Tag Archives: blog

Missing the Good Ol’ Days

Posted in Blogging, Life by

I remember a time when blogging was necessary.  As in, if I didn’t post for two whole days, I had to write something, anything, immediately.  As in, I checked my stats at least three times an hour a day, desperately hoping someone left a comment or at least clicked the “like” button (seriously, how hard is it to click that button?  It takes, what, half a second?)  As in, I jotted down notes for future blog posts, started a gazillion drafts, and worked on posts for hours.

Those were the good ol’ days.

Before life got in the way.

Now, sure, I still had five kids when I started Momfog in January 2011.  But I was home.  I got them up and dressed, and put them on a school bus.  Then I had the whole day to write, write, write.  And then, the awfulness happened, and I had to get a “real” job.  Boo!  Hiss!

Now, I get up at the butt-crack of dawn, dress the kids and myself (no more driving them to the bus stop in my PJs– again, Boo!  Hiss!), drive 30 minutes to school and work, work my tail off, pick up the kids, drive the 30 minutes back home, cook dinner, get them ready for bed, do a load (or 12) of laundry, and then it’s 10:00.  I’m exhausted, brain-dead, incoherent, hurting, and not in the mood to do anything but play stupid FB games or watch television.

I don’t even look at my blog every day.  Sometimes, I don’t look at it for several days.  It doesn’t matter.  There’s nothing to see.  No posts=no comments, no “likes,” no anything.

I still piddle around in the wordpress.com forums.  I still participate in link-ups, digging deep into the archives when I actually had something to say.  Sometimes it was even entertaining.  I get a few comments and it’s great.  But I miss the “regulars.”  The people I depended on in the heyday of my little blog for comments, encouragement, and conversation.  You know who you are, and I want you to know I miss you terribly.

inbox lots of unread messagesI also miss when I could read these very special peoples’ blogs.  I don’t have time for that anymore, either.  My inbox has something like 550+ unread messages.  My inbox looks like that a lot– until I finally come to grips with the fact that I’m never going to catch  up on those unread posts and I delete them.  And it pains me to do that.

You guys deserve better.  Because you, with your lives as busy (or more so) than mine, have found the time to blog on and I’ve flaked.  I’m not going to promise I’ll do better.  I won’t.  Not any time soon, anyway.  I just want you to know that I admire your tenacity.  That I envy you.

That I miss the Good Ol’ Days.

Looking on the bright side, school (and my illustrious job as lunch lady) ends on May 18.  Then it’s 12 glorious weeks of blog writing and blog reading.  Hopefully in my PJs.  I might post something every day.  Seriously, you’ll be sick of me.  I can’t wait to get on your nerves.  Again.

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The Blog is Out of the Bag

Posted in All Posts, Blogging by

“I read some of your blog.”

Those are the words I’ve been dreading since my first day at work.  It took 5 months, but today was the day.  I suspect they (my co-workers) knew I had a blog a long time ago.  After all, we’re friends on Facebook.  Talk about a dilemma.  When the friend requests came, I immediately thought:

“Oh no.  I like these people but if I accept their friend requests, they’ll know I have a blog.  Not to mention the fact that I post a lot on the old Facebook and I tend to be really annoying and dorky.  Not good.  On the other hand, if I ignore or decline the request, that won’t make for a very comfortable work environment.”

I accepted, of course.  Like I said, these ladies are great.  Since we’ve become friends, nobody has mentioned the blog at all.  Maybe, by some miracle, they never saw the links to my blog posts.  Maybe they ignored it and never once clicked it.  Most likely, they clicked once, read, and decided never to click or mention it again. Either way, the subject of my blog never came up.

Until today.

“I read some of your blog.”

Deer In Headlights LookI got that deer in the headlights look, said “Oh,” shuffled my feet while avoiding eye contact, and then went on with my work.  I am the MASTER of awkward situations.  If by master, I mean the master of making awkward situations more awkward.  Also?  I’m obsessive about said awkward situations, spending the rest of the day wondering what I should have said and what I’m supposed to do in the future.

Like, should I just abandon the blog until summer, when I don’t have to look these women in the face 5 days a week?  Did I post anything really embarrassing that will haunt me for the next 4 months?  Which posts did she read?  Were they awful?  Okay?  Whiny? Too much information?  (Of course, they were. This is my blog.  That’s what I do!)

I’ve done this kind of obsessing before.  An uncle said, “I read your blog and it’s just not for me.”

“Which post did you read?” I asked, horrified.

He told me and it was a post specifically for other bloggers.  I have a few of those and it bothered me to no end that he chose THAT day to read.  It bothered me so much, in fact, that a month later (yes, a month) I sent him a message on Facebook.  I confessed my neurotic tendencies, my obsessiveness, and gave him a few links to posts I’m proud of.  He read them and sent me a message back.  He changed his mind.  He likes my blog, my writing, and me (despite my obvious mental illness.)  Yay!

Did it occur to me that he was just yanking my chain?  Stroking my fragile ego?  Blowing smoke up my butt?

Absolutely not.

Ahem.

Anyway.  So my not-so-secret secret is out.  I have a blog and my fellow lunch ladies know it.  They might actually read it.  Shoot, they might be reading this right now.  (Hi, ladies.)  I’ll know for sure when I go into work tomorrow and they avoid making eye contact with me or start speaking to me very slowly and making a big to-do when I don’t spill something, cut myself, or trip over my own feet–all with an indulgent grin on their faces.

Because, obviously, I have issues.

NaNoWriMo Dropout

Posted in All Posts, Blogging, Kids, Life, Motherhood, Writing by

NaNoWriMo is exciting.  In the days and weeks leading up to the craziness, the blogosphere is full of “Should I?,”  ”I’m doing it,” and “NaNoWriMo Is Stupid/Bad Writing/Not How It’s Done” posts.  Twitter is all, well, atwitter, with the same thing.  Then, November 1 hits.

Now it’s posts about word counts and plot lines.  Writers, not realizing how pretentious and crazy they sound, complaining their characters aren’t doing what they’re told and talking about the lessons they’re learning about themselves as writers.  I wrote one of those myself. (See here.)  Participants blather on to anyone who’ll listen.  When they run out of real people, they take to the Twitter, where anyone who blindly and innocently clicked their “follow” button is subjected to annoying word count updates and complaints about not sleeping.

You can get riveting tweets like this from me by clicking the Twitter button in the sidebar. I'm sure my follower numbers will soar after this post.

After the second week, these posts and tweets start disappearing.  WriMo’s are dropping like flies.  Some choose to simply fade into the background, hoping no one will notice they flaked.  The smart ones write “NaNoWriMo Dropout” posts.  These posts are filled with the deep philosophical reasons that NaNo wasn’t for them, which all boils down to one argument, basically.

“Quantity over quality doesn’t work for me.  I care too much about my writing/characters to rush through it.”

It’s a valid argument and sure to find support from anyone who’s ever attempted to write a novel.  Like I said, they’re smart.  Me?  Not so much.

If Dropping Out was an Olympic Sport, I’d have about 20 gold medals.  You name it, I’ve dropped out of it.  Piano lessons, cheerleading, college, the gym,  watercolor painting,  Atkins/South Beach/Weight Watchers Points Plan/Low Carb/Low Fat/Low Calorie or any other fad diet you can think of.  My justification of choice is my five children.  Nobody argues with that reason.  But I know the truth.

I am lazy.  Nicer people (you know who you are) call me “laid back.”  Psht.  Let’s drop the niceties.   I am LA-ZY.  In keeping with this truth, I should have dropped out of NaNoWriMo a long time ago.

There have been several days this month when dropping out seemed like the right thing to do.  I was behind on my word count.  My story was lagging.  I was too tired.  I wrote through it, and it shows.  Some serious crap flows from fatigued fingers, let me tell you.  But I want to finish this.  I’m sick to death of dropping out of things that are important to me because I don’t want to put in the work.  What is that teaching my dear children, my scapegoats?

“Mommy could have done something, if it hadn’t been for you.”

And there it is.  The reason I’m not writing a NaNoWriMo Dropout post.  Because this mama has something to prove.  To herself.  Her children.  And anyone who says, “You can’t…”