Do As I Say, Not As I Do: On Blogging Consistently

April 30, 2013 By 1 Comment

consistency

This is typically my disclaimer when I’m giving presentations on best practices for social media: “Do as I say, not as I do!”  But after my recent talk at The Takeaway this past Friday, I’m wondering why I don’t just take my own advice?

Clearly my plate has changed since I started blogging 7 years ago.  These days, I’m managing multiple businesses along with with navigating being the parent of a 3rd grader (Lord help me), a 1st grader and a pre-schooler.  So why is it that I expect that I can post to my personal blog multiple times a week?  I’ve been struggling with this – as you know.

Whenever a new blogger asks me ‘how often should I blog?’ I always give the same answer: whatever it is that you decide, be consistent.  That is the single most important piece of advice I can think of when it comes to blogging frequency.  Starting out thinking you can blog 7x/week, is unrealistic.  But maybe you have the bandwidth to do so more than 1x.  Come up with a reasonable schedule and then, stick to it.  Blogging consistently is the secret to many a blogger’s success.

But, um, don’t look at my blog as an example.

I go through fits and starts of blogging regularly, and then falling off the map.  I think it’s high time that I implemented my own guidance.  It makes me sick that I can’t post as often as I’d like, but it is what it is.

I’m thinking, as crazy as life is right now, committing to posting on Wednesdays works for me.

In fact, I have an idea.

See you on Wednesday.

 

Image credit: peerlessgolf.ca

Filed Under: life, success Tagged With:

#GoMighty Life List Check-In: On Navigating An Entire ASL Conversation

April 22, 2013 By Leave a Comment

sign language

I’m about 4 classes into my ASL course, sponsored by Olay and Go Mighty, and while I am still stumbling along in the communication department, I’m proud to say that during the last class, I managed to follow a 2-hour conversation entirely in ASL!

Or ‘mostly’ follow anyway.

One of the great things about ASL is that it’s based on concepts rather than specific words, so you can get by picking up the gist of an idea rather than having to understand every single word in a sentence, like in English, for example.  Last class we started off by reviewing Unit 13: More Ways to Express Yourself, and our instructor started telling us about her life story to demonstrate some of the signs.  Before we knew it, it was 90 minutes later and she had shared her challenges growing up in a small town in a school where she was the only deaf student, and where her teachers and principal didn’t know “what to do with her,” to her desire to become a math teacher but getting discouraged in college when she couldn’t follow along with the lesson in class, to her ascent up the management chain at various government agencies, to her finally fulfilling her passion to teach, as an ASL instructor years later (yay!).

And she shared this entire, moving, riveting story in ASL.

Read the rest on my Go Mighty page…

 

Filed Under: family, life, Sponsored, success Tagged With: ,

All Fired Up After the Shot@Life Social Good Fellowship #globalvax Summit

February 22, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Seriously! Time flies when you’re attending amazing events.  These past two weeks have been a whirlwind of education and inspiration for me…all starting with the Shot@Life Social Fellowship Summit.  The agenda was impressive – but I expected nothing less from that fabulous team; working with Devi, Anastasia, Chrysula, Emily, and Morra over the years has been both an honor and a treat.  But enough with the gushing – onto the content!

The presenters were passionate and knowledgeable and the discussions that followed were thought-provoking.   The first day I sat in on sessions led by senior officials from organizations and agencies from USAID to the State Department, discussing how the United States is investing in health for women and girls to how social media can influence foreign policy.

the Shot@Life Social Fellows with Deputy Asst. Sec'y of State, Victoria Esser

the Shot@Life Social Fellows with Deputy Asst. Sec’y of State, Victoria Esser

Day 2 rocked my world though.  I was inspired by the entrepreneurial spirit exhibited by John Nesbit, the founder of Medic Mobile, when he dreamt up the idea of using mobile technologies to deliver healthcare solutions to people in developing countries. {He was easy on the eyes too, ahem}.  Right after that, Kirsten Gagnaire, the Global Director for MAMA Global blew us away with stories of how they immerse themselves in local culture to meticulously develop their mobile maternal health information services to deliver life-saving guidance to pregnant women and their families in countries like South Africa and Bangladesh.

The title of the next session caught my eye as soon as I saw the agenda: “Cooking Shouldn’t Kill.”  I was so curious to find out what that was all about.  Radha Muthiah, the Executive Director of the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves explained to us the life-threatening dangers that cooking on ’3-stone fires’ pose to families.

Did you know that cookstove smoke kills 1 person every 16 seconds?

Insanity. It is one of the world’s biggest – but least known – killers.  Compounding the hazards of cookstoves are the personal risks that the women are subjected to, walking in dangerous parts of their areas to search for cooking fuel, in the dark hours in the morning, becoming targets of sexual and physical abuse.

All so that they can prepare food for their families.

The day wrapped with a candid and poignant discussion with Teddy Ruge, Lead Social Media Strategist at World Bank.  Teddy showed us fantastic examples of how the populations that aid organizations serve need and want to be responsible for the stories being told about them. We watched several different amazing video clips, all driving the point home that continually telling a single-sided story can be dangerous. Here was one of my favorites:

What would you think of Norway if you only saw this video?

Truth be told, I am still digesting a lot of the information that was shared during the Summit. And I’m grateful to Tina Musoke and the UN Foundation Shot@Life campaign for inviting me to be a part.

Filed Under: life Tagged With: , , , , ,

Our President’s Day Weekend Roadtrip to Ottawa!

February 20, 2013 By 5 Comments

Ok, I literally just realized the irony in us traveling to another country for President’s Day Weekend.

But it’s all good because the underlying goal is patriotism right? And I was teaching my kids all about the country where their mom grew up.  They’ve been to Canada before – to participate in the Montreal Marathon about 5 years ago to celebrate my Grandpa, and for my uncle’s wedding about 2 years ago, but because they’re so young, they barely remember any of it (in fact, L’il Buddy wasn’t even around for that first trip).  This trip was all about reveling in winter – sub-zero temps and all: we went ice skating at Winterlude and skiing at Edelweiss and even walked on a frozen-solid Rideau Canal on Family Day.  My cousin and his girlfriend were perfect hosts – being patient with the all of the baggage that comes with a traveling family of 5 –  giving us a tour of everything from Parliament to Byward Market to Fulton’s Pancake House and Sugar Bush.

My sister joined us for the 9-hour (each way) roadtrip and we reminisced about the – largely food-related – memories of our childhoods.  We had poutine, of course!, and Slush Puppies, and St. Hubert BBQ, and Beavertails and brought back Montreal-style bagels and All-Dressed chips and egg rolls and and all of our favorite chocolate bars and Rickards.

But what made me happiest was to hear Chatterbox say: “I like it here, Mommy. Let’s come back.”

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So do I.

Filed Under: family, life

The SupaFly Supper Club: and Why Time with My Girls Is So Special

February 13, 2013 By 3 Comments

food-forkandknifeFor the past couple of years, a group of mom friends and I have been going on every now and then for Girls Nights Out.  It’s something I can never get enough of because it’s such a special time of laughing, sharing and connecting in a space where I can come as I am (no stylist consults needed), say how I feel (no diplomatic smiles, polite laughing, or refraining from ‘mom’ stories necessary), and absolutely no pressure to, well, do anything! (no networking, pitching or whatever this digital role has me doing on a regular basis).

I suspect that these ladies don’t truly understand how important these outings are to me.

At my Second Annual Favorite Things Holiday Gift Exchange this past December, we decided that we needed to make these outings a permanent and more regular fixture in our lives.  And so, The SupaFly Supper Club was born.  We had our inaugural dinner outing during DC Restaurant Week last week and, amidst a month of 5 trips in 4 weeks for me, it was just what the doctor ordered. It’s barely been 7 days since we devoured tapas and breezed our way through 4 hours of convo as if it were 4 minutes, and I already can’t wait for the next one.

Do you intentionally build-in girl time into your life?

Filed Under: food, life

#GoMighty Check-In: My First ASL Class

February 12, 2013 By 5 Comments

Whew! Last night I had my very first ASL class – sponsored by Olay – and let me just say that I was definitely taken to school.  My dear, dear, sister convinced me that I knew enough ASL to skip the beginner level class and start with ASL II.

Alas, she was mistaken.

We spent last night’s class “reviewing” the first twelve modules that her students had learned last semester.  And by review, I mean flying through dozens and dozens of slides with the instructor asking the class to demonstrate the signs, hand shapes and concepts on each slide, and then breezing right along to the next one.

I should have started by saying that the instructor is deaf and uses only ASL to communicate with the students.  It was both terrifying and at the same time, just what I needed.  I managed to not make a complete fool of myself by reaching in the way back of my mind to recall signs that Lisa had taught me over the years and, doing a lot of fingerspelling.  My biggest blunder of the night was probably when I (poorly) communicated that I was there to learn ASL because my babysitter was deaf.  It took at least 5 minutes before I realized my goof-up.  But no one laughed at me – a good sign (pun intended).

All in all though, it was a great evening.  While I have a lot of studying to do, I realized that I did know a respectable amount and I really benefited from understanding the concepts that form ASL.  The instructor was very patient and took her time demonstrating the application of the concepts with objects from the classroom and even showing us two very different interpreters signing the national anthem at the Superbowl.

What impacted me the most though was realizing how exhausted I was after spending two hours trying to understand and communicate in a language that was foreign to me.  I told my husband on the way home that, if that was the way my sister feels after trying to read lips and stay in the conversation at Christmas dinner, I seriously understand her frustration.

Until next week!

Go Mighty Button logo-olay

Filed Under: family, life Tagged With: , , ,

#LifeList Check In

February 8, 2013 By 2 Comments

Life List Button

 

The latest item to scratch off my list:

be a room parent

Because I can’t leave well-enough alone, I went a step further and decided to take on the role of PTA President at my daughters’ schools (it’s 1 PTA for both schools) at the end of last summer.  What a learning experience it’s been.  If not for the simple purpose of opening my eyes to just how much work your PTA leaders have to do for even the most basic programs and to simply keep the thing up and running.

Also? If your school has a PTA or PTO, please volunteer for even a teeny tiny project or activity if you can.  I sound like a PSA, but seriously, do it.

We need the help.

Filed Under: life, success

Getting My Virtual House In Order! {and a Call for Contributors}

February 6, 2013 By 11 Comments

ponytail

Can She Really Do My Hair?

You know the deal.  It’s like having a hairstylist who is a beast with some scissors or hair color, but her own hair is always pulled back in a ponytail or tucked away in a hat — She’s too busy making other people look fly.  And so has been the case with my own site.  For the past few months I’ve been crazy busy with a flood of clients who want to rebrand their sites or up their blogging game.  It’s been so much fun and really eye-opening for me to see that this may truly be a gift of mine, but the side effect of hooking other people up with their stuff is that my own was falling by the wayside. But no more!

As of two weeks ago, I have a new site design thanks to Kendra at Smitten Blog Designs, that incorporates the various facets of me that I was struggling to communicate via my old blog layout: the events, the coaching, the lifestyle blogger-ing.  Also, the words of Mario Armstrong during his keynote at Blogalicious 2012 have stayed with me: “You’re not just a blog – you’re a media company!”  I wanted to be able to convey that.  There still a few things here and there that I need to tweak and finalize, but I’m pleased with the way it turned out. {and while I do miss the gumdrops from my old header, I’m totally crushing on my new Life Is the Party logo!}

Ramping Up Content: An Ed Cal & Call for Contributors

I’m also looking forward to blogging more consistently and to inject more of my life goings-on in my posts.  It’s interesting that I started out blogging eons ago about my day-today life as a lawyer mom but then departed from that a little bit as the blogging climate changed.  I shifted towards writing evergreen posts about lifestyle topics, and while that’s still of interest to me, I miss writing about the small but significant things that I experience daily.

I’ve tried countless times to create and stick to an editorial calendar and I’m going to try it again.  My approach this time is to sit down and bang out the topics that have been floating around in my mind all at once.  Also, I’m putting out a call for contributors!  If you write about travel, food, family, style, entrepreneurship or any other lifestyle topic and are interested in becoming a contributor to Life Is the Party, drop me a line. I’d love to feature you.

Speaking of features, I will also be launching a series of spotlights on entrepreneurs I know and admire who have turned their passions into brands.  I’m crunk about that.

Slowly, but surely my own house is getting put in order. Thanks for not snickering at my ponytail in the meantime.

Filed Under: life, success

Smiling When Smiling Is Difficult: Taking Time Out for Susan

February 6, 2013 By 5 Comments

Since this time last year, not too many days go by before thoughts of Susan pop in my head.  I think about her life, her accomplishments, her spirit, her last days, her husband and kids – so often about her kids.  But most of all, I think about her resolve.  For her family, her work, her health, her friends…she’s a continued source of inspiration and perspective. And I miss her.  Today, I’ll be spending the morning with good girlfriends, smiling, sharing and taking time out to celebrate our friend.  It will be bittersweet…and we’ll all be wishing she was laughing with us.

And she very well might be.

In Honor of Susan
From The DC Moms

In honor of Susan’s memory, consider furthering her legacy through a contribution to the Inflammatory Breast Cancer Research Foundation.  She would be so thankful.

Please join bloggers throughout the web in honoring Susan Niebur’s life and contributions with a post, and please add your link below.

Filed Under: life Tagged With: , ,

Teaching An Old Dog New Tricks: My Mighty Gift Courtesy of Olay

February 4, 2013 By 2 Comments

Go Mighty Button

File me under Nervous and Excited.

I’m going to be taking an intensive American Sign Language course at a local community college starting next week.  Learning ASL has been on my Life List for so long, but there always seemed to be a reason that I couldn’t get to it: Law School. The Bar Exam. Babies. Career.  But thanks to the big vision of the Go Mighty gals and to the generosity of Olay, the procrastination madness is coming to an end.

And I couldn’t be happier.

I’ve been blogging about 10 of the goals from my Life List on the Go Mighty site for the past few months and, I recently learned that Olay loved my blog post about wanting to learn ASL for my sister and that they wanted to gift me with lessons.  I was hype to share the news with my sis who flattered me by saying that I could skip ASL 101 – apparently I’ve picked up  more than I realized over the years – and register for the intermediate ASL course. And so I did.

I’m going back to school y’all. And this time, the reward for acing the final exam is priceless.
logo-olay

 

 

Disclosure: Olay is covering the cost of the ASL course.  Thanks ever so much to Olay for sponsoring this life goal!

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