COME VISIT ME AT MY NEW HOME!!

I’ve been thinking about how to make my blog more user-friendly for all of you, so that you can subscribe daily and get more links.

Thanks to some fine-tuned tech help, I’ve moved my blog to my site, Single Mom Seeking.

Please save the URL to my blog’s new home.

Or, even better, subscribe via RSS or get each posting via email through the FeedBlitz link. See you there!

Peter Ehrlich, founder of Single Parent Love Life, and his son... retreating?

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Thank goodness for my single dad buddies. Like Peter Ehrlich, founder of Single Parent Love Life, whom I emailed recently to tell him that this break-up was kicking my butt.

Peter wrote back:

Often by not trying to find anything
one finds everything
Sometimes the best thing to do is
Retreat
#33 in I Ching
willingly
gratefully
retreat with joy

Say what?

He suggested that I get myself The I. Ching Workbook, so I ordered a used copy from Powell's. It arrived today, and guess what? Some other soul, in 1987 (two decades ago!), already filled out the journal in the back.

It looks like a woman's handwriting. She asks in red pen: "How should I proceed to free myself from guilt, pain, and anguish?"

Amen.

This is today's "To Do" List, part of which is presently taped to my door:

1. Mae's friend arrives at 9 a.m. for play date (note: please, please don't fight)

2. Drop off overdue 2nd grade forms at Mae's school (note: still trying to figure out how to answer teacher's question re: "Are there any recent adjustments in your child's life…?" Uh, yes, Mom moved the Kid into Boyfriend's home, and now Mom and Boyfriend have split up and are not speaking to each other. Mom and Kid moved out in April. Kid seems to be doing just fine. Mom is still healing.)

3. Turn in 20+ pages to Scott Foresman for textbook

4. Go to Long's for Mae's school supplies

5. Post new blog

6. Send in rent check

7. Send in rebate for new cell phone (old one broke, and no, it was not from dropping it)

8. Take Mae to swim lessons

9. 2nd friend over for play date and dinner, during which Mom might have half-a-glass of wine

P.S. If this tickles your fancy, you've got to check out Super Sasha Cagen's TO DO LIST BLOG. Sasha's book, To-Do-List: From Buying Milk to Finding a Soulmate, What Our Lists Reveal About Us, a collection of 100 lists and the stories behind them, is due out in November from Simon & Schuster!

If you Google "single+mom+dating" these days, Kate Hudson is one of the first links to pop up.

That's because the 28-year-old actress talked about dating as a single mom in Harper's Bazaar September issue:

"Dating becomes very different.You realize after you have had children that you'll never love anything more than your child. ... So it makes the new sort of single-mom dating process very different. It's like growing up. It's adult.

Thanks Kate for keeping it real!


Kate was recently caught making out with rumored beau Dax Shepard, now that her relationships with husband Chris Robinson and ex-boyfriend Owen Wilson are behind her. The two were on a trip with Kate's son...

What would I do without my keep-it-real, honest, loving web community of single mamas and bloggers?....

Here's a short list of my favs:

• http://www.solomother.com/

• http://solomom.ivillage.com/parenting/

• http://iservethequeens.blogspot.com/

• http://nycmamasan.blogspot.com/

• http://diaryofasinglemom.clubmom.com/

• http://orthoticcontessa.com/

• http://www.sassafrasmama.blogspot.com/

• http://www.single2mother.org/

• http://www.singlerose.com/

I just got a copy of Malonda Richard's new book, My Life Isn't Perfect But Thank God My Baby Is.

Reading this book is really glancing into the journal of a determined, go-getting beautiful woman on her way to becoming a single mom.

I had the chance to meet Malonda in NYC when I was there this year on book tour. We chatted about our girls, recited our relationship histories... and, of course, laughed!

Malonda's tell-it-like-it-is narrative of motherhood and relationships will have you riveted. This book will get every single mother to hold her head high, no matter how intense life gets.

One of the best parts of the book is Malonda's Pregnancy Portraits. Check this out:

Tell me: when it comes to dating, what are you absolute about? I've started to make a list:

* He doesn't like kids. (Duh!)
* He's separated from his wife, but not divorced (yet).
* He smokes. I've had men ask me, "Do you just mean tobacco?" No, dude, I mean anything you light up.

You can read the rest of my list here, at LifetimeTV.

Please post your lists here!

Another reader has already added a few great ones:
he doesn't have a job, he parties often, he's sneaky, he plays video games all the time.

You'll probably inspire me to add a few more red flags to my own.

Did you know that unmarried women are now responsible for a whopping 36% of all births?

Are you one of them?

Today (Tuesday, August 28), parenting experts on The Today Show will be discussing the just-released survey of over 14,000 wed and unwed moms. (The article will appear this month in Babytalk magazine.)

This means that nearly four out of ten moms are "single parents."

I'm thrilled that the positive aspects of single parenting are making their way into mainstream media -- aren't you?

This is what I woke up saying this morning:

Brace yourself, Rachel.

Today is the Israeli's 46th birthday. But I'm not going to call him because he has asked me not to contact him again. We haven't exactly been friends since we split up in April, but when my break up column ran in J Weekly this month, that was the end. (It was also the column in which I resigned.)

I know that this column was way too harsh. I'm sorry. I hurt him. I sent him an apology and cc-ed it to his friends who had set us up: "I'm sorry, I wrote this from a very hurt place, That column probably should not have run. Yes, relationships, even if between two good people, do not always work. Yes, it was hard for me to accept this. I'm sorry that I hurt you…"

But the door is closed, he says. (Actually, what he said was, "You're evil.") He says that he wants nothing to do with me. Or with Mae.

How do you deal when the door is closed?