Month: February 2008

Categories
MetaBlogging

Should you do your own blog design?

This entry is part 4 of 5 in the series Blog design

You’ve decided that you’re ready for your own blog design and you want to get to work. But should you try to do it yourself? Here’s a little self-quiz that will help you decide if you should do your own blog design.

Do you have experience with a graphics program?
Virtually all layouts feature custom graphics, at least in the header. Do you know how to make one?

Do you have an idea on how to convey your blog’s theme graphically?
Does the color scheme, graphics and layout you’re thinking of make sense for your blog and its topic? Do you know how to make that statement graphically?

Do you know how to make a blog layout and color scheme user-friendly?
A few things to remember here: light text on dark backgrounds are very hard on your readers’ eyes. Having music, flashing text or graphics and/or scrolling text or graphics is also tough on readers’ (and their browsers).

Do you need to make substantial changes to the layout of your blog?
Do you want to go from two columns to three? Unless you have some coding experience, this can be a lot tougher than it looks.

Do you have experience with coding CSS and/or HTML?
CSS is the more important of the two; you can change the entire look and feel of your blog without touching the HTML.

Will your blog software let you make the changes that you want?
Be sure to check whether your blog software will let you use a custom, graphics CSS or layout.

If you have the technical skills to accomplish a new blog design, it can still be helpful to consult a professional to get an outside idea about how to best convey your blog’s theme visually.

If you decide to do it yourself, be sure to come back next week for tips on creating your own blog design!

Categories
Kids/Parenting Ryan/Married Life Contests

What love is

Today, I’m told, is a holiday. I’m afraid I don’t much care. I’m not politically opposed to it or offended by the “commercialized and forced romance fostered by social pressure on men blah blah blah.” I just don’t see much point in going out of my way one day a year for romance—because Valentine’s Day just isn’t about love.

My father has told me a lot of things (if you know him, I’m sure he’s told you a lot of things, too 😉 ). One that has always stood out in my mind was when he invited me to watch the very end of the movie Fargo with him (edited on TV).

It’s probably the least interesting scene in the movie: policewoman Marge Gunderson is sitting in bed with her husband, Norm, talking about his entry in to the duck art stamp contest. He’s disappointed to take second; she reassures him that he’s done well (and that people will use three-cent stamps).

“That’s love,” my father informed me. “That is real love.”

At the time, I was probably a young teenager and just had to take his word for it. But today, I have to say that I agree. I see that same level of real love in my relationships of all kinds today.

Love is paying attention. It’s knowing what your loved ones are doing, what they care about, what their aspirations are. Love is encouragement. Love is hoping the best for one another, thinking the best of one another, and finding the best in one another.

Love is being there. (Can you even imagine where you’d be without them?) Love is remembering one another. Love is caring for and about one another.

Love is listening to my husband’s account of his day with interest. Love is rehashing the same four political discussions we always have. Love is helping Hayden climb onto the couch even though he just jumped down. Love is making dinner despite Hayden’s constant clamoring to see into the cooking pans—and despite the fact that he probably won’t eat it.

Love is the sum total of every action that shows that we are thinking of one another. Love is the constant underpinning of a secure family life.

Despite this talk of love, I don’t plan much of a Valentine’s Day celebration. We may not have a ton of chocolate or flowers or balloons or cards or romantic dinners for two (though there will be tokens, I’ll admit). That’s okay with me; honestly, I appreciate the tokens more when I get them because it was his idea, not the calendar’s.

For Valentine’s Day, like the days before and the days after, our family will have love. May yours also.

Enter Scribbit’s February Write-Away Contest, too! Oh, wait, I mean, don’t enter. Just let me win 😉 .

Categories
Kids/Parenting

Should I say anything?

A while ago, I was driving home from church. I happened to notice that a friend was driving home right behind me. We both live less than four blocks from the church. (I know, I know, you’re about to say, “But, Jordan, don’t you care about the environment?” Well, thanks to the latest Duraflame commercial, no. And it’s very cold and snowy here. We walk when it’s nice.)

I glanced in the rear view mirror at one point on the short drive and noticed that my friend had her three-year-old sitting on her lap, behind the driver’s seat.

I don’t think she’s the kind to do this sort of the often. I don’t know how on earth I would ever broach the subject with her, but should I say anything?

Categories
MetaBlogging

How do you know when you’re ready for your own blog design?

This entry is part 1 of 5 in the series Blog design

How can you tell if you’re ready for a custom blog design? I mean, sure you’ve always wanted something special for your blog, but how can you tell whether you’re ready to pay for that little extra something?

First, let me say that a blog redesign isn’t a little extra something. It’s a BIG extra something. And it may be a big extra something that you’re not ready for. Here are a few questions to ask yourself:

Do you feel like you’ve “outgrown” your default/free template?
Be careful as you answer this one. Would you be happy just switching to another free or default template? Or how about making (or buying) a custom header? If rearranging your sidebar widgets just won’t hold you, start looking for a blog designer.

Do you feel like it doesn’t “fit” your blog and/or you anymore?
If your blog has grown and changed considerably—or your life, and therefore, your posts and your blog—it’s probably time to go look for another design.

Have you changed focus, topic or theme since choosing your last design?
If you used to blog about high tech devices and now you’re writing about spit up, I probably don’t have to tell you that your old blog design probably won’t quite work here.

Do you have ideas about your ideal site design?
Not only does this make your blog designer’s job easier, but if you know where you want to go in your design, you can better judge if your current design will do.

Have you explored many free options (all the Blogger Templates, themes.wordpress.net, etc.)?
You can customize the graphics and colors on many blog platforms, so even if you don’t like the color scheme or header image, you can ‘fix’ many templates as long as other important things are right for you, like blog layout.

Only you can know for sure if you’re ready to “make the leap.” Thankfully, in the mombloggyworld, it’s usually not a huge investment to get a new blog design, so your budget probably won’t figure in as much as it would for a professional business website.

Be sure to check in for more blogging tips next week and learn if you should try to redesign your blog yourself!

Categories
Fulfillment

Fighting (for) fulfillment

Late last summer, I was suffering from a bad case of the “Mommy Doldrums.” I was in the grocery store and spoke with a cashier there. She was four months pregnant with her first child—much sooner than she’d planned on becoming a mother. Once I’d said my congratulations, I felt compelled to say something more—the classic, cliché things all mothers are supposed to say to soon-to-be mothers: “It’s so wonderful; it’s so worth it; they’re such a joy” etc.

And I couldn’t. I couldn’t tell her those things because I didn’t feel them. Instead, I had to admit, right there in front of my own mother, “It’s so hard.” (I had to tell her; no one told me!)

I have to admit, if I haven’t already, that my own frustrations with motherhood are a large reason why I write a blog about finding fulfillment in motherhood. Now, of course, I know that no matter how hard you try, you won’t feel skippy-happy-let’s-have-eight-more-just-like-him every second of every day as a mother.

People who have never struggled with this feeling often don’t understand. I know someone will read this and think, “She just doesn’t love her children enough.” Think what you like, but I love my son very much. I’m not trying to say that motherhood isn’t wonderful, or worth it, or joyful. Every time I laugh with my son, or engage in a “conversation,” or comfort him, I know that I’m doing the right thing with my life. I wouldn’t wish him away.

What I was wishing for that day was just to hear someone else tell me that they struggle with motherhood from time to time—I struggled every day, it seemed like. For some reason, I felt as though no one else thinks motherhood is hard.

What is it that’s so hard for me at these times? What am I struggling with? It’s hard for me to understand and articulate myself. But I know that, in part, the difficulty that I’m experiencing can be attributed to Hayden’s age at the time: the constantly-on-the-go, exploring-everything-he-can-find bundle of impetuous, boundless curiosity that is a toddler can wear you out physically, emotionally and mentally.

At times like this, I’ve let insidious little lies creep into my thoughts—if I were a good mother, I wouldn’t feel this way about motherhood; I’d better get over this (or through this) before even beginning to think about having more kids; I must not love him enough.

Maybe this is really the root of the problem: I’m not really trusting myself to be the mom that I need to be. At these times, all I ever worry about and contemplate is how hard motherhood is for me (okay, and sometimes how hard my mothering must be on my son!). I mean, even writing this down makes me feel ashamed for being so self-centered.

I know that there’s more to motherhood than repeatedly battling a toddler for the privilege of wiping his backside, and I know that motherhood is a high and noble calling, but some days it’s just hard to think of that part.

How do you get past the “Mommy Doldrums”?

Note that I’m perfectly fine right now; this was written a while back.

Categories
Kids/Parenting

Dear Other Mothers

As I spent almost an hour waiting for my son’s doctor to see him, I noticed your children playing in the waiting room. Some of you went to great lengths to keep your children entertained and keep them from disturbing other waiting families. And, sadly, some of you seemed to think that a large open space meant that you could let your children do whatever they wanted.

I understand that you have several children to tend to at once, and I know it is very hard to keep tabs on one child while tending to another’s needs. Or staring off into space. Perhaps you thought that I was also letting my son wander unsupervised.

However, I was watching him very carefully (I’ve already seen The Jungle Book, anyway). And I was watching your children. I watched when your 3-year-old yelled at my 2-year-old for approaching him. Hayden was not going to steal his chair, actually; he just wanted to see the fish (and try to put my car keys in the lock on the fish cabinet). I heard your child yelling at mine over the noise in the already-crowded waiting room and I was a good 20 feet away, while you were maybe five feet away.

I watched when your 5-year-old lectured my 2-year-old about not touching the television, when it was two feet above his head. I also watched while she told me in a similarly condescending manner that she was telling her brother not to touch it, though she had her back to her brother while she was speaking, and proceeded to encourage him to jump in the air and catch on the edge of the television’s wall-mounted shelf. (I hope it’s okay that I told them to stop because they could tear it off the wall; it looked heavy and no one wants to get hurt here.)

I watched as your child climbed onto the table. I saw you stare off into space, look at your son sitting on the table, and go back to staring off into space. My son, thinking that this had to be some sort of game, actually had the gall to touch the table. Thankfully, your son smacked my son’s hand. That showed him. Showed him real good. Too bad you didn’t notice.

Going to the doctor is far from fun. Going with several children can be extremely stressful. But, please, can we try to at least monitor our children? My son is far from shy, but he has never been so bullied as he was by children whose mothers were standing right there as we waited in the doctor’s office waiting room. Please, just because it might be safe to let the kids run wild there doesn’t mean you should.

(After the waiting room, Hayden’s appointment went well. I got the answers to questions that I needed (and the answers that I wanted to hear, even!). Hayden was not shy for the doctor, even wanting to sit on his lap. He only had to get one shot, which he was very brave for!)