Technology hiatus

I’ve slowed down on my blogging.
I haven’t checked Facebook much.
I haven’t even thought about Tweeting.
My camera is full of photos to download and edit.

The past few weeks I’ve felt out of touch with the usual technology in my life. I just haven’t been feeling it. Normally every day I want to see what’s going on with Facebook or I have something new to blog about. Or I just want to get online and look something up. But it hasn’t been occurring to me lately to do any of these things, and I don’t even miss it!

I do hope it’s just a phase though. I really do enjoy taking pictures and editing them and sharing them on here and on Facebook. I enjoy writing and the freedom of expression I have here on this blog. Maybe I just need a little break. As the weather gets colder and there’s less to do outside I’ll likely find myself back in here at the computer more often like I used to be!

Workin’ for a Livin’

I’ve mentioned before how much I love my job. It’s not exactly what I pictured myself doing 7 years into the professional workforce, but it’s not too far off either. I knew I’d be in marketing, but I didn’t realize I’d be into geeky marketing, otherwise known as Internet Marketing. And I wouldn’t have expected to enjoy it so much!

I’m currently a Senior Site Manager at PlattForm Advertising, a local but national agency. We specialize in lead generation for mostly educational institutions. I manage the growth and maintenance of two websites. Beauty Schools Directory and Beauty School. Both sites serve to help future beauty professionals find a beauty/cosmetology school to help them get their license, and the schools pay us to help potential students find them. Though we purchased both of these sites in the past two years, they are like children to me, I guess you could say. Anyway, if I wasn’t in the job I am, I likely wouldn’t have this blog. Dealing with websites is not just my job, but it’s an enjoyable hobby for me.

As so it seems for my coworkers as well! There is a lot of talent on our team of site managers, designers, and developers. A lot of them can’t seem to leave work at work, and like me, have their own websites they run on their free time.

Shana, my boss, is one of the most crafty people I know, and has taken her love for crafts and her technical computer skills, and knitted them together to form this craft website. She posts original patterns and how-to’s, and photos of her work. I would also like to point out the pattern and photo of the quilt she made for Skyler, which we love and use it all the time!

Then there are the developers’ websites – these guys all have very different things going on. Donovan has a personal blog, a combination of thoughts on life but also with various links to some of his development projects as well. One of his latest projects is a Find a Pit Bull, which has lots of potential for him! Patrick’s blog is a mashup of “thoughts, rants, and influential creations” ranging from posts from politics and economics to technology, and lots in between. Then Mike, for as quiet and genuinely nice guy he is, he has a political blog where he let’s people know how he feels!

This is only a handful of all the “extracurricular” websites that come from the many cool people I work with. So many of us just can’t quite leave our work at work, but at least we love what we do!

Changes

Thinking about updating my blog a bit. I already made a few changes on the right column.

I’m thinking about getting my own domain name (instead of the “.wordpress.com”), and maybe even hosting this on my own instead of at WordPress. It would give me some more customization abilities, but also would require more work. So, maybe not that route yet.

I’m also thinking about a new design. There are only certain layouts to choose from if I keep it hosted at WordPress. But many of those I can customize the header like I’ve done on this one (thanks to my friend Rebecca and her generous header designs!). I want to try my own hand at it, but I never find the time or inspiration when I’m at home.

So, we’ll see. I may play around with some stuff in the near future, so if anyone notices things changing, it’s still me!

KC Mom Bloggers Contest

My coworker sent me a website link and then I heard the same commercial on the radio, so I had to check it out. There is a contest for Kansas City area “mommy bloggers” to test drive a new Chevy Traverse for 8 weeks and blog about it. Since I am already in the market for a new, bigger vehicle, of course I will enter this! The following is what I entered for my “50 words or less” of why I should be chosen (they’ll pick 5 winners):

#1 – I love to blog!
#2 – I’m already searching for a newer, bigger vehicle than my Jetta since I do 99% of transporting my daughter around town.
#3 – I work in Internet marketing so being a part of a social online promotion is right up my alley!

So, wish me luck! Send lots of winning vibes my way. And not that I want any more competition, but for my fellow KC mommy bloggers – go to www.mommymadnesskc.com if you want to enter also!

Shooting Blanks

I think every blogger can attest to the phenomenon. Every day thoughts run through your head of this great topic to blog today, once you find the time. You imagine how whitty or profound the post would be, but by the time you find the time, if that ever happens, you can’t remember what it was and have no idea of anything else important to say that’s worth typing. That’s how I’ve been lately when I’ve found the few moments I could get some typing done.

It makes me think of a cool invention – what if you could blog your thoughts telepathically? I envision this headset you could wear, or maybe just an ear piece, something like the Bluetooth thing, that you could just press a button when you thought of a good blog topic, and it would telepathically send your thoughts to a draft section of your blog. You probably wouldn’t want it published right away, because at least for myself, I type differently than I think, so I’d want to go in and make the words flow smoothly before going public with my thoughts. But gosh, that would keep the ideas flowing and I’d probably never have to worry about not having any inspiration to type!

There are two easy topics I have yet to compose, inspired by other bloggers. I was “tagged” a long time ago by Maria to do a piece on Ronnie and me: a questionnaire about our relationship and how we met, complete with photos. The other is to post my Christmas list. That one should be pretty easy, so in fact I may go ahead and do that one and set it up to automatically publish in another day or two, that way I’ve got time to get inspired for whatever my next blog post will be!

I did attend two very different holiday parties in the last two weekends, one a “middle-school” theme that involved lots of tight-rolled pants and stonewashed denim, and the other was my company’s semi-formal swanky shindig, so I’ve got some great pics to post from both, coming up!