Category Archives: Blogging

One car, two days, four kids. New definition of insanity?

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We leave for Florida on Saturday morning and I have so much to do!!! Please forgive my lack of posting.

Lord willing, this will be my last post until… Monday? That sounds about right: two days of me running around like a crazy person packing, with last minute details, two days trapped in the car with kids that never complain or get bored (ha!). By the time we reach my in-laws’ house, I should have more than enough blog fodder to keep you all entertained for weeks. Maybe months, if I get decent video.

By the way, someday remind me to tell you the story of when a certain nine-year-old boy almost set the compost pile ablaze with a bit of sun and a magnifying glass.

Gee, I love being a mom!

Be strong and courageous, friends.

Stop and Shop speaks with bloggers

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The other day on Twitter, there was chatter regarding companies that understand how to communicate with bloggers (#getit). Add Stop and Shop supermarket to the list, because they definitely Get It.

Today Stop and Shop hosted a luncheon at The Frog and the Peach restaurant in New Brunswick (which was lovely; how nice to be served at a table with white table cloths) for a bunch of us bloggers. I mainly attended because I wanted to see my New Jersey Mom Blog friends, and I love any gathering that involves food, but after the PR reps from Stop and Shop launched into their pitch, I realized I was at my first official Corporation-Wooing-the-Blogger event.

I’m not much for product reviews. Book reviews and tours, that’s more me. Food, recipes, and frugal living, not so much. I’ve had fleeting thoughts of starting a product review blog, but I can’t see it happening, not unless I put the kiddos in school and I was totally bored with nothing to do during the day. No time for a product review blog right now.

You know me: I’d much rather talk about human trafficking and poverty. I’m all about letting you know that Stop and Shop donated $209 to the Community Food Band of New Jersey, presenting a check to blogger Liz Thompson, of This Full House. Remember the Blogging Out Hunger campaign last year? That’s where my heart is, and I’m going to be dragging as many bloggers as I can to participate with me. The next one is in September, by the way. Let me know if you want to participate! *wink*

Oh, one more thing: I want to give a special shout out the great ladies with 360 Public Relations. They obviously know their stuff and they spoke our language. Most impressive was the gal (Angela?) who kept referring to the fact that I’m a home schooler. 360 Public Relations gets it too. My kids had a blast eating pizza, decorating cookies and crafts while I played with the grown-ups.

Thanks, Stop and Shop – and Peapod – for introducing me to the PR pitch. Woot!

Does this mean I’ve finally arrived as a (mommy) blogger?

Twitter is the new blog

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I really believe that; Twitter is now the most popular way for online women to communicate to a large audience.

As you know, I took an extended leave from Twitter and Facebook from late February to April 9. Not clicking over to Facebook was easy; Twitter I missed terribly. A few times I thought of breaking fast and jumping back in. The chatter, the direct messages, seeing that @ reply in the stream is a real kick in the pants.

And I was lonely. Giving up Twitter, it was like I wasn’t part of the blogging community anymore. I was still here blogging, leaving comments and reading other blogs, but I wasn’t part of the larger group, because they were all still giving their attention to Twitter (imagine that!). All my traffic coming from Twitter, dropped to almost nil. I missed that too. It reminded me of being a newbie, trying to find readers and build up traffic.

It wasn’t that long ago when we would visit blogs to meet each other, now we visit Twitter to meet virtually.

Not only that, but when one of us – and I’m talking moms who blog -  is hurt, suffering or wronged, Twitter takes up the cause. Remember Motrin Moms? Currently, twitter moms are raising money for the March of Dimes in memory of the daughter of a mom blogger. You can do that with a blog, but with Twitter, and the amazing hash tag, it’s so much easier.

So I’m back on Twitter, but this time with a better approach. For one, I’m not going back to that compulsion to constantly send tweets out regarding little snippets of life. I enjoy the word pictures of what people are doing, that’s why I like to tweet that too, but I feel a need to tip the balance toward helpful information. Links folks can use, learn and grow in knowledge.

If you follow me, you may have noticed I’ve been sending out links about women and children in crisis. The more I read about poverty, it’s connection to human trafficking and the sex trade… sad stuff there. That’s the new purpose to my tweets – getting the message out about these precious lives worth far more than the 140 characters I dedicate to them.

Blogs won’t die. But they are no longer the dominate means of social interaction for women on the web.

What do you think? Am I completely crazy or wicked smart? You have up to 140 characters to explain your opinion. Kidding – Twitter humor, of course.