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Enough with the Procrastinating already!

March 13, 2009 By

I just read a post over at Take 90 West about how she finally did something she had been putting off, only to realize it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as she had built it up in her head.  I’ve been doing the exact same thing!

What I can’t figure out is WHY.  I LOVE writing product reviews and hosting giveaways. I love telling other Moms (and Dads and everyone else who reads MomReviews!) what I think of the latest products. So why have I let my inbox fill up with emails flagged as “reviews to do” and “giveaways to do” instead of just DOING THEM?

Sometimes I really just make no sense.

And then today, when I made myself make a list of how many reviews and giveaways I had to do, it turned out to be not as many as I thought!

I’ve never been a plan-ahead kind of gal, I have always thrived best under pressure. But when it’s me putting pressure ON MYSELF? Well, that’s just dumb.

SO.  Today I made a list, and I’m going to go through it one item at a time until everything is done.  Kaitlyn isn’t feeling well today, so I might get one review and one giveaway posted, or I might do more depending on how she is feeling.  I CAN DO IT!

Also, I was wondering if some of you could do me a big favor? See, my page rank on this blog is not great, I mean at least I HAVE page rank unlike a lot of my fellow product review bloggers who got “rank spanked”, but it’s not great. And according to people who understand these things, it’s because I don’t have enough backlinks.  Which is a fancy way of saying that there aren’t enough links to this blog on OTHER blogs.

But it can’t just be any blogs, it needs to be RELEVANT blogs. Meaning,  blogs that are about the same things as this blog- being a Mom (Dads can link to me too of course!), reviewing products, hosting blogger giveaways.

SO, if you read MomReviews and think your readers would like it too, it would mean a lot to me if you linked to it on your blogroll.  The URL is http://momreviews.net (no www) and of course the name is MomReviews (no space in between).  If you do, please please please let me know, I’ll be starting a “they link to me” blogroll!

THANK YOU!!

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With Apologies to Joss Whedon, GRRR! AARGHH!

February 19, 2009 By

I have had it up to HERE with themes for this blog! I find one, I tweak it the way I like it, then someone emails me and goes “oh by the way, did you know that the theme you’re using blahblahblah?” So then I try to fix the blahblahblah and can’t, so I go find another theme I like, and guess what? Something’s wrong with THAT ONE too!

AAARRRRGGGHHHH!

I don’t know why it has to be so difficult, truly I don’t. And yet, once again, there’s a problem. I’ve reinstalled this theme which is called “Rhea” by Jai of Blog Oh! Blog, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed. I like this blog and I’d just like it to work!

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Bear with me while I change my mind a million times

January 31, 2009 By

I just got back from spending a day and a half with ten of the top Mom and Product Review bloggers, which was amazing. The only downside to going to blogger events is I always leave wishing I had more time to just sit and pick everyone’s brain for their best blogging tips. On this trip, I brainstormed ways to elevate myself to the next level of blogging (meaning, getting paid to share my expertise and help companies improve their online presence),  picked up tips on how to potentially find corporate sponsors to pay for my trip to BlogHer this summer, and discussed how to manage running multiple blogs without going crazy. And that was just in the few minutes we had between activities!

One thing that has been poking at my brain since I got back is the need for this site to look as professional as possible. If I’m going to position myself as a professional blogger, I need a professional looking website. The problem I have is, I don’t want to have to actually pay someone else, I want to do it myself. The problem is, I have almost zero design skills. I can throw together a 125×125 giveaway badge, but something that’s going to be right at the top of the site? Not so much.

As you can see now, I went from the header that was just my daughter’s eyes to a header with photos of all of us, and I’m not sure it was the right decision. Obviously, all the companies that have come here and decided to offer me products to review and give away saw the original header and weren’t turned off by it, so why can’t I just leave it be? Because of that feeling. That feeling in my gut when I look at it and say it’s just not quite perfect yet.

So I’m taking notes on sites I come across that have designs I like, and what I like about them, and whether I could duplicate that look myself using free tools like Picnik.  I’d really appreciate reader feedback on this- keeping in mind that I’m always going to have the image of my daughter’s eyes peeking through the box somewhere in the header, what else would say “I’m reading MomReviews” to you?

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