Oprah announced yesterday that she is offering a free 10-week online class starting in March, based on her new book club selection, “A New Earth.” When I went to the site last night, I got this message:

Due to high traffic demands, this Oprah.com feature is temporarily unavailable.”

Yep, offer something for free and everyone comes in droves. Oprah offers something for free and everyone and her mother comes in droves.

It’s exciting that so many people are interested in discussing a book and learning more, so much so that it crashed the server.

I love learning and jump at the chance for any type of training so I am sure I will join in on this weekly class. She’s said to be teaching it along with the author, Eckhart Tolle. Each week will be based on a chapter in the book. And, there are discussion boars and interactive features for users to upload his/her thoughts — I’m assuming good or bad.

Online education is a new realm for some and I’m glad that Oprah is embracing a new technology in a way that will surely include more people than she ever imagined. I have reservations about if I will like the book, but I’m good about taking new age topics and altering them to my own belief system so I’ll give it a shot. It’s the book’s subtitle that has my interest: “Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose.”

And, since it’s Oprah, the time is right: 9:00 p.m. once a week. Many women are home at that hour and most of the kids are tucked in bed by 9:00 (let’s hope so anyway) so there’s no excuse to join in if you are interested.

Related:

• Buy “A New Earth”
• Sign up to take Oprah’s free class
• Another book by Tolle, “The Power of Now”
• Rick Warren’s “Purpose Driven Life”

Recycling has been a topic of conversation lately in my office, and we did a story on the topic as did our local newspaper.

Evey time I toss a plastic container, water bottle or other “triangle 2″ item into our recycle center I think of Al Gore. We started home recycling after watching “An Inconvenient Truth.” But what do we do with the items that that you can’t recycle at your curb?

For months, my husband has had a computer that he needs to recycle. We can’t toss it in the trash because it’s got toxic chemicals in it. We have yet to find a suitable/appropriate home for the computer so it sits in the playroom, along with a hundred other items that need to be put in their place.

We have too much stuff, as I’ve written about before. Too many items. But, what do you do with things like computers when you don’t want to disappoint Al Gore? We keep them until we 1.) find the time to figure it out and then find more time to get it to the appropriate recycling location 2.) finally say, “screw it, Al” and toss it in the Sunday trash.

Recycling must get easier. We barely have time to get recycling to the curb in time for the Monday truck to get to the house, let alone have to make a call to find out where it should go, then have to drive to to the appropriate location. I can barely get out the door with clothes on in the morning.

Well, my recent “Martha Stewart Living” magazine has a listing for a Web site that will help: www.earth911.org. You can search by item you want to recycle and by zip, giving you a listing of local establishments that will accept your item. Now, if only I can find someone to get me dressed in the morning, I’ll have enough time to drive out to Timbuktu to drop off my recyclables!

Another famous actor is dead. Heath Ledger died yesterday and we don’t know why. Well, there reportedly were drugs near his body at the time of his death, some reports are speculating it may be suicide or drug overdose. Whatever the reason, it’s sad. Tragic actually.

Heath’s daughter, Matilda, is only two weeks older than my son. I can’t imagine my son not having his father around any more. At this age, kids call out for their Daddies (Mommies too). What will Matilda do?

I’m always surprised when famous people suddenly die. Didn’t he have everything? Good looks, daughter, fame, money. I don’t know the reason for Heath’s death, but it only goes to prove that life is short and that you never know what people are going though.

That person who lives across the street from you — the tall, dark and handsome one that drives the Beamer, whose wife stays at home with the 2.5 “perfect angels.” That person. You never know what’s lurking behind his doors. There could be serious issues. You life may not be as bad as you think. You can’t compare yourself to anyone else.

Let’s just be happy to be who we are. Hug your kid today.

I’ve been working on the next version Balancing Motherhood.com for the past couple of days; it includes a redesign that I hope to launch in the next couple of days. In the meantime, enjoy some random links I found while taking a few breaks.

• ‘Dancing With the Stars’ Helio Dumps Fiance — In an ABC story, the current DWTS winner dumped his woman and might be seeing his dancing partner, but People.com reports that they are not dating.
• Watch this video about synchronized Christmas lights. It’s good pick me up music. I would hate to live next door to this house!
• If you like Project Runway (I love, love, love it) read my friend’s blog: ILoveTimGunn.com. She’s really witty and is like another judge!
• What to get your kid for Christmas if he’s been bad. (Who would do this?)
• Read my product review about cool kid’s placemats that I found while on vacation earlier this year.

I recently wrote about how mothers have a sixth sense, a gut instinct, when it comes to our kids. While watching yesterday’s “Oprah Winfrey Show,” actress Jenny McCarthy mentioned this same sense, she calls it the Mommy Sense. She used this in diagnosing her son with autism.

When a doctor told her that her son had epilepsy, she knew the diagnosis was incorrect … from her gut, she knew, she explains. She pushed forward, with another doctor and got the correct diagnosis — autism. Had she not listened to her Mommy Sense, who knows when she would have received the correct information.

We all need to use this as a reminder to trust our Motherly instincts, our guts, our hearts. Even when you can’t explain why you know; if you know you are right, press on.