After a highly exciting weekend at CPAC, and by highly exciting weekend I mean that it will take me a week to get back my sleep, I returned home and am ready to talk about it. But first, I have to do all of the things that people do when they get home.
Take care of my crops on Farmville.
Read my twitter feed.
Check my email.
Go through my Google Reader.
Eat some chocolate.
Blip some songs.
Instant message.
Call my friends.
Ignore my statistics homework.
Cuddle my pets.
Love on my son.
And not in that order. But don’t think for a minute that those crops on Farmville weren’t taken care of immediately. My watermelons are in top condition, thank you.
A lot of my blogger friends have, at some point, expressed remorse at taking a blogging break due to life events. I’m not that girl. I’m just not. My online life is important to me, but it’s not my only gig. Yet, I understand that there are certain expectations and that maybe I’m not fulfilling them for everyone. It’s cool. I came across a review of my site on my Google Reader (still have over 500 posts to read on that baby). Overall, it was quite complimentary and I wanted to say thank you for that.
To be quite honest, I don’t think anyone buys my blog on Amazon.com to read on their Kindle, but the fact that you would endorse me truly means a lot to me. The fact that you want me to write more means even more. Sometimes people need to be told they are missed to be motivated. I appreciate it.
I’ll see what I can do. Thanks again. You made my day.
My sponsor, SkincareRx.com, just sent me an offer for you guys. If you click on the icon below, it will take you to a page where you can get a $40 gift certificate for their site if you spend $100. This is an amazing deal and I thought I would pass it along to you all. Thank you again to SkincareRx.com for sponsoring my site. It means a lot to me to have people that support me.
Those of you that have been around forever, and some of you know you have and I love every single little inch of your being for it, remember that I had a number on here for a while that you could call and leave me a voicemail if you wanted to do so. I could never find a good spot for it on the site so I took it down.
I know.
I’m neurotic.
I’m very, very picky about how the site looks, which was especially important while doing the site redesign. Luckily, I had an angel for a designer, bless her sweet little heart.
My friend Natalie called me the other day and reminded me of how much I missed her voice when my eyes welled up after talking to her. Sometimes, it’s nice to hear a voice. I get your comments and I love all of them.
Except for the porn spammers who keep sending me things that make me question what kind of illegal drugs they are taking. Quit sending me that stuff.
Anyway, if you would like to call and leave me a message, please do. In fact, I’m begging you, leave me a message! Unless you are in prison. Then send me a comment. Or if you are the kind of person who does bad things to animals. Then you should probably read other blogs.
I have unlimited messages and I will listen to them over and over and over like a crazy cat lady.
You can call me on your phone at (615) 807-0376 or click on this button and you can use the microphone on your computer (if you have one) to leave me a message. If you have long distance charges, they may apply, but if you go through your computer, it’s free.
This isn’t my cell phone number, so I won’t ever answer, no matter how often you call it. But I’ll get your message and cherish it, I promise. Unless you leave crazy messages. Don’t do that. I won’t like it.
Are you having a good weekend? I hope so. Mine has been a rollercoaster, but the rain is softly falling outside and part of me is honestly considering going out in it to sit on the swing in my backyard and soak it in. Do you ever just want to do that?
The leaves are turning red, and the rain falls and the wind blows and I’m out there with it.
Edit: My friend, Neil, called and left me a message as Barack Obama that is HYSTERICAL. He asked me to post it because it was an awful lot of work. I don’t ever post things without permission. Have a listen:
Some of my more observant readers have noticed something different about my page. Those of you that read via the feed may not have seen it yet, but my page has changed, drastically. I have a new look and I couldn’t be more pleased. The look is actually 3.5 months in the making.
A while ago, my friend Jen wrote a series of blog articles on how to market yourself as a blogger and gain readers. One of the items she advised was having your own style of blog that readers could identify as YOU. In other words, a custom design that, when viewers identified it visually, screamed YOU.
I took her words to heart and immediately started the process of looking for a custom design. What I found made my hair fall out. Literally. I was so stressed out that some hair fell out of my head. Everywhere I looked, designers were charging huge bucks to do what I felt like was a small project.
Initially, I was planning on choosing a template that was already out there and having someone do a nice banner and maybe some sidebars. Some of the places that I contacted for quotes wanted over $1,000 to do this for me. With my sponsorship in my sidebar, to date, I’ve made less than $2, which still puts me in the hole for my domain and hosting. To say $1,000 is over my budget is an understatement.
At this point, I almost gave up. I went to my guru, Neil, who has his own consulting and design business. Neil often gives me blog advice for freebies (YES!) and is my sounding board. He giggled when I told him that I had a modest budget. He urged me to remember that I write for free and that a free template should be sufficient.
Neil was right in many ways, especially because I don’t know where I want my blog to go. What I know is that I love writing this blog and I have a feeling that it’s going SOMEWHERE. I don’t know where SOMEWHERE is, but that somewhere is important. And if it’s going somewhere, it needs to be pretty.
This blog flitters from one topic to the next. I wanted my reader to feel like they were on my journey with me.Ok, so I’m a girl. I wanted my blog to be pretty. Sue me.
Neil did the boy thing and said, “Fine, whatever, but it will be difficult to find someone on your budget.”
The man didn’t lie. It took over a month to find someone who did work I LIKED and who could work with my budget. I found that person in Courtney. Courtney has a company called Judith Shakes Designs. I sent her a quote request and I had decided that if I couldn’t find someone whose work I liked and who could do it in my budget that week, that I was going to give up. Unless the blog started making money and I could afford the idiots charging $600-$1000 for a subpar design that was just ok.
I didn’t expect to hear anything back from her. I didn’t just like her work, I loved her work. And I heard back from her within 3 days. She stated that she could absolutely work with my budget and that she mainly caters to mom bloggers in the same situation I’m in–just starting up and with no idea how they will afford the expensive custom designers. Because she is able to work with a modest budget, it would take her a couple of months to get to my design (she’s in high demand!), and would that be ok?
It was more than ok. I was ecstatic.
Immediately, we started going over design topics and what I wanted. I had no idea what I wanted, but I knew what I didn’t want and we started there. All I really knew was that I liked swallows/birds, didn’t want anything too bright, it needed to be soothing and I’m a whimsical person, so I wanted it to be whimsical.
I think Courtney captured that perfectly. When I saw the design I gasped.
Why am I writing this? Because I am a person who believes that I should endorse people that do a good job. It’s part of living in our society. When someone does a good job, we tell it. When people do bad jobs, we tell it. I want people to know about Courtney and Judith Shakes Designs because she did such a great job. She helped make one of my blog goals come true and she did it so nicely.
She’s not giving me a discount for writing this or freebies for saying nice things about her. She’s just really that good and I want you to consider her because I care about my readers and I had such a great experience with her.
Oh, and P.S. check out my twitter background! Thank you, again, Courtney.
I’m so excited! I’m so excited! I’m so….scared!!! If you know what that’s from, you get 5 pop culture points. For those of us who grew up in the 80s and 90s, you know exactly what I’m talking about and to say that life has been one big ball of Jessie Spano losing her marbles lately is an understatement. This is all to say that life just got really complicated really quickly and here’s why: school. Yep. That’s it. School.
It’s rare that I talk about school-related stuff because the majority of you out there aren’t in school, or, if you are, you have your own problems. Translation: You don’t give a monkey’s Heineken about my problems. And that’s cool. I probably wouldn’t either.
What happened was that I was taking one, full summer course. It met one night a week from 5-9. That’s not a problem. I can handle it. Then, summer term II came around and added a second class. However, since it’s only ONE summer term, it means that the class must meet 2 nights a week. Are you still with me? The gist is that I am now in school from 5-9, 3 nights and week and the overall effect is that A.J. is gone those days because of the problems between my schedule and Leon’s. I’m finding it hard to focus.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m still paying attention and I’m in class. When you get to the level I’m at in my education, you can’t avoid paying attention or you will fail. I just miss him. And it’s not healthy for him to not see me for 3 days straight in a week. He’s gone before I’m up in the morning and in bed before I get home. I hate it.
But it’s only a month. And until then, I’ll be ok. Remember, a blue shell isn’t permanent. It’s temporary. Every now and then I have them and so do you. I know this probably isn’t my most insightful or my best post, but I felt obliged to let you know what was going on and why things had been different lately. Bottom line: I’ve been blueshelled. Now it’s time to pull out the stops and get back on top.
Life is like a game. We all have challenges, thoughts, opinions and beliefs. Often, it feels like something out there, life, karma, catty people, or blue shells (for the Kart lovers), seeks to bring us down. Luckily, we always get up. This is where I wear my heart on my sleeve and my foot in my mouth.
You may also leave a voicemail at (615) 807-0376. I do not return voicemail, but I sure like hearing from you.
We are members of one great body. Nature planted in us a mutual love, and fitted us for a social life. We must consider that we were born for the good of the whole.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
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Home
After a highly exciting weekend at CPAC, and by highly exciting weekend I mean that it will take me a week to get back my sleep, I returned home and am ready to talk about it. But first, I have to do all of the things that people do when they get home.
Life is like a game. We all have challenges, thoughts, opinions and beliefs. Often, it feels like something out there, life, karma, catty people, or blue shells (for the Kart lovers), seeks to bring us down. Luckily, we always get up. This is where I wear my heart on my sleeve and my foot in my mouth.
