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My 12 Favorite Posts of 2007.
2007-12-31 18:04:00
Some posts that you might or might not have seen this year, in order of appearance. What You Don’t Expect When you Are Expecting The Fairy Godmother is a Pimp in Drag  I Thought the Old Man Was Gonna Take Me Down! I Remember Now Why I Gave Up Mommyboards One of Those Real (Bad) Mom Days Depression and Medication Things You Yell at Your Kids  Falling Off the Path I’m Getting Used to the “Are You Stupid” Looks To Put it Bluntly, Kids Are Assholes I See in Your Nose and You Got Burgers! Goal for 2008- Fill The Blogosphere With Crap
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Obligatory Resolutions Post
2007-12-29 19:49:00
I was tempted to skip them this year, but what the hell, it’s good to have goals, right? In 2008, I Will…  Lose 20lbs. I have to because I am.. Attending BlogHer 2008!!!!! :D  I am so nervous(everyone will finally see how dorky I really am) but I am excited to go and hope you guys will be there too! I’m kind of afraid no one will know who I am, which will lead me to want to.. Step up my blogging, both in frequency and quality. I had a few really good posts this year, and I’d like to continue that trend. I will also stop worrying so much about what people think of me. People are too busy worrying about themselves to think of me, and I am way more critical of myself than anyone else is of me. I plan to take more risks, and experience more of life. Way too often I stop myself from doing something because I’m afraid of doing something stupid. So what? Worst case scenario, I look stupid and then have great blog material, right? It’s a win-win all aroun...
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Did They Eat Her?
2007-12-28 15:03:00
Last night Damian comes and snuggles up to me and says “Hey mom, you are my new mommy!” (Don’t you love 2 year olds?) After a second I began to wonder, if I was the new mommy, what happened to the old one? Better yet, what would I have to pay her to come back?!?

Goal for 2008- Fill the Blogosphere With Crap
2007-12-28 00:02:00
Has anyone else seen this?? After the nightmare of a month that was NaPoBloMo, some well-intentioned but apparently clueless bloggers are joining an initiative to blog every day in 2008 . Yes my friends, Blog 365 is about blogging every day next year, save for February 29th, in which they will be allowed to rest. I’m all about blogging, truly I am. There is not a thing that goes on in my life that I don’t wonder about getting a blog post out of it. But OMG people, did you not learn anything last month?? I had to hit the Mark as Read button so many times it became almost automatic after logging into Reader. Traffic went down immensely for a lot of people, as did the quality of the things being posted. I saw many, many bloggers complaining about the amount of sheer crap that was churned out do to NoBloPoMo. Yeah, speaking of quality, here’s the kicker. Nice little quote from the Blog365 website- - A post is a post, not everything has to be in writing. Photos, YouTub...
More About: Blogosphere , Crap , Goal , Fill

Tis the Season For Useless Holiday Quizzes!
2007-12-24 13:16:00
You Are a Gingerbread House A little spicy and a little sweet, anyone would like to be lost in the woods with you. What Holiday Food Are You?
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2007 Performancing Blog Awards
2007-12-20 12:17:00
Perfomancing.com has opened nominations for their 2007 Blog Awards . Head on over and nominate your favorite blogs. They’ve added a family/parenting blog category, and I’d love to see one of our fabulous mommas get it!
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Crashing
2007-12-19 18:31:00
How many times can you deny being in a bad mood, before it dawns on you that you really ARE in a bad mood? I think I really am the queen of denial, as I’ve been telling myself and others for days I am happy, I am just fine. It dawned on me a little while ago as I walked into my bathroom, shut the door and broke down crying that Duh!, I’m really not just fine. People who are just fine don’t start randomly crying in their bathrooms for no reason. It sounds stupid, but I really didn’t realize it was happening. I felt fine, albeit a little edgy, but overall as close to ‘normal’ as I usually am. I have managed to carry on this self-delusion because in my somewhat twisted view I have no reason to be falling off the wagon of normality. If I have no reason then it can’t be happening, right? Finances are looking better, husband and I are getting along, and we just came back from a great vacation most people don’t ever get to take. What could po...

I have a huge, huge favor to ask! Pretty please with sugar on top?
2007-12-19 04:10:00
I have been working with a startup company called Cre8buzz, they are a fantastic content-driven social networking site, and it has been a great experience being part of the site and I personally wish everyone would join, but that’s not what this is about. Cre8buzz has been nominated for an Open Web Award on Mashable, and it would mean awesome exposure for this fledgling company if they won. Unfortunately in this category they are up against Cafemom, who, to put it frankly, are kicking their asses right now. If you could drop by and give them a vote it would really mean a lot, and I’d personally be in your debt. If you could drop a line to friends and beg a vote from them, that would be great too.  And my blogging friends?MANY of you are members there, if you could maybe do a short, sweet blog post about this encouraging your readers to drop by and vote, I promise you it would be HUGELY appreciated!!!!!!  Voting is going on at http://mashable.com/2007/12/...
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Oh My Gawd, She?s Like, Havin a Baby, Y?all!! (Jamie Lynn Spears is Expecti
2007-12-19 02:18:00
Officially confirmed, Britney Spears ’ sister, Jamie Lynn Spears is pregnant. You know, the one who is sixteen years old? Yeah, that one. Details here. So much for their ticket out of the trailer park.
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I?m Not Usually One for Christmas Posts
2007-12-17 19:24:00
But a friend passed this along, and it was too good not to share! Straight No Chaser sings the 12 Days of Christmas .
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I Guess I Forgot to Mention
2007-12-11 22:44:00
How is it I can spend a whole week getting ready to go on vacation, and forget to blog about the fact that I was..well, going on vacation? Talk about leaving out the details! We go down to Orlando every year for a week, and this is no exception. We have a timeshare here, and stay in a nice little condo about 10 minutes from Sea World and about 15 minutes from the Disney parks. It’s our only vacation; we don’t travel to visit family or do weekend get-aways like many people I know, so we really look forward to it. We’ve been here since Saturday, and I have to say this has been one of our more interesting trips. The internet *just* got fixed this afternoon, so I’ve been offline since Friday. Offline..with no internet…Can you imagine?? Thank heavens I didn’t have to go the whole week or I’d have looked like a junkie without a fix by the time we pulled into our driveway next weekend. Unfortunately the wireless internet we were promised does not w...
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Let?s Talk About the Elephant in the Corner- BlogHer Ads?UPDATED
2007-12-07 05:48:00
(Updated below) I’ve heard whispering over the phone, and a Twitter or two here and there, so let’s go ahead and talk about this out in the open. What the bloody hell is going on with BlogHer Ads????? I know by now I’m not the only one who got a nasty shock when they received their latest BlogHer ad check. Maybe I should have been paying closer attention, but boy was I surprised when I got a check in the mail for only about a fraction of what I would have expected for that month’s traffic. Since getting that payment, I checked in on my revenue report, and it looks like the next check won’t be any better. How did the payment drop so significantly? I’ve heard a rumor that the BlogHer ad network lost a contract with an advertiser, and has not gotten a new one to replace it, but I have not heard anything on the BlogHer Ads newsletter about it. Actually, I think that’s what is bothering me, that so far I’ve not heard *anything* from BlogHe...
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Did They Eat Her?
2007-12-02 15:03:00
Last night Damian comes and snuggles up to me and says “Hey mom, you are my new mommy!” (Don’t you love 2 year olds?) After a second I began to wonder, if I was the new mommy, what happened to the old one? Better yet, what would I have to pay her to come back?!?

Blogger.com No Longer Allows Links to Non-Blogger Sites in Comments
2007-11-30 16:50:00
At some point in the last 24 hours, Blogger changed their blog comment forms, and the the new layout does not allow links to blogs outside the Blogger/Google account system. Not sure what I mean? Check this out- Previously, instead of a ‘nickname’ option, there was a place to click ‘other’, which then opened a field to put in your name and URL. When you click on the nickname option, the only thing you can put in is a name. While you could put in your mysite.com name as your nickname, it will not be a link as it was previously, and it cannot be used to go directly to your site. So now the question remains, was this done as some sort of an anti-spam measure, or is this Google’s way of striking a blow against other blogging platforms like Wordpress and Typepad? I cannot find any announcements or even any mention of it anywhere at the moment. I would think if this were a huge step in fighting blog spam, Google would have at least thrown a line or two up...
More About: Links , Comments , Sites , Allo

So, on the Last Day of NoBloPoMo
2007-11-30 05:11:00
What did you think of it? Did you enjoy it? Hate it? Would you do it again? Did you notice any changes in your sitemeter stats?
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First Facebook Bans Breastfeeding Pics, Now Youtube Bans Breastfeeding Vide
2007-11-27 18:00:00
Jiminy Christmas when will these people learn?? Around the time of the Bill Maher breastfeeding comments, and Facebook banning breastfeeding photos, the League of Maternal Justice website was formed. Their purpose- advocate and educate on all matters relating to mothers and babies. Showing their support to nursing mothers everywhere, they created a video montage of readers photos showing the true beauty of breastfeeding. According to the website, “Their YouTube video received over 90,000 views and several honors, including the top 5 discussed news and politics video three days in a row.” A few minutes ago I got notice that YouTube has since banned that video. Not marked it explicit as they do other videos where there is FAR more skin showing, and any number of activities one is not legally allowed to do in public as they are breastfeeding. Banned it. As far as I know, the ladies at League of Maternal Justice have not gotten an answer yet as to why this video was taken ...
More About: Youtube , Breastfeeding

I See in Your Nose, and You Got Burgers!
2007-11-27 14:33:00
I have no idea where he picked up this lovely phrase, but every so often my 2 year old will run up to me out of the blue and say “Mommy, I see in your nose, and you got burgers!!” Burgers somehow sounds more pleasant than boogers, so I haven’t bothered to correct him. Not to mention I’m incredibly immature well-humored and it makes me giggle like mad when he says it. Giggling causes him to repeat it a few times, sending me into further fits of laughter, and he starts laughing too. Good times I tell ya. Last night one of the older two decided they needed to correct him on it, and before you know it, Damian is running around telling us all we have boogers. I wasn’t nearly as amused by this, but he was incredibly excited about his new-found phrase. So excited he turns to our back door, opens it, stands in the doorway, and yells as loud as his little lungs will allow “I see in your nose, and you got BOOGERS!!!!”. Before I could stop him, he did...
More About: Rugrats , Nose , Urge

Ending the Full Feed vs Partial Feed Debate Once and For All
2007-11-26 00:52:00
Thanks to a nifty little Wordpress plugin by Stephen Cronin, the full vs. partial feed debate is officially OVER. With this kick-ass widget, you can now offer *both* full and partial feeds, allowing your readers to make the choice which version they want. Check out my upper right corner to see what I mean. The plugin comes as a button or text, I chose text and edited out the comments feed since I find them rather useless. Suburban Oblivion is now like Burger King- have it your way!
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Follow-up To PR E-mail Situation
2007-11-25 15:16:00
(I don’t make a habit of using the ‘more’ tag, but this is gonna be a long one. Apologies to the full feed readers.) I exchanged several e-mails with Dan Williams, the PR guy with SpecialOpsMedia that I wrote about last week. For those following the story, here is what happened.. Hey Sara, I hope you are doing well. I saw your post this morning and just wanted to apologize to you personally for your not delivering on promised DVDs. As you can imagine we send out emails when campaigns start the email volume responses can be a bit hectic and sometimes difficult to wade through. The two DVDs you mentioned in your post were to be mailed out directly from a fulfillment person and not from me personally. So I often have to go with the assumption that the requests we forward on are being fulfilled in a timely manner by our fulfillment person. That said, it?s clear from your disappointment that I should have done a better job making sure you received what was...
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Tim Gunn Would Be So Disappointed in Me.
2007-11-22 20:58:00
We are going to my in-laws for Thanksgiving dinner soon. I have debated all day on what to wear. What would Tim Gunn say? I know what he would say- the sweatsuit alternative, that comfortable yet stylish outfit every woman should have in her closet to be worn on a day you might normally throw on sweats. Ahh Tim, my love, I’m afraid you’ll be so ashamed of me today. My in-laws like to cook, and they do it well. And there will be food. Tons and tons of food. Waistbands will strain to the point of the snaps begging for mercy. Bellies will swell, and at the end of it all, we’ll collapse onto the couch like a bunch of bloated turkeys ourselves. Forgive me Tim, just for today, only sweats will do. 
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What Are Your Thoughts on Paid Reviews?
2007-11-21 17:37:00
In reading over the comments in the recent Politics of Mommybloggers and PR post, it struck me how often it came up that people were starting to charge for product reviews. “…most of my advertisments do pay me, some of my book reviews are just for the book, and include giveaways, but several also pay me and include giveaways.” Qtpies7 “I respond to well-written requests that offer products that interest me, and even then, I don?t guarantee a review unless I really like it, I?m paid for the review (which I will disclose and I still give my honest thoughts) or a giveaway is included for my readers.” Christina The only person I’ve ever known that charged for reviews was Elizabeth at Table4Five, who has unfortunately had to defend herself quite strongly over her choice to write for PayPerPost. I was under the impression that generally sidebar ads were paid for, and product reviews were not. (To me, PayPerPost is sort of in it’s own little cat...
More About: Reviews , Thoughts , Paid

Note to Self
2007-11-19 04:13:00
If you ever decide you MUST install new plug-ins, don’t do it before you have to leave for a family function. Nothing like coming home, checking your stats, and pouting over zero visits in four hours, only to realize it’s because you were a fuck-up and broke your blog with said plug-ins. Just sayin’. Love, Me
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Sometimes They Need Reminding.
2007-11-17 14:22:00
One afternoon a man came home from work to find total mayhem in his house. His three children were outside, still in their pajamas, playing in the mud, with empty food boxes and wrappers strewn all around the front yard. The door of his wife’s car was open, as was the front door to the house and there was no sign of the dog. Proceeding into the entry, he found an even bigger mess. A lamp had been knocked over, and the throw rug was wadded against one wall .. In the front room the TV was loudly blaring a cartoon channel, and the family room was strewn with toys and various items of clothing. In the kitchen, dishes filled the sink, breakfast food was spilled on the counter, the fridge door was open wide, dog food was spilled on the floor, a broken glass lay under the table, and a small pile of sand was spread by the back door. He quickly headed up the stairs, stepping over toys and more piles of clothes, looking for his wife. He was worried she may be ill, or that so...
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Taking the Weekend Off
2007-11-16 19:09:00
Every so often I have to tell myself to step away from the laptop, catch up on things at home, and spend a little more time in the outside world. This is one of those times Hope everyone has a great weekend.
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Please don?t hate me because I email lousy pitches
2007-11-15 23:08:00
I’m David Wescott, the political hack/PR flack who blogs about blogging at It’s Not A Lecture.  I’m really grateful to Sara for inviting me to rant at her place for a change.  A few months ago, I apologized to moms everywhere for the terrible job that some people in my industry do pitching bloggers of all stripes, and made some suggestions on how moms could make it stop.  As usual, moms led the way on this issue. Since then we’ve seen new and well-intended ”ethical codes” published, and marketing professionals everywhere were claiming that they’re committed to doing this right and those people who write those impersonal, irrelevant emails to bloggers have nothing to do with us. And we really meant it, especially for moms. After all, you represent the Holy Grail to marketers.  Women make 85% of all purchases at point of sale.  Women buy a lot more cars, new homes, PC’s and computer electronics, hardware and healthcare than men do. Women...
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PR Conversation Continues
2007-11-15 14:31:00
Inspired by yesterday’s post, I have decided to do a short series based on the topic of PR and bloggers. In the next couple of days I will be having a guest post by David Wescott at It’s Not a Lecture, I will be doing an update post on the email I got back from the missing DVD PR guy, and finally I’d like to touch down on what you think about paid reviews. It should be a fun weekend, so stay tuned!
More About: Conversation , Conti

The Politics of Mommybloggers and PR- A Rant
2007-11-14 17:19:00
If you are active in the mommy blogging community a good amount of time, chances are one day you will get an email like this- Hi (your name)! I love your blog, especially (detail about some post you did recently so it looks like they read you) and wanted to let you know about this exciting new product by (whatever company) that we think your readers will love! Here is a bunch of useless info, and we would be happy to send you a sample as well so you can tell your readers all about it. Please reply back. (Name of PR rep and usually a bunch of contact info) It is all very exciting as a new blogger, it seems like people are noticing you and want to work with you. It takes you awhile to realize that this is a game, and what the PR people are doing is getting you to spread the word for their client, usually for no more than the cost of a free product and overnight shipping. Truly, mommybloggers are the cheapest form of advertising out there. It’s kind of sad, because not only are w...
More About: Politics , Rant , Politic

The Bestest Birthday Cake Ever
2007-11-14 16:08:00
I don’t like cakes. They are a major source of disagreement in this house, with my husband and I dancing around it until the very last minute, and only then facing the issue head-on. Cake flavors are a very serious thing I tell you. My husband is a chocoholic, and only chocolate cake will do. Not just any chocolate cake, it must be chocolate with a chocolate buttercream icing. Thick, heavy buttercream icing. Ugh. I am more of a yellow, or even marbled cake fan, but it has to be the whipped cream icing. Buttercream is just too heavy for me, and I remember all too well the catering class I took in high school, and exactly how much butter and crisco goes into buttercream. The thought makes me shiver and gag.  I want my cake light and sweet, not heavy and thick enough to use as spackle paste.  Most years I’ve just said whatever, and let hubby and the kids eat most of my birthday cake. Just a load of calories I don’t need anyways, right? This year I decided no more. As...
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From Pink to Red
2007-11-12 16:31:00
I remember thinking as a child that 30 was old. As old as dirt, and that at 30 you must have a foot in the grave already. You were ancient at 30. Funny how the perspective changes as the years go by. I’m not 30 yet, but it certainly seems close as I turn 29 today. I’m feeling the weight of this milestone as I realize my 20’s are pretty much over. Damn, where did the time go? As I look around it seems pretty obvious where it went- a divorce, a marriage, an adoption, 2 moves, several jobs, friendships discovered and lost, and the addition of 2 little boys who, despite their wily ways, have managed to capture my heart as thoroughly as their sister did 9 1/2 years ago. A small part of me wants to hold on, for fear of what’s to come at 30.  I have crinkling at the corner of my eyes when I smile that will probably be more and more prominent in a year or two. I wonder if my first gray hair is just lurking somewhere, waiting for a bad hair day to pop up and scare me ...
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Full Feed, Partial Feed. Flip-flop, flip-flop.
2007-11-10 03:32:00
(Updating to add poll to the sidebar, take a second to vote please!) I hate being on the fence, it’s a real pain, and that’s just the splinters.   Full RSS feed, or partial?   What do you guys do? Do partial feeds annoy you?   I’ve gone back and forth on this, and am finally going back to full feed. I almost hate to do it, because I know I’ll have to keep a sharp eye on where my feed is being fed(partial feeds protect from others running your RSS through their blog) and I suspect my comments will go down. BUT, I also know a lot of people get really annoyed by partial feeds, so back to full feed I go. Prove me wrong and continue to comment, will ya?     —————— ;—————̵ 2;—————R 12;————— 212;—————&# 8212;—————& #8212;————̵.. .
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