by oh amanda on February 23, 2009
I have written and rewritten this post several thousand times. There is a lot spinning around in my head about my blog. But the more I write about the whatif’s and the whataboutthat’s, the more I get a convoluted, wordy mess!
So, here’s the deal. I adore my blog. But the reason I do is because of YOU. If it weren’t for the community that blogging brings, I’d still be writing longhand in a blank spiral bound notebook.
And for some reason (maybe being a new mom to two, maybe because I’ve been blogging for two years, or maybe just because I’ve been lazy) I feel like I’ve let my little oh-community down. I haven’t been a great comment-er or blog reader. And I feel like I haven’t been super true to my voice. You know, my VOICE. My bloggy voice. (insert polite laugh and eye roll here.)
Anyway, I want to get back to being lovey-dovey about my blog. But I need your help. Would you answer a few little questions for me? I just need some input on, well…me. Answer as many or as few as you’d like. And be honest. Don’t spare me or try to butter me up. Really.
So, here goes…
One . I’ve got to figure out a better system to reply to comments, read my favorite blogs, find new outstanding blogs and keep up with my readers’ blogs.
Question: When you comment do you prefer an email response, a visit to your blog or a response in the comments? Which is more fun? More personal? If you have a blog, what do you do?
Two. I’m going to be experimenting with affiliate marketing–ads and the like so I can possibly make some moo-lah on my blog.
Question: Does it bother you when you see ads on personal blogs? Do you click banners, text links, etc to buy stuff online? Would you be interested in learning how to make money on your blog?
Three. I need some anchors in my blog. One such anchor, that I apparently let slip away was my black and white Wordless Wednesdays. I love the history and mystery of those pics. I’ll be starting them up again this week. Would anyone be interested in linking up to a purely black-and-white photo mr. linky carnival type thing? (We could call it “Retr-oh Phot-oh”! HA!)
My new bbb, Mandi from Organizing Your Way and I were joking about starting a new blog of Top Ten Lists. You know, Top Ten Things I Just Found Under The Seats of My MiniVan or Top Ten Purses I Wish I Owned or Top Ten Books I Should Really Try To Read This Year.
Mandi & Amanda (and Asa) at BlissDom
I don’t think a whole new blog of that would fly but man, I do love me a list post. So, I hereby dub Tuesdays: TOP TEN TUESDAY. (Creative, right?) Beginning tomorrow I’ll post a Top Ten List and then you can blog your Top Ten and Mr. Linky up!
Question: Is this lame?
Conclusion
I can’t write a good conclusion statement. So, I have one more question for you…
Why do you come back to ohAmanda? What do you like to see/do/read/feel while you’re here? What have you missed lately? Is there something you really LIKE that I post about? Something you DO NOT really like? Am I asking too many questions?
Thank you. Sincerely.
by oh amanda on February 21, 2009
The Mom 2.0 Summit is going on now. I’ve been semi-glued to my twitter (#mom2summit) watching the updates roll in. Everyone’s 140-word updates are making my little brain spin. I love social media! Anyway, it also made me realize I never updated you on the very YUMMY sponsors at BlissDom.
Of course, I was first greeted with my aforementioned Land’s End PINK BAG. Supa cute. It was chock full of books, cds and other paper-y goodness (from Wal-Mart, Sony, Disney and oh baby, Little Debbie). But the best paper was the (also aforementioned) gift certificate for a pair of CROCS. Now, my hubby for some ungodly reason thinks I should use my swag to buy him these:
I, on the other hand, want these:
Alas, they don’t have my size. (But if you are a 9w, RUN– don’t walk over to crocs.com and buy these. They are like 75% off!)
Where was I? Oh yeah, Nashville. BlissDom.
On Saturday morning, after a late night with Asa in a bar (see previous post if you’re disturbed), I ordered room service while Asa napped. The rest of the blissdomees were watching a special secret screening of Yanni Voices. I have actually met Yanni before. I’m sure he cherishes the memory of 16-year old me (and then boyfriend, Steve) stalking him after a concert to get a picture taken. So, even though it’s not exactly my cuppa, I kinda have a soft spot for Yanni.
So, as I was eating my french toast and Asa was snoozing in his pack-n-play, I “watched” Yanni via twitter. Here are a few of the tweets that made me cart a sleeping Asa into the stroller and head downstairs:
So, yeah, two of Yanni’s “voices” were actually AT BlissDom…well, to meet us! After a few questions and one very smokin’ Happy Birthday number, they headed out for a photo opp and autographs! And here’s where I was glad Asa and I were at the back of the room…because I think I was third in line to meet Ender Thomas and Nathan Pacheco!!
Have I mentioned Asa is a great way to meet people?
photo by secret agent mama
And for the real picture…
photo by secret agent mama
That would be Ender Thomas snuggling Asa and Nathan Pacheco with his arm around me.
(oh, and I totally rode the elevator with Nathan the night before. It was right after my baby-in-the-bar stint. So, yes, I still had on my red heels! When I stepped up to get the photo with them, he totally recognized me. Eek.)
OK. Just realized this post is getting way long and wordy. But 1 more thing:
photo by i should be folding laundry
I met Jen Lancaster. And I apparently lost my lipstick.
by oh amanda on February 19, 2009
Oh my dear Losties! The first five episodes of this season have been great. They’ve tied up some theories we’ve all wondered about. They’ve answered some questions. They’ve sent us on some trajectories that made us actually (ok, possibly) see where this show is headed. But last night. OH, LAST NIGHT! I felt like last night was actually the season premiere. Last night we see our Losties get BACK ON THE ISLAND. {read the rest of my recap at The Disney Blog…}
by oh amanda on February 17, 2009
Sometimes when I nurse Asa, I sit on the couch and prop my laptop up on the arm of the couch. I’ll watch twitter updates or maybe a vlog or two. A few days ago I sat down to catch up on some information from Pampers about Salma Hayek’s visit to Sierra Leone. She was there to shine a little light (and press) on the ridiculous problem of infant deaths due to tetanus.
I’ve written a huge long post about tetanus before so I won’t go into it too much, other than to say—it is an UNNECESSARY disease. It could be eradicated in the world—each vaccine is just 5-7cents!
So, as I was sitting on the couch, nursing my sweet baby boy, I watched a Dateline special of Salma Hayek and Caryl Stern (President of UNICEF USA) visit a clinic in Sierra Leone. A clinic that does NOT have the vaccines for tetanus. There was seven day old baby that had tetanus–she was heavily sedated because of the pain. Minutes after they arrived, this baby girl died. The clinic did not have the anti-serum to save her. All they had was a vaccine for horses. So, they gave that to her. A HORSE VACCINE for a NEWBORN.
I’m shaking my head now. With tears in my eyes.
I read Caryl Stern’s blog post about her trip and you can feel her pain and her outrage. Here she is representing UNICEF and this clinic doesn’t even have a simple 7 cent vaccine to save this child! I had the opportunity to meet Ms. Stearn while I was in Cincinnati for the Pampers Mommy Blog Event and I’m telling you she genuinely aches for these children and mothers. She believes we can end these deaths with preventable causes.
Later in the video, Salma Hayek breastfeeds a sick baby. As I was sitting there watching children dying from tetanus and malnutrition, I was overwhelmed with emotion. Here I was nursing my own child while every 3 minutes a child dies from tetanus. It was just too much. Babies should not be dying. They should have mothers that can breastfeed and doctors that can heal.
I agree with Ms. Stearn and Salma Hayek—that we can eradicate tetanus. And by “we”, I mean WE. We get to be a part of actually saving lives! Lives that God knit together. Lives that will grow and develop and do something powerful for Him.
I hope you know that I’m not just posting about this because someone from Pampers emailed me. I am posting because I caught the passion that Caryl Stearn and the Pampers execs had about this campaign. If you’ve been around here you’ll know I am most passionate about helping kids grow up to love God. But they will never grow up to do so if they don’t live past their first week of life.
So, as Pampers and UNICEF relaunch their One Pack=One Vaccine program, I’m asking you to get involved. There are several easy ways to do so—and some of them don’t even require you to throw down a chunk of change. (This is another reason I don’t feel weird about asking you to get involved.):
- Buy specially marked packs of Pampers diapers and wipes. Each pack you buy gives one vaccine to a child or mother.
- Order a UNICEF/Pampers baby bodysuit. Use your Gifts To Grow points to get a special onesie–for each one ordered, a vaccine will be donated. (Asa’s is on the way! I can’t wait for him to wear it!)
- Donate your Gifts To Grow points to buy vaccines. I just donated 84!!
- Donate to UNICEF directly. You can do so via the purple widget in my sidebar.
- Spread the word! Copy one of these widgets and get the word out.
So, saving lives? That works for me.
by oh amanda on February 17, 2009
I just realized I haven’t kept you updated on the house hunt! The dream house I previously mentioned is a no-go. But a few days later, Les was looking online and found another house that looked too good to be true. We called our real estate agent, Gayle (long-time friend AND an oh-amanda-comment-er!) and said, “Can we see it first thing in the morning?” We got there at 9am and there was another couple staking out the house, too!
Long story short, this house is BEAUTIFUL and we made an offer on it that afternoon. If you know my husband you know that is SO UNLIKE him. He is a researcher to the nth degree. But we were kinda getting to the point where we just had to pick something, you know?
So, we picked–and they accepted! This house would normally be waaay out of our league. But it’s a foreclosure and is at such an amazing price. Gayle said if we only stay in it a year and sell it, even in this economy, we could make $200,000 easy.
$200,000.
I think it’s a complete miracle. I’m slightly nervous because the house is so big, we’ll be rolling around in it, there will be empty rooms due to our lack of furniture and if any of the neighbors come over, I’m sure they’ll think we’re squatters. But at least there will be no marble trashcan holder. Or pink carpet.
Hopefully we’ll be closing at the end of the month and then I’ll be gushing about the new house every day, I’m sure! I wrote a little more about the move over at Family Bliss. Click over and check it out!
by oh amanda on February 15, 2009
Amazing Race AND Survivor premieres in one week? LOVIN’ IT! We had a yahoo-amazing-race-is-back party with Kristen tonight. It ended up being a put-the-kids-to-bed-and-get-them-up-to-go-the-bathroom-and-then-go-to-bed-again-about-400-times party. But still it was fun. The Pioneer Woman’s favorite salad ever made an appearance. So, that was worth it.
I’m excited about this season of Amazing Race so far. First of all the dating-but-we-are-really-mean-to-each-other couple got eliminated first. Hallelujah.
(do-you-love-when-i-do-this-every-other-sentence-or-what?)
When Phil introduced the couples I was getting excited because almost all of them seemed somewhat normal. (Minus the aforementioned dating couple, of course.) But my team is Mom & Deaf Son—Margie and Luke. Luke is deaf and does not read lips, he only uses sign language. So, he needs his mom to translate for him. He wants to show the world that deaf people are equal to hearing people.
You know I’m a fan of sign language. It all started when I read about Rachel Coleman and her daughter Leah—I know I’ve mentioned her a hundred times in my blog. In a nutshell, Rachel was in a band and realized her daughter Leah was deaf at 14 months old. Rachel says she put down her guitar and picked up sign language. She has produced over 30 quality DVD Sets teaching hearing kids to communicate with deaf kids.
One thing Rachel said that’s always stuck with me is (in the ohamanda paraphrase) that deaf kids can feel very isolated. And if hearing kids only knew three words in sign language: “friend”, “play” and “hello” “name” dang, I can’t remember. But the idea is, deaf kids are just the same as hearing kids. They just want to play. And a little bit of sign language can go a long way for a deaf kid. I just love that!
That’s one of the reasons I picked up the Baby Signing Time dvd’s— because of Rachel and Leah’s story. Not only did I want Lydia to be able to sign “more” and “milk”, I wanted her to know sign language to communicate with others. (I’ve already let Asa watch one of the dvd’s. Is that bad for a four month old?)
So, I say all that to say, I loved seeing Luke on the Amazing Race hoping to show the world that deaf people can do exactly the same as hearing people! And how cool and so beautifully ironic was it that they were first to the Pit Stop by LISTENING for the yodelers? LOVED IT.
So, BESIDES Margie & Luke, who was your pick?
