Non-Bloggers Just Don't Understand

So I was Tweeting with  @DonutsMama and @suitcasetricks about their entry in @fourplusanangel 's #TwitterTwin contest and @DonutsMama mentioned that her family thought she was crazy. I told her DH thinks I'm weird when I talk about my blog/Twitter friends. And THEN @DonutsMama said this:

Ok, what's the first thing that pops into your head when you see that? Well, if you're in your late thirties like me, it's Will Smith, baby. (If you are crazy and don't remember that song, here's a link to it.)

Then I thought of @KelleysBreakRm and how she does awesome song parodies - she even did a Will Smith (Hottie McToddie!) one recently - The Fresh Prince of Bel Air theme song which of course ROCKED. So I said I was considering doing one myself. Then @bellebeandog jumped on board and encouraged the idea (as did Kelley!). I jumped in with gusto! And then I remembered how long that song is. So I only did half of it. (You'll thank me for that later.)

So without further ado, I present to you, "Non-Bloggers Just Don't Understand."

You know people are the same
No matter time nor place.
They don't understand that bloggers
Play for high stakes!
So to Tweeters and bloggers all across the land
There's no need to argue,
Non-bloggers just don't understand.

Oh-kay, here's the situation:
My family went away on a week's vacation, and
I brought my iTouch so I could Tweet.
Would they mind?
Umm, well, of course not.
I'll just Tweet for a little while
We're in California - Tweet about style!
And maybe bring my laptop to Hollywood.
Well, maybe I shouldn't...
Yeah, of course I should!

Pay attention, here's the thick of the plot:
My family asked me to get offline - I think not!
Just last week, on the Twitter I had heard about
A cool stat program I needed to join that's called Klout.
It's the latest term I've learned in the Twitterverse.
Tried to get a handle on the Blogosphere first.
Gigi from Kludgy Mom started me on my course
With a B2B program I finished without remorse!
Then I learned about SEO from Aunt Becky -
John Meyer must admit she's not your average mommy!
Support in the blogger world is unparalleled:
Eli Rose Social? My hand they have held!
SITS Girls, Theta Mom, Mamaped - ia,
Studio 30 Plus, BlogHer, TRDC! Uh!

Not to mention all the fun I have with my Tweeps!
One I know has an avi that looks like a sheep!
There's Liz, Kris and Shell, Angie and Lori,
Rachel, Jen and D, and of course, KLZ!
Not to mention Cheryl, Nichole and Katie,
Tim, Erin, Alex, and then there's Natalie.
Jen, Sherry, Kelley; Julia and Yulia.
Wait, hold the phone - did you say Julia Goulia?
No, don't be ridiculous! These people aren't fake!
They're funny and witty and their tweets take the cake!
Some I've grown to know so well it seems like they're kin.
Jessica says some of them even look like twins!
I'd name more, but I must pay some attention
To my fam I'm with since we're on vacation.

It was time to head home, back to KC,
Had the windows down - "Road trip!" - nice and breezy.
Instead of family vacation memories,
The thoughts in my head were re: my online peeps.
I found myself laughing about a tweet or story
That I read on a blog, a forum or a linky.
I 'd tell my hubby and my kids and they would say,
"OK, but you don't really KNOW them anyway."
I tried to speak, I said, "I want to plead my case!"
But my hubby and my kids just made a weird face.
That was a hard ride home, I don't know how I survived it.
The kids just laughed while my husband was driving.

Well, people are the same
No matter time nor place,
So to Tweeters and bloggers all across the land
Take it from me,
Non-bloggers just don't understand.

Goals for the New Year

I was planning to do a post on New Year's, so Julia's WMW theme works out perfectly!

I don't make resolutions either. They've rarely stayed resolved. The only one I can think of that I've actually stuck with is reading a literary classic and a self-improvement/educational book for each trashy novel which I decided to do about 4 or 5 years ago. But I do make goals. Usually I wait to make them until the spring. Everyone gets tipsy and nostalgic around this time of year and thinks, man, another year's gone, and what do I have to show for it? Next year I'll do better. Next year, I'll lose 50 lbs. Yeah! And I'll go to church every week. Amen! And I'll stop being an aggressive driver. You know it! And I won't yell at my kids once! Uh-uh. And I'll write a blog piece that gets picked up by the media and turns me into superstar/millionaire! Woo hoo!!

But by the end of January, that new gym membership that made you miss a Sunday at church has lost it's luster, and you've only written about how you cut off the driver behind you while screaming at your children to stop fighting. And instead of trying again, you give up completely because you've already failed, and it hasn't even been a month yet.

My sister-in-law and I had a long talk about motivation and goals with respect to dieting and weight loss into the wee hours Monday night/Tuesday morning. She's a dietician and works for Skinny Gene, a non-profit dedicated to helping fight diabetes. The things we discussed really apply to all "resolutions" or goals. So I thought I'd share some tips in addition to my own dreams for 2011.

First, know thyself.
No matter what the experts say or the advertisements show, working out in the morning or buying a fitness video will not work for me. I am not a morning person. Even before I had kids and could work out in the morning (and did for awhile - 5:45am Jazzercise class), I just didn't get as good a workout. My body simply does not function at that time of day. And buying a video is a waste of money for me. I need external motivation. A workout partner, a class time, some kind of accountability.

Unfortunately for me, while evening is my optimum exercise window, since I don't get home from work until 6pm, by the time I feed the munchkins and put them to bed, do dishes and laundry and prep work for the next day, I have maybe 15 minutes to myself before bedtime. On a good day. Usually I miss my bedtime goal of 10:30pm by at least 30 minutes to an hour. Which sucks even more because at this stage in my childrens' lives, I'm usually awakened a minimum of once for about 15 minutes to a maximum of 3-4 times for up to 3 hours.

Last year I hit upon a brilliant solution - working out at the gym next door to my office over my lunch break. Perfect!!! But then I had Baby R, so when I went back to work, I pumped at lunch and/or took a short nap for the first 6 months. Then it was time for S to start preschool. Yay! Except her preschool is only half-days. So I use my lunch hour to pick her up and take her to daycare. Sigh.

So knowing all these things about myself, I have to avoid using them as excuses, and instead use them as a starting place. And I have to remember not to let other people tell me things like, "If you really wanted to, you could make time." Because everybody is different and no one can tell you what will work for you. They can make suggestions about things that worked for them, but only you know what will really, truly work for you.



Second, expect to get derailed.
A couple of months ago, I started Julia's pushup challenge, and I was so excited. It wasn't a major thing, but it was a little change, and I felt better about myself. And then at the end of October, we lost our daycare. And then the first week of November, I totaled our car. Life spiraled out of control. I couldn't focus on even that small of a task to do 20 pushups a day because I was consumed with bigger issues. November wrapped up and so did most of the drama. But suddenly, it was Christmastime, and I was completely unprepared and feeling behind the 8-ball. So I put the pushups aside for a little longer.  I got really frustrated because I felt like I couldn't workout at all. But I didn't give up. I decided to accept the derailment. It wasn't a stopping point. It was a pause. Most people look at "dieting" as a stage in life. "When I was 25 I did the Atkins diet." "When I was 28 I did the cabbage-soup diet." It has a starting point and an ending point. But monitoring diet and exercise are an ongoing thing. You make choices every day with respect to them. I'm not ready to say, "When I was 35, I did the pushup challenge." It's not over. It's just on hiatus. And don't wait for a special day to start up again - birthday, New Year's, the first day of of the new "Psych" season. Look at your day and see if you can get back on track. And if you can, great. If not, try again tomorrow. Just don't give up.



Third, make a realistic plan.
What I want my New Year's Resolution to be: Workout for an hour 3-4 times a week. If I make that goal, I will fail. I know this even before I start. Most people who set that kind of goal really know deep down that even though it looks good on paper, there's no way to make it match up with reality. But they do it because they think that's what they need to do. Actually, you need to decide what you really can see yourself doing if you're truly honest with yourself. When Julia started the pushup challenge, I realized that I don't need to do a full-blown workout right now. As much as I would like to, I just can't make it a priority. But I can find 5 minutes here and there throughout the day to do things. So I decided that's my first goal for this year. To get 5-minutes of exercise a day and build on it incrementally as I can. This is not a big discovery - trainers say it all the time. But sometimes it sounds hopeless. Five minutes a day won't make a difference, so why bother? You have to start somewhere. And by accomplishing a little goal, you'll give yourself more confidence and motivation to continue making small changes. And it really will make a difference. Think about how much environmentalists say a one degree increase in the average world temperature can change things.

That said, some goals need to be somewhat lofty. And that's great. But even lofty goals need steps to be taken to achieve them. So break it down into specifics. What exactly am I going to do "be a better mother"? Not lose my temper as often. Ok, great. How do I do that? Look at what are my triggers, and address them individually. 1. Sleep-deprivation (ok, not a lot I can do about that one, but I'll certainly try!). 2. Feeling unhealthy. When I can tell I'm getting impatient, I need to take those 5 minutes to get that mini-workout in. Make smarter food choices. If I'm grouchy because I'm hungry, eating a candy bar will just make it worse. Grab a fruit and some nuts instead. 3. Study my arsenal of child-rearing resources (I only have a dozen books on the subject) and select a tried-and-true method to use consistently. Or if that's failing, find a new one to utilize. 4. Take a moment to remove myself from the situation (when possible).  Basically, just break it down so it's a concrete goal with tangible steps to take.



Fourth, set up an accountability system.
Whether you get a workout partner, ask your spouse to check in on you, track your progress on a program online, involve your kids or blog about it, do something you know will help keep you going when the going gets tough.



Fifth, make some easy, fun goals! If you are a list person like I am, you like nothing better than to see items checked off that list. I will put my list of goals on the refrigerator and mark them off as I accomplish them. One year, "Get pregnant" was on the list. There's a fun one to shoot for. :) And it was also fun to cross it off.


Sixth, keep the goals fluid. Some goals need a time frame or they'll never be accomplished. But some are kind of "bucket list" goals that can be shifted from one year's list to the next. Like we want to get a new master bedroom set. We were saving up for it. And then I totaled the car. So I'm not eliminating it, just moving it to this year's list. And keep adding to the list throughout the year. Just because it's the middle of August, doesn't mean you can't decide you want to learn to crochet before Christmas. Put it on the list. And don't be afraid to re-evaluate the list. If you get through November and you've tried to start to read "Gone with the Wind" once every month, but just can't get past the first 50 pages, maybe it's just something you don't really need to do.



With those parameters in mind, here are my goals for my life at this time:

• Find 5 minutes a day to exercise in some way.
• Find a new church home.
• Be a better mother: not lose my temper as often.
• Complete the blog improvements I haven't gotten to yet from Kludgy Mom's Back 2 School/Back 2 Blogging workshop.
• Create a new email account that is just for my blogging world.
• Find a support group for people with loved ones who have dementia.
• Take the girls on a train ride to St. Louis.
• Get a master bedroom set.
• Find a philanthropy the whole family can participate in.
• Clean the ceiling fans in our house.
• Drink at least 8 glasses of water a day.
• Make a concerted effort not to use the desk in the kitchen as a dumping grounds for crap because it makes DH crazy.

B2S/B2B Assignment 4: Important Bloggers in my Blogging Life

As a newly publicized blogger, I don't have a lot of followers yet, so I'd just like to highlight a few of people who have been instrumental in helping and inspiring me.

First up, Lori @ In Pursuit of Martha Points. I don't remember how I found out about Lori's post on the Rainbow Cake (which I've since learned originated with Gigi!), but I was laughing so hard, I had to forward the link to several friends to check it out. Each time I came back to forward it, I read another post. Lori sounded like the kind of gal I'd like to hang out with eating cake and candy (not bread and cough drops). I commented on her posts, she commented back - Lori was the first person I really interacted with via the blog world.

Next is Julia @ Work, Wife, Mom... Life! I started following Julia... well, officially? Today, actually. But I've been reading her since around August. I found her through Lori's blog roll, and I've really enjoyed her posts. And she has a really cool blog design. :)

What brought Julia to this list has to do with last week's B2S/B2B assignment. I was struggling with figuring out how to add a badge to my site, and I made a post on Blog Frog, but hadn't heard back from anyone. I commented on something Julia said about Twitter, and she wrote back with some suggestions for me, and then asked if there was anything else I wondered about it because she was going to do another post with tips for newbies like me. I really appreciated her asking my opinion, so asked if she could maybe help me figure out how to add the badge and code to my site. She gave me the scoop, and now I have a lovely badge for all to copy!

I really thought blogging was going to be more isolated and when there was interaction that it would be brisk and business-like, but I'm finding that all those who post about making bloggy friends are right. Julia illustrated just how nice and helpful other bloggers are!

And finally, Gigi from Kludgy Mom without whom I would not be posting this! I could not have found Gigi at a more perfect time. I expound on this more in this post, but I started blogging for me, and just last spring submitted a post to Mamapedia. That led me to revamp my blog to be public. This summer, I started looking at more blogs and found Kludgy Mom a couple of weeks before Gigi started Back to School/Back to Blogging. It has been such an amazing experience! I cannot thank her enough for all she's done.

There are others, but you three are the ones who first came to mind. I think this was a wonderful assignment. I'm considering adding a "Star of the Week" type of thing to my blog highlighting everyone, and why I love them. Who doesn't love praise?

B2S/B2B Assignment 3

I'm behind this week. Well, it's already next week, so I'm behind from last week. Anyway, last week, Kludgy Mom's assignment was to apply one of the tips on how to grow my blog and then post about it.

So many great tips! I have already been doing some of them - joining blog networks, commenting, checking out blogrolls. But I've been thinking about making a badge for awhile, and that was also on the list, so I thought I would do that for my homework assignment. The problem was, I had no idea how to go about it. I knew how to add it to my sidebar, but I didn't know how to add the code below it for people to copy it.

So I did some research, and came up with...nothing. Thankfully, Julia at Work, Wife, Mom...Life! came to my rescue! I now have a cute little button on my blog. And to pay it forward, if any of you would like to add a badge, here's how.

This is the code you need to use:

Per Julia, "Replace the RED with your blog address (that will make sure the button is linked back to you), and replace the GREEN with the code to where you host your button." Julia's is hosted on Photobucket; mine is on Winkflash.

In Blogger, go to the Design tab, and click Add a Gadget. Select HTML/Java Script. Then in the content section, paste the code.

Voila! You have the code displayed on your page for all to enjoy.

The second part of the assignment was to address our goals and our plan to meet them. Uh, good question. I'm still not exactly sure what my goals are. I just decided to go public - really public - with this baby. So I guess my goals are to establish a solid group of followers and keep polishing my writing skills to keep them happy! But not to let it take over my life. 'Cause, I gotta be honest, this schoolwork has opened my eyes to the wonderful world of blogging in a new way, and I could literally spend my life, 24/7 on it.

As for a plan, I'm going to tackle all of the suggestions made through the lessons that I haven't yet completed over the next few months after we wrap up the official session. And I'm planning to establish future Septembers as my B2S/B2B spring cleaning time so I can keep up with the latest and greatest blog formats.

And now, since I'm way behind, I'm going to move on to the next assignment!

B2S/B2B Assignment 2: I Thought I Was Going to Die

This week's assignment was a fun one. We pooled ideas for posts and then chose one as a starting point for our own blog. I chose #71 "I thought I was going to die…"

I thought I was going to die. Literally. I don't think I've ever really thought that any other time in my life. I have a fear of heights and an over-active imagination, so there have been lots of times I've been afraid of falling to my death. On a ski lift, for example. But as I recited my mantra (Our Father), and had a death-grip on the side of the lift, I knew it was POSSIBLE I could die, but not PROBABLE. There was the time I had mono, and I prayed that I WOULD die, but I didn't feel close to it happening at all. But that cab ride. That cab ride was the green light to heaven.

My DH and I were in Vegas six or seven years ago. He'd never been before, and I surprised him with a trip. I'd been to the Strip four or five times before then, and I'd always walked to get places for the most part. I'd taken a cab to and from the airport, of course, and I'd been a passenger on a bus there and used the monorail once or twice, but usually I just hoofed it everywhere. I mean, every building is a destination, and 90% of where I wanted to be was on the same street, and I usually didn't have a time frame to work in, so it always seemed silly to use any transportation. But when DH and I were there, business was booming and traffic was ridiculous, so the lines at the bus stops and monorail were crazy. And it was H-O-T, hot, and we were hungry. We wanted to go from New York, New York (on the south end) to the Stratosphere (on the north end) for dinner. So we got in a taxi. If only we'd known what we were getting ourselves into.

I've ridden in cabs in Chicago and New York - I've experienced the attempted scam on taking a longer route for an out-of-towner, and moves that should be reserved for a hockey rink, or at the bare minimum, a NASCAR track. I think I was blindsided in Vegas because it's not a typical big city, so I anticipated a ride comparable to ones I've experienced in KC. The driver was nice enough; he wasn't even foreign. (I say that only to illustrate that we weren't reacting to a stereotype.) Things started out fine; DH and I were relaxing and chatting casually as we merged into traffic, and the driver asked if we minded jumping on the highway to avoid the congestion. I knew this was a ploy for more money, but I also could see that we would easily get where were going in half the time, so when DH said that was fine, I didn't protest. And then it happened.

I can honestly say, I don't really remember much more of the trip. I can't really describe exactly what traffic violations were committed other than a vague sense of speeding and extreme reckless driving. I just remember the adrenaline I was feeling, the silent prayers I was saying, and DH looking at me and saying with complete sincerity, "I think we're going to die." I love my hubby, but he is not big on snuggling and especially avoids PDA. You would not have known that had you seen us in that back seat from the tight grip DH and I had on each other.

Finally, after probably only 15 minutes but what felt like an hour, we got to our destination. We threw the cabbie some cash and jumped out of that car. We were exhausted and ready to eat and go back to our hotel and relax. Needless to say, though we were tired, we walked back, thankful we only had throngs of pedestrians to avoid instead of oncoming cars. We haven't been in a taxi together since.

B2S/B2B Assignment 1

It's been a whirlwind of craziness in the land of Not Just Another Jennifer recently. My hubs and I both have been overscheduled last week and this week, he got a stomach bug Sunday and Monday, and while the full moon isn't supposed to occur til next week, it must have been shining over our house last night because the girls were completely whacko. By this I mean that within minutes of my arrival home, S peed on the couch - for no reason - so I asked her to go to the bathroom and clean herself up while I scrubbed the , and then she pulled the entire roll of TP off onto the floor. When I asked her to pick it up, she said, no. Deep...breaths. Do not...strangle...your child. And poor baby R has a horrific diaper rash that is so bad that it woke her up in the night. :( Not to mention that Kludgy Mom's Back 2 School/Back 2 Blogging project started, and though I was ahead of the game Sunday having read the assignment AND checked out the extra credit, I'm currently in a time crunch to finish the writing portion by tomorrow. I just want to go to bed after volleyball tonight since I was up from 2am-4am with my 3-year-old insomniac, but I will push through and get it done, because that's the kind of student I am. A procrastinating perfectionist - yikes.

On to the point of my post. Week 1's assignment was to do an inspection checklist of my blog. Before I even started, I knew I needed to do some major overhauling. I need to have a remedial class with Gigi to figure out how to do some things. From looking over our 11-point checklist, I did a several simple things that I feel like made a big difference, but here are the things I still want to do to improve my blog:

• Figure out how to add tabs.
• FIgure out how to add categories.

Hmmm, hopefully I'll have time to work on that before the next assignment.

The writing task for the week was to find a "COOL, little-known plugin or widget and tell us about it". I don't know about any, so maybe others have already seen these, but I thought it was be really helpful for me as a mom blogger. There's a site, Widgetbox, that has a bunch of different things available. One section is basically for quick searches or links to check out how family-friendly different entertainment arenas are. The first one I saw was called Moral Metric Search. It gives movie, TV, video game, and Web safety reviews. I couldn't get it to work, though. Then I found one that is a link to Crosswalk.com where there are Christian movie reviews. It's sort of like the Facebook or Twitter widgets in that it shows the latest posts to their site reviewing different movies. When you go to the site, though, there are also areas that cover music and other popular culture. I installed it and am interested to see if it's all I'm hoping it can be!