The Blogging Confessional?

I think I missed another memo. Seems to have happened a lot to me lately.

There have been several posts popping up here and there around the blogosphere in which the author exposes "the real me." We're talking about raw, deep, dark, reputation endangering secrets that they are laying out there for the world to see. And then the link to that is tweeted out for even more people to see beyond their basic readership.

Now before anyone starts fussing that I'm being ugly or a hater let me go ahead and say this. If you are comfortable enough in your own skin to put your laundry out on the line on main street, you go right ahead. If you are prepared for the onslaught of people who are going to call you a drama queen, an unfit parent, or any other number of names, knock yourself out. I don't understand it, but if you do and if you want to do it who am I to tell you that it's a bad idea? Maybe it's therapeutic. Maybe it's a way for you to feel like you are being held accountable to make some changes. Maybe you want your readers to know the real you.

But that brings me to another point. Why don't they? How exactly does one become someone different just because they are behind a computer monitor? Perhaps it's just me and my approach to life, but I am what I am. The computer monitor doesn't change me. When I tell you that I want to V8 people who don't teach their children manners, I really want to do it. When I say that I despise brussel sprouts and the foul smell they leave behind, I loathe them.

I don't feel the need to open my life up to every dark corner. I confessed my struggle with depression but that's about as far as we are going to go. If you want to get to know me, hang out and read a while. I think you can get a pretty darn good feel for who I am without knowing what color my unders are.

So if you tuned in to this post in hopes of finding out some deep, dark, lurid, gossipy secret, I'll try to dig one up for you. Let's see.....My bedroom is....green.

Whew!!! I let you into my bedroom people! That one should set Twitter afire!

I have to go with Dame Judi Dench on this one. (As Armande in Chocolat) "Is this a batisserie or a confessional?"

It's a blog. And you'll get blog - nothing more; nothing less.

Why? (Part 2 - The Blog Reasoning)

So by now those of you who have read Why? (Part 1) are asking yourself a different why. "Why not just write in a journal or in a word document on your computer. You're sitting there anyway. Why subject the whole world to your raving lunatic ramblings?"


I was sold.


You're familiar with that concept right? To be "sold" means that you are fed an idea and you take it so easily and eagerly that you never know you were just fleeced, taken to the cleaners and snookered all at once.


Don't get me wrong. I love the idea of a blog. I have met some really wonderful people through the blogging communities and I count them among my friends even though I have never actually met them face to face. And I love the idea that my words reach so far. Just last week I had visitors from France, Belgium, Sicily, Singapore, Poland, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Some of those people are return visitors; some found me by accident when they were searching for "pink sludge in the toilet" on Google. (I didn't ask. I honestly didn't want to know!)


But I hate the blog world some days too. I wish I had had the opportunity to get in early like Julie did with the Julie/Julia Project. Just looking at the simplicity of her blog makes me jealous. There was no nonsense about paid ads, reviews, ethics, blog trolls, who do we like this week and who can't we stand.


So why do I continue to keep the blog online? Because it IS my journal. At one point it wasn't online; it was just a word document on my computer that I picked at when inspiration struck. Someone (my sister) put a silly thought into my head that maybe, just maybe I could get published in a magazine. So I submitted an e-mail with my work attached and promptly got a "we are not taking submissions at this time" response. But there was a second line. "You may want to contact the editor of our online publication for consideration as a staff blogger."


And there was the big sell. You mean if I put this stuff together in a blog, there is a chance that I can get a writing gig that will reach the masses? I think I did a whopping 15 minutes of research before I hit up Blogger.com and started building The Zoo.


When I started I was simple like Julie. Then I started exploring the blogoverse and I started finding out about layouts, coding, keywords, links, traffic counters, traffic trackers. And that is when I stepped both feet into the quicksand that is blogging. I became so obsessed with those numbers and those visits and linking to the right people and having the right people linking back and making sure that I posted x number of times a day and tweeting and gaining followers.


I killed my writing. I effectively sucked the life out of it and smothered it. And that is when I took the summer off.


Now as I'm coming back into blogging, the why has come. Why? Because I want to write. I may never reach beyond the 10 visits a day and therefore may never make my way onto a "coming soon" poster in the Barnes and Noble window.


But I will write. Because it's what I am. Because it's what I do.

I Have Decided to Quit Blogging.

I’ve gotten a few notes and comments from regular readers asking if I’m okay and telling me that they miss my blog updates. Thank you. That is very sweet of all of you.

And while I don’t OWE you an explanation for my absence because after all this is my place on the web and I will do with it what I want, I will offer one out of friendship. Simply put, I burnt out. I was pressing everyday to find something to write about and stressing about whether my stats were climbing and if I was "good enough" to be a part of bloggy land at all. I was worried about whether you were enjoying my writing and was I funny enough? Why wouldn’t my meme take off and why didn’t I take more pictures this week for Wordless Wednesday? Who in the forums was reading my stuff and why wouldn’t more people comment? Why couldn’t my most controversial stances spark any kind of debate?

I was dreaming in blog people. I would wake up thinking blog and I would eat blog for lunch and I would blog while I was brushing my teeth. Not on the blog but in my head. I would wake up in the middle of the night to make notes about a dream because maybe when I was fully awake I could turn it into a roll em in the aisles post.

For some people that is a great thing. For some people that would be a rocking life. For me it was torture. I want to write. Just write. I don’t want to install meta tags and learn CSS code and HTML code and link all the right keywords. I don’t really care if Google finds me or not. I don’t necessarily want to make millions off of my blog. It would be nice if it happened but only if I can still be happy while I do it.

I just want to write. And that is what this started out as. A place for me to write. Then I got sidetracked with stats and comment counts and posting two or three times a day and making sure that I was friends with the right people in bloggy land and making sure that I didn’t offend or comment on the wrong blog because that would draw drama.

So I am going to quit blogging. I am just going to write. Here. When I feel like it and about what I want. The family stuff will still be found at The Zoo and the brain junk and social commentary will still be at The Bowl. But don’t expect me to update everyday. I don’t have THAT much to say.

I am no longer judging my success by stats, followers and page rank. I am purely judging my success by comments and my own happiness. If I can inspire you enough to cause you to comment then I have been successful. My biggest reward is forcing Buck to come out of his reader to comment. And that is what I want it to be all about. Just writing and sharing my writing with people who want to read.

Those of you who know me from some forums, give my regards. It’s not that I don’t like you or want to hang out with you. I just can’t get sucked back into all "stuff" that is blogging.
So farewell to blogging - welcome back writing.

**Note: For those of you who follow both, you will see this post cross posted today because the same audience is not in both places. Thanks for your tolerance.

Geeze People! 600 miles an hour!

For the love of Pete! Airplanes fly between 500 and 600 miles an hour! I already Googled it; won the argument and put it to bed people!

So stop searching it already! Out of 20 searches on my blog 13 were for "how fast do airplanes fly" or some variation there of. We've settle dit now people. You have been enlightened and your life is complete.

Of all the things I have blogged in (almost) a year, that's the one that gets me traffic. A domestic dispute that was settled by Google. In-credible!

I guess it's all the international visitors trying to figure out how long their flight would be if they were coming to TP my front yard. I have added to my international appeal, you know! I am now scoring visits from such exotic lands as Ireland, New Zealand and Malaysia! Granted it's only been one at a time but hey! I'm out there.

My French pal showed up for a little bit a few weeks ago but I think they're still mad at me for making such a poor attempt at an accent. Did I mention that Egypt showed up on my radar? Think they would flee with flaming hair if I did the Watusi on video? I haven't figured out how to offend the Irish and the Australians yet because that would involve more Guinness than my little body can hold so they might just have to stay fans for a while.

I did laugh when I saw a visit from Great Britain. Think they might be mad at me for my Charles and Harry snipe?

The only international I'm a little worried about is the Iranian who stayed for a record 26 minutes and 37 seconds. Something tells me the Homeland Security Spies are going to be monitoring my posts for a while. The thing is that Iranian friend only visited 2 pages. What two posts could take you a half hour to read? I know I'm chatty sometimes (case in point) but a half an hour?!

Anyway, I've just destroyed a full minute of your life with my nonsense so you may feel free to join the internationals in TP-ing the yard. Times are tough. I'll take donations to my grocery budget anytime!

Disenchanted or Spring Fever?

I am trying to decide if this recent blah period I have been trudging through is me being disenchanted with blogging, bored with life in general or just a seriously bad case of Spring Fever.

The news has been all about the economy and The First Dog and we all know that story has been baked, batter dipped, fried, rolled in butter and confectioners sugar and DONE! The dog ate the outcome and we all know what comes next. A big pile of... well, stuff. Television programming has been vile at its best and stale saltines at its worst so that has been worthless for fodder.

Even my kids have been boring this week! Unless you consider the hour of insanity that ensued after I gave Munch Tylenol. You would think I had let her pull a Michael Phelps! Crazy!

Anyway, I would love to go out in the yard and do some spring planting but flowers come at a cost and well, that's just not in the budget right this second. Even going to the park has become routine lately because the kids all see me coming and run whimpering to their mommies muttering something about the "Manners Nazi is here." That was fun though - for the first week. Now my kids are giving me the stink eye because no one will play with them.

So I take on the spider webs up in the vaulted ceiling and clean out the van. I mop and fold laundry and I pine for the days when my children were psychotic, my house was a disaster and the dog was the normal one.

Giveaways!

And you totally thought that I was running one when you came sprinting over here didn't you? Got a little cramp in your clicking finger huh? Sorry.

And now that the contest stalkers are gone...The rest of the story.

I used to enter giveaways. Sure did! As a matter of fact it might have been the second or third reason I started blogging. I would stalk the contest sites and the review bloggers to see what they were reviewing in hopes that I could win something awesome like a phone or a camera or a new set of cookware. And I won a few contests. I got some really cute stuff for my family for Christmas and I was happy.

Now I avoid reviews and contests like the plague. Unless it's something really awesome. Would you like to know why?

Anymore to enter a contest you have to pick your favorite item from the site (which I completely have no problem with - that's the point), then blog it - with a link back of course, tweet it, follow the blogger, grab their button, add them to your twitter and clean their toilet with your toothbrush. Then you have to go back to their page and put all that stuff in their comments. Of course for every comment you have to fill out the captcha word verification to prove that you're not a computer generated contest spammer. And inevitably it's the person who cleaned their toilet AND their sink who wins.

I'm just saying there's a place for gathering link love, Twitter and Blog followers. I was lamenting my traffic stats the other day and several bloggers told me that while yes they get big traffic on their contests and giveaways, those people don't ever come back until the next giveaway. Wouldn't it make more sense to grow your site genuinely and reward your readers with giveaways as a thank you?

You are asking yourself where this little tirade came from aren't you? Well I was considering going out and trying to find some sponsors for a little blogoversary party for my blogs. After all I'll be celebrating the blogoversary and 300 posts at about the same time (if not THE same time). But then I wondered if that might not be more trouble and chaos than I have the patience for. I'm still deliberating - I'll get back to you when I reach a decision.

In the meantime go ahead and weigh in. After all it IS Two Cents Tuesday. So spill it! Do you still enter contests? Are the requirements reasonable to you? Are you a Giver? Can you explain all the hoops?

Inquiring Minds Want to Slap People Around.

Which should have a subtitle of "She Took The Leash off her Brain."

Sorry. It's been raining for four days again and I'm grumpy again tonight.

I want to know from my fellow bloggers, how often do you read through your reader? I mean REALLY visit the bloggers that once upon a time you liked enough to follow or add to your reader.

I honestly try to read through at least twice a day. Now my reader isn't that big and let me tell you why. Because I want to read through it. If you lose my interest I will blip you from my reader and that will be that. I am not afraid to unfollow.

It's not fair to you to have a bajillion followers who never read your stuff. And here's why I feel that way. I have 29 followers on this blog. I think a handful comment regularly. When I check my traffic trackers (yes, I'm spying on you) over half never really come by. Why? Did I suddenly go boring and you decided you didn't want to hurt my feelings by unfollowing? Don't do that! Be real! If I am boring rocks to sleep, feel free to unfollow my beige behind.

And it can't be because I never post new stuff. I post at least once if not twice a day. Except on the weekends. I try to take those off sometimes.

Here's my theory. Blogging is a very narcissistic project. You talk about yourself, your opinions, your "stuff," and to gain traffic you have to promote the fool out of your blog and in essence yourself. I think some people start to become so obsessed with the promotion and in essence themselves that they quick looking around.

Maybe that's why my Show me the Funny doesn't work so well. Because people are only looking at their own stuff for contributions instead of reading and sharing what made them laugh. I have to give a wheelbarrow full of kudos to Jen at TuTu's Bliss because the last two weeks she's been playing Funny with me and she actually links to other people on her blog that make her laugh. She gets it.

So now I ask again. How often are you reading through your reader? Should you even bother adding blogs to it if you're never going to read it?

Maybe I need to add another aspect to my blog - The Weekly Rant. People seem to like to be mad more than they like to laugh. Bet a ranting meme would rock the house. Once again the optimist is trapped in a pessimistic world.

Can We Talk about Social Networks for a Minute?

**Please note - this has been a lousy cloudy, gray and moody day. On top of 2 weeks of flu and other ailments in this house. I'm crabby, cranky and in need of a serious day off or several drinks. Move on if you aren't in the mood to read about me whining.**

How many are you part of? Can you count them all? Do you remember all your passwords to all of them? When was the last time you logged into each one?

I have to confess that I am a part of the social network nightmare. Facebook, MySpace (which I haven't accessed in ages), CafeMom, Twitter, MomDot, Launchpad, and probably some that I can't even remember. And I make the rounds daily (except for the forementioned MySpace). On top of that you have the whole blogging thing where I'm posting and reading and commenting.

Ask me why I'm part of all these things. To gain traffic for my blog. And why do I blog? Because someday I would love to find my writing in a newspaper article like my hero Erma Bombeck. Or in a magazine. I would love to be paid to do what I love - write.

Somewhere along the way someone sold me the idea that if I network with all these other tech savvy people and I put my name out there and I share my links everywhere I can and I comment and post, I would grow my traffic and therefore gain "a presence" on the web and have a better chance at making my dream a reality.

Ask me if any of it has worked. Not so much. Even among the networks centered around blogging, so many people are working on their own publicity and writing that they don't have time to comment and visit and share driving traffic. So what is the point?

And if the whole lack of effect wasn't enough lets get to the issue of how small of a ripple I actually make in the social network world. Facebook friends - 6 from college and 2 sisters in law. Friends from high school? 0. Bloggy buddies? 0.

I wasn't cut out for this whole online life.

Now You Too Can Take the Pledge!

For only $19.95!

Ok, so the whole pay for it thing isn't real but you CAN take the pledge! My wonderful creative and inspired pal Christy heeded the call for a Olive Pledge button and whipped this up. So feel free to snag it for your own blog if you need an occasional reminder to be better than drab. I would love the linky love back to The Pledge but that is entirely up to you.

<a href="http://isawitinbluewater.blogspot.com/2009/02/my-blogging-pet-peeve-pledge-and-olives.html"><img alt="The Olive Pledge!" src="http://i324.photobucket.com/albums/k323/sarahc51977/Pledge.jpg" /></a>

And as long as I'm being a self promoting hussy, remember that we are about 36 hours away from "Show me the Funny!" If you saw something funny. If something made you snort. If it made stuff shoot out your nose I want it! Not the stuff you shot out - the cause of the said shooting.

I should stop shouldn't I?

Bring me your funny posts or funnies you have read and drop them in my linky. Right now I have no submissions for features so you might have to just look at all of my highlights from the past week if you don't get your acts together.

I'll also take suggestions for a topic for next week's funny if you have any inspired ideas!

<a href="http://isawitinbluewater.blogspot.com" target="_blank"><img alt="Show me the Funny!" src="http://i324.photobucket.com/albums/k323/sarahc51977/ShowFunny2b.jpg" /></a>

Two Cents Tuesday: Inspiration!

For a minute I forgot that Two Cents was coming up and I posted that great blog peeves rant. Phooey! Well at least you can still scroll down and read it if you want. In the meantime I'll get back to this week's topic - Inspiration.

Who wants to sing with me? You're the meaning in my life. You're the inspiration! You bring feeling to my life. (Everybody!) You're the inspiration! Something tells me this is NOT what TuTu had in mind when she picked this topic. But I bet she's singing it now! Tee hee!

Now where do I get my inspiration? I'm a pretty random person so my inspiration literally comes from everywhere. You know that you have entered blogger life when you can mentally blog about the freakish birds that keep launching themselves out of the bushes and into the side of the minivan while you are sitting in the carpool lane. Or what about the dog food issue? There was a whole blog drafted in my head about my husband, his work hours, the fact that we were out of dog food and the inevitable end to the whole drama.

And let's not forget that I am a mom. Holy blog fodder Batman! Every day there are funny things they say, hysterical reactions to things they do, dramatic melt downs over an elephant animal cracker whose nose was just bitten off by a spiteful little brother just as you were about to do the exact same thing.

Then of course you have the daily barrage from the media. I don't watch the evening news. I can't listen to people actually say the words that depict some new moronic action, heinous event, or cockamamie scheme someone has pulled. I prefer to read my news. Then I can cling to the tiniest hope that tomorrow I will come back to that same story and there will be a retraction in its place. But the ridiculousness around me is pretty inspiring.

Of course I am starting to get people emailing me absurd things to blog about too. Ok it's just my sister and she's a rabid fan (love ya!) and has bitten a few of her friends (love you guys too! now go bite more people!). But just the same, stories come to me that cry out for mocking and satire. I haven't blogged it yet but last week I was sent a story about a pair of guys who tried to used thongs as masks for a robbery. How can you NOT be inspired by that?

To tweak Forrest Gump a little. "Inspiration is like the school cafeteria. You never know what you're gonna get."

My Blogging Pet Peeve, Pledge and Olives.

Boring.

I know when I first started blogging watching paint dry was a highlight but I have learned and I have tried to change it up. I work very hard at it every day. I try to pepper in some funny here and there. I even share some of my deep personal reflections on mental health from time to time. But I do not post the same stuff day in and day out. I try to mix it up.

We bloggers live for comments. We can have 974 followers and 82 email subscribers through various reader services but if not a one of you leave a comment we feel like we have failed. Like we are a total waste of URL.

But I say if we are boring you to tears, then we don't deserve a comment. We deserve to sit in our squeaky office chairs and type our fingers to bloody nubs and get nothing in return. I just went through 29 posts from other bloggers. And when I tried to read through their various pages I was reading the same post over, and over, and over.

I beg you to do something for me. Should this blog or The Zoo for that matter ever get redundant and bland and drab and olive, I plead with you to leave me one comment that says, "Olive." It will be our little safe word. I'll know exactly what that comment means and I will redouble, retriple, re whatever my efforts to change things up and make them worth your visit.

And if you are a blogger and you get a comment from me that says, "Olive" know that I mean it in love. I mean it to remind you that olives come in different colors and stuffings and flavors and seasons. So should your blog.

Call me Cardinal Sinner.

No the next picture will not be me in a big red hat. I'm about to commit the blogger's cardinal sin. I'm about to blog about blogging. Ok, so it's not a sin and a lot of people do it but I don't really like to unless my brain is just shorting out which I'm pretty sure you all recognize that it is doing so right now. But I digress.

I love all these fun little tracker things you can add to your page - most completely unobtrusively. They tell you where people are coming from, what server or browser they are using, the keywords they used to find you, how many people are stopping by, how long they stay, how often (if at all) they come back and probably a ton of stuff that I don't even understand yet. But this is one of those double edged swords that we all encounter.

Now it becomes a pissing contest to see whose blog draws the most traffic. It turns into that evil demon on your shoulder whispering, "You're a failure. Your numbers are lousy. You're wasting your time." And it slowly drives you insane until you are rambling like an old man in his slippers on the baby food aisle. Or like me right now. In my slippers. At my computer. With ketchup on my shirt.

But see I've given up on the numbers. If you find me and you like me (which of course you will because I'm charming like that), you'll come back. And if you don't as long as I don't dwell on the numbers I really won't know, now will I? So the numbers are out for me.

I love to see where people are coming from and of course the keywords are almost always good for a laugh. Now as for where people are coming from...For The Zoo, I have all but 8 states. That's right! I have managed to draw at least one visitor from 42 of the 50 states. Thank you Sissy and Jen for rocking Arkansas's numbers; B for rocking North Carolina, and Nut for kickin' Florida. Hey! I'd give the rest of you shout outs but you haven't made your personal state dark green yet. Oh yeah! And Tena you get credit for Cali.

So now let's take a peek at this particular site shall we. The Bowl...The Bowl...right! We have 40 out of the 50 states. What blows my mind here is for all the crap I gave New Jersey last week, they have yet to phone in. Just one more reason I think we should just chop them off and let them float. Them and their big rat balloon. The only thing saving them is that they know how to make things smell like maple syrup.

What I really want to know is what Montana has against me! Not a single visitor to either of the sites. I have nothing against Big Sky! I prefer the wide open spaces. Maybe that's why they don't come by - is it too crowded here? Estonia! Latvia! But no Montana.

Anyway, the keywords this week were kind of dull so I won't go into those. But I would like to know who Stefanie Wigen is and why I'm supposed to be celebrating her birthday. Well, I would love to stay and share all of the missing states with you but I have to go see what is holding up the robots on the Webmaster tool. Apparently 7 of them have been jailed and I have to go free them. Just call me Cardinal Big Weld.

Tee Hee! He's Learning!

Beloved was scrolling through the pictures on the camera and came across the pictures from yesterday's Wordless Wednesday (the washers and laundry?) and never said a word. When I realized what he was doing I said, "Honey ignore those pics of the washer. I forgot to take them off."

"I'm really not worried about it. It was for the blog right?"

He gets me! He really gets me!

Journey on a Winding Road: Outlets.

I have to confess that when I started this Journey I was sure that it was really just for my benefit and my personal therapy. As I read comments and as I hear from people I am learning that there are a lot of you out there who have experienced or are experiencing all of the things that I am. You have all taken your own road but we are all heading in the same direction.

Which brings me to outlets. This is my personal outlet but I also use baking, cleaning, blogging, and encouraging others to help me work through my brain junk. So I am opening my outlet up.

If you would be interested in posting your story here (by name or anonymously), please drop me a line at ineedthezoo(at)yahoo(dot)com. I'll be happy to publish for you complete with linky love if you would like. I know how I feel about putting "random" information on my blog that doesn't fit with my theme so if you feel like you would love to write about your own experience but just can't bring yourself to put it up in your "home blog" feel free to use my space free of charge.

BTW! You probably didn't notice but this is actually post 101. I completely missed 100 but I can't say that anything other than the Groundhog would have been more appropriate!

Healthy Journeying.

TV: The Death of Society?

Unless you have been living under a rock since November, you know that the digital conversion is going to happen in "Less than 30 days!!!!!!!" It's all over the news, commercials, the web, newspapers and I think it's the last message they will broadcast before the conversion.

"Your TV is now dead and you will never know what is going on in the outside world ever again!! Mwuuah! Hah! Hah!"

If the bajillion commercials (I counted!) haven't been enough, now it's hitting the news like it's going to be the Apocalypse. Oh no! 6 million people aren't going to be able to use their TV. This is a national crisis.

No. No it's not. Libraries have free internet. Newspaper stands are outside just about every grocery store. Radio stations will still be broadcasting. Heaven forbid that the TV doesn't work - it's the end of the world!

I know I mentioned it when Sunny passed me my Honest Scrap award the other day but it's worth repeating. I HATE television. And I have a ton of reasons but I'm going to give you my top picks.

A). The shows are trash. Find me one show in current prime time that does not involve, sex, cheating, murder, or death. There really is no family programming anymore. If I'm wrong please let me know because I have yet to come across it.

B). It is a complete mind suck. Since the programming is lousy, there is no stimulation to what you are watching. But I'll come back to that later.

C). It divides family more than it brings them together. When was the last time you or your beloved shushed the children or shooed them out of the room because you wanted to hear what was going on on the TV? I did it myself just the other day because I wanted to hear the commentary on the Inaugural Parade. Are you serious? A parade? And I shushed and shooed my children?

Now let's go back to the mind suck point. Not only is the programming bad enough to kill brain cells by the droves but we've allowed the medium to take on a new life. We give our children digital videos games and we justify it with "but their educational!" We set babies up with videos that feature classical music "because it's stimulating."

My kids played with playdough for 3 hours the other day. They never looked at a television; they never asked about the television. Let me pull a measuring cup out of the cabinet and they are pushing chairs into the kitchen to help me cook.

When was the last time you hosted or participated in a game night with your neighbors and friends? We had our two neighbor fellows over for dinner the other night and as soon as the plates were cleared they were watching movies. No conversation. No debate. Just staring at the movies. And the movies weren't even that good!!

I'm as guilty as the next person. I still watch the mind suck garbage - although I will cut myself some slack and say that Dirty Jobs and Myth Busters rock! But there again, I'm pretending that I am learning something.

We wonder why our test scores are plummeting in our country and why we as a nation are so far behind on math and science. We wonder about the state of our society with violence and frivolous lawsuits. But what are we feeding ourselves?

My mom once said, "You live in such a plastic world there in suburbia." And she's right. We e-mail or text one another. We socialize via social networks in a virtual world rather than throwing dinner parties in a real world. The following question was posed during Poll Day last week on Mom Dot: "The world would be a better place if..." Nineteen percent of the vote went to "there was less internet and more face to face."

Now I recognize the irony that I am sharing my opinion via the internet. But if you stopped reading my blog right now so that you could spend more time with friends and family in a real way without media intervention (aka UNO, Monopoly, Pictionary, playdough, reading), I would be honored.

The world isn't ending with the digital conversion. Maybe, just maybe if enough televisions die, the world will actually get better.

Mom in Chief

So I was cleaning the kids' bathroom this morning (you know what comes next, right?) and started thinking (you saw that one coming!). I remembered the 60 Minutes interview with Barak and Michelle Obama shortly after the election and it stood out to me that she claimed the "Mom in Chief" title.

Now when thoughts like this occur to me in the bathroom I immediately start to "brain blog" phrasing things out and "reading" in my head. How cool would it be if Michelle Obama - our First Lady and someone who I think is pretty darn down to earth and painfully intelligent (Harvard and Princeton grad) - would start a blog about being a mom in today's economy, environment, and in the White House?

Think about it. Just because her house is bigger doesn't mean she isn't impacted by the same things we are. In the same interview she noted that the girls weren't going to be off the hook on doing their chores and being responsible for their things. Even if they DO have a full staff at their disposal.

She is going to be impacted by the same laws we are. She is going to have to deal with behavior issues and school issues. She's going to have to teach the same lessons we are. I know that other first ladies have faced all of this but now that I'm a mom it's different for me. Now I notice. And now that I'm a blogger I get to see more perspectives in parenting than I have before now.

So all in favor of the Mom in Chief blog, please raise your hand! I'd read it (and I probably comment too - but with a lot of spell check)!

Welcome to Awards Season!

Are you as thrilled as I am? It's time to be catty and snub Ryan and be all snotty and uppity and mock other people's designers and hair and poor color choices. It's so exciting!!

And that's just over at the Dotties! That's right you red carpet stalkers! It's Dottie time! And while I stayed the cream filling in the Oreo last year when I was nominated for Class Clown...no bitterness remains (at least not much).

So IF you know of a really great blog (which of course you do!) that you think deserves the recognition of the Dottie pop over to MomDot and get to nominating! I promise I won't pull a Bjork if I win anything but I can't promise anything if I'm not even nominated.

Apples in a Barrel

I have tried my best to steer clear of all the drama that is going on out in Bloggy Land lately. It really looks like women being women. It started with the Twitter/Motrin debate of '08 and slopped over into popularity contests over a Wii. It turned into hate mail and blog bashing. Just pretty much one big mosh pit of ugliness. I am a non-confrontational person so I was actually repelled by all the nonsense but it did get me thinking.

You know the saying, "One bad apple can spoil the barrel?" We all can agree that that is true right? But how does it happen? First, someone isn't careful when they are loading the barrel. They let a questionable apple in. Then they forget about it, neglect it, leave it there. They never do anything to take it out.

Other apples get put in with it. They rub up against and snuggle that questionable apple. The tighter they are packed and the more they rub up against one another the faster that apple turns. Pressure maybe. And then the bad apple is done.

But since it was packed in with all these other apples it's already had the chance to spread the ugliness that is rot. And those apples don't get away. They stay there and they rub and they rot. If all of the apples aren't divided out and the bad ones gotten rid of, you have suddenly lost a whole barrel.

So I was looking at my barrel yesterday. It's not terribly full. I don't have a lot of people I consider close. And the ones I do consider close and the ones I do put in my barrel don't have ugly spots. Are they perfect? No. They have bumps and they may not glow all the time. But they aren't rotting.

I don't pack my barrel super full either. I keep just the apples I need. Just enough to keep me going on my rough days. Just enough that I can give them the good in me too without going dry.

There have been a lot of campaigns and rants and posts about bringing positive vibes back to blogging. Boost one another's esteem etc. I say, just go through your apples. If you have a rotter, get rid of it. Don't comment on posts. Don't push more apples down on the rotter. Just get rid of it. If you have some apples that may be questionable, get rid of them or take a minute and find out if they are rotters or not.

What's in your barrel? And are YOU a good apple or a rotter?

I Wonder about Priorities.

I tried very hard to stay out of the Twitter/Motrin firestorm this weekend. Ok, so maybe "tried very hard" is a bad choice of words. I tried to ignore the Twitter/Motrin firestorm.


In case you missed it, Motrin had an ad in the que that offended mom's who use slings and other baby carriers to keep their children close. **I refuse to use the phrase baby wearing or any version thereof because children are not clothes. You wear the sling and carry the child in it. You do not wear a baby.** They referenced to this parenting style as a fad and insinuated that mothers who do it are trying to prove something - that they are "official moms" because they practice this form of bonding.


What does this have to do with priorities? Everywhere I turned this weekend this was on the front burner causing all kinds of outrage and back and forth. Not all of it was handled with grace (very little actually in my opinion!) and even more comments looked just a touch hysterical. Women were outraged! They actually managed to crash Motrin's website expressing their displeasure. The ad, by the way, is being pulled from everywhere they can catch it so your "approach" worked.


Congratulations for being outspoken on a cause you felt worthy. But really? An ad for a pain reliever? That's what you are willing to get outraged about? As Trish over at MomDot said, where is the outrage over land mines? World hunger? Children in our own country who don't have health care or even food and clothing? Where are the advocates for the crack babies that are screaming in hospital nurseries?


I understand that you feel like society as a whole looks at you cross eyed when they see you with your child in the sling. Let 'em! You made your choice. Stick to it and go about your business. Who cares what they think? I think your socks are ugly! Does this mean you rush to your sock drawer and change socks? Am I going to get a UPS fleet pulling into my driveway dropping off boxes of "protest socks?" Get a grip! Do your parenting your way and let society stick it in their ear.


You are willing to rail at the wind and scream offense because someone posted a 60 second ad about your parenting practices. Are you willing to take the 2, 3 or however many hours you spent on this this weekend and donate them to delivering flowers to nursing homes? Or serve in a soup kitchen? Or take canned goods to a food pantry? You do realize of course that long after that ad campaign would have been completed there still will be hungry children and people in general who need just a little love and human compassion. Why in the world would anyone put so much energy into something so trivial when there are so many other worthy and in my opinion more important matters to address?


The next time something causes you outrage could you do me a favor? Really stop for a minute and ask if it's really THAT important. Is this something that will pass? Can you put your outraged energies into helping someone else?


I promise. You can carry your child in your sling while you do it.

Oh, Mainstream News Media! How I Love Thee!

Just when I think the blog inspiration well has gone dry, you do yet another new piece that just takes me to new levels and places of blogging joy! And for once I'm not going to pick on NBC. This time it's Ms. Sawyer and her network who is going to get my skewer! Ready?

Victoria Secret: Formaldehyde in Bras? So here's the story. A woman is suing VS for a rash that she developed in areas that contact her bra. Testing by her attorney's office has revealed the presence of formaldehyde in the bra; VS disputes that claim. That's the short version.

Now I took the time to actually look at some (not all 193 at last count) of the comments left for ABC on this news story and I am blown away! For two years or more in some of these cases women have been wearing these bras and having these problems. You never thought maybe there was a problem with the bra? You never thought maybe you should change your brand? You are just now putting two and two together because you saw it on the news?

I understand brand loyalty and as a woman I am incredibly aware that finding a bra that fits is a chore and a pain in so many areas other than your behind. But you are more willing to deal with rashes and blistering and SCARRING than you are to go find a new brand of bra? I don't know if you are crazy, lazy or just certifiably nuts!

Do I think VS should launch an investigation and find out what the problem is? Absolutely! Should some kind of restitution be made? Give them a refund on the faulty bras they can return to you and take the rest off the shelves. Pay them some kind of settlement? Not on your stinkin' life! Make people take responsibility for their own stupidity! You wore the bra even though it was giving you a rash! And someone else should pay you?

Well, if that's the case I'm going to go out and walk into a street sign. Then the steel industry needs to pay me for my head trauma! Or maybe the city for putting it somewhere where I could get to it.

And people wonder why children play the blame game when they get in trouble!

Stupid people tick em off! And shame on you Mainstream Media for giving them two minutes to be stupid for the whole world! But keep it up because someday I'll be able to say, "This blog brought to you by the find producers of ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC and FOX NEWS!"



http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=5195818