playgroupsarenoplaceforchildren

I didn’t get a chance to get on the computer yesterday. CRAZY TALK, I KNOW! So today you are lucky, lucky, lucky. Two posts in one! Such a value!

My favorite photo of the week was a complete accident. It’s also one that I look at and sometimes think, “I ADORE this picture SO MUCH,” while other times I look at it and think, “I miss Photshop so much, it is physically painful to look at the mess I made of this photo.”

Ella has only recently started to get attached to a doll/stuffed animal/lovie. Up until a few weeks ago, she had no favorites, but now she can’t do anything without Fuzzy Bunny. This is a picture of snack time with Fuzzy Bunny. (Please pray that we can keep Fuzzy Bunny from getting lost because THE WORLD WILL END if she somehow gets misplaced. Amen.)

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Post #2

Have you all seen Team UmiZoomi? Well we in the Playgroupie household are BIG FANS. It’s probably because we’ve got mighty math powers.

Ella sings and dances along to the song at the end at the end of the show. For your viewing pleasure, please enjoy this 27 second video. If you don’t think it’s cute, then I suspect that you have you likely “have a dead fish for a heart. Good luck with that.” (Direct quote from Lotus, I am Lotus/Sarcastic Mom.)

**If you’re reading from Facebook or from a feed reader, you may have to click through to see the video.**

We all love Umi Zoomi from Playgroupie on Vimeo.

I apologize for not keeping up with the blog tips posts.  All the stars have to align *just so* in order for me to be able to write them.  I have to be in the mood to sit down and write about blogging and I’m not usually in the mood.  These posts take far longer to compile and write than my typical posts, which usually take no more than 20 minutes to throw together.   I also realize that there are a few of you out there that actually think that I know what I’m talking about, so I feel like it’s important to make sure that whatever I say is accurate and makes sense.

Here’s the thing, I actually do know what I’m talking about when it comes to these blog tips.  I know!  I’m so conceited!  (Actually, no I’m not.)  It’s just that having blogged for over THREE WHOLE YEARS practically makes me a shawl-wearing, bespectacled, rocking chair sitting wise blog-grandmother.  There are definitely bloggers out there who’ve been at this whole online writing thing for far longer than me, but there are FAR MORE bloggers who haven’t made it beyond the first year (or even just a few months.)

I’ve considered quitting so many times for a good reasons and for immature, huffy, jealous reasons.   The writing, the commenting, the social media interaction all take up a lot of time and it’s easy to get overwhelmed, I’ve come *this close* to quitting because I felt overwhelmed and guilty when I couldn’t keep up with it all.   After three years, I do occasionally think that the most recent post I’ve written will probably be the last because there is no possible way to come up with another unique topic, yet somehow I always come up with something to say.

And then there’s the whole jealousy issue.   I know that I’m often jealous of others writing talents.  There have been times that I’ve felt bitter about the same people getting invited to all the fun things or other’s subscriber and comment numbers.  I know there are a handful of people who claim to be immune to the jealously, but I also know that I’m not the only one who has felt this way.

I have a super secret, super special way that I’ve been able to overcome all of this and still continue to blog.

IT’S ALL ABOUT YOUR PERSPECTIVE.

The end.

Okay, fine, I’ll elaborate.  (Consider yourself warned! You may need to grab a snack.  I’ll wait.)

1.  Blogging and all related activities DO take time.   The key is finding the time to do what will most benefit you and your blog.

Unless your blog IS your job, and even then, YOUR LIFE OUTSIDE OF THE COMPUTER SHOULD COME FIRST.  Don’t worry about it if you haven’t replied to every comment or visited every unread blog in your Google Reader.  There’s no need to fret if you haven’t written anything on your blog in several days, your loyal readers will still be there when you get back.

If your online, blog related time is limited, then be sure that you’re spending your time wisely.   Commenting on other’s blogs is time consuming but it is the one of THE BEST WAYS to gain readers for your own site.   Leave comments on “popular” blogs AND blogs you’ve never heard of, this is an activity very worthy of your time.  (Hint:  The popular bloggers probably aren’t trying to be jerks when they don’t reciprocate comments, they are busy JUST LIKE YOU!)

If you see no traffic from posting your links on Twitter, then don’t spend ALL of your time tweeting.  I know that I have spoken at length about StumbleUpon and what a great source of traffic it can be, however if it’s not working for you?  Then it’s a waste of your time!  Don’t bother!

Here is some more detailed information about managing your time in the blogosphere. (I’ll be updating that post soon-ish!)

2.  You will be stricken with all sorts of writing ailments including (but not limited to) writer’s block, fear of being too open and honest, super self-consciousness due to overexposure, and jealously of other’s superior writing talents

In any given week, I’ll suffer from one or ALL of these things.  EVERY BLOGGER feels this way at some point.

Whenever I feel like I’m suffering from writer’s block, I sit down at my computer and just start writing.  I write whatever is on my mind.  Occasionally I can mold a post from the words, sometimes there’s nothing to salvage, but at least I was writing.  The cure for writer’s block, for me, is NOT not writing.  Another trick that I use is to look at photos I’ve recently taken and write a post based on one of the shots.  There are also lots of sites that offer weekly memes or writing prompts that can help you get over the hump.

As your readership grows (and it WILL grow), your concerns about what and who you blog about will become a concern.   The more people that read you, the more you may become self-conscious about what you should and shouldn’t reveal.   BUT WHAT ABOUT AUTHENTICITY!?!  It seems to be a buzz word these days around blogging.  My personal ever developing philosophy about this is that I never write something that would intentionally hurt another person.  I don’t share EVERY detail of my life, but I also don’t only write smooshy, feel good posts.  I also include my mistakes and heartaches.

While at Blissdom, I attended a writer’s workshop led by Megan from Velveteen Mind, Arianne from To Think is to Create, Deb from Deb on the Rocks, and Amber from The Run A Muck.  In the session, Megan mentioned that she was listening to the audiobook, Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within (Disclosure:  Affiliate link).  The point that Megan explained that most struck me was that if there’s a writer whose work makes you crazy envious, instead of being jealous, begin to look at that writer as a teacher from whom you can learn.  Another thing that this workshop spurred within me was that in order for me to be a better writer, I have to start thinking of myself as a REAL writer, not just some pretend wanna-be that has no talent.

I realize that my style of writing isn’t everybody’s cup of tea.  My writing isn’t eloquent prose, expertly crafted with $20 words and perfect grammar.  I think that my strength is my ability to craft a story in such a way that others can relate.  It’s taken YEARS for me to recognize this strength and for me to OWN this strength.  Each one of has a writing strength.  Find it!  Not to be cliche, but find your voice and hone it.  Your writing may not be for everyone, but don’t try to write in a way that isn’t truly you.

3.  We ALL get jealous of other bloggers.

I love this tweet from @MindiCherry (Moms Need to Know)

It seems like every week there’s another top blogger list published, the same eleven bloggers have been invited on yet another fabulous trip, and you hear that another blogger has a book deal.   Maybe you wrote your heart out on your latest post and only received a few comments, you lost 100 subscribers overnight, or you don’t have as many followers as you’d like to have on Twitter.  It is HARD not to let these things get you down.  But hear this!

YOU CANNOT LET OTHER PEOPLE’S SUCCESS GET YOU DOWN!

DON’T LET YOUR STATS DEFINE YOU! (comment numbers, page views, @replies, subscriber numbers)

Sorry to shout like that, but I really need you to hear those things.  In fact, I’m going to shout them again.

YOU CANNOT LET OTHER PEOPLE’S SUCCESS GET YOU DOWN!

Most of the bloggers that seem to have what you want, whether it’s their comment numbers, perceived stats, or free trips didn’t start blogging a week ago.  They’ve been working hard for what they’ve received.   They are engaging writers, great at building their community, excellent at networking and have developed relationships with the “right” people.  Guess what?  YOU can also do those things!   It just takes time, patience, skill, and networking.

I was recently named as on of Babble’s Top 50 Mommy Bloggers.  To me it was a HUGE honor, I’d never been named to a list like this one before.  But what does it really mean for me?  I’m not thinner, my boobs aren’t perkier, I’m not suddenly recognized in the grocery store by adoring fans, and I haven’t been offered a job as an Editor for a major publishing company.  I didn’t even get a trophy!  What I do get, is at least 100 more product review requests in my inbox per week now, not exactly something that makes me jump with joy.

DON’T LET YOUR STATS DEFINE YOU! (comment numbers, page views, @replies, subscriber numbers)

I’ve said before that the size of your blogging community is only as important as YOU make it.  If you have 10 loyal readers, that is AWESOME!  If you have 1,000 loyal readers, that’s AWESOME, too…not awesome-er.    The thing about stats is that there may never a number that truly satisfies you.  I’m not saying that you won’t one day have 500 or 2000 or 10,000 subscribers (or whatever your goal may be), but I am saying that even when you get to that magical number, it won’t feel as great as you thought it would.   The quest for MORE, in terms of blogging, is insatiable.

Instead of focusing on THE NUMBER, focus on your community.   Come to truly appreciate those who DO read your blog and interact with you on Twitter.  Remember your original reasons for blogging and what makes blogging fun.  I know that logging into StatCounter is NOT usually fun, but emailing back and forth with a reader can totally make your day.

Here’s a post by Megan from Velveteen Mind that speaks to not allowing your stats to define you, go read it!  I also suggest reading this post from PhD in Parenting that discusses reasons to check your stats, none of which say anything about your stats defining who YOU are.

4.   Unless you are a robot, your feelings will probably get hurt at some point.

I am honored and humbled that so many of you comment and subscribe to my blog.  Unfortunately since there are more than 25 of you, I’m just not able to read every one of your blogs.  I used to have time for reciprocating every comment, I also used to have only one child who napped twice a day and gave me four whole hours of complete, unadulterated commenting time.   These days, I’m lucky to get four hours A WEEK to devote to blogging.  It gives me the nervous tummy to think that I may have hurt someone’s feelings because they’ve been a loyal commenter and I’ve barely acknowledged their existence.

People seem to get hung up is on the perception that “popular” bloggers don’t make any time for other, smaller bloggers, that they appear to only interact with the other elite.  Perhaps this is true for some, not every blogger out there is interested in expanding their already ginormous community.   I’m not immune to the feelings of rejection by other bloggers, but I’ve stopped interacting (and even reading) many of the people that I know have little to no interest in getting to know me.  However, I suspect that most “popular” bloggers are interested in interacting with their readers, but are limited by time.

My feelings have been hurt too many times to count since I started blogging.  My most favorite blogger of all time (formerly) absolutely crushed me when, the day after I first began this Blog Tip Sharing series, she wrote about how ridiculous it was to tell other people how to blog and she just couldn’t understand why anyone cared about making their blog better.  I’ve had my feelings hurt over emails I’ve sent that have gone unanswered.  It hurts my feelings when I’ve replied a ridiculous amount of times to someone on Twitter and they’ve NEVER responded.  Sometimes when I see that someone isn’t following me back on Twitter that I think should be following me, I’ll do the quick unfollow-refollow because SURELY the fact that they aren’t following me is a mistake!

Trolls can also show up uninvited to your blog and wreak havoc.  I’ve had my fair share of trolls, they are particularly fond of my posts about Alabama.   I could shoot off indignant replies or post their IP addresses on my blog, but I’m a firm believer that if you ignore them, you take away their fuel.  There is only so much room in my brain, I simply do not have the space available to allow people full of negativity take up that space.

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I hope that this post has served as some sort of blog induced frustration therapy.  However you’re feeling, both the positive AND the negative feelings, have been felt by all of us.  It’s not easy to pour your heart out online or write sometime brilliantly funny and feel like you’re not getting noticed.  We’re bloggers!  We’re narcissistic!  If we didn’t care at all about getting some sort of accolades, we’d all be writing in a private forum.

Make the decision in your mind that you’re okay with how much time you devote to blogging, your writing abilities, and make peace with your stats and popularity status.

(I’d been working on this post for two weeks when I noticed that Loralee’s post about blogging and jealousy had been syndicated at BlogHer. I decided to go ahead and post this, even though the subject matter is so similar, I think there’s room for two parallel viewpoints.)

Previously in this series: Writing Tips, Blog Promotion and Social Networking, StumbleUpon School, Blog Design, Sidebars and Pages, Building your Community, Developing your Brand

Whenever we go out to eat with the kids, I usually check out the kids menu and offer them two of the choices.   I purposely don’t tell them if there is peanut butter and jelly on the menu because 1) they can eat that at home and do nearly everyday, 2) I know that if I mention peanut butter and jelly, the kids will not want ANYTHING ELSE offered and 3) restaurant peanut butter and jelly is 450 times messier* than what I serve at home. (*in a non-clinical study, 3 out of 4 parents agree!)

I guess I’ve slacked in this area of husband training because somehow Tate didn’t realize that I had such strong feelings against restaurant peanut butter and jelly.  As he was reading the menu choices to the kids, I was trying to get his attention with lots of throat clearing, adamantly nodding my head “NOOOOO!”, and I was shooting lasers out of my eyes into his forehead.

Sadly, the children had peanut butter and jelly for dinner and I went home covered with little jelly handprints.

I did not wake up this morning to a little boy standing at the edge of my bed staring and giggling at me.

I had time to take my shower and get completely ready before the kids woke up.

Both children sat right down to breakfast without whining or yelling.

Breakfast was SpongeBob free.

Ella tenderly hand-fed me imaginary blue stars.  I assume they were delicious.

Carson and Ella’s version of the game peek-a-boo, didn’t end with someone in tears.

I didn’t clean up any bowls of cereal off the floor.

The kids helped me load and start the dishwasher without fighting or making a huge mess.

Carson got himself dressed without me ever having to say, “GET DRESSED, NOW!”

As I pulled Ella’s shirt over her head, she proudly proclaimed, “I have two arms!!”

Carson helped Ella put on her socks.

Excuse me while I bask in the glory of a rare good start to the day.

(Please ignore the poor quality of the pictures, I wasn’t going for perfection, I just wanted to capture the moments!)

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I made a serendipitous discovery!  Emily at Chatting the Sky hosts a little thing called “gifts on a tuesday.” I think my precious moment was a perfect gift on a Tuesday.

For Christmas a year ago, her Nanny (my mom) gave her make-up that I stealthily hid in my closet for when she was older.

I guess she was finally “older” last week when after day after day after day after day of being stuck inside due to frigid and wet weather I had run out of ways to entertain her.  What I really needed was a peaceful shower, so I gave her the make-up with instructions to “have fun!”

She LOVED it.  In her true fashion, the messiest child on the planet had purple make-up covering most every inch of visible skin (not shown in the above picture.)

I loved that I was able to capture her joy.

You can see my entire set of photos for my project 365 {2010} on Flickr.

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Remember how we got a new computer last week?  Temporarily insane, Tate bought it much to my delight.  There’s been a bit of a problem, though.  Tate has to regularly log onto work at home.  Imagine our frustration (read:  not OUR frustration, but Tate’s CURSING and YELLING) when he found out that Mac is not supported by his work.

Uh oh.

We are now ALSO the proud new owners of a brand new PC netbook.

I foresee a lot of rice and beans and beans and rice on our menu for the next few months.

Carson and I have been butting heads for the past few…well, actually forever. We go through stages where all’s well, but those times seem to be few and far between. The past few weeks have been particularly trying, to say the least. I keep not so jokingly telling people that I don’t know if Carson ever truly had colic as a newborn or if he was just born difficult for the sake of being difficult. Everyone reminds me that he’s only four, but sometimes his behavior is so disrespectful and shocking that I think, “Only four? No wonder I’m exhausted, I’ve been dealing with this for FOUR years.”

Today when I picked Carson up from school, his teacher told me that he had worked very carefully on their art project.   He handed it to me, as proud as I’ve ever seen him, beaming from ear to ear.

“I made it for you, Mommy.”

I wonder if he knew that it was exactly what I needed?

My children lost their ever loving minds today.  I don’t fully grasp the meaning of the phrase “ever loving mind,” but it didn’t stop me from repeatedly saying to these two miniature heathens who live under my roof, “HAVE YOU TWO LOST YOUR EVER LOVING MINDS?????”

I fully blame those damn kids of mine for this post and why I’m going to talk about Nutella for the second time in less than a week.

Last week, when I first wrote about Nutella, Moriah from Please Pass the Salt left a very intriguing comment.  She left one word.  ”Strawberries.”  That’s all it said.  This one word seemed significant so I ran to the store right away (well, as right away as one can when waiting to grocery shop blissfully alone) and bought strawberries.  Why it hadn’t occured to me before to eat Nutella with strawberries, I have no idea.  Strawberries with Nutella definitely sounded far better than Nutella with toast.

Did you know, that Nutella is from CANADA???  All this time I thought it was from Italy.   The more you know!

Also did you know that Nutella is not necessarily found on the International foods aisle?  It is from a TOTALLY EXOTIC foreign country, yet I found it swapping “ehs” and “aboots” with the peanut butter and jelly.

Also ALSO did you know that Nutella with strawberries, fed to you by your significant other after a rotten day, tastes especially delicious?