mommablogsalot.com

I started this little blog about 5 months ago. I still remember the early days, sitting, staring at the hit counter, willing the number to go up. I remember my first comment, who left no comment at all – I still wonder who you were phantom commenter. I remember my first meme, which I stumbled over after several months, remember watching my hit counter suddenly sky rocket, at least in comparison to my hits before. Suddenly I went from posting 6 times a month, to 6 times a day. My hit reader is currently at 2,373 and I rarely don’t get visitors now – I even get comments nearly daily – it’s amazing! I’m no dooce, but I do alright.

I’m toying with the idea of getting a domain name and maybe trying the advertising game, seeing if any pennies show up my way, but still scared of the idea, knowing I’m still small potatoes, and I might find I’d be biting off more than I could chew. To jump or not to jump? Am I BlogHer worthy yet or just another small potatoes blogger who thought she could?

Lately I’ve been playing this game in which I pretend I am a tremendously popular blogger, and trying to treat myself as such – to take myself that seriously if you will, although I suspect I like the small level of anonymity I still possess – no pressure. I’ve joined the twitter band wagon and try to be active in the blogging community – treating others as I’d have them treat me, you could say. I want people to recognize my name, and say, “Oh yeah, I love her blog. I read it every day.” Or at least something similarly nice.

Because this blogging thing, it’s pretty great. I’m not just here for the fame, although I won’t shut my door in it’s face if it ever comes knocking. No, I’m here for a few other much more important reasons, that I’ll try to lay out here:

For one, I don’t get out much – sounds silly, but it’s true. I’ve tried making mommy friends at various play dates and you know I’ve got a few up my sleeve, but I always thought, “I am so much better on paper, than the awkward bumbling girl I seem to become at these social events…” And online? I really do feel cooler, more clever and more with it – a few minutes to come up with that clever line really helps – and none of you can see when I never manage to get dressed for the day.

I love the easy community that blogging brings in – the sense of camaraderie that the blogging community delivers is bar non. (I’m still waiting for my spell check to kick in and start telling me how terrible my writing is… waiting… waiting…) The mommy blogging community is especially very wonderful to be a part of for me, because we all share one of the most incredible joys in the world – motherhood – and we also all seem to share a need to be more than that, if only in a small online way. We are mothers, we are women, we are writers, hear us roar? Do we have a theme song yet? Have your people call my people, they’ll do lunch (Oh I crack myself up…).

Blogging can be seen in a few lights – for some it is merely journaling (there you are spell check, welcome to the party! Ouch I was right, my spelling has been atrocious!) – a cathartic way of chronicling our days – and then doing it in the public eye – attempting to tell the world, “I am here. I matter. My thoughts are valuable.” And finding we are right; we are, we do, and they are. In a world where we often feel our voices go unheard, blogging is a way of putting ourselves out there, to be heard, being our own agents if you will. We are making our own first steps, allowing ourselves to be heard, whether you’d hear us or not.

Blogging also occasionally feels like journalism, something which I have a small passion for after running my college paper for a few years. I remember writing my weekly columns back then, and chuckling at myself and my own hilarity, soaking in the feel of the editorial room, reveling in my red pen. Sometimes my writing was the only stuff I wanted to read each week, though I tried to read everyone’s work. Now suddenly, years later, I find I have my own column again – I’m my whole paper this time – I can fill my blog with the content I want to read, by my own editor and publisher, and find my own audience – and I can call myself eco-friendly, as I waste no paper doing it. It’s the wave of the future.

Someday, my blog might earn me money – I can call myself a mom-trepreneur, paving my way in this world, making a name for myself – I can be more than “MM’s mom,” I can be, “mommablogsalot, fellow blogger extraordinaire” – imagine that on a business card, if you will.

When Ann Frank wrote her diary, chronicling her life – she didn’t do it so that school children everywhere could read it some day, know her name and her story and learn from it – she wrote it for herself, because she couldn’t not write it. People have been writing their stories for a long time now, and finding fortune or not because of it, ditto with fame. Blogging is just like that – we are telling our stories, feeling compelled to do so, and putting ourselves out there to the public, in this brave age of technology, where we can connect ourselves instantly with millions, and tell our stories now, while we are alive and well, or not so well as the case may be.

So why do I blog? I blog because I can. I blog because I have stories to tell, regardless of who would hear them. I blog to chronicle my life, in a sort of journal form to look back on later myself, and to share with the world if they care. I blog for my future and I blog of my past. I blog as a form of catharsis, and I blog for the community it brings me to. I blog, because I couldn’t not blog, now knowing it’s out there for the taking and the viewing and the sharing. I blog because I’m here.

Why do you blog? Or why don’t you, if that’s the case?

I just entered a giveaway to win a copy of Sisters of Misery by Megan Kelley Hall over at BookFinds.com. They are giving three signed copies to three lucky readers, so what are you waiting for? Head over and sign up for a chance to win (all you have to do is leave a comment on the post – so easy).

Here’s a quick description of the book for anyone who hasn’t heard of it yet:

“She has the right clothes, the right friends, and the right last name, but fifteen-year-old Maddie Crane sometimes feels like an outsider in her clique in the wealthy, seaside town of Hawthorne, Massachusetts. And when her gorgeous, eccentric cousin Cordelia LeClaire moves to town, Maddie is drawn toward her ethereal, magical spirit and teeters even more toward the edge of her friends’ tightly-knit circle…

Then there are the jealous ones…

Kate Endicott and the Sisters of Misery–a secret clique of the most popular, powerful girls in school–are less than thrilled by Cordelia’s arrival. When Kate’s on-again, off-again boyfriend Trevor takes an interest in Cordelia, the Sisters of Misery become determined to make her pay…

Now Maddie must choose between the allure and power of the Sisters of Misery and her loyalty to her beloved cousin. But she’ll have to give up on ever fitting in and accept the disturbing truth about the town, her friends, her mysterious cousin, and even herself as she faces the terrifying wrath of the Sisters of Misery…”

Yeah I’m pretty hooked and from what I can tell looking on GoodReads.com, I’m not alone – it’s gotten some pretty stellar reviews so far, considering it doesn’t even come out until tomorrow, August 1. If this sounds like a book up your alley, or up the alley of someone you know, be sure to enter for a chance to win!

This is my first attempt at a Things I Love Thursday, but I just wanted to share with you that I love, love, love my Amazon Visa Credit Card for one major reason – I know you’ve all probably heard of / used a credit card that gives you rewards points, maybe from a store you frequent. My father used to use a Harley Visa, his wife has an LL Bean – but I always think, “How much Harley stuff can you actually buy?” My Amazon Visa gives me Amazon GC’s for every 2,500 points I rack up I get a $25 GC – and use them, I do. You may have heard of my book obsession? Well that’s not the only thing I use the GC’s for – does anybody remember when I got a new TomTom GPS for $65 thanks to Amazon GC’s? Because I do, and I’m still so excited about using it for our trip to the White Mountains this September.

Right now I’m currently waiting for a package from Amazon.com paid entirely in GC’s – here’s what I’m getting:

• Snack Time (Barenaked Ladies Kid’s CD): Which is so perfect for my husband and I – we don’t always agree on music but one band we both love is Barenaked Ladies – we are big fans of their Christmas CD considering the music on that disc better than most traditional Christmas music by far, so we are avidly looking forward to this children’s CD – did you know all the members of BNL are dads? Fun fact of the day.
• Where The Light Is: John Mayer Live In Los Angeles [Live]: I adore John Mayer – I saw him in concert a few years ago and since then every summer I think, “Why aren’t I seeing John again this year?” Maybe this CD will help with my live JM cravings…
• Curious George – Takes a Vacation & Discovers New Things: One of my two favorite things are travel and Curious George. I keep renting movies for MM on Netflix looking for some great movie that will catch his interest but so far he still likes watching shows like Curious George on PBS best, so I thought it might be wise to invest in a DVD with various CG shows so we can watch it at times of the day other than 7:30am-8:30am and 4:30pm-5:30pm. I’m sure he’s very excited.
• Classic Cartoon Favorites – Best Pals – Mickey and Minnie (Vol. 10): When we rented Sword in the Stone (a movie dh and I adore, so we were willing to risk it boring him for own fancy), his favorite part of the whole movie was the extra shorts in the bonus section, featuring classic Mickey cartoons with a jousting / fighting theme. So I thought I’d continue helping him become cultured by getting a disc of Classic Mickey cartoons. This one looked nice, so here we are.

Anyway, point is – I love buying things from Amazon but it could get expensive if I didn’t reign myself in. Thanks to my Amazon visa, I have a sort of excuse to get some great books, music, movies and more sans guilt. It’s like shopping sprees but almost free. It’s the big silver lining to the months when we spent more than we should have. And I highly recommend it (And no, Amazon and Chase did not pay me to write this – they in fact have no idea I’m writing this at all – it’s just my advice from one over spending momma to another).

Do you have something you LOVE that you’re just dying to share with others? If you write up a post on your blog be sure to link up to the Diaper Diaries and see what other people are loving, too!

For this week’s edition of Thursday 13 I’m taking a break from the alphabet – I’m mixing things up a bit, and beating a dead horse down, down into the ground* – and by dead horse I mean topic – and by that I mean I’m going to devote this post to BOOKS just so you all know ridiculously obsessed I am with reading – i.e. I have no life.

By now, I’ve told you all ad nauseum in various forms what my favorite books are, so to avoid boring you all to tears by telling you for the 800th time that Gone With the Wind is my all time favorite book, followed by Lamb by Christopher Moore; I’m going to list the THIRTEEN BOOKS I MOST WANT TO READ RIGHT NOW, in no particular order. Helping me in my mission will be goodreads.com, my favorite place to make lists of books that I’ve read, want to read, consider a favorite, borrowed from a friend, etc. and then see what my friends are reading so I can add those books to my list, too! With goodreads helping me, this Thursday Thirteen should be easy as pie… mmm… pie… Erm, ok, ready?

1. Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer: It’s coming out in 1 days 16 hours and 2 minutes… not that I’m counting or anything… I won’t be getting it the day it comes out, but I am toying with the idea of going to the release party at my local Borders, which happens to be across the street from our apartment…
2. Ariel by Sylvia Plath: I’ve had this sort of obsession with Plath since reading the Bell Jar and not finding her all that emotionally confusing, i.e. I completely and utterly related to her main character and it scared the bejeezes out of me. Ariel is supposed to be one of her best works and apparently she churned out the poems in Ariel, “at the remarkable rate of two or three a day, and Robert Lowell describes them as written by “hardly a person at all … but one of those super-real, hypnotic, great classical heroines.” Even more remarkable, she wrote them during one of the coldest, snowiest winters (1962-63) Londoners have ever known.” Snowbound, without central heating, she and her two children spent much of their time sniffling, coughing, or running temperatures…” Which just makes me want to read it even more.

3. I Heart My In-Laws: Falling in Love with His Family–One Passive-Aggressive, Over-Indulgent, Grandkid-Craving, Streisand-Loving, Bible-Thumping In-Law at a Time by Dina Koutas Poch: One of the few examples in literature where the title really does say it all – what married woman wouldn’t want to read this?

4. Phantom by Susan Kay: This was my BFF’s description of this book, which made me want to read it so badly: “Phantom is a must read for anyone who has swooned over Phantom of the Opera and never known why. Susan Kay weaves a story that makes your heart fall in love with the Opera Ghost and makes it ache for his misfortune. There are only few discrepency’s between the stage production of Phantom of the Opera and the book. Mostly you will note a few differences in the performance in the recently made movie in 2006. The subtle differences are few but there. Such as the severity of OG’s deformity and how he gets to the opera house.”
5. Home: A Memoir of My Early Years by Julie Andrews: I’ve always been intrigued by the lives of celebrities – and by that I mean their real lives, their life stories and what happens when the cameras are turned off. Julie Andrews being the phenomenal woman she is, is a perfect example of a woman I’d love to know more about. “Her memoir begins in 1935, when Julie was born to an aspiring vaudevillian mother and a teacher father, and takes readers to 1962, when Walt Disney himself saw her on Broadway and cast her as the world’s most famous nanny.”
6. The Constant Princess by Philipa Gregory: I loved the Other Boleyn Girl – as in, I ate, slept, dreamt, and drank the book – and the one character whom I admired but felt could have used a broader story was Queen Catherine of Aragon – the Constant Princess is her story – so you know I want to read it badly. I’ve read a couple of Gregory’s other books and wasn’t quite as in love with them, which is the reason I haven’t read this one yet, but it is always in the back of my mind as a must read soon book…
7. Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky: I don’t know how many times I tried to beg, plead, and blackmail my book club into reading this book but it never quite caught on as a favorite – I still think it looks amazing. It tells the story of men and women thrown together in circumstances beyond their control, i.e. the Nazi occupation of Paris in 1940. “When Némirovsky began working on Suite Française, she was already a highly successful writer living in Paris. But she was also a Jew, and in 1942 she was arrested and deported to Auschwitz, where she died. For sixty-four years, this novel remained hidden and unknown.” That alone is such an amazing story, I really want to read this novel someday…
8. Rumors by Anna Goderbsen: I won’t go into detail here as I’ve mentioned it in what seems like over half of my posts in the past week, but it’s the sequel to The Luxe for anyone who doesn’t know – The Luxe was a kind of historical mystery romance novel, and was just stunningly brilliantly amazingly [ insert more ly words here]. You should read it, and then read Rumors, but not before I do, or I’ll be jealous.
9. Rockabye: A Young Mom’s Journey from Wild to Child by Rebecca Woolf: The memoir of a young city girl who becomes unexpectedly pregnant – so many themes going on in this memoir that make me want to read about it, but really most parenting memoirs intrigue me, this one just has oodles of cool kid credits going along with it – and the cover is gorgeous.
10. The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry: About a family of women who can read the future in a bit of lace – this just sounds so cool and it’s getting rave reviews and you know I’m all about the band wagons.
11. The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O’Farrell: One of many books whose cover was what initially drew me in, this novel tells the story of a woman who seemingly vanishes, only to turn up 60 years later, after supposedly finally being let out of a mental facility, and showing up on the doorstep of her only living relative, who didn’t even know she was alive. Talk about a heavy hitter – this book just sounds amazing.
12. Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen: I found this book RIGHT NEXT to The Vanishing Act, and want to read it pretty much just as badly. It scores one point immediately for the author’s middle name, which is on the top of our Girls’ Names List right now, with Rachel, Anna & Catherine (if you wanted to know); this book has nothing to do with my list of baby names though, it’s about the Waverley’s, an extraordinary family who tend to a  garden which bear a special kind of apple tree which gives the caretakers sort of “magic powers” … they also grow nasturtiums that aid in keeping secrets and pansies that make children thoughtful, and even snapdragons intended to discourage the attentions of amorous neighbors… Yeah seriously, hello, shut up, I want to read it.
13. Last but certainly not least, The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart: whose introduction is vaguely reminiscent of Harry Potter, but in a good way, not a “nobody has new ideas anymore” kind of way. And actually, okay, it really sounds nothing like HP at all, see?  “”Are you a gifted child looking for special opportunities?” When this peculiar ad appears in the newspaper, dozens of children enroll to take a series of mysterious, mind-bending tests. (And you, dear reader, can test your wits right alongside them.) But in the end just four very special children will succeed. Their challenge: to go on a secret mission that only the most intelligent and resourceful children could complete.”

Okay, I’m done – man that was harder than I thought it would be; a quick browse through my goodreads account yielded well over 30 books from the 275 or so that I have listed as “to read” – and that was me being picky – then I had it down to a solid 23 which was solidly 10 too many, so I started weeding out some obvious ones like Pride and Prejudice, which by now everyone and their brother knows I’m going to be reading for the Classic’s Bookclub on 5 Minutes for Books; and a few other classics and “should read because people say so” books, and tried to focus on the ones that made me want to run across the street to Borders and buy all 13 right now… which I won’t do, because my husband would cry, but I’d like to, and that’s how I decided on my final 13. Neat, huh?

If you want to participate in Thursday Thirteen, just head over to the T13 Hub and join in!

*No dead horses were harmed in the making of this blog post. I swear.