Changes coming, maybe??

I just wanted to announce that. I actually NEED to make changes this to this blog, for a variety of reasons, and that will be more helpful to you.

Actually I got the idea back when I used to Twitter all the time, and I found this website of a mom that was…hm..how to say this?  It could be considered the opposite of a Christian mom, but to be frank, I was intrigued by the similarities.  Anyway, this mom got me getting up some fantastic ideas for my blog, and then came my latest 2 work-intensive projects this winter/spring, and so I put M-B redesign on the back burner.

Well, I visited that site and did not like the changes made, as they no longer reflected what *I* wanted to do, and that is all good, really.  SO this blog will get an overhaul, in a few months because my business site needs an overhaul NOW.  I made add a few things here or there, being now aware of pressing needs that I can actually help people with, and some regular, weekly ideas that will also be helpful and inspiring.

Ha, I just reread this and I said 2 paragraphs giving ZERO clues as to what I’m gonna do.  Na, na, na, naaah!  OOOO, teasers!  I can’t wait to share all my new stuff with you!

Things are looking up!

Well, in case you haven’t heard, all service for my daughters (therapeutic support and behavioral specialists and state aid) is reinstated. Yay!! Amelia needs a new evaluation (we’ll do it on my week off), but all will be well.

AND I just got listed on MOP International blogroll, how cool! Here’s the link:
Blogs I Love

Go over and check out the blogs they recommend.  For those who don’t know, MOPS stands for “mothers of preschoolers” and is a Christian org that hosts meetings for, well, mothers of preschoolers, lol!  Thanks to those at MOPS for sharing my blog.

And finally, I’ve got changes coming. I’ll be focusing on my freelance biz (want to launch a new design/site by years’ end), but I also want to make Mom-Blog something more useful to you.  In that spirit, I ask you to post your comments here on what you’d like to see more of from Mom-Blog, how I can serve you better, and what’s on your mind that you’d like me to weigh in on.

Thank you to all my readers, you make it worth it and I want to share the love, hope and faith that gets me through this crazy trip called parenthood and hopefully inspire, encourage and help you too.

Guest Post: Mutterings & Musings at Mom-Blog

Today’s awesome post is by Courtney, owner of Sunflower Seeds Jewelry. We met because I won a necklace from her and it is a wonderful piece, beautiful and lovely crafstmanship. You can also see her stuff at Etsy or her fan page on Facebook. And please be sure to visit her blog, Mutterings & Musings. Without further ado, a post most moms can relate…

So many hats.

Mom. Wife. Therapist. Proprietor. Blogger. Special Needs Advocate. Down syndrome Guru.

Of the things mentioned above, I only purposefully attempted to obtain a couple of them. I wanted to be a wife. I wanted to be a mother. I wanted to work as a psychotherapist. Little did I know where my path would eventually lead.

A thousand three years ago, I was a young professional married woman. I was in my final year of graduate school. On November 5, 2006, I found out I was expecting my first child.

That is where my “Intentions” diverge from my “Reality”.

The child that I would give birth to nine months later was not the child I had anticipated that November morning when the little plus sign appeared. The career that I was working towards was not to be.

In May 2007, I finished my masters’ degree in Mental Health Counseling, bought a house, and began my first post-graduate full-time job. Six weeks later, my daughter was born.

With a surprise.

With an extra chromosome.

I made the difficult decision to stay at home with Lucy. She was born with a congenital heart defect and I did not want her in the daycare setting. I did not want her Early Intervention therapies to be administered to her without being able to capitalize on the “family training model” on which the program is formed.

My hats were going to change. I went from a career focused wife and expectant mother to a stay-at-home special needs mommy in the time it took a pediatrician to tell me “we think the baby has Down syndrome”. I gave up debating between the merits of cognitive behavioral therapy over classic psychoanalytic approach. I learned new words. Complete Atrioventricular Canal. Trisomy 21. IFSP. IEP. Brushfield spots. Karotype. PT. OT. SLP. I learned that Gortex is used to close holes in infant sized hearts.

After a while, though, I started to find my footing in this new reality. I started to remember who I was, before I was Lucy’s Mom, EI therapist, advocate, teacher, chauffer, and medical care coordinator. I started to feel the urge to carve out my own niche.

The first thing I did was return to work. Extremely part-time, but working none-the-less. I found an ideal gig that allowed me to work as a private practice psychotherapist, while my sister watched Lucy. I should insert here, that by this time, I was expecting again. Just to keep it interesting, right?

Around the same time, I stumbled across two hobbies that would eventually blossom into so much more than I could have imagined.

I began making jewelry for myself while Lucy was just a wee little lass, before my son was born. I tend to run a bit on the anxious side (great selling point for a counselor, dontchya think?) and really needed something to keep my mind and hands busy. I had tried a bunch of different things, but nothing really scratched that itch for me until I began beading. Once I found it, though, I was hooked. It was everything I was looking for. Crafty. Relatively inexpensive. Creative. Stylish. And closely related to shopping, which was a rarity for me with a 75% loss of salary, a child, and another on the way. I loved making pretty things for myself. I loved learning technique.

A few months after I found my beading hobby, I also discovered the cathartic, humorous, comforting joy of blogging. I have loved writing for as long as I can remember, but years of college and graduate school had taken me away from writing anything that wasn’t research based. Though my blog was established on a whim, with no true purpose in mind, it soon became clear that it was going to be the vehicle by which I shared “the ups & Down(s) of life”. The more I wrote, the more I realized I had a lot to say about what it means to be the mother to two children, including one with special needs. My posts aren’t always about Down syndrome. Sometimes they aren’t even about my kids. But to me, that is the purest representation of having a child with special needs. A lot of the time those needs are the topic most in discussion. However, life is life, and huge portions of my day are spent without even thinking about Ds at all. I hope that my blog reflects that. I talk about all the aspects of having a child with Ds that affect me. At the same time, though, I talk about me. Just me. Or just Brodie. Or wine. Or books. Or music. Once, I even posted about my beading hobby.

What a journey that inspired! Long story short, my jewelry was well received. Thus the birth of Sunflower Seeds Handmade Jewelry.

So here I am. Courtney, the Wearer of Many Hats. A mom. A wife. A therapist. A blogger. With a handcrafted jewelry business that I run from my couch in the evening hours after my kids go to bed.

Found Treasures: Especially Ben

Just found this blog through a comment, and I love it:
http://especiallyben.blogspot.com/

This will be a new category I’m running; when I find a blog I love on parenting or by a parent, I’ll share with you. You can follow, link, bookmark & just share some general love if like it too. Vanessa’s blog is new, but I love her “About me” …reminds me of me, lol! And she’s inspiration. Keep it up Vanessa!

I’m in Ms. Magazine online!

Woohoo, they put me first as a “favorite” blog, and lots of other blogs I dig are there too. Flattered to be in great company.  Go check out the article:

Cyberhood is Powerful

Well, that tears it.  I’ve been wanting to get more political and now I guess I have to… lol…

Need web hosting recommendation?

Ooo, just got a great email from my long time webhost, Amhosting.com.  They are having a HUGE sale!  Check it out:

Now through July 1st we are offering a 20% discount on all new hosting and reseller hosting sign ups. Just enter coupon code HOST20 at checkout.

Now it’s true that Mom-Blog is not an AmHosting site, but my business site is.  They were so good that when I did sign up for a package hosting account, I did NOT move my business site.  I’ve been with them since 2002, and I have literally had 1 or 2 problems, both times handled by phone by a live person and resolved within the day.  Never been hacked either.  I can’t sing their praises high enough.

If you sign up, please say Gina Badalaty of www.artbytech.com referred you.  Once you’re happy, get your own referral fee by referring someone else.

Review: 31 Days to Build a Better Blog

TODAY, JUNE17TH ONLY, THROUGH 6:30PM EST, 25% OFF “31 DAYS”!

Back in May, I signed up to take this course at ProBlogger.net. If you are a blogger and don’t know about that site, bookmark it now!  Darren Rowse is the absolute expert on all things blogging.  I’ve learned a lot from him over the years.

While I’d love to say I followed the course completely through, it was tough.  However, I did get the lessons and later buy the workbook.  The lessons I did implement were wonderful and REALLY worked to drive traffic, not only on Mom-Blog but on other blogs I work on.  For example, the tip to do “list blog” really promoted traffic very well on my oft-neglected Writing Blog.  Now, I have a monthly section of writers links, all organized, that drives traffic.

As my blog grows, I’m starting to use tips in that workbook to respond to intelligently and productively to publicity requests.  And looking through the titles again now, I see some of the lessons I did not get to include answers to questions I’ve had about best blogging tips.

Still interested? Click here to view more details. Learn how to drive more traffic and build a better blog…beginners welcome!

Quick Updates

Hi everyone, just wanted to alert you all to a few changes.  I will now be writing for Journey in Parenting, along with Terra Atrill.  Beginning next week, I will also be blogging at the Happy Holidays blog.  If you know of any unusual holidays that I can write about, share it over there and I will give you a shout out.

I’m going to resurrect my writing blog, Art Remarkable, and will be starting up a very special project and be calling for interviews.  Bear with me as I make these changes.

I’m also going to be restructuring the theme here at Mom-Blog.  The look will be similar, but this was meant to be a bit self-indulgent rather than practical. Now that I’m getting serious about Mom Blog, I’m going to make improvements that will benefit both myself and you, dear readers.  I’m also considering doing “Special Needs” Thursdays, where I put out a tip every Thursday for special needs parents.  If you have a tip, please share it with me so I can return some link love for you!

5 Ways to Drive Mom Blog or Dad Blog Traffic

OK, so you’ve set up your Blogger or WordPress blog and you started writing, some pretty darn good stuff too, and nobody’s come.

That’s because they don’t know you exist yet.   Here are five ways that have worked to drive traffic for me:

1. Twitter. Really!  My stats go up when I post about my blogs,  so do comments. Sign up, start following your target audience, and talk about your posts.  Oh, and go ahead and follow me, I follow all parent bloggers.
2. Put your blog in your signature line. Of course, this presupposes that you send a lot of email.  But if it’s an interesting title, I’ll click the blog in someone’s signature line.
3. Search engine optimization. I know, I’m a web designer and to mention this is making you SICK, right?  Well, I rank in the top 10 (or better) most of the time for the major search engines for “mom blog”.  85% of my traffic comes from there.  Why?  I put the word “mom blog” in my HTML, like over in the left column, up in my navigation and so on.  Get a good source and start learning about the basics.  Here’s where I learned, intense but great.
4. Join a mom or dad network. I’ve joined a few, but I just joined MomLogic, and I really feel like this group is a warm and friendly bunch of women.  They made me feel write at home.  Go post your blog over there.  If you like it, AND you like my blog, you can go to my profile and write a comment that you nominate me for their Mother of all Bloggers contest.  No pressure!
5. Commit. WordPress and Blogger are great starts, especially if you don’t know if you can commit, BUT once you know you can blog regularly, please set up a URL. It’s easier for you to control and customize, and easier for users to remember AND comment. I promise you, it’s painless.  You just need a host, they’re as cheap as $5 / month and many come ready to “one click” install blog.  I use Amhosting and DreamHost myself, I’ve never had any trouble with either.

Good luck, and please, post your blog in the comments to share with my readers!

9 Ways to Get Started on Your Mom Blog (or Dad Blog!)

Ready? Here we go:

1. Get a Blogger or WordPress free blog account.  I don’t recommend that you leave it there, but it’s a good start for now.  Set it up, pick a template and then come back here for Step 2:
2. Set some rules. Before you start blogging it’s a good idea to set a few hard, fast rules.  My big one is: no negative posting about my husband.  Period.  Think about things like ethics, honesty, who you know, who you may hurt, etc.  This is a blog so ANYONE can see it (unless you make it private), and once it’s out there, it’s out there FOR GOOD.
3. Find a theme.  Obviously, this is my blog on being a mom and that’s about as focused as this blog is!  This journey has reached into all aspects of my life, so it works for me, but you might want to share one particular thing about your journey as a parent.
4. Write an intro post.  That’s my way of saying, JUST DO IT.
5. Post regularly.  Less than once a week and you”ll lose readers, more than once a week is even better.
6. Brainstorm.  You’ll need ideas for all those blogs, buy hey, where can you possibly get more ideas than everyday life raising kids?
7. Be honest.  People will come back if you are genuinely yourself.  No one will return for a put on face.  And honesty means some really hard, hard posts, but it’s worth it.
8. Be passionate.  Being a parent tiring, hard work; blogging about it can save your life, so put your heart and soul into it.
9. Put up photos. Because we want to see you and your kids!  Or at least, cartoon aspects if you are against putting photos of your family online. I don’t blame if you wnat to do this, it’s a very valid POV. Or password protect your photos to keep them safe.

Ok, so GO for it. And be sure to share your blog in the comments. Good luck!  And PLEASE share your blog link in our comments, so we can share a little blog love…

Next time:  drive mom blog/dad blog traffic and commit!

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