I have to confess, I like Gwyneth Paltrow. I appreciate how honest she is about the vagaries of her life as a mom -- about how hard it was to lose the the baby weight, for example, and her bout of post partum depression. I was impressed to read that she doesn't employ a professional chef, but does all her family's cooking herself. (Although if I were a movie star married to a rock star? I would TOTALLY have a chef. I'm just sayin'.)

Paltrow has a new project -- no, not the PBS cooking show, another new project: she's launching a lifestyle web site called GOOP. That name makes me cringe a little (because "GOOP" in all caps like that? really?) but what makes me cringe even more is the site's tone. In the introduction, Paltrow writes: "My life is good because I am not passive about it. I want to nourish what is real, and I want to do it without wasting time. I love to travel, to cook, to eat, to take care of my body and mind, to work hard. I love being a mother who has to overcome my bad qualities to be a good mother. I love being in spaces that are clean and nice."

I may be a little cynical here (or a lot, whatever) but it seems to me that it's probably easier to overcome "bad qualities" when you have a nanny and a personal trainer helping out. I'm not knocking either of those things (I wish I had both, frankly) but as a mom who can only keep half the flat spaces in her house clear at any moment (right now I'm typing at a table that is covered with bills and baseball gear and things to be returned to various stores) I'm a little put off by the tone of GOOP. I love to travel and cook, but I also love to pay the bills on time, which means that I spend most of my day working, which leaves precious little time to either "nourish what is real" or waste time.

GOOP is broken into six categories: Make, Go, Get, Do, Be, See. When the site is fully launched, each category will include essays written by Paltrow (maybe on how to keep your spaces clean and nice? or how to stop wasting time?). GOOP strikes me as a sort of Martha Stewart for Moms kind of thing, and I'm having the same response to it that I have to Martha Stewart and her craft projects: sure, I COULD make that wreath for the front door out of corn husks that you dry yourself, but really, I'll just wind up buying one at the store because I have to go to work and fold eleven thousand loads of laundry and help the kids with their homework.

I like Gwyneth Paltrow, I really do, and I honestly would like to live more like her. But first I have to figure out how to get all this crap off the table so I can get some work done. Or is that just wasting time?