There’s A Ghost In Our House #iPPP

Posted on May 23, 2013 in life, My Girls | 3 comments

Well, I’ve come to the conclusion there must be a ghost in our house. (I don’t mean the ghost cat. We know she’s here.) Why do I think we have a ghost? Because things keep happening that can’t be explained.

• There’s often no toilet paper in the bathroom.
• There’s always pee in the unflushed toilet.
• There are dirty dishes left on the kitchen table.
• The dog food bowl was filled to overflowing.

Now you may think I’m crazy for thinking a ghost did any of these things because clearly my daughters are the culprits. But I asked them. And this will be shocking, so get ready. They didn’t do it. Any of it. They each claim the other was responsible, but if they both deny it, then what other possibility is there? A ghost.

I think this boy probably knows.

He looks a little like he sees the ghost, doesn’t he?

Note: Reagan is doing a little bit better about some of these things since we made her new kid checklists. Two days in, she’s done everything she was supposed to each day.

Linking up with Greta and Sarah for #iPPP:

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What I Learned at Bloggy Boot Camp – Charlotte

Posted on May 21, 2013 in life | 7 comments

I had the opportunity to attend a blogging conference for the first time this past weekend, and I’m so glad I went! Bloggy Boot Camp was a perfect first conference for a blogger like me.

What I Loved:

This conference was fairly low-key. The atmosphere was casual and really encouraged friendliness and networking with other bloggers.

Rotating assigned seats for the morning sessions and lunch. Because I’m very introverted and struggle a little with networking in person, I loved the fact that the seats were assigned, so I didn’t have to worry about approaching someone and deciding where to sit. This also helped me more comfortably talk to several different bloggers who I may not have approached otherwise! I could have done a better job networking, because I was still a little nervous, but without the structure of assigned seats, I probably wouldn’t have spoken to nearly as many people!

The organizers. Tiffany and Francesca were amazing. I loved hearing both of them speak and share their motivational views on the blogging world and encourage all of us to be the best we can be.

The speakers. I learned so much from all of the speakers:

• Shell and Ashley provided a lot of useful information about getting off your blog and increasing your online presence with Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Google +.
• Casey made me realize that there’s a whole lot to this whole SEO thing and that I need to spend a lot more time looking into it. Fortunately he mentioned several tools that can help me get started.
• Brittany spent a lot of time sharing her thoughts about blog design, including mistakes some of us are probably making right now (I certainly fall into that category). I need to look at my blog keeping her tips in mind and think about making some changes.
• The hilarious Robin shared the story of her path to becoming a published author. While I have no plans to pursue that path for myself, several of her ideas will be helpful for me as we work to get my husband’s fiction novel published! And she really made me laugh so much that I definitely plan to buy her book.
• Tiffany, Francesca and Allison helped us learn why we aren’t being selected for brand campaigns and what we can do to change that!
• Cynthia gave us some very helpful photography and design tips that I need to apply to my blog right now!

Next Steps to Take Right Now:

Get into Google+. I’ll admit I’ve mostly avoided Google+ so far because I just don’t get it. But I learned that it’s critical to SEO, and I just need to get over it and get on there. I’ve already updated my profile and shared a post on G+ for the first time, so I’m taking baby steps in the right direction.

Begin using Facebook Scheduler. How did I not know that Facebook’s Scheduler existed? This was one of my favorite tips from Shell and Ashley. My regular job makes it very difficult to be active on social networks throughout the day, but I can use Facebook Scheduler to space out some fun posts throughout the day rather than sharing everything that amuses me in a one hour period in the evening. My Facebook page posts already feed to Twitter, so I accomplish both at once with the Facebook Scheduler. And I already use Buffer for tweeting links to my own posts.

WordPress Plugins! There are some I should be using that I’m not, like Yoast, SNAP, and the Facebook plugin that shows your Facebook feed. I’ve already added all three, though I may need to reconfigure SNAP.

Update my About Me page. I learned from Tiffany how important the About Me page is, especially to brands and recruiters quickly checking out my site. I’ve already made one update based on her guidelines, but it may be a work in progress for a little while!

Build my community. I need to spend more time commenting on other blogs and sharing my new friends’ posts. I moved my Google Reader over to Feedly, and I really like the way it’s set up. I think it will be a big help for me. I learned that my community is almost as important, if not more important, than overall page views when determining influence, so I need to build it more.

Determine my blogging goals. I began blogging years ago on a smaller blog for the purpose of keeping far away family up to date on our lives. When I relaunched with this blog in July 2011, I decided to try to do more with my blog. But I haven’t really defined what “do more” means to me, and I need to set specific goals if I want to achieve them.

Overall, Bloggy Boot Camp was a great experience for me. I can’t capture everything in this post – and I’m not going to because if you really want to know what it was like, you should attend Bloggy Boot Camp yourself! I would highly recommend this conference to anyone considering a blog conference, and I’d love to attend another one if they come back to my area. If I went again, I would probably actually try to stay overnight so I could attend the networking cocktail party because I do feel like I missed out on a lot of fun by just attending the conference!

Thanks to the amazing brand sponsors:

Brew Over Ice – I really want a Keurig now so I can make myself lemonade and make my family other iced treats every day!

Salsarita’s – I can’t wait for my next Salsarita’s meal!

Collective Bias – I learned so much from Casey!

Mirassou – While I didn’t stay for the party, I did get a chance to speak to their wonderful representatives!

*I completely failed to take any pictures while I was absorbed in getting all this awesome information. It’s like I wasn’t even there, but I swear I was!

If you want to hear some other perspectives on Bloggy Boot Camp, check out the other posts linked up over at Four Hens and a Rooster.

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The Absent Minded 9-Year-Old

Posted on May 21, 2013 in parenting, Reagan | 0 comments

I swear that we have one of the smartest 9-year-olds in the world. Reagan never struggles in school. In fact, she gets very high A’s, and she’s disappointed with herself basically any time she doesn’t get a 100. But I would also say that she’s one of the most absent-minded kids in the world. I can be in the family room with her and ask her to go let the dogs out. The dogs are whining and loud. She can walk the few feet from the family room to the kitchen, walk right past the dogs, and pour herself a drink and completely forget the reason she went in there in the first place.

Another example: last week she had a project due at school on Friday. It was a poster board sized book project. She had it out Friday morning while she was getting ready. We rolled it up to make it easier to carry and set it in the middle of the kitchen table beside her backpack. When it was time to go, she picked up her backpack and walked out the door. I was going to bring the project to her at the bus stop, but she remembered it about five minutes later.

My husband thinks her head is just empty, but I think it’s that her mind is too full with all the interest things she’s constantly thinking about and asking questions about. So to compensate for her absent mindedness, we’ve made some new checklists for her. We used to have daily checklists, but there was just one long checklist for each day, and they didn’t specify when anything had to be done, so she would procrastinate (because she is my daughter) and then realize she didn’t do anything at the end of the day. Or she would walk past the checklist and not even look at it. So we worked hard on new checklists for her and placed them where we think she can’t ignore them. Her morning and after school checklists are on the front door. Her night time checklist is at the bottom of the stairs so she sees it on her way up to bed.

Just to give you an idea of what types of things Reagan forgets about, here are the details for her checklists. Keep in mind that we’re really not asking her to do a lot of extra work around the house, just basic things we think she should be responsible for at her age.

Morning checklist:

After school checklist:

Night time checklist:

Can you tell that she’s forgetful? And that she really has trouble with putting away her clothes. I’ll keep you posted on how it goes for these last few weeks of school.

Do you have any advice for dealing with a really smart, absent-minded kid?

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