2010 April | Theta Mom®

04.30.10

Featured TMC Blogger: Just Another Mom of 2

TMC welcomes Ashley from Just Another Mom of 2. Ashley found Theta Mom earlier this year when she shared the news that I actually helped to inspire her to begin her own blog! How awesome is that? Ever since we connected she has been a huge supporter of Theta Mom and TMC and I always enjoy my visits to her blog! She also made the move from Blogger to WordPress and this is how she describes her blog in her own words:

“I’m Ashley, happily married to my insanely smart engineer husband and just another mom of 2 wonderful children, a 4 year old son and 15 month old daughter. We have moved five times to four different states; I have learned to realize the significance of the family unit and the need to be strong together, as you never know when things might change or where you may end up. As a result of these moves, I have met many moms and have learned a lot about the significance of being “just another mom”. The idea is not to diminish the role of being another mother, but to realize that moms need to work together to be a cohesive unit. Being another mom means being supportive to all moms out there who may do things differently than you do, but they still do their best. So, no matter what your views, your parenting choices, your political affiliations, or your favorite television shows, I hope you can identify with me- just another mom of 2.

I love the sense of community that blogging brings, especially through fantastic bloggers like Ms. Theta Mom herself. Through such supportive communities like TMC, I have found my blog to be a place of expression, support, and interaction. Inspired by so many great blogs out there and wanting to do a little something myself, I do a Saturday Spotlight feature on my blog. It is a great way to balance blogging burnout and giving a chance to my readers to share their work. As bloggers, it is what we want to do, and I have enjoyed the many perspectives my readers share. I am so grateful for the supportive blogging community, as it has been so helpful to have people to count on as I try to navigate my way through mommyhood- and the blogging world. I try to share what I learn along the way about perspective in this crazy world and tips and tricks about some behind the scenes blogging details. You can often find me on Twitter or the Deep South Moms Blog- be sure to say hi! I love meeting new people and enjoy sharing my stories and a few giveaways from time to time. Stop by and share your blog with me! Sharing is what blogging is all about and I look forward to learning more with you all along the way.”

So be sure to show some love on the blog and follow Ashley on Twitter!

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04.29.10

Baby Showers and Blog News

For my time out this month I actually attended a baby shower and this happened to be one of the very BEST baby showers I ever attended. Why? Because the girls who planned the event followed three simple rules which I highly recommend:

1. Don’t play those ‘Baby Bingo’ games with the M&M’s: It’s torturous. Everything the mommy-to-be will open at a baby shower looks like this: onesies, booties, a million cute tiny outfits that the baby will wear no more than one time and 5,000 bottle warmers. Really, how many times can I write that on a bingo card?

2. Don’t assign seating: Let the girls sit with who they want to talk to. Implementing a forced seating arrangement is such a buzz kill. It’s like being back in fifth grade sitting at the lunch table next to someone you can’t stand. Trust me on this one, let the ladies duke it out and find their own seats.

3. Serve some alcohol: For the love of God, let’s remember that not everyone is pregnant at this party – so sorry that the guest of honor can’t drink, but the rest of us sure as hell can! Be sure to offer up some booze for the ladies so that the 5 hour long gift-opening-fest goes a little more quickly.

I wanted to mix some humor into this post today and I hope I made you smile since I have some other news to share…

This will be the last Time Out for Theta Mom Thursday. I began this meme on a weekly basis shortly after I launched this blog and found that it was too difficult to maintain on a weekly basis. I then moved the meme to once a month and as much as I love my time outs, this meme has run its course. I have to continue to make decisions for this blog that work for me and I have more exciting plans on the horizon for Theta Mom that I really need to focus on. Time Out Thursday’s will now become a significant part of the archives. I really appreciate all of you fabulous ladies who have joined me at one point or another in this meme. I had fun reading about how you spent some “me” time away from the kids and I encourage you to continue carving out some time for yourselves!

On a happier note, I am beyond exited to share the milestone that TMC has reached! In less than two months of the launch, we are now 300+ members strong and we continue to grow. I know many of you belong to a bunch of blogging communities and you are all essentially looking for the same thing – to build a readership and gain support from other bloggers. So how do you maximize your time and energy at TMC to make it work for you? Browse through the listings and visit the blogs of sincere interest and tell them you found them through TMC. I’ve seen it in action and it works! This truly is the best way to meet and support other bloggers in your niche. And don’t forget to show some love to the Featured Blogger (link located on the navigation bar) which goes live every Friday! Make it a part of your blog routine to visit TMC regularly and of course the FB of the week.

And as a side note, I wanted to express a sincere thank you to so many of you who took the time to comment on my recent post. It has been quite a learning experience for me over the last two weeks and I’ve had some time to really reflect on this issue. Moving forward, I’ve decided that I will continue to write to my heart’s content – this will never change and although I will continue to share some photos when the moment calls for them, it will be few and far between.

I must admit it has been comforting to know I am not alone as so many of you have been struggling with this same exact issue at some point with your own blogs. I don’t have the perfect answer on this one but what I can share is my experience and hope that you can relate to it in some way – which many of you have and I thank you for sharing your experience with me. As always, I have the best readers on the planet. Thank you for being such an active supporter of my blog. It really means more than you know.

And if you are participating in Theta Mom Thursday for the very last time, link up and share with me!

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04.27.10

Setting Some Blog Standards

My bloggy world has been slightly jaded. I recently encountered an experience that totally spooked me…

Remember I wrote a post about my near obsession with stats and the numbers game? Remember how in that same post I mentioned you can use your stats to your advantage as long as you don’t compare yourself to the numbers in the process? Well, I was doing a routine stat check recently and I noticed I was receiving some incoming traffic from China on a very strange referral. At first I didn’t think much of it but when this same referral started to hit my blog daily it began to concern me. I never clicked on the link (just in case it was something suspicious) but instead I did some research on Google Analytics and found myself in a support forum.

Apparently, I was not alone.

I was one of thousands of website owners from all over the world who were being attacked by this highly suspicious traffic out of China with the SAME referral.

I went back to my stats and over the next few days I had a surge of traffic coming from this suspicious site. They were hitting my blog on the hour, every hour. At that point I knew they were not coming to Theta Mom to read my latest post or to meet a blogger through TMC and as it turns out, my presumptions were correct.

It has been reported that these were indeed hackers, crawling websites and probing for passwords in an attempt to add malicious scripts. I immediately started to block the IP addresses but the problem was this site was running on thousands of servers so the IP addresses kept changing with every hit. After heeding the advice from Google Analytics who was investigating this issue for thousands of webmasters, I was advised to block all traffic from China to ensure these hackers couldn’t access my site. Needless to say, this unnerving experience has brought a couple of things to light for me.

It reinforces the idea that our blogs can be seen by anyone, anywhere at anytime – including this kind of “unwanted” traffic.

In addition, I’ve had some really nasty Google searches recently (so nasty I can’t even repeat them on this blog) with the word mom in them which ultimately lands them to MY blog since “mom” is in the title. These are especially the kind of peeps I do not want coming to my blog viewing pictures of my children or reading about me. However, it’s the kind of thing to expect since we are putting ourselves out there on the internet for ALL to see.

So I think this begs to ask the question, what standards should we have set forth on our blogs for ourselves? What are the limits?

There is no right or wrong answer here but for me, I do not share my children’s names, my place of employment or any of that other personal information. Furthermore, anything I add to Facebook I presume can be seen by everyone so I don’t add anything there that I wouldn’t add here. But I do post pictures of my children on this blog and although in recent months I watermarked them, I’m beginning to wonder if I should even post pictures at all.

So if there is EVER a post I would like you to comment on, please make it this one and share with me – I really want to know how you deal with this. As active bloggers, where do you draw the line? What are you comfortable publishing on the internet and how do you do so without losing your authenticity as a blogger in the process?

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04.24.10

Scentsy Review and Giveaway

***This contest is now closed. Congratulations Kristen! An email has been sent.***

Scentsy was founded in 2004 by Colette Gunnell and Kara Egan, two women who had the idea to design decorative warmers using melted wax from the heat of a light bulb rather than a traditional wick and flame. They were a small company based out of Utah which was eventually bought by Orville Thompson and his wife Heidi. Orville and Heidi moved the company to Idaho where they decided to market and sell Scentsy products to consumers through the use of home parties which has been extremely successful. Currently, Scentsy has 40,000 independent consultants and is recognized as an industry- leading company. What started out as a simple idea by two women has grown into a large company that reaches consumers from around the nation.

I was introduced to Scentsy for the first time by an independent consultant Erin Shiflett and I have to tell you I am very impressed! The main reason I love this product is the fact that I get the same effect and glow as I would from the flame of a candle but I don’t have to worry about leaving the room while it’s lit because the warmer is totally safe! I also love the fact that the aroma given off by the Scentsy bars (melted by the warmer itself) lasts long and fills up the entire room.

I reviewed the Wynken Scentsy Warmer from the Whimsey Collection. It has a curvaceous dish on the top with an embossed design and dot pattern on the outer part of the warmer. I especially like the high gloss finish and the detail of the handles. The Scentsy bars are placed in the top of the dish and when the warmer is plugged in, the light bulb inside not only presents a warm glow but also heats the bars in the dish giving off a wonderful scent! Here is a picture of my Scentsy warmer with some of the bars in the dish:

The three Scentsy Bars I reviewed were Cinnamon Vanilla, Home Sweet Home and Blueberry Cheesecake. Each one has its own distinct smell and they were all fabulous! Home Sweet Home I have to say right now is my favorite! If you ever had any reservations about lighting or keeping candles in your home, then Scentsy is the product line that you need to check out. And be sure to click here to find out how you can become a consultant for Scentsy just like Erin Shiflett. She would love to answer any questions you have!

You can purchase the Wynken Scentsy Warmer here and coordinating Scentsy Bars here or you can enter to win because Scentsy is giving one lucky Theta Mom reader the chance to win a $50 gift certificate to shop at Scentsy! How awesome!

How to Enter The Scentsy Giveaway:

****Required Entry: Go to Scentsy and tell me how you would spend the $50 AND follow my blog publicly and tell me you are.

Extra Entries: (You must leave a separate entry for each extra entry to count and extra entries won’t count unless the required entry is done)

1. Follow Theta Mom on Twitter here and leave me your twitter name. (1 entry)

2. Become a Fan of Theta Mom on Facebook here and leave me your FB name. (1 entry)

3. Subscribe to Theta Mom via email. You must activate the subscription for this entry to count. (2 entries)

4. Subscribe to Theta Mom any other way. (1 entry)

5. Grab one of my cute buttons and add it to your website. (2 entries per button)

6. Click to vote for me at Top Mommy Blogs. Just click the banner on the right side bar and tell me you clicked. (1 entry per click-can click up to 3x)

7. Click to vote for me at Top Mommy Blogs in subsequent entries. (1 entry per daily vote/click)

8. Tweet this giveaway! Just copy/paste the following: Love Scentsy? Enter to win $50 to shop at #Scentsy #giveaway @ThetaMom http://bit.ly/bkNr8p Please RT (1 entry per daily tweet)

9. Post about this giveaway on your blog and link back to me. Leave me your link to show the post. (2 entries)

10. Add Theta Mom to your blogroll. (2 entries)

Giveaway Rules:

This giveaway is open to US residents only. It begins on April 25, 2010 and will end on May 6, 2010 at 9 pm. One winner with a valid entry will be selected at random using random.org. The winner will be announced and must respond with a current email address within 48 hours to claim. Otherwise, another eligible entry will be chosen. Enter as many extra entries as you would like Theta Moms and good luck!

I was provided a Wynken Scentsy Warmer and a multi-pack of three Scentsy Bars from Scentsy. I was not compensated for this review. These are my own honest opinions and experience with the product.

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04.23.10

Featured TMC Blogger: Life Without Pink

TMC welcomes Tina from Life Without Pink. I originally met Tina many months ago when she was co-blogging on another blog. She has always been a huge fan of Theta Mom and I am so glad she launched her own blog a couple of months ago! What I enjoy most about Tina as a blogger is that she is so easy to relate to. She easily shares the ups and downs of motherhood as she raises two boys. Here is how she describes her blog in her own words:

“Hi everyone, I’m Tina a mom to two very active, super adorable little boys! Big A is 4 years old and Little B is 18 months old. About a year ago I was laid off from my Marketing job and instantly found myself as a stay-at-home-mom. It was quite an adjustment for me and every day is still a learning experience.

I started blogging in February 2009 as a way to document my everyday adventures with my little guys but I never imagined how much I would fall in love with it! Before I knew it I was connecting with women all over the world and I instantly became hooked.

My life is centered around raising dirty, wild, lovable, sweet little boys…hence Life Without Pink! I have learned a lot in the past 4 years everything from super heroes, wrestling, splashing in mud puddles to building forts and mending skinned knees. My blog documents the ups and downs of motherhood and surviving in a world without pink!

I still consider myself a newbie blogger so one of my goals is to share with my readers resources, tips and information that I am learning along the way. I want my blog to be a place where other moms look forward to visiting because they can connect with me and the stories that I share.

Recently I signed on as the Social Media Director for Babyssentials.com – a one stop online baby video website designed to give parents a simple and trustworthy resource to learn more about baby products, tips, and health information. I am really excited about this project and look forward to building the community and spreading the word about this wonderful company. I love putting a piece of my story out there and hope you will stop by and say hi!”

So be sure to check her out on the blog and follower her on Twitter!

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