PALS meeting today

Don't forget: PALS general membership meeting Tuesday April 29th at 12:30 in room 118. Food will be provided. Come find out the super-secret scoop on what classes to take next year. Should be helpful for both 1Ls and 2Ls. (3Ls, at least show up for the food, c'mon! and spill the beans on your most parent-friendly courses, of course.)

MAMAS family event Saturday

MAMAS is Mother Attorneys Mentoring Association of Seattle, a great group of lawyers trying to share ideas and network with an emphasis on work-life balance issues. The group has brown bag sessions and that sort of thing, but also gathers monthly with the kids to play and network. (Unfortunately, yes, it's for moms, not dads. Apparently. I could be wrong.) The next one is this coming Saturday:

MAMAS Moms and Kids Networking Event
When: Sat, May 3, 9am – 12pm
Where: The Children's Center at Burke Gilman Gardens, 5251 Sand Point Way NE, Building 5, Seattle, WA
Description: We invite you to attend MAMAS' next monthly mother attorney networking event. Mothers, children, and partners/helpers welcome. Admission is free, and food and beverages will be provided, thanks to our sponsor Williams Kastner.

Go play! If anyone decides to go, let me know how it went.

PALS Meeting April 29th

Hi, we've scheduled a PALS general membership meeting Tuesday April 29th at 12:30 in room 118. Food will be provided. We plan to talk briefly about our upcoming events, including the Work/Life balance panel that we are hosting in combination with Law Women's Caucus on May 14th. Once we get the business out of the way (as quickly as possible), we will be turning the discussion to course selection. 2Ls and 3Ls please come and share your experiences. This will be a good opportunity to get information about which professors pod cast, understand childcare emergencies, or otherwise have child-friendly policies. We hope to see everyone there.
Best Wishes,
Amanda and Christine
(Please note that we will provide more notice and try to avoid Social Justice Tuesdays when scheduling future meetings. Unfortunately, we were bumped from the one other free day that we could find in the next couple of weeks when Academic services decided to reschedule one of their endless (oops, I mean highly useful) academic advising sessions.)

Sack lunch tyranny

Every morning I pack four lunches. Yes I do. I tell you, it's a glamorous life I lead. But here's the thing. After making approximately 1,000 lunches in the last year and a half (yes really), surprisingly enough, it's getting a little old. And not just for me. At first the kids liked PB&Js, and they liked chicken nuggets, and really, they'd eat pretty much anything. I'd slip little notes in there, draw pictures on their lunch bags, yada yada. But now they're surly, jaded 5- and 3-year-olds and they won't eat just any (well-rounded, nutritionally complete, homemade daily) meal. Nuggets, formerly the haute of cuisine, now are gross. Yogurt gives the little one a rash. Perfectly good fruit comes home uneaten.

Here's what I made the last two days, just to make PB&J more attractive:

Yes, these are numerous teeny tiny heart-shaped peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. All part of the scheme to convince my 5-year-old to eat her lunch.

The scheme worked. But here's perhaps a more accurate picture:

Heart-shaped PB&J project aided by Fat Tire; note messy kitchen in background. Not pictured: Unread Torts 2 casebook.

In short, I need ideas. Anybody have sack lunch suggestions? What do you pack in your kids' lunches? Even if you don't pack lunches, got any ideas?

Summer job prep

The law librarians are hosting a program called "Bridging the Legal Research Gap." It's a four-hour program intended to help law students succeed at their summer jobs. I attended after 1L year and found it helpful. Some things I knew, but some I didn't, and there were some practical ideas I found really useful. There are sessions at SU and UW. They are free, though you need to register. If it's after your job starts, some employers will happily give you the afternoon off so you can attend.
The UW session is:
Tuesday, June 24, 200812:45 - 5pm,University of Washington School of Law
For more info and to register:
http://lib.law.washington.edu/btg/2008/register.htm
Oh, um, snacks are provided. Not that that should influence you.

Blog-o-rama, or, we all need distractions

One of my favorite bloggers is on a road trip around the country, visiting her readers and fellow bloggers, so I stopped by to have coffee with her on Tuesday when she was in Seattle. It was fun to meet her and a couple of other bloggers in person.

I tend to read parenting blogs (sometimes called "mommy blogs") because reading other parents' stories about dealing with kid and family problems sometimes helps me with my own, or at least puts a little perspective on mine. Then there are the humor blogs, the catty fashion blogs, the (gasp) legal blogs... Do you read any blogs, and if so, which ones?

Here are a few that I visit occasionally:

Humor/parenting blogs
dooce
thepioneerwoman
whoopee
iambossy
the bloggess
othejoys

finslippy

alladither

snarky blogs
mamapop -- pop culture from a mom's perspective!
gofugyourself
I used to read more of these -- what's good?

law blogs
trialadnotes -- holla, mary!
Decision of the day

What else? What great blogs did I leave out?

Lisa and Bossy of iambossy

I like this better than my pix from prom this weekend, sigh

PALS is student org of the year!

At the law school gala on Saturday night, Megan Vogel of the SBA announced that we won student organization of the year! Megan cited our leadership on Fall Festival, our support of the Athay scholarship, and... well it was hard to hear, but it was a very nice speech, thanks Megan! I'd be happy to provide a copy of our nomination letter to anyone who wants it. It's a little long to post here. We also talked about the blog, the Childhaven drive, and our efforts to raise awareness of work/life balance issues.

Congrats everyone!