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Tag: blogging

No longer a Mom 2.0 newbie, my words of wisdom

April 29, 2013
► Back'nGrooveMom, Groovalicious Bloggers, Moms in Business, Social Media, Work Family Balance

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Mom 2 Summit, Rachel Blaufeld, Jenny Lawson, Jenny and Emily from Mommiinitup

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am heading to my 2nd Mom 2.0 Summit this week.  Opposed to last year when I boarded a plane to Mom 2 all by myself and knew no one except for Stacey Ferguson and Liz Gumbinner.  This year, I am looking forward to seeing a lot of people I know.  I met the majority of these women (and men) last year at Mom 2 when I was brazen enough to go all by lonesome.

 

This year, I am even lucky enough to have a roommate, who makes the experience all the more fun.

 

But, don’t mistake this upcoming trip as simply a reunion.  While it is exciting to reconnect with women who I have not seen since last Mom 2.0 or Blogher, I am heading out with goals in mind.

 

Last week, the WSJ posted a piece which claimed mommies (mostly stay-at-home/digital mommies) use conferences as a front to escape their homes, families, and day-to-day responsibilities.  Many bloggers have already written responses to this which would dwarf anything that I would have to say on this subject.  You can read them here and here and here.  I am definitely NOT going to throw my hat in the ring in responding to that post.

 

What I will say is that conferences provide a much-needed foreground for meeting people IRL in this digital age.  Often. I read and write about the new level playing ground afforded to us with the intro of the internetz.  We can network, chat online and grow relationships all from behind our screens in our very own offices or while wearing our bathrobes at home.  The truth is, these digital connections only take it so far, and I am a big believer in moving digital connections into something face-to-face.

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This City Gal got Lost in Suburbia

April 19, 2013
► Back'nGrooveMom, Groovalicious Bloggers, Moms, Parenting, Rachel Reads, Reviews

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A couple of times of year, I travel to various happy destinations to [mom] blogging conferences.  In jest, a few of my friends at home always joke with me:  Do you guys even talk at these conferences, or do you just tweet and update to each other on your smart phone?  Hahaha.

 

Well, big surprise, we really DO get to know one another at these conferences – blogger to blogger, and some of us go on to be famous!  Like have our book published famous, and then I feel so lucky because I knew that writer way back when…That is how I know Tracy Beckerman, author of Lost In Suburbia.  Just for the record, Tracy can talk, and talk is what we did when we met!  Tracy made me laugh, smile, and nearly pee my panties the first time we met!  That is saying something.

 Lost in Sub_REVISE8.20.indd

 

Being an urban mom, I find Tracy’s suburban humor even a bit funnier than most as she hones in on exactly what I fear MOST about making the leap to the ‘burbs.  So, unlike Tracy who made the trek from Manhattan to Jersey, I stay in my small urban setting.  Tracy found her Manhattan based mentality stuck out in the Jersey ‘burbs and gives a close up of the suburban culture.  From driving in bathrobes to mandatory spa getaways to antidepressants and purse parties, Tracy will make you laugh and cry all at the same time…possibly even snort (no, you would never do that).

 

Snarky yet real, Tracy uses her own real life ups and downs to relate to her audience. Tracy flushes out what is truly beneath our anxieties using humor and a dose of real life.

 

Since arriving in the ‘burbs, I had been to a number of home jewelry parties, handbag parties, and bath and kitchen accessory parties.  I figured it was just a matter of time before I was invited to a pill party where we could all exchange prescriptions for Prozac and Ativan.

 

I did not want to give too much away of the book, so asked Tracy to write something special for me.  A tiny slice of Tracy’s humor, so you want to read (and buy) her book.  I asked Tracy for her words of wisdom on raising tweens and teens since I am heading at 80 mph in that direction.

 

Tracy already survived this hellish heavenly stage that I am currently entrenched in…Here is what Tracy instructed me to do:

 

Top Ten Ways to Survive Your Kids’ Tween and Teenage Years

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See-Saw Trumps Balance in the Game of Life

January 30, 2013
► Back'nGrooveMom, Inspiration, Moms, Moms in Business, Parenting

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For ME, going from SAHM to WAHM was a necessary evil.  I do not regret the years I stayed home, but it just was time for a little more up and down than stagnant…I was going down a very slippery slope – that being one where I was weighing my own worth on the merits of my kids.  I have always been a perfectionist.  No matter what I set out to do, I was going to do the absolute best I possibly could do and settle for nothing less.  I was a good student.  I went for internships that were so-called unattainable.  I attempted to learn tennis over and over again.  I was a doting granddaughter.  You get the picture.  I set the bar high and I mean high.  I still do this.

 

However, when my sons were both well-situated in grade school, I realized something very dark and sinister about myself.  I had nothing available and ready to set goals for myself.  Except for what my kids were up to…Which at the time was basically being kids.  You know, they were doing homework (sometimes better than others but not always), playing sports (sometimes more skillfully than others but not always), behaving (not always), learning to be nice, kind and fair (with mishaps), and doing everything else that kids do being average joe kids.  The only issue is this:  As a SAHM, I saw what my kids were doing out in public as a performance review of my sole job.  Of course, to a certain extent, we all feel that way as parents.  It is our job to raise our kids and they are a reflection of us, but For ME, when this was my only job – it was a recipe for disaster.

 

I began to see visions of myself doing something Tiger-Momish but on a whole new level because I had all the hours of the day to devise a plan.  Parent-Teacher Conferences set off a panic like none other.  And, if there were no bananas in the house, how were the boys going to get their potassium?  Thus, this was my job to make all this work top notch, and was remarkably harder and harder on myself.

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Blogging is the Cat’s Meow

January 11, 2013
► Back'nGrooveMom, Moms in Business, Social Media, StartUp Business

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I have been at my desk for the last two days straight. Yesterday, my ass was firmly planted in my desk chair ALL day.  Today I broke for spinning..shhh.  Banging away at the keyboard, catching up online, and outlining posts:  This is the life of a blogger.  Being a mommy blogger [ick], I hop online super early, very late and somewhere in between.

 

 

 

 

 

I carve out time to help with homework, make dinner (okay, order dinner more often than not), and exercise.  Sometimes, I have sex which is getting harder and harder to write about because my tweenager’s friends are following me on Instagram and FB, and from time to time, my husband gets a little comment like ‘I love your wife’s blog’ from not my target audience.  Oh well, I have to keep everyone on their toes while being true in my writing and sex, vibrators, and whether we love Christian Grey or not is a lot more seductive than discussing what I launder my oldest’s basketball uniform with….I digress, though.

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I resolve not to hold back

January 2, 2013
► Back'nGrooveMom, Decision Making, Inspiration, Moms, Rebranding in Life, Work Family Balance

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It was the Summer of ’69….Actually, it is the second day of 2013 and the minutes are ticking away.  With each minute, I find a deep-seeded need (almost a panic) to get back in the groove (excuse the pun). The boys are still not back to school.  I have come to just roll with long winter breaks, therefore, I am holed up in a Starbucks while they lounge at home with a sitter.  Two days into the new year, I have a desperate need to return to normalcy.  I am only slightly alarmed by this.  Typically, I am a systematic person, rooted in routine, grounded in my day-to-day doings, and not a fan of this pattern being disrupted.  Although my current state of urgency to get back to it is slightly heightened, and due to this, I knew I needed a few hours of regularly scheduled programming today.

The benefits of these few hours far outweighed the cost of a sitter and multiple venti something or others at Starbucks, so here I am.  Why the heightening, you ask?  Like the Bryan Adams song, It was the summer of ’69, my current desperation is only similar to the winters of the late 90’s for me.  It was during this time, life was all too chaotic for me, and I retreated.  That’s where I have been for the last month or so.  Retreating.  Yeh, I know I was away with the family for some time.  This just luckily fit perfectly into my retreating.

Way back in the mid to late 90’s, I was over-cooked.  It was a break out period for me.  A time during which I thought I was proving everyone wrong about my capabilities, my inner-being.  My bandwidth was larger than most (I felt) and I could tackle just about anything and keep the train moving forward.  No longer a college student, I was going to conquer adult life.  I found myself in graduate school full-time, in a new apartment living on my own, making new friends, nannying as a side job, working my ass off in a practicum which no one to date had held as a first year grad student in my program, holding down the same coveted practicum for a second year (also something no one else had ever done), being the ultimate family girl or the glue as everyone called me, nursing a badly broken relationship which I refused to sever, and rekindling a relationship with my biological father.

Let’s just say this:  I crashed and burned.  Not once, but twice before I got it together.

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Read My Lips Instagram

December 19, 2012
► Back'nGrooveMom, Branding & Marketing, Parenting, Social Media, Work Family Balance

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It is sort of funny how this whole privacy thing is imploding with Instagram because just a few weeks ago, I was having dinner with the one and only Anna Lingeris, Public Relations Manager of Hershey’s.  At this very dinner, I was voicing a whole different set of concerns regarding Instagram and Bloggers and Brands.

Now, those very concerns may be null and void, but let me start at the beginning.  My oldest son is about to turn 12 years old.  If that in and of itself is not enough to drive me insane, enter his burgeoning presence on social media, namely Instagram.  What my husband has coined Facebook Lite, Instagram is all the rage with the tween and preteen set.  So much in fact, that I almost feel that I am too old for Instagram.

With my son’s followers and likes and comments growing each day, I quietly watched behind the scenes.  I was watching what he was instagramming.  There were snipes of friends and me, selfies, and lots and lots of shout outs to brands (like Nike).  The Instagram web grew and became more tangled.  His friends followed me.  I don’t follow back.  I follow 2 tweens.  My 2 kids. Period.

However, it was not this that was at the crux of my issues a few weeks back.  It was this:  I am a blogger.  Sometimes, I am asked to talk about brands, products, places, and people.  At times, my kids are woven into the mix.  Not always, but here and there (I cannot sell them out completely but that is a whole different discussion).  Anyway, let’s say for example, I am asked to go on a FAMiliarizing trip for a destination or use a product designed for families.  The likelihood of that place or product landing on another Instagram account ripe with reach and engagement is pretty damn high.

So, now I have assistants?  Mini-bloggers?  Partners in Crime?  I don’t even know what to call them – these feisty, Insta-Addicts who within an hour will have their friends and social networks all begging their parents to take them to said destination or purchase the photographed product.   All of a sudden I am thinking there is a marketing spin there, an engagement level that has not been fully investigated yet, perhaps a value that I bring to the table?

Red flags start waving in my head because these are my KIDS, and that is what they are – KIDS.  They post what they believe to be cool at that moment and 2 hours later, it could change.  They follow Lebron James account as if he is really talking directly to them. Worst of all, I could never list them as an unseen value proposition because they are them and I am me.  I am the blogger.  Not them.

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Setting up a Blog: Cheat Sheet

December 13, 2012
► Back'nGrooveMom, Branding & Marketing, Groovalicious Bloggers, StartUp Business

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This morning, I am prepping to speak on the Importance of Blogging for Small Business tomorrow.  As I am just putting the finishing touches on my presentation and making some last-minute notes, it occurs to me:  After someone decides they ACTUALLY want to blog, the next question is always, “What tools do I use?”  While, I can’t giveaway my talk for tomorrow, I can say, blogging builds your brand and establishes YOU as who you are and what you do.  Period.  Get a blog! Heh!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am going to be nice, so here is a quick cheat sheet to get you down the road of blogging:

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