Mother’s Day is coming up. This is a tough one for me. Not as a daughter but as a mother. It is a day that I am reminded of how society often disregards the other mothers of the world. I am one of those other mothers.

The number 1 question every woman is asked is, “Do you have children?” You might think this is a simple yes or no answer; it is not. Many women “have” children but did not actually “have” them. It is a complicated question to answer. Some women struggle with how much of an answer to give, I know I did.

I raised 3 children. I changed their diapers, wiped their snotty noses, made their lunches, consoled their hurt feelings, drove the carpool, gave up my own dream of going to graduate school, stayed home from work with sick kids, lost my hair during their teenage years and many nights of sleep. I laughed, cried, enjoyed, loved and hated parenting. But, when someone asks me if I have children and I say yes, I feel like I am not telling the whole truth. I do have children, I have 3 but I did not birth these children, my partner did and we have raised them together with her ex-husband and his wife. If I tell people the whole story their response is often “oh, you are not the real mom.” Being labeled “not the real mom” made it so I was not allowed to ever complain about parenting or my kids because if I did other mothers would say, “it’s different when it is your kid, or you wouldn’t understand since they are not actually your kids”.

These comments from others often shut me down, hurt me and made me wonder if it was okay to say yes I have kids. These comments also isolated me from the “Mom’s club” I wanted and needed so badly to be in. The Mom’s club is any group of moms that becomes friends because of their kids, moms at the park, moms who have kids in the same class, etc. They hang out together while their kids are doing  activities and provide support to each other, share their trials and tribulations of raising kids and learn from each other. I felt so alone as a mother. I felt ashamed wondering what the other mothers thought of me. I was young, I was a lesbian and I was the cause for my partner’s (the real mother) divorce. Looking back now that my kids are young adults I realize those worries of what the other mothers thought of me were all created in my own head. I never even gave a chance to those other mothers to get to know me. The few that I did allow in throughout the parenting years are some of my best friends now.

I wish I wouldn’t have wasted so much of my mommy years wondering if I was good enough and realized that the fact that I was raising someone else’s kids was BETTER than good enough. I was sacrificing and doing things for those little snotty nosed people that usually only a “real” mother would do. I should NOT have been ashamed, I should have been celebrated. But a mother’s job doesn’t usually come with a lot of praise, I understand this.

The more I have talked with women, the more I have learned that this feeling like an ”other mother” is a common feeling. Even the traditional type of mom often feels like she doesn’t fit in; she’s too young, too old, too fat, too poor, not cool enough, works, doesn’t work, whatever it is, she feels she doesn’t fit in and she isolates herself from the other mothers.

Being in my position, the other mom, not the “REAL” mom and not even the step-mom pretty much makes me the invisible mom when it comes to acknowledgement from society and community support.

I have an idea for a book I want to write about other mothers. I want to interview all the other mothers out there and share their stories. I imagine there are all sorts of women who could identify with being an other mother: lesbian moms, step-moms, adoptive moms, foster moms, divorced moms, single moms, teen moms, immigrant moms, aunts, grandmas and other relatives raising children that are not their own, moms whose husbands are in prison or the military, women who chose not to be moms or were not able to be and fathers who have  taken on the more traditional mommy role are all people whom I’d like to interview and hear their stories. I’m sure there other ‘other mother’s who I  have failed to mention here as well. I’ve been tossing this book idea around in my head for a while but now I’ve decided I am going to do it. If you are interested in sharing your story with me and being a part of this book please contact me to arrange for an interview.

The original name of the Twitter Fail Whale designed by artist YiYing Lu was Lifting a Dreamer. I find that name very appropriate after this past weekend spent with my Twitter friends @brainmaker (aka @emerald150) and @charleegee.

A few years ago, I wrote a blog post titled Twitter is magical. This past weekend was magical because of Twitter!

A few weeks ago, I received a DM (private direct message on Twitter) from my friend Suzanna (who I met thanks to Twitter) that said “Crazy short notice, but C & I fly plane to Baja March 1, & have 2 seats available. Thought of you and your C. 4 days, amazing trip. Wanna go?”

My response was “Seriously?”.

My gut response was “Hell yeah!” But my practical side knew I needed to get more info. (Typos happen on Twitter)

It all happened so fast, within 24 hours I had exchanged several emails with Suzanna and Charley, scanned a copy of our passports, arranged for a dog sitter, and scheduled the time off work. I learned we were going to have the opportunity to hug a whale!

The whole trip was very exciting. We were scheduled to depart on Thursday, March 1^st at 8am. Unfortunately, the night before a big storm came in and we were forced to postpone (almost cancel) the trip for a day. Celia and I scrambled to reschedule meetings, notify work, etc and were able to make it happen. Friday, we all arrived at Gnoss airport in Novato (a teeny tiny airport I did not even know existed in Marin County), we pulled our bags out of our car and put them in the small plan, parked our car in the hanger, climbed in the plane, a 1968 Beechcraft Bonanza  (which kind of reminded me of flying in a 1968 VW Beetle with wings) and took off.

Two and half to three hours later we landed in Mexicali, a VERY windy landing, but expert pilot @CharleeGee did an awesome job! I felt totally safe in Charley’s flying hands.

We happily visited the toilet, filed all the required paperwork, visas, etc. and then got back in the plane to head to Hotel Serenidad inMulege.

Hotel Serenidad has airplane parking! How cool is that?!

Day 2: the day we were supposed to go visit the whales got postponed due to HIGH winds. So we headed to the town of Mulege to check out the scene where we happened upon the most gorgeous bougainvillea plant EVER! It just happened to match my top.

Day 3: While drinking Margaritas on night 2 we all prayed to the wind god and goddesses to please calm the wind (at least I did). Woke up early on Day 3 to discover CALM beautiful weather. Woohoo! Whale time! We hopped on the plane and headed to Laguna San Ignacio, Baja Calif Sur, Mexico to visit the whales!

Chris and Lisa flying next to us on our way to see the whales!

Here are all the pictures you’ve been waiting for.

Six of us set off on a 2 hour tour to see the whales accompanied by Max the panga driver and whale charmer. Photo taken by our new friend Chris. Chris (pilot friend of Charley’s) and his wife Lisa were awesome traveling companions. We really enjoyed spending time with our crew of 6. I can not even begin to tell you how grateful I am to Suzanna and Charley for giving us this amazing opportunity.

Celia and Charley petting the whale. I really had no idea what to expect but I certainly did not expect the whales to come right up to the boat and say hi. What impressed me the most was how incredibly quiet, gentle and graceful these creatures are. You wouldn’t even know they were 2 inches away from you until their heads popped up out of the water. The boat didn’t even rock slightly when they swam under,  around or next to it. These are truly gentle giants.

The whales made sure to say hello to each one of us. Here is Chris saying hi to the whale. Right after I snapped this photo the whaled popped up and gave Chris a gentle kiss.

I was lucky enough to get to give the whale a quick hug.

 Mama whale showed us her baby and nudged baby to come up and say hi to us.

Chris got this photo of the whale giving Suzanna a kiss. Too bad I’m blocking the view of Suzanna.

Here’s another shot of Suzanna & the whale kissing.

Lisa loving the whale. I think the feeling was mutual, they kept coming back to her.

My favorite picture of all! Charley and Suzanna with the whale.

Thank you Suzanna & Charley for offering us such an awe inspiring experience and adventure and for lifting us dreamers in to the sky so we could land and see these beautiful, graceful creatures!

Definitely not a Fail Whale.

I found love in the strangest places this year.

While hiking.

Hanging with the dogs.

Preparing food.

Walking down the street.

Playing in the snow on Mt. Tam.

 From Felix the Cook!

Photo tweeted to me from Bistro Burger

Even found love in a hamburger from Bistro Burger!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

For even more love… Like us on Facebook!

PS. If you’re feeling lonely or sad today, give a gift to someone who is not expecting it.
#ValentinesDayTip #SinglesAwarenessDay

One of my pet peeves is throwing away rotten fruit and vegetables. I’m really hard on myself when this happens. Think about it, if you spend $2 on an avocado, forget to eat it, and end up throwing it out that is the same as throwing $2 in the garbage. Would you throw a $2 bill in the garbage? I don’t think so!

I’m not usually one to write reviews but this product caught my eye because of what I wrote in the paragraph above (and I’m a sucker for free stuff). Actually I don’t like just any old SWAG (Stuff We All Get), I only like the stuff I would actually use. Since I love to cook and I love fresh vegetables (and detest rotten ones) I decided to give Clearly Fresh Bags a try. Also the company is located right here in California and I like to support local businesses.

Disclaimer: I did not do any formal testing but I did throw all my veggies is the bags.

As usual, my life got busy, I went out to eat more than I should and forgot about my fresh veggies from the Farmers Market. However, what I did notice when life slowed down for a minute and I had time to cook my veggies that were 2 weeks old, was they were still crisp and fresh! So, in my unscientific conclusion the bags work to keep veggies fresh longer than the regular bags you get at the grocery store. They are also easy to re-use. The only improvement of these bags that I suggest is the zip seal – I struggled with it a bit. I was not able to fully close the bags without a lot of concentration and effort but that could just be me…

Here are my now 3 week old carrots, still crisp.

If you’d like to learn more about Clearly Fresh Bags check out their site here: www.clearlyfreshbags.com

I went to work today and forgot my phone. Being separated from my phone for 8 hours has given me a greater appreciation of my phone.

The fact that we call iPhone’s “phones” is actually kind of funny because who actually uses the phone feature on their iPhone? I know I hardly do.

Let me count the ways as to why I love my i”Phone”

1. it’s my camera and a darn good one thanks to the Camera+ app. Taking & sharing photos makes me happy.
2. it’s my connection to Twitter. Talking to my Twitter friends makes me happy.
3. it’s also my connection to Facebook and Google+ where I like to post my photos.
4. it’s my newspaper. I read the news every morning on my iPhone via Twitter and the various news sites.
5. it’s my Words With Friends connections. I play Words With Friends with my friends and my mom, when I remember. Most people who play Words With Friends with me get annoyed with me because I take SO long between each turn.
6. it’s my FourSquare checkin tool. Without my phone, I can’t checkin at FourSquare and then my friends take advantage of the situation and pass me. (please note #3 in picture below)
7. it’s my text message center. I can’t chat with my sister on my lunch break with out my iPhone.
8. it’s where I check my personal email.
9. it’s my calendar.
10. it’s my notepad where I jot down movies I want to see, books I want to read, etc.

I missed my phone today.

Photo taken by @fun_master

Yep another blog post about Google+

Bring back MySpace! Okay how ridiculous does that sound? Remember MySpace? I don’t know about you but I embraced MySpace wholeheartedly. I blogged at MySpace, I reconnected with my old friends from high school, I made new friends, discovered new music, decorated my page to be all sparkly and pretty and I resisted Facebook. I resisted Facebook like a cat sliding down a curtain with its claws out. I did not want to change, I did not want a new social network, I was happy with MySpace, why did we need to change?

I reluctantly opened a Facebook account because my teeny bopper daughters wanted to be on Facebook and the deal was, the only way you can be on Facebook is if I am your friend on Facebook. So, I joined Facebook as a “responsible parent” move. Then of course, I got hooked. I was managing both MySpace and Facebook and slowly my MySpace friends trickled in to the Facebook scene. Facebook started suggesting friends and a whole new world of old friends reappeared in my life. Reconnection was fun! At the time, I had a Virtual Assistant business that I was somewhat bored with so I morphed it in to a marketing business and started teaching entrepreneurs how to use Facebook and preaching the benefits of it for business.

I posted this on MySpace in October 2007. Just replace the world MySpace with Facebook or Twitter and Facebook with Google+ and it sounds like a lot of people I know right now.

10/19/2007
Can someone please tell me why Facebook is so popular these days? I resisted going over to Facebook because frankly it was not a priority in my life… but I finally folded under social pressure and headed over there. Everyone swears it is so much easier and more intuitive than Myspace… I’m not seeing it that way. But I do see that a lot of serious business owners are using Facebook. For now, I will continue with both. I still like Myspace better… so if you are like me and are on both Myspace and Facebook feel free to be my friend over on Facebook too.

Then came Twitter and as many of you know I got a little obsessed. I love Twitter and the people on it Twitter. Twitter is the ultimate social network, it’s actually social at least my crowd is. Twitter introduced me to people (strangers) with similar interests who are now some of my best irl = “in-real-life” friends. I love Twitter and I am very loyal to Twitter but I also know in the world of technology – CHANGE is the reality. Ever since my MySpace world evaporated I’ve always kept it in the back of my mind how very likely it is that someday Facebook and (gasp!) even Twitter may go away. This does not mean I want them to go away, it’s just life in the modern world.

Fast forward to Google+. Just like when Facebook arrived on the scene I resisted it. The main reason is TIME – I don’t have time for another social network. Then the “why would I want to go to another social network when all of my friends are already on this one” factor. Finally, I personally did not find G+ to be intuitive or user friendly so I resisted, I complained, I made fun of it. I did exactly what I did 4 years ago. I also found the original Google+ community, the one’s who like to call themselves “early adopters” to have an attitude. G+ was getting defined as the intellectual network, the content driven one where people put important smart stuff. I actually felt pressured to only post smart, intellectual things. The first handful of people in my G+ stream seemed to be competing to who could post the most intellectual crap. I’m so over intellectuals – stopped being impressed with them about when I graduated from college. Don’t get me wrong, I admire smart people, I just don’t admire people who like to tell me they are smart.

But then something happened, I saw this video:

As silly as this video is it reminded me of my MySpace stubbornness and also opened my eyes to some of the cool features of G+.

Then last weekend I had something I rarely have these days. I had TIME! I had some down time where I didn’t have to do anything so I spent some time getting to know Google+. Up until this weekend I kept thinking and saying G+ is boring and nothing is happening over there. I then had the realization that Nothing is going to happen on G+ unless I do something on it.

I was just sitting around waiting for everyone else to do something. Duh everyone else was doing the same thing! So I started doing things on G+ and guess what? People started responding.

I still love Twitter, and Facebook is just fine but here are a few things I’ve discovered about G+ that I like.

Circles – I can easily divide people in to groups. I can have friends, coworkers, family, strangers, etc. This means I can look at updates by groups and I can also post to selective groups. If I want to post something personal like a picture of my kids and I don’t want my coworkers, strangers and others seeing the pic, I can set that post to just show to my family circle and they are the only ones who see it.

G+ also could come in handy for coordinating things such as carpools. Last night on Twitter a group of us were trying to coordinate carpools for our upcoming TweetUp. We must have exchanged 20+ tweets to do this most likely boring the heck out of our followers and in the process getting somewhat confused on who was doing what. If we would have had the same discussion on G+ we could have done it in 1 thread and only those involved would have seen the thread, we wouldn’t have had to bore the rest of the world with our logistics.

Also, for all you amateur photographers out there check out the photo sharing, it’s pretty cool. One of my favorite professional photographers is sharing her stuff on G+. Check out:  Lisa Bettany (the inspiration behind all my photos from the bus)

I’m not going to go on and on with the wonders of Google+ because frankly I don’t see a huge benefit yet to switching over. However I am constantly fascinated by the ever changing world of social networks and thought I’d share my 2 cents with you since people have been asking me “what is the point of Google+?”

I guess you could call me an early resister in the world of social media.

So… do you wanna connect on G+? Here I am:  Sally_K

By the way… Tom, (you know the founder of MySpace) thinks G+ is going to succeed.

My truth about blogging.

There is a rumor out there that bloggers make a lot of money selling advertisement. As far as I know that is not true. There are a handful of bloggers that make some money selling advertisement and maybe a few that make a decent amount. I’d love to hear how they define “a lot”.

In my case, I was never able to make money from blogging. I have sold some advertising here and there which amounts to enough money to cover the cost of hosting the site and a few coffees and maybe a meal or two (in the whole time I’ve been blogging). This money does not cover my time to blog or the cost of paying a specialist (or two) to fix my blog that got hacked.

But I don’t blog to make money. I blog for fun. I blog to motivate myself to try new things. I blog to celebrate local independently owned businesses. At least that is why I started blogging.

As a blogger (and a tweeter) I have put in lots and lots and lots of time talking about local businesses, promoting local events, organizing events that bring lots of new customers to local businesses, introducing locals, tourists and visitors to local businesses they would have never found if it were not for my blogging and tweeting, etc.

I blog for fun. I organize TweetUps for fun. I talk about local businesses that I think are great because I want to support them. There comes a time though when you give and give and give and when the people you are giving to don’t stop to say thank you, you get a little frustrated. Or at least I do. I’m not Mother Teresa. I’m someone working full time, raising 3 teenagers, dealing with family drama, repairing a house that got flooded by sewage, dealing with this blog that got hacked by a horrible pharmaceutical hack, a lesbian living in a straight world and basically just another overwhelmed Bay Area citizen. As beautiful as the Bay Area is it is also a rat race and it is not so easy to keep up here. The cost of living here is very, very high! Have you looked at your grocery store receipt lately?

I digress… the point of this post is… I don’t know where my blog is going. Right around when it got hacked, I got a little burned out. I got tired of all the gimme, gimme, gimme emails such as: can you promote this, can you organize a TweetUp at our place of business, can you feature me on your blog, can you promote my book, can you do this, can you do that? I know it’s my fault, I offered to feature businesses, organize TweetUps, etc… but the lack of gratitude has turned me in to a bitter blogger and I don’t want to be a bitter blogger! I’m generally a positive person and I’d like to continue being that way.

I’ve organized a ton of TweetUps and for the most parts the restaurants have not given me much appreciation. Some were better than others in offering the group complimentary hors d’oeuvres, welcoming us and saying thank you. Others acted inconvenienced that I was bringing 20 people to dine at their restaurant. Even though I had given them lots of advance notice.

Am I being a diva? Am I expecting too much? If I were a business owner and someone with a following was saying nice things about my business and bringing me lots of new clients I’d probably send them a little thank you note and maybe even a gift certificate. What would you do?

I don’t know what direction my blogging is going to go in but I think I’m done giving free promotion to businesses that don’t seem to understand or appreciate it. I mean if I happen upon a restaurant that is extra amazing I just might blog about it. I’ll continue to coordinate random TweetUps because I love my tweeps so much but I think I may turn this blog more in to a rambling of my thoughts around the Bay Area.

Keeping it real,

@Sally_K

About 15 years ago on the 4th of July I was ‘Sally IN the Bay’ instead of Sally Around the Bay. I was reminded of this the other day when I posted something about July 4th on Facebook and my mom commented saying,

“Remember the year you were Sally in the Bay?”

Every 4th of July the city of Sausalito puts on an awesome firework show that you can watch from the shoreline. Fifteen years ago, when I was younger and a little bit more adventuresome one of our friends invited us to join them on their boat. Our friend said his dad had a lake boat we could borrow to go out on the Bay and watch the fireworks. We thought this sounded like a really cool idea! Around 8pm, 7 of us met up in Sausalito and got on the tiny lake boat. Three guys and 4 girls.

Naturally because there were 7 of us we began singing the theme song to “Gilligan’s Island”. It was a chilly Bay Area night so I was dressed in my hip city girl clothes (keep in mind I was 25 a the time) that were not exactly practical boating attire. I had on BIG Dr. Marten boots (all laced up), jeans and one of those leather jackets with zippers everywhere (all zipped up). Stay with me, the outfit is important.

We were having a jolly old time, sipping beer while we sped out to the center of the Bay to get a good view (somewhere between Tiburon and Sausalito). As we were singing Gilligan’s Island the motor of the boat died and would not restart…

It was a choppy night out on the Bay and water started sloshing in to the bottom of the boat, good thing I had my Doc Marten’s on. But the motor still wouldn’t start and more and more water started slopping in. At this point, the boat owner (well the owner’s kid) said don’t worry this boat is designed not to sink….. while he was saying sink the boat disappeared from under us and we were suddenly floating in the bay.

Well floating is not quite accurate, I was treading for my life because my Doc Marten’s filled with water & became huge heavy weights on my feet. The zipped up leather jacket and heavy Levi’s were not helping me stay afloat in anyway whatsoever. So there we were, 7 of us surviving in the Bay. Actually, 6 of us floating in the Bay one friend went in to shock and was clinging to the sinking boat for her life.

At this point, the firework show began.

We saw a fancy yacht over yonder so we all started screaming for help. The people in the yacht finally realized we were screaming for help and not just shouting about the fireworks (it was really dark) so they threw a life boat over and sent their kid over to see what was going on. Kid realized what was happening and raced back to get dad who jumped in life boat and zoomed over to us as fast as possible.

Problem was this blowup boat definitely not big enough to hold 7 of us. The man (our hero) suggested we all put one arm on the side of the boat and swim with our other arm to help the boat move. The guys held on to his boat while I struggled to get out of my leather jacket using all my strength not to sink and Celia and the other woman went to help our friend who was SINKING with the boat. She was there clinging to the tip of the boat that was still afloat. My friend, who I like to think of as Super Woman grabbed her and swam with her to safety to the yacht. I finally got out of the jacket and felt incredibly free even though my feet were still large dead weights trying to pull me under. I was able to grab on to the lifeboat and so was Celia.

We made it back to the yacht and then were supposed to pull ourselves out of water up to to the ladder. I’m not sure how much my feet/shoes weighed at this point but despite my adrenaline rush I could not pull myself out of that water… my friend, Super Woman was already on the yacht with our friend who was in shock so she bent down and pulled me up with one arm. (Still wondering what the guys were doing this whole time…)

The lovely family that gave up their fireworks show to save us called the Coast Guard who took 30 minutes to get to us. By the time the Coast Guard arrived Celia was already suffering from the first stage of hypothermia. Did you know our Bay is very cold?!

The Coast Guard put us in a nice heated room in their boat and wrapped Celia in blankets. They brought us to shore and lectured us a bit on being a little smarter next time. (I’ve pretty much avoided boats since that day.)

The next day my friends hired a rescue crew to rescue the boat. They found my stylin’ leather jacket floating next to the boat. The zippers were all rusty.

Hi.

Here I am.

You may have noticed my blogging has been slowing down. I’m sorry. I miss my blog and readers, BIG time!

It’s not that I haven’t been discovering many, many great places around the Bay Area. It’s that my life got really complicated these last few months.

I’ve stopped blogging because…

1. My blog got hacked by an icky pharmaceutical spammy type of hack and I have not figured out how to fix it! (You might notice some unwanted links throughout some of my blog posts, or see it when you do a Google search for one of my blog posts). It makes me sad.
2. Family has been going through some serious challenges that have turned my life upside down.
3. My house had a MAJOR plumbing disaster a few weeks ago. (Poopy water flooded my house and created some serious damage.)
4. I got a full time job back in September and am still adjusting to this major shift in my life after 8 years of owning my own business.
5. I’m exhausted. The thing I hear myself say the most now is, “I’m tired.” I actually say it too much.

I’m not complaining, just wanted to let you know where I’ve been. I have big plans to come back to blogging soon. In fact, Celia got me an iPad so I can start blogging from the bus. As soon as I solve this hacking issue I plan to be back to blogging full force!

In the meantime, I’ve been posting my commute pictures over here on the Sally Around the Bay Facebook page and I’m still very active on Twitter.

PS. The place I’m dying to blog about is Charlie Hong Kong’s in Mill Valley. The food is awesome (as in tasty and organic) and the service is great and they are dog and mountain bike friendly! Matt the owner/manager went outside to give my dog a treat and some love while we were inside eating then came inside and talked mountain biking with Celia. The second time we went back Matt remembered us and came around the counter to give us a hug!

I take the bus to and from work. I think I have one of the most beautiful commutes in the world!

I often take photos through the bus window as I’m crossing over the Golden Gate Bridge. I never get tired of this view. It’s just amazing and it looks different every single time I cross.

Below are 2 pictures from today. The first one was taken around 7am on my way in to San Francisco. The second one was taken around 4pm on my way out of San Francisco.

I take all the pictures with my iPhone. I’ve started using a new app called Camera+ that I really like.

I’m participating in the #Mostly365 take a picture a day and share with the world. Have you seen this Website yet? It’s awesome!

I love San Francisco!