Posts Tagged ‘umm’
Monday, November 10th, 2008
My public school drives my absolutely bananas. I wanted to get Madison’s hearing screened just to make sure that there were no problems. We thought maybe some of Madison’s attention issues were due to her not hearing. However, my school being the pain in butt that they are wouldn’t do it unless we scheduled her to be prescreened for preschool through the school (which is a joke but I’ll tell you about that later). Obviously, there is some sort of federal funding they get for this, because I wanted a five minute screening and got stuck with an hour long screening. I sucked it up and took her.
I swear that they expect these kids to have a flash memory drive in their heads. I could hear some of the things they were testing her on, and from what I could tell, she was doing well. When they called me up after the testing was over, I was right. Except for cutting and catching, she scored everything else in the 6 year old range. Madison is only 4. I am seriously wondering if some of the attention issues we are having with her at preschool are due to her being bored. That was the good news.
The bad new was that we failed her hearing screening. I asked what the school would do for that. The answer: nothing. We would have to pay for additional testing elsewhere. The other thing that ticked me off to no end was that she couldn’t even get into the school preschool if I wanted to send her. The only kids who get in are those who are considered “at risk” (which Madison is obviously not) and if we made less than $80,000 a year. Umm, yeah. We make more than that. In Chicago, I am not sure if you can even own a decent house making less than $80,000 a year. Basically, the only kids who get in are those who don’t speak English (because there were several kids like that there) and low income people. I guess my question is what about the middle class? Why do we always get screwed?
Tags: answer, attention, butt, Chicago, class, drive, end, English, everything, funding, hearing, hour, house, income, joke, madison, memory, minute, news, nothing, pain, preschool, question, range, risk, school, screening, sort, testing, thing, umm, year
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Thursday, September 25th, 2008
We learned on Day 1 that we had to get there bright and early to make sure that we got a plugin for our laptops. Without that, day one didn’t have a lot of blogging or twittering going on. Well, at least not from me. Day 2 started with a keynote speech from Merlin Mann. I have to say that it was one of the best keynote speeches I have ever heard. His speech was about “don’t be a dick”. Everything he said was true. He even asked the audience to disagree with what he said, but no one did, because he was right.
The next panel was Social Network and included Michael Brito, Sean Bonner, Etan Horowitz, and Lena West. This was another panel that really wasted my time. First, we had Lena West stating that she was too busy to actually do it herself. My first question was then why are you on this panel? Then she managed to offend half the room (google: Lena West and mommybloggers to find out why. Trust me, there was no
airbrush do over. The more she tried to explain herself, the worse it got). They pretty much said to use Twitter and Facebook. Umm, yeah, knew that already. Now, tell me how to use them to help me, because I really don’t get Facebook at all. There are also dozens of social networking sites out there — and nobody even mentioned them.
Next, there was Loren Feldman. I love Loren Feldman. He speaks his mind, and he makes awesome videos! It was almost breathtaking to hear what equipment he uses. We learned that you don’t have to spend thousands of dollars to do good videos on your blog.
Next, we had the plug-in panel with Loren Baker, Jonathan Dingman, and Erik Hersman. This was definitely cool, because I learned I am using a lot of the wordpress plugins that I should be!
Last, there was the Blog Design Makeover Panel with Scott Allen,Matt Blancarte, and Christopher Schmitt. My only complaint with this is that they were very rushed. Also, the designs were nice, but way out of the price range of us normal bloggers.
In a nutshell, that was the conference. I have one more post about the IzeaHunt that we did, and that will pretty much summarize the conference. Would I go again? I’ll be honest — I don’t know. It is a lot of money. Did I learn things? Yes. However, does any of it help me to monetize? Not really. I really thing they need to have breakout sessions, and you can pick and choose what sessions to go to. That way, you can reach the middle ground bloggers and the beginning bloggers. What I found lacking was that none of the big name big money bloggers really told us how to get from middle group to up on top. Telling me what you are doing now really doesn’t help me all that much.
Tags: airbrush, audience, beginning, blog, breakout, Christopher Schmitt, complaint, conference, day, Design, dick, equipment, Erik Hersman, Etan Horowitz, everything, Facebook, google, ground, group, Izeafest, IzeaHunt, Jonathan Dingman, keynote, Lena West, Loren Baker, Loren Feldman, lot, Makeover, Matt Blancarte, Merlin Mann, Michael Brito, mind, monetize, money, name, Network, networking, nobody, none, nutshell, Panel, post, price, question, range, room, Scott Allen, Sean Bonner, Social, speech, Telling, thing, Trust, Twitter, umm, yeah
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Friday, April 25th, 2008
I am so bad. I have been so busy since I got back, I am finally now writing about this awesome event. I was contacted about this the day before my birthday (I know, what a great birthday present!!!). Sony wanted to talk to 15 mommy bloggers and give us some cameras (I didn’t know this last part till the day before I left for the trip!). All expenses paid trip, how could I say no?
I flew out on April 16th to San Diego. They got me an a flight through Midway (which I seriously needed since Midway is only 15 minutes away and Ohare is about an hour). Sitting in the airport always sucks, but I made due. My plane flight there sucked. A little girl screamed the whole way. This is why I don’t fly with my kids. I am terrified that is going to be me. The mom was by herself, and she walked up and down the aisle for the four and half hour flight. I felt so bad for her.
We then got to San Diego and I had a limo driver waiting for me. He had my name on a sign. It was super cool. I know I’ll never see that again. He took me to the La Valencia Hotel in La Jolla (it was about a half hour drive). The hotel was awesome (I’ll be writing about it on my travel blog, so I won’t go into too many details here). Sony had boxes set up in our room (to use to Fed Ex our cameras back). They also had left us headphones for our kids, a rose, and two chocolate candy bars. They obviously know the way to a woman’s heart. We were on our own for Wednesday night (though we did have a $50 certificate to use at the restaurant). I met up with Deanna and Anne Marie , and we went to dinner. I had filet mignon. It was super yummy. It was one of those steaks that you didn’t even have to chew it — it just melted in your mouth.
The next day we had to be at breakfast at 9:00. We had a buffet breakfast (which was awesome). This is the view we had from the room we were in. Beautiful, isn’t it? We spent the first two hours after that introducing ourselves. We then had lunch out in the beautiful sunshine. We were only out there for about an hour eating some of the best food ever and I got sunburned!!! Here’s a list of all the awesome ladies who were there (if you have more blogs that I haven’t listed, let me know and I’ll get them added):
After lunch, we got to learn about Sony and the impact of women on their business (Let me tell you, we have a huge impact!!!). We then got to start playing with the cameras we got. Oh wait, I didn’t show you the cameras yet —-
Camera #1: Sony Cybershot
Camera #2: Sony DSLR-A300K
Camera #3 – Handycam HDR-SR10
Yes, Sony gave us all three cameras! They also set aside time for us to work with their trainers so we could learn how to use them!
We then got instruction from photography expert Me Ra Koh. She gave us shooting instruction and tips of how to get specific results. She was really nice and she’s a blogger too!
We then got to go out to the beach and play with the cameras!
We then got a little bit of time to run up to our room and get ready for dinner. I took these pictures from my room!
We then met up with Sony and went to dinner at the Azul Restaurant. I got back to the hotel between 10 – 11 and went to bed.
On Friday, (April 18th), we met again for breakfast. Me Ra took some of our photos and critiqued them for us. She told us how to make our photos better. We then had a presentation from Rocket XL (the advertising agency who helped pull this all together). Us mommy bloggers ended up taking over that session with our opinions and thoughts.
After this session, we were able to do whatever we wanted till we caught our plane. Sony also gave us certificates for the spa, so I went and had a deep tissue massage. I then ate lunch and then had to get on my plane.
And that was my trip to San Diego!
Tags: 30, 300, 4d, ack, adi, Advice, ady, aisle, amazon, ava, babies, bed, bet, birthday, bling, blog, blogger, bloggers, blogs, blogspot, busines, cameras, candy, celebrity, certificat, chocolate, contact, cooks, dd, dsl, eed, eft, eta, eve, flickr, flo, fly, geek, girlfriend, headphone, heart, home, hose, ied, images, imo, ing, ins, ip, kids, ko, logs, lunch, mak, map, midway, mom, mommies, mommy, moms, mp, ot, pens, phone, photo, photograph, photography, photos, picture, rain, ramblings, rant, readable, sag, scream, smack, smackdown, sony, spa, stat, sun, sunburn, target, tea, ted, ter, terri, time, tina, train, umm, vent, wh
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Monday, April 14th, 2008
I love when the artists that we know and love come up with new ways for us to enjoy their works. Sheryl Crow is the latest. Bill and I are both fans (yes, even though I do listen to Nine Inch Nails, I do like more mellow stuff like Sheryl Crow). I have lots of great memories of the summer of 1995 and her music (did I just date myself?). When I found out she was working with Soundcheck, we immediately had to go check it out. I have to admit that what they have done is super cool. Soundcheck allows you to get up close and personal with her. You are able to view her live performances and see exclusive behind the scenes stuff. All of this is filmed in HD. She is such an interesting person that you have to enjoy this. I would love to see how she manages to be an A-list superstar and being a mom. Both are full time jobs. She also talks about leaving LA and her new album. It is always interesting to hear what the artists think and feel when they don’t have a PR person whispering in their ear. I hope you enjoy watching this as much as we did.
Tags: Bill, eve, heck, ing, job, jobs, love, memories, mom, music, nails, nin, ot, superstar, target, ter, time, umm, walmart, wh
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Thursday, April 3rd, 2008
Want to get paid to talk about the things you love (and some that you don’t like quite as much)? Well, Izea (the company that brought you PayPerPost) will be shortly offering a new service called SocialSpark. This brings in a new era of blogging for advertisers and bloggers alike. SocialSpark is both a social networking site and a place to find things to write about. I had a sneak peak at it, and I am impressed by what I have seen so far. Unfortunately, there isn’t a lot I can tell you since it hasn’t been released yet!
My Story
I often have been asked why I do this. Now, if you are a regular reader of mine, you may want to skip this section since you know all about my family and I. I have two kids. When I started blogging, we only had Madison (who’s 4 now). I was using my blog to keep in touch with my friends and family in Green Bay, WI. While blogging I became pregnant with my son Will (who’s 9 months now!). I am stay at home mom and am always looking at how to make extra money from home. We live in the Chicagoland area which means my husband commutes to work long distances and daycare is outrageous! Trust me, I have tried almost everything out there to make some extra money so I didn’t have to go work fast food or retail (no offense to anybody working in those positions. I have done it in the past and it sucks!). My husband is never home at the same time every night which makes things even more difficult to get a regular job of any kind!
Show Me The Money!
Onto the part that you really want to know about! Is there money really to be made doing this? YES! I don’t tell people what I make blogging, since it really isn’t anybody’s business. However, since you want to know, I can honestly tell you a pulled in around $7,000 last year from blogging. Now, I was able to do this on my own time be it midnight or noon. If I don’t feel like writing about a topic, I don’t. As many of you know, I do freelance work also, and I can easily work this around my freelance work and my kids. I don’t have to wait for my husband to get home from work either! For my family, this has been heaven sent.
What have we spent my earnings on? This year I was able to take the money I earned and enroll Madison in preschool. We used the money towards the vacation Bill and I took to Arizona. It is helping to remodel our basement, and we used it a lot last summer on house repairs. What do you need extra money for?
This sounds good. How do I sign up?
Currently, SocialSpark is still in Alpha testing. However, if you click the link, it’ll take you to a site that you can sign up for an email when SocialSpark goes live. Then you can be one of the first to try out this new platform and make some extra cash doing so!
Tags: adi, advertiser, advertisers, airs, amp, badges, basement, Bill, blog, blogger, bloggers, blogging, busines, daycare, eed, email, eta, eve, Green Bay, hasn, heaven, home, honestly, hose, ied, images, impress, ing, ip, izea, job, kids, love, madison, mail, mak, metrics, mom, mommy, money, mp, nin, ot, pairs, pay, preschool, rage, remodel, rust, rv, spa, ted, time, umm, wh
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