Jul 19, 2011
I’ll be the first to admit that it is a little disheartening to see such a large support base for the “mommy” bloggers out there and so little for people such as myself who don’t have kids or fall under the stereotypical “mommy” blogger subset.
Even worse is when I’m overlooked by companies because I choose to wait until I was financially able to have kids– not saying that those who are mommies now, didn’t do that, but the point still stands, regardless.
If I’m not a mom, I’m not what their looking for. Next applicant.
I have absolutely nothing against mommy bloggers. In fact my best friend is a mommy– though she doesn’t classify herself as a “mommy” blogger and I wouldn’t either but what I do have a problem with is the fact that I seem to be deemed unworthy by companies and blogcentric websites who seem to be much more focused on the mommy demographic EVEN if that is not what the site or the product relates to.
It’s frustrating and if I’m honest quite belittling. I can only imagine how those who are having difficulties trying to conceive must feel based on my feelings in situations where it seems I’m just not good enough because I’m not expecting or because I don’t already have children.
When I go to a website where there’s a category specifically set aside for mommies and find nothing to acknowledge those like myself who are either single or married and non-babied it infuriates me because it feels like they’re saying “You’re not wanted. Non-parents not allowed.”
Does my voice– our voice matter so little?
I respect all bloggers, moms, dads, single or married individuals– babied or not and I acknowledge that we all need a place where we connect based on similar interests and mindsets, a support group that can relate on the same level– so why is it that those who aren’t parents aren’t afforded the same? Do we not feel frustration? Do we not struggle with our lives on a day to day basis? Or is it that since we do not have children we can’t even begin to comprehend what a bad day must feel like?
I may not have a baby strapped to my back and I may not have plans for one any time soon but you know what?
My voice counts too.
Sep 2, 2010
When it comes to WordPress themes and the overall design of the site, I’m sure most of you have noticed I do not do it myself. A large part of that is that I’m too lazy to relearn CSS and it’s just easier time wise to have someone else do it for me. Plus, on top of that if I’m honest, when it comes to creativity and design, the muse hasn’t been with me for some time so really any attempt to design my own theme would result in mass hysteria1. As a result, I often utilize the services of my dear friend Tawni, who is the owner and founder of ForeverDesignStudio.com. Simply put, in my opinion, her designs are AMAZING. The creativity she has is not something that I could properly capture in words so I won’t even bother to try, but don’t just take my word for it– go visit her website and see what I’m talking about!
As of late, Tawni has been looking for more ways to drive in potential customers and so I suggested that she open an Etsy shop and also suggested that a giveaway would be something that could be beneficial as well. Lucky me (and you) that she decided to allow me to host one on her behalf! Read below for more information on how you can win an absolutely stunning theme from ForeverDesignStudio!
Giveaway Details
As I stated previously, Tawni of ForeverDesignStudio is graciously offering her services to one lucky winner, however stipulations do apply. For any themes which the winner decides they want illustrations, vectors, or plugin customization such as galleries, commerce carts, etc Tawni may assess a fee as she considers those particular items as “specialty” services. For all other simple designs (my current theme is an example), services will be rendered free to the winner.
How to Enter
You must leave a comment on this blog entry stating what type of project you want ForeverDesignStudio.com to create a theme for.
Earn Additional Entries (one each) By Doing The Following:
- Follow me on Twitter @TQBnet
- Like TQB’s Facebook Fanpage and leave a comment stating you’ve done so below (with your name).
- Blog about the giveaway on your blog. Include a link to this blog entry.
- Subscribe to TQB’s feed.
- Tweet the following on your public2 Twitter account: The Queen B is giving away a free wordpress theme designed by ForeverDesignStudio.com: http://tinyurl.com/24mul7x
Please leave a comment for each additional entry and remember to include your Twitter Username/Facebook Name. It’s easier for me to keep track that way.
Deadline
The ForeverDesignStudio WordPress Theme giveaway begins today, September 2, 2010. Contestants have until 11:59 MST Friday, Sepetmber 10, 2010. At that point a winner will be randomly selected and contacted. I’ll announce the winner on thequeenb.net on Sunday afternoon.
Good luck to everyone who enters!
1. No, seriously.
2. The twitter does not need to be public if I am following your account on either angsaysrawr or TQBnet. I just need to be able to see the tweet.
Jun 11, 2010
So I’ve come to the conclusion that getting more sleep is actually causing me more problems than not getting enough sleep. I know that’s odd, but hello it is me we’re talking about here—weirdness is like my middle name.
I’m going to test my theory tonight but staying up until about midnight and getting up at five, which I have been trying to do for the past few days and have failed miserably at. Typically for me, 6 hours of sleep is enough and if I get more than that I am sluggish and slow and just down right boring (see: yesterday’s blog)—so we’ll see if my little switch up works and if it does, I guess when I do have kids, I’ll be good to go, right?
Now, that I’ve managed to (hopefully) crack the code on my little problems, let’s move on to more pressing issues, shall well? And when I say, pressing, I mean pressing1.
So lately I have been visiting a lot of blogs in an attempt to network and share my awesomeness. The one thing I find that has annoyed me the most is stumbling on a blog post that’s more than 300 words and full of drab. I’m not even kidding guys. If your blog is more than 300 words and just talks about mundane every day things without humor or at least sex to keep me interested, I stop reading– generally after the second paragraph and then bitch to Jenn about how boring it is and move on.
I mean I get it, not everyone has my stellar abilities at keeping the masses entertained, so word of advice, if you don’t have those skills or at least have not yet quite perfected it: boring, mundane, every day shit should be kept at 300 words or less—less if you’ve managed to make me want to jump out the fucking window out of sheer bedroom within the first few sentences2.
For a great example of the type of blog I’m referring to, see my blog post yesterday. That was full of FAIL, I’m woman enough to admit it, but I needed to blog about something to keep up with my daily blogging ritual so you got boring, unentertaining crap—and for that I apologize, but hey at least I made up for it by posting a blog that is now full of win3.
So now that I’ve managed to stroke my ego to the point of orgasmic portion, let’s recap shall we? Boring, mundane, every day shit that I clearly don’t care about should be limited to 300 words or less unless it’s humorous or full of sex—and by sex, I mean good sex because boring, mundane sex is much worse than every day, mundane, shit because come one its sex! It takes a special, kind of someone to make sex boring and come on you don’t want to be that special kind of someone—do you?
Now that I have yet again managed to make a seemingly sexless blog, about sex—let’s remember minions, by decree of the Queen all boring, mundane, every day blogs should be kept to 300 words or less unless it is humorous or full of sex4; so the Queen has spoken and so shall it be…
or else5.
1. It’s pressing because it happens to annoy the shit out of me.
2. I suppose you’d have to know what qualifies as boring right? If I’m not entertained, it’s boring.
3. Agree or die.
4. The good sex remember? Not the boring, mundane sex.
5. My guards will hunt you down and make you pay for your treason!
May 24, 2010
I don’t know about anyone else, but I think this is something that needs to be addressed; especially given that this has become a HUGE platform for bloggers to promote their blogs by tweeting when a new blog has been posted on their website. It’s an awesome tool– when used appropriately.
To be more specific, it’s a great tool to use, to say, “Hey, guess what I blogged, come check it out!” But is there such thing as overuse? I believe so. Posting once that you’ve updated is great. I see the tweet and decide at that point as to whether or not I want to check it out; sometimes I do, other times I don’t. It really just depends. If the title is eye catching enough then in all likelihood I will take a gander, but if it’s a topic that something along the lines of “Long Time No Blog” or “Lazy” etc, then I’ll probably pass it up, because while I do enjoy reading about some people’s life to a certain extent, there has to be a grab factor for me. Make it humorous, heartbreaking, or something (did I mention sex sales?), but if it’s just about your day to day activities, well quite frankly I don’t really give a damn and chances are no does other (I just happen to have the balls to say it.)
In any event, when I talk about twitter etiquette and abuse, I’m talking about the people who tweet that they have a new blog post multiple times through out the day, when hello, we got your tweet the first time. The more you spam, the faster I’ll be at not only ignoring your blog post, your blog, and you, but also un-following you because you just don’t get it. So not only have you sacrificed your blog viewership but you’ve also managed to lose a follower– not a good move in the blogging world. Not a good move at all. And last but definitely not least in my book of twitter etiquette lands squarely on paid blog posts, which admittedly I do. However, I also have the decency to realize that my readers may not actually want to be informed of such posts, so to save them the agony of visiting my blog thinking I have a new, awesome post (because come on, all my posts are awesome), I do not tweet about, nor do I send out e-mails to my subscribers about these posts because I understand just how irritating it is to think you’re reading a post about something relevant and then out of no where get hit with a link. It’s like really, what the fuck? Nice way to blindside me. So out of courtesy for the few readers I have, I avoid the following:
- Tweeting multiple times about a blog post to try and get comments because no one has commented yet. Give it time, sheesh!
- Tweeting about sponsored posts. Come on do readers really want to read those? Do you?
So perhaps (assuming you’re guilty of the above), you should too.*
*Feel free to share other twitter etiquette suggestions– not that I really care, but hey, others might.
May 23, 2010
If you want to know the fastest way to discourage visitors from your blog and instead encourage them to leave, I’m about to let you in on a little secret. I mean you’d think it would be common sense but given that I’ve visited multiple blogs in the past few days, all of which have this particular trait in common, apparently not so much.
So you want to know the secret, eh? Alright, be prepared to NOT be shocked or in awe because really it’s common knowledge, or at least so one would hope.
DO NOT HAVE MUSIC PLAYING ON YOUR BLOG!
… or at the very least if you just have to have music, don’t put it on auto play. Let your visitors decide whether they want to tolerate the crap music you decided to put on (trust me, usually it’s all crap). When I visit a blog and music starts blaring at me, the first thing I do is locate the red x on the top of my monitor and get the fuck off the page. So for those who seem to think it’s cool, cute, or whatever, newsflash IT’S NOT.
So do me a favor or for fuck’s sake do the entire world wide web a favor and save the music for your ears because we sure as hell don’t want to hear it.
May 10, 2010
This question presented itself when I was hounding Hillary about having finally find a layout she likes and not having updated her blog. She said she had some personal issues (she elaborated with me, but I don’t think it’s my right to do so on her account) to work through and that she didn’t feel comfortable posting it on her public blog so instead she posted it on her Livejournal. This brings us to the question of how comfortable you actually are blogging about personal tidbits regarding your life on your personal domain. For me, there are some topics I won’t blog about publicly, usually private moments between myself and Robby– and when I say private I mean things concerning our marriage that not everyone needs to know. For instance very sensitive subjects in which we still have raw wounds that haven’t quite healed.
In cases like the above, I often utilize my protected post feature in which only a few registered users are granted access. The reason for this is because typically I value their opinions over others because they know both Robby and I and therefore have the capability of giving sound advice which isn’t bias towards me or him. Other then those topics, I’m quite comfortable with writing openly in my personal domain. Now, I understand that not everyone has the capacity to be okay with “strangers” reading the tidbits of their life and that’s fine, but I do have to wonder what’s the point of having a public blog if you intend on keeping everything on a superficial level.
I suppose the reason I’m confused is because I write as a release. It serves as a means to allow me to express myself both emotionally and intellectually, and most importantly it serves as a resource. What do I mean when I say resource? It allows me to came back at the end of the day and re-read an entry that I posted when I was angry, upset, hurt, etc and re-evaluate my emotions regarding the event or events which caused them. If I find that I was in the wrong and reacted poorly, then I have the choice to try and repair what damage I might have caused due to my reaction. If I learn a little more about myself and how I react to certain situations, then I can embrace that knowledge and expand on it or work to prevent the same reaction should the same situation arise again.
For me my domain, despite its openness to the public provides me with the ability to learn not only from myself but also from others. So really, how comfortable are you writing in your public blog and ultimately why do you think that is? Would you like your feelings to change, why or why not?
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