We're in the Finals!

FindingDulcinea is one of the three finalist for Mashable's Open Web Awards I mentioned last week. We really need everyone's help to get through the last round of voting.

Here's what to do: visit Mashable's Open Web Awards page and choose "Search and Social Search" in the first dropdown menu. In the second, choose findingDulcinea, and then enter your email address. Once you've done that, they'll send you an email. Click on the link in the email to be sure your vote has been counted.

You can vote once a day, and voting goes until Dec. 15. The winner will be announced Dec. 16. I really appreciate everyone's help.

Hope You Had A Great Thanksgiving

Today I'm making a brief special plea. The site I work for, www.findingdulcinea.com, has been nominated for Mashable's Open Web Awards, in the search and social search category. We're excited that so many more people might be able to see what a great site we have. These awards celebrate "major innovations in web technology," and we think the Librarian of the Internet is a great example.

Winners last year included Google, Facebook, Twitter and Meetup. Anyone can vote on these awards, and you're allowed to vote once a day through the middle of December.

I planned to install a cool widget that lets you vote right here from my blog, but I'm less computer savvy than I thought. It's a shame, because the directions my co-worker sent seemed very easy.

Anyway, please visit Mashable's Open Web Awards page to vote for us (once a day, ideally). We're in the "search and social search" category, and the company is findingDulcinea. Please note that once you've entered your email address, you have to confirm the vote by clicking on the link Mashable sends.

On a completely different topic, here's new mom lesson #4,257: Don't wear light-colored clothes when feeding a baby carrots or avacado. Especially if he has a cough.

Welcome to the working week

This week I went back to work and the world kept turning.

To make things easier, numerous sources suggested starting work in the middle of the week, and having Tim drop DJ off at the day care center. So I worked from home on Tuesday, and went into the office for the first time on Wednesday.

After weeks of discussion, we got our commute down, with one car, two different commutes and a day care stop.

Saying good-bye to him in the car that morning made me a little teary, but then it was better. But by the time I got on the train that afternoon, I was antsy to see him. At the day care, he was fast asleep in the swing. He didn’t cry very much, the ladies watching him said.

It was strange to be back in the office, but everyone at work was extremely welcoming. They made a point to tell me they were happy I was back. It’s great to work with such wonderful people.

And speaking of findingDulcinea, have they ever been busy this summer. They have created an entire site devoted to the Olympics and another for this year’s election. Our election site features stories from key races around the country, profiles of battleground states, and guides to politics, this year’s presidential election, political parties and more.

They’ve also launched Encontrando Dulcinea, a Spanish version of our site. So far, guides include supporting military families, the New York City Survival Guide and baseball, with more to come.

It's the little things

A few mornings each week I stop for a bagel and coffee at a deli on my way to work. When we moved up here and I started this ritual, I noticed two things:

- Bagels, as every transplanted New Yorker laments, really are better here. Don’t ask me why. I had always thought the complaints were a little irritating, but I understand now.

- The cashiers, without fail, put or try to put the coffee in the bag with the bagel. I’ve stopped at more than a dozen different delis in midtown, depending on my destination and route, and it’s always the same. They give me a bag with a bagel and my coffee in it. Is it a throwback to the days before the cardboard cup sleeves that keep us from burning our hands? I’ve never seen it done anyplace else except here. It annoys me because I assume, as a klutz, that I’ll do something that causes the coffee lid to come off and soak my bagel, thus ruining my breakfast.

If anyone has theories as to why this is standard practice, please share them. I’m baffled.

So I guess our big news is that we’re looking at condos and houses, since we’re planning to move anyway this summer. Whether we rent or buy depends on what we find, but there are affordable properties out there than I expected. It’d be nice to buy, since I’m tired of our nomadic lifestyle.

Much of our research for mortgages and homes, not surprisingly, has been online. I knew our site had a homes section, so it was one of my first stops. Sure enough, a whole section on home mortgages helped me learn what I needed to know.

Meanwhile, Tim wanted a site that would tell us how much homes in neighborhoods we’re interested in have sold for. He found exactly what he wanted in the Homes Web Guide.

And finally, our site’s features section has an account of our honeymoon to the U.S. Virgin Islands. Writing it made me want to go back, even though we were down there in June.

When work comes home…In a good way

A few weeks ago my husband and I were looking at strollers online. We knew what type we wanted, but didn’t know which of the hundreds of models would be the best to tote up and down subway stairs. He said to me, “we need a stroller buying guide.”

At an editorial meeting the next week, I said something about the need for a baby gear shopping guide. My editors agreed and promptly assigned it to me. It is now up on our site and has buying guides, product reviews and funky baby gift sites.

While I worked on the guide, I found a National Highway Transportation Safety Administration video about car seats. The government is rating car seats on how easy they are to install and use. The short video raised all sorts of points that I hadn’t even thought of for car seat shopping. For example, does the car seat have instructions on both sides of the base? If you’re installing the car seat on one side of the car, but the instructions face the other, it could make the process much more difficult.

Yesterday we were at Babies ‘R’ Us trying to sort out some stroller and car seat issues. That video helped me figure out what to look for, and see some major differences between our top two choices.

Researching the guide also reminded me of a site a friend sent me a few years ago, called Rock A Bye Baby! This site turns rock and alternative songs into lullabies for babies. They have nearly two dozen albums from artists such as Led Zeppelin, Nirvana, U2, Tool and AC/DC. The albums are also available on iTunes, and I think we’ll download a couple.

In other little one news, he has a new nickname. He’s been extremely active the last week or so, but when Tim puts his hand on my stomach, the baby stops whatever he's doing. Within seconds of Tim removing his hand, the baby is at it again. For now, we're calling him Michigan J. Baby.

Sorry it's been so long...

I’ll try to stick to a schedule of posting once or twice a week.

As I write this, I’m waiting for cinnamon rolls to proof before I bake them. We saw an episode of Good Eats a couple of weeks ago, and since then I’d been thinking about making them. Proofing, as I understand it, has something to do with using steam to wake up the yeast in the rolls after they’ve spent hours in the refrigerator. We’ll see how they turn out. I didn’t get the right kind of yeast, so it took about 12 hours for the dough to rise when the recipe said it would take two. Luckily we weren’t counting on them for Sunday breakfast.

We spent President’s Day weekend visiting friends in North Carolina. For those friends we didn’t see while we were there, I’m sorry. It was a short trip, from Saturday afternoon to noon Monday. It was pretty low-key – we just spent time with our friends and their young children, went to some favorite restaurants, and Tim played lots of Guitar Hero.

On the work front, findingDulcinea has a new project sports fans will enjoy. www.AlmostPerfectSeason.com is a look back at the Giants’ and Patriots seasons, with some of the funny commentary, predictions, criticism and reverence surrounding these two teams. This site starts in the off-season and goes through each week, then quarter by quarter during the Super Bowl. And of course there's a roundup of the jubilation and bewilderment (depending on who you were rooting for) after the game.

Watch several clips, including two commercials from Reebok with the 1972 Dolphins (there’s nothing like covering your bases); comments from Michael Strahan and Eli’s appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman.

Belly button watch, day 127: Still an inny. I think it's decided to stay that way.

If you haven't been to findingDulcinea lately ...

We've had all sorts of interesting stories, and I have some recommendations. First, there’s a chilling story about a hospital that held infants until their parents could pay their bills. Luckily, a judge had the sense to intervene.

Valentine’s Day is Thursday, and we’ve got a guide to the holiday that includes its history, gift ideas, recipes, and ideas for a romantic evening. There’s also a section that highlights all the fun single people can have on Valentine’s Day.

I’m not a huge fan of Valentine’s Day, to be honest, and don't see a reason to go all out for it. We’re just going to have a quiet dinner at home. We bought a frozen duck today for it, and I’m looking forward to having it. All I have to do is find a cheesecake.

One piece I worked on is about three Mississippi lawmakers who proposed a measure that would prohibit restaurants from serving obese people. The bill drew lots of criticism, and state leaders say it’s not going to get anywhere. Mississippi has one of the highest obesity rates in the U.S.

Lately I've been sending guides and other items to some friends. One friend is going to Spain this month, so I sent her our travel guide. Another friend is planning a trip to the Grand Canyon, so I sent her our National Parks guide.

If you're looking to research a particular topic, take a look around our site, or ask me. We've cover health, religion, home improvement, finance, careers, travel, and just about anything else you can think of. Similarly, if you don't find a guide you think we should have, let me know. You know where to find me.

Belly button watch, day 32: Still an inny, but it’s just biding its time. I can tell.

Dispatches from the board

Tonight I’m sending my post from our dart night. Home turf doesn’t seem to matter so far, as we're about even with the other team, win-loss wise, about a third of the way into the competition. I was responsible for one loss, but my opponent was very good (she hit everything I was aiming for), which is a consolation.

We had an interesting story today about wine’s prices vs. enjoyment. A study in California showed that people enjoyed a wine if they thought it was more expensive. Other researchers, though, wondered if the subjects would have enjoyed the wine as much had they actually paid for it. This story is currently irrelevant to me, as you know, but good to know in the future.

Oh, and if you have the cold or flu, use our guide to help get better. This guide has links that tell you how to figure out whether you have the cold or flu, and how they are treated. There are also links to what remedies are effective, or will just make you feel better. Among my favorites: a WebMD quiz that helps you decide whether you should go to work or call in sick, and an Associated Press article about other countries' versions of chicken soup.

You have to start somewhere ...

So I'll start with today, which is warm and sunny in Manhattan. And the sun definitely lifted my spirits after this morning, which started off with oversleeping, ironing and ill-fitting maternity clothes. And that followed a late night and a miserable showing in our dart game (0-3, a new low for me, I think). It's amazing what sunny weather and half-caff coffee can do.

Though many people seem focused on the New Hampshire primary results today, I'm not paying too much attention. No, something on findingDulcinea's web page caught my attention. On this day 36 years ago, the Queen Mary sank. You know I can't resist a good mystery.

Full disclosure: I write for findingDulcinea, but didn't write this particular piece. I'll periodically be sharing some articles, guides and other features I think may interest you. This site, for those of you who know me, is a big change from my newspaper days, but I find it fascinating. I hope you do, too.

For example, if you're feeling more civic-minded today than I am and want to learn more about the 2008 presidential candidates, check out our election guide.