In 2006, Rita Arens of Surrender Dorothy approached me with a huge idea, an exquisitely organized binder and an adult beverage. The result? Sleep is for the Weak, an anthology of superb blogging by parents edited by Rita Arens and starring the 23 parenting bloggers listed below. The first piece is a very personal foreword by Stacy Morrison, editor-in-chief of Redbook.

Maybe it's just summertime, I think. Posting on craft blogs always slows way down in the summertime. That's the likely explanation. Except the slowdown began way before summertime. Except the slowdown includes blogs just going away. Except the slowdown includes bloggers lowering blog posts because of book deals. Except the slowdown includes a lack of interesting posts on the blogs that are there. Which makes some wonder, is the craft blog dead?

I'm going to hit you with bits and pieces of interesting stuff today. Everything in small doses. I guess you heard about George Carlin passing away. I happen to like him–even though he's not everyone's favorite. Jessica Hagy at Indexed apparently liked him, too, as you can see from her post Well, shit.

Have fun playing with LabPIxies, also known as gadgets for your website. LabPixies gives away free gadgets for everything from news, games, fun, or tools. One of the most popular gadgets you can get from LabPixies is this calorie counter.

Jeff Veen, a fellow who is famous in the web design world–he's part of Adaptive Path–announced a conference for people who want to start a company. The conference is called Start and costs a mere $200. It will be in August in San Francisco.

Kassia Krozser's article at Booksquare about her trip to the recent Book Expo American (BEA) pointed out some myths about online life and blogging. Surprisingly, these are things that writers and publishers themselves seem to believe. In (Online) Myths Overheard at BEA 2008, Kassia explored these myths: - You have to blog six times a day - Blogs are omelettes - It’s too late to start a [fill-in-the-blanks] blog