TGIF!!

my in-laws took taylor to the mountains yesterday and so we just have little walker solo this weekend.  yesterday, while walker was napping i had to chance to actually sit at the computer and read blogs!!  it was fabulous....
i spotted this bathroom on simply seleta....hello perfection!!  (and if you haven't seen it, check out what seleta's husband did for her b'day...so cute!!)

next, i spotted this stacked glass lamp that i am dying to add to my house.....but i better start saving, b/c she's not cheap.  but fabulous, right?!!

then i decided that i wanted to have friends over for dinner friday night....i am dying to get this cookbook....this meal would be perfection, as well as this table setting:

and this is always a fun motto for fridays :)

which i found on the cutest blog....who happens to be an adorable girl i met when i was in costa rica 2 yrs ago!!  randomly, lindsey found me and remembered me from a boat cruise we were on.  she and her husband were on their last night and we were in the middle of our trip but we had a blast together on the 6+ hr boat/ snorkel excursion...could have been the cocktails that they were serving too :)  but i am so happy to see that they are expecting a baby girl....i mean how cute is she?!   you have to watch this adorable video that she posted on how they found out what they are having...and her house is fabulous as well- that would be a framed hermes scarf and those sconces are killer (i need them in my life)!

next, i visited ruby press, and this stopped me in my tracks and made me realize i want to make ice cream.....first, i need an ice cream maker....and i need to have better handwriting and cute storage containers!

after that, my little man woke up.  but the 2+ hrs i had surfing the internet was pure bliss.  i hope y'all have an amazing weekend!!!  see y'all next week! XO

Kit Heath Treasure Hunt Winners!

We want to congratulate all of our lucky Treasure Hunt winners and say a massive thank you to all who have taken part throughout June and who will have received their tiny message in a bottle! 

The give away has now sadly ended and for those of you out there who are still holding on to your tickets, please get in touch soon to avoid disappointment!

We hope you have enjoyed the fun as much as we have and a big big thank you for all your lovely messages you have sent to us.

We have more competitions planned through out the year to the fun is not over yet, we have coming up an exciting opportunity for Kit Heath Kids, our usual launch competition on Facebook as well as a few other joint promotions to ensure we are treating our loyal followers the best way we know how!

For those that have missed the opportunity to grab a free Beachcomber bead, don't worry we are still offering 10% off all beachcomber bracelets and necklaces until the end of July - just enter TREASUREB at the checkout to receive your new price at 10% off!

How to get your paper accepted: Orshee

In today's installment of how to get your paper accepted, we shall discuss gender inclusive language.

Back in my days of blissful ignorance, I didn't notice gender use in language very much. "John Doe" and "He" were pretty much par for the course.

At some point, I was reading an article and it was positively littered with "him or her" "he or she" "his or hers", and I wanted to pull my hair (short or long) out. While I appreciated the sentiment it was completely distracting from the prose.

I once was given a Parenting 101 book, and it alternated between male and female examples per section (i.e., every few pages). I liked this approach a lot better, because it made for much easier reading while still being gender inclusive.

Gender exclusive language has no place in scientific writing, unless the author is describing a single case study (i.e., "When Patient M. first came to the hospital, he..."), a gendered-exclusive event (i.e., The Society for Women Engineers summer camp for fourth grade girls), or is somehow written in the third person from the perspective of one of the authors.

It's very easy to use anonymous, gender-neutral subjects in sentences to give examples of people. For example, "the student", "the user", "the agent", "the engineer", "the scientist", etc.

It takes practice to write in active voice while remaining gender neutral; sometimes the writing can get a bit bogged down when you start. Sometimes writing they or them can feel awkward. But like any sort of writing, practice makes perfect. After awhile it becomes second nature.

Unlike those days of blissful ignorance, as a reviewer I am now very distracted and occasionally annoyed by both gender exclusive language (of either gender), as well as by too many Orshees. In some particularly egregious cases of the former I have politely reminded the authors to be more sensitive to their use of language. I know it is often a result of English being a second language.

Google, however, really should know better. Check out this error message I just got in Chrome (emphasis mine):

In this case, the certificate has not been verified by a third party that your computer trusts. Anyone can create a certificate claiming to be whatever website they choose, which is why it must be verified by a trusted third party. Without that verification, the identity information in the certificate is meaningless. It is therefore not possible to verify that you are communicating with  XXX.YYY.ZZZ, instead of an attacker who generated his own certificate claiming to be XXX.YYY.ZZZ. You should not proceed past this point.

If I was a man I might be offended. I'm sure there are plenty of female hackers out there. (Heck, even that attack is poorly named - "man in the middle". I guess it's catchier than "person in the middle", but still).