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This month in the Happiness Challenge was an utter failure. I don’t know what else to say about it. The funny thing is that it should have been an easy month. After all, it was all about Love! How hard can it be to show the people around me that I love them? Apparently it was more difficult than I had anticipated.
Week 5 (first week of February) was focusing on giving proofs of love. So, I focused on giving personal attention to both of my girls — which means snuggling! Zoe loves to rock together after her naps and Abbi loves to snuggle and read books together. Sadly, I just don’t do this enough. The funny thing about this week was that Tim was out of town again for work so he didn’t get any proofs of love.
Week 6 (second week of February) focused on fighting right. Ah, yes, the fighting fair issue. I’ll go ahead and admit that neither Tim or I fight fair. We use word like “always” and “never”, big no-nos in the fair fighting world. Interesting enough, Gretchen Rubin suggested that when your fights get heated to walk away and take a break, come back to the fight later. That would never work for us. I don’t know who it would work for. For us at least, if we take a break during a fight we just wouldn’t come back and talk about what it was we were fighting about. If we stop fighting about something then Tim figures everything is fine and dandy again, while I bottle it up and spew it all out the next time we have a fight. Regardless if it has anything to do with what we are now fighting about. So I’m just not sure about how to go about this one!
Week 7 (third week of February) told us to not expect praise or appreciation. What? You mean I shouldn’t be expecting my husband to notice and praise me over how clean the linen closet is? And I’m not allowed to get irritated when he doesn’t hoist me on a pedestal for doing so? Ok, seriously, this is something I’ve definitely learned since having kids. I’m home all day and my “job” is to make sure that the kids are fed and still breathing by the end of the day and that the house is still standing. My husband doesn’t expect (or at least he doesn’t say it) me to have a lavish meal on the table when he gets home and understands why the living room is in disarray when he walks in at 6pm.
Yet I’ve still found myself, on occasion, getting frustrated with him for not praising me for the work I have done during the day. I’m used to working in the “working world” where you do receive praise for your great accomplishments and it has been a tough transition. The funny thing is that I rarely give my husband praises for dragging his butt out of bed and to his office each and every day to make enough money for me to stay home with our kids. So, I’m working on both ends of this — not expecting praise for every little thing I do and also dishing out praise more to him. The cool thing about this one is that when you stop expecting the praise, you tend to treasure the unexpected praise even more when it does happen!
Week 8 (fourth week of February)…let me just say that I’m glad to see February end. Not that I have anything personal against this short month, but I’m just looking forward to March and, hopefully, warmer weather! Oh, so the resolution this week — kiss more, hug more, touch more. Fun!
This one will be easy in respect to my kids (as long as I can put my phone and computer down for 5 minutes) because they love to snuggle! They love hugs. They love kisses! The tricky one will be the husband since he is out of town, again!
So I’m not feeling too optimistic about my strides towards happiness this month. But there is always next month. And I can continue to work on these resolutions. I did get some encouragement when I was in Texas for the Mom 2.0 Summit. I had the pleasure of hearing Gretchen Rubin speak during the Friday morning keynote. She made the comment, “I just decided that writing about sad or frustrating things put me in a dark and miserable place. I’d rather write about happiness. You can’t help but be happy when you write about happiness!”
Out of that I have decided to write about more happy things here at my blog. No, I’m not going to blow sunshine and rainbows up your butt and Yes, I will still write about the frustrating things in my life, but I’m going to try to focus more on the positive rather than the negative. Ok, I might be blowing some sunshine and rainbows up your butt, too!
While my main reason for going to Texas this past weekend was to attend the Mom 2.0 Summit, it just wouldn’t have been right if we didn’t do a little sight-seeing as well. And our wonderful hosts (my brother and Janice) were more than willing to share with us some of their favorite greater-Houston sites!
In case you missed my post about how I ended up going to the Mom 2.0 Summit (When Big Brothers Meddle), my trip to Houston was due to my brother who lives near Houston. He, Janice, and Janice’s two darling kids live just outside of Houston and graciously let Tim and I crash at their apartment during our stay. They also served as our chauffeurs to and from the hotel/conference center. Basically I’m trying to say that they were absolutely super!
When scheduling our trip we built in a day to spend with Scott and Janice and here are some of the fun things we did:
Downtown Houston
Sam Houston monument
FYI – I was totally freaking out because Sam Houston is pointing off into the distance and we just watched “Angels and Demons” a few weeks ago!
Their mini-version of the Washington Monument. You can actually see a better scale of it here.
The Japanese Gardens
Galveston, TX (The Gulf of Mexico)
This is one of the few places that has rebuilt after Hurricane Ike. It was so amazing to see how much had been wiped out and destroyed by that hurricane. As you drive down the highway into Galveston you can still see random boats out in fields that had been tossed there by the hurricane. Shops and restaurants that once occupied beachfront property have vanished.
Brazos Bend
This is a State Park located out in the middle of nowhere. Kind of one of those places where they decided to fence off a bunch of land, throw up some signs and some picnic tables, and call it a State Park so they could charge people to come in! But it was rumored to have alligators, so why not!
And of course we found some alligators!
And someone thought it would be fun to get nice and close to one of those alligators! It was only after we got home that we read one of the State Park handouts that warned not to underestimate the speed of an alligator!
The Food
Despite eating conference food and McDonalds the majority of our time in Texas, I did get some delicious Sea Bass one night. Unfortunately, Tim and Scott’s steaks turned out to be not as good as my sea bass! Below is a picture of Janice’s daughter, Zoe, eating her sushi! I seriously need her to hang out with my girls so they will eat something other than macaroni and cheese!
Isn’t she adorable!
So, that was our trip to Houston. You can see more pictures over on my Flickr page. Thankfully the day that we did our sight-seeing it was 70 degrees! They were calling for snow in Houston the day after we left! I’m hoping we get back down to Houston again soon and are able to take the kids! And thanks again to Scott, Janice, Ean, and Zoe for putting up with us, sacrificing their bedroom (Ean), and carting us around the Greater Houston area! Love you guys!
Unless this is the first time you’ve been to my blog or you don’t follow me on Twitter or Facebook, then you’ve probably heard me mention a time or ten that I was going to the Mom 2.0 Summit in Houston, TX. Well, the Summit was this past weekend and I am sitting her trying to collect all of my thoughts. Here goes!
First, I’m not even sure how to convey how significant this conference is. The level of speakers at Mom 2.0 this year was just amazing, but more about that in a minute. In the simplest of terms, being at Mom 2.0 and listening to those speakers, talking with them, asking them questions would be like meeting an author that has inspired you or meeting your favorite athlete. Or, if you are an aspiring actor, like meeting one of the greats. Does that help?
The Speakers
AH-MAZING! The keynote speakers for both days included Gretchen Rubin (The Happiness Project), Heloise, Heather Armstrong (dooce.com), Maggie Mason (mightygirl.com), and Gabrielle Blair (designmom.com). I know! I could have sat and listened to Saturday’s keynote panel all day! They were that good! Even my husband was impressed!!!
And the speakers during the breakout sessions weren’t too shabby either — Gwen Bell, Rebecca Woolf, Ciaran Blumenfeld, Karen Walrond, Allison Czarnecki, Isabel Kallman, Jenny Lawson, Marie LeBaron, and Jyl Johnson Pattee…just to name a few. The amount of knowledge these and the other fabulous speakers were willing to share was invaluable! They spoke on everything from working with ad agencies and PR to photography and creating community.
The best part about these women is that, no matter how famous or popular they are or how huge their blogs are, they are so down to earth. They have no problem answering questions and talking to even the smallest of bloggers (ahem, me) or posing for a picture.
(me with Maggie Mason — Mighty Girl, @Maggie)
The Lessons
This is going to be tough but I’m going to just do some bullet points of things I took away from the sessions I attended. If anything peaks your interest, let me know. I’d be happy to chat more with you about them!
- Different people want your blog in different ways — use email, video, photography, Twitter, and other Social Media outlets
- Trademark your blog name and logo. Copyright your material.
- When doing PR and advertising campaigns, select brands that fit with your blog. Don’t change your blog to fit their brand. And make sure the value is equal on both sides!
- Engage with others
- The FTC is not out to get bloggers but be smart and disclose.
- Numbers, subscribers, followers, and stats are not the whole picture. Think quality, not quantity.
- Product reviews and blanket advertising is becoming a thing of the past. Advertisers are beginning to embrace the rawness and artfulness of “those crazy bloggers” and involving them in campaigns — Heather Armstrong
- Focus on content campaigns — Maggie Mason
- Is your blog, especially your comment section, user friendly for your readers
- Don’t do video for the sake of doing video. And when you do incorporate video, keep it under 4 minutes!
- Shitty, authentic photos are better than canned photos.
The Overall Experience
I’ll be honest, I was a bit skeptical when I first walked in Saturday morning. The only other blogging conference I’ve been to is BlogHer, so pardon my comparisons. BlogHer is the largest blogging conference in the country. Thousands of attendees, huge and numerous sponsors, and an very large expo hall. Mom 2.0 is a much more intimate conference. The attendees is capped at 350 attendees (I think) and the expo was shockingly small, more like a lobby. While I was surprised at the lack of exhibitors and companies and, well, swag, I found it to be refreshing. I was able to focus more on networking with other bloggers and PR/marketing reps than walking aisles and aisles of booths.
The nice thing about the smaller size of the conference is that you find familiar faces in each session and break. I didn’t feel like a tiny fish swimming in a huge ocean, like I felt at BlogHer. And as I said before, everyone was so nice and approachable!
And Mom 2.0 certainly did not disappoint when it came to “extra” activities. Although I did not attend the Mad Men Party or the CheeseburgHer party, I did go to a few of the suites, met some ladies for drinks, and enjoyed a delicious dinner with Barilla and a small group of bloggers. Oh, and FotoFest! I was completely blown away by the photography skills of some of our fellow bloggers!!! Mom 2.0 also offered a pre-screening of the animated film “Despicable Me” (coming to theaters this summer) and a special Q&A with the director and producer of Flicka 2 (coming to DVD this spring…I’ll be telling you more about them in a later post).
It was also very cool that I got to share this experience with my husband and that he got to catch a glimpse into the grander scene of blogging. I think, although he’s super supportive of what I’m doing, he got a new perspective on it all.
Would I attend Mom 2.0 again?
Yes. Well, maybe I should clarify. Yes, if the same or a similar list of speakers were going to be there. It was a great learning experience. Sure, there were some sessions where I walked out of it disappointed but that happened at BlogHer, too.
Will I attend Mom 2.0 in 2011 (New Orleans)? I’m not sure. It really depends on how life plays out next year. I’d love to try Blissdom at some point, too. And I’m thinking that next year will be my husband’s year to go conferencing-about. So, at this point I’m not booking my ticket but I’m also not saying no.
- – - I will be uploading photos soon to my Flickr page from Mom 2.0 – - -
Despite the fact that I’ve been blogging for five years, I’m quickly realizing I have so much to learn! And that is probably a huge understatement!
I should probably begin by saying that the first three-ish years of blogging my purpose for writing was to keep family and friends updated on what was going on in our lives (i.e. the kids) and to vent. It has only been the last year year or so that I really took my blogging seriously. And by seriously, well, I’m not sure exactly what I mean by seriously. All I know is that I really enjoy writing and I am now becoming more deliberate about it.
Back to the whole ‘learning’ thing…
As I work with more PR companies and guest post at other amazing sites, I’m often these crazy questions about my site stats and unique visitors; my Google ranking and affiliate links/affiliate marketing. Imagine me sitting at my computer, reading those emails, with a ‘deer-in-the-headlights’ look on my face! My affiliate-ranking-stat-visitor what? Apparently I have a lot to learn yet!
Of course, my first instinct is to head to Google and start researching these things. But then I’m swimming in an overwhelming amount of knowledge. And not all knowledge is good knowledge. There are some marketing blogs and affiliate blogs that have some great information but not every site on Google has my best interest in mind. Not every ad network or affiliate network is a fit for me.
So the next step for me is to go to the people who have been doing this and the people who have been making it work for them. That’s where conferences come into play.
As I write this I am heading down to the Mom 2.0 Summit in Houston, TX. I’m hoping to get some of my many questions about all of this answered while I am there. I’m also hoping to attend BlogHer 10 this year. I went to BlogHer last year but really feel like I have so much more I could take away from that conference by going again.
If those don’t work for me and I still feel like I’m drowning in all of this information, then I’m just going to show up on the doorstep of some of the bloggers who have got a grasp on it all and say TEACH ME!!!
Earlier this month I shared with you my thoughts on New Year’s resolutions and the goals I set for myself for 2010. One of those goals was to take my blogs to ‘the next level’…whatever that might be.
In 3 weeks I will be exploring a little more about that ‘next step’. In 3 weeks I will be traveling to Houston to attend the Mom 2.0 Summit. And it’s all thanks to my big brother.
For those of you who don’t know me well, I have a brother who is 3 years older than me. Now imagine high school where he is a senior and I am a freshmen. Like most big brothers he was a bit protective of his little sister, especially when it came to boys. Especially when it came to his friends or classmates taking a romantic interest in his little sister. Lots of head-butting and “you’re not the boss of me” going on between the two of us. Glad we both grew-up…sort of!
My brother now lives just outside of Houston. He moved there from Michigan a few years ago and I have never had the chance to visit him. Needless to say, he was a tiny bit enthusiastic when I told him one night about the Mom 2.0 Summit and my interest in going. Seriously, the next morning I had an email waiting for me from him detailing out my trip, costs, and even flight times from MI to TX. I did mention he was a little excited.
A few weeks later I broke the news to him about tightening budgets and postponing my trip until next year, but I would keep working on it. Apparently he was going to keep working on it, too.
Another week went by when I get a voicemail from my brother. I was a little surprised because we typically only call each other on holidays. We’re more of a ‘text and email’ family. Anyhow, to make a long story more bearable to read, I’m going to Mom 2.0!
Turns out that my brother contacted the ladies behind Mom 2.0 and is now exchanging some of his photography skills for a ticket to the event. My ticket! What?
Now I am beyond excited. I get to attend this amazing conference, go to a place I’ve never been, and hang with my brother and his family. And I’m excited to share with you all that I learn!
Who would have ever thought that one day I would be happy when my big brother meddled in my business?
If you’re going to Mom 2.0 this year, please do me a favor and tell my brother how awesome he is — he’ll be carrying around a camera and his name is Scott. And, if you are from the Greater Houston area and are ever in need of a photographer, check him out — www.CapturedMemoriesByScott.com.
Captured Memories By Scott
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