Mandy's Top 5

Word up to my fellow braesans! I'm Mandy, the coolest and unruliest of the three. ;) That just reminded me of the three billy goats gruff...did anyone else catch that feeling when they read that? Am I allowed to write random stuff like this or am I going to get punished by my fellow cohorts? Will I have to take this down? Start over? Clean up my language?!!! Haha..well no bc I am the master of disastor (sp jess?). By the way, "Master of Disaster" is a song by John Hiatt. HE is AMAZING. Check him out for sure. Now...what you've been waiting for!

So here they are. The TOP 5.

1. notcot: ain't nothin' like it baby. you want to be inspired beyond belief for hours upon hours on any topic you can think of? Or do you just want to waste your entire life web-surfing non-stop? THIS is the site for you! Photography, design, clothing, cars, architecture, randomness galore, pick your poison.

2. design melt-down: it's really a site that logs about other sites and how they are designed but baby, you can find some cool s@*t (am i allowed to say that?) on here by just browsing thru everything. and it has cool little screenshots for the links so you know what you're getting into before you even click on it. very nice!

3. virb: if I could make one site more popular right now than any other, it would be this one. this is the best of myspace ideas paired with the best design and the coolest ppl. if you're not on virb, then you just aren't keeping it fresh.

4. uncrate: it's really supposed to be for men. however i am 3/5 man (wo-man...come on ppl, keep up) so i'm sayin' i love it! the site is fabulously designed and new blogs are posted every day with the coolest new "gadgets, clothes, cars, DVDs and more!!" Check it out. you won't be disappointed.

5. blinklist: it's your bookmarks on the web, at your fingertips 24/7 and it's also everyone else's bookmarks so it's easy to search for the most popular design site or clothing site or whatever your interest is...just look at what everyone else is tagging. the site is also very nicely designed and very user-friendly. the best out of all the bookmark taggers out there...and believe me, I've tried them all.

-Mandy