There’s vanilla chai tea latte in my cup.With whipped cream. And caramel sauce. You can take the Starbucks out of a girl’s budget but you can’t take the love of a good chai latte out of the girl. Also, this stuff is way cheaper to make at home.
I want to chat a little bit about blogging and I’d love some opinions from y’all, because you read the words I put in this space. I know many bloggers say “Ultimately it’s your blog so what you say goes” but the truth is, for me this little part of the internet I own is community. There is give and take here and I appreciate that. If it weren’t for y’all, my words would be floating lonely in the vastness of cyberspace and I wouldn’t have learned things like about how it’s a good idea to wrap your Kindle in a ziplock bag if you’re going to read it in the bathtub.
I’d love to get your input on a few things and so if you wouldn’t mind leaving your thoughts in the comment section, that would be wonderful. And also, I’ll draw a name to win a $25 gift card to amazon.com in appreciation. <- Enticing, right? Click CONTINUE READING to read more, enter to win, and find out if you won last week’s giveaways because I have a problem with this thing called “being concise”
Monetizing this space allows me to both pursue my dream of being a stay-at-home-mom and fulfill our quarantine requirements. For the past few months I’ve played around with different options to see what felt like the most organic fit for me. I’ve found that I’m partial to the sponsored giveaway posts that I do in collaboration with BlogHer. They offer such great products for me to review and amazing prizes for y’all (Like $100 gift cards to places like Target!) They are fun for me because they are less admin work so I get to focus on the creative writing aspect of them. I try to keep them to 2-3 per month so that they don’t overwhelm my other content.
I’m wondering how y’all feel about sponsored posts and giveaways! I’ve seen some people write that they hate them and others say they don’t mind them at all. My inclination is to do away with the sidebar sponsor ads and just focus on what I enjoy. I enjoy writing. I don’t enjoy selling advertising. I love that BlogHer manages that for me. What do you like/dislike about sponsored posts/giveways and how can I make them enjoyable here?
My other housekeeping issue has to do with facebook. I have resisted having a fan page for this blog because of the simple fact that it’s called a fan page. That feels totally weird. Lately, however, I’ve been thinking it might be a good idea because in order to protect Scarlette’s privacy, I can’t use my personal facebook page for things like making plans with my local friends. As we embark on more and more playdates, I’m noticing that many people use facebook for scheduling things. I’ll see “Hey, we’re all meeting at Menchie’s on Highway X at 2pm!” on my wall and then I’ll quickly delete it because while I totally plan on going, I don’t particularly want people knowing where I will be with Scarlette at any given time. I’m pretty careful about instagramming/tweeting/fbing after we’ve already left wherever we are. It’s mostly just a matter of knowing that I am doing my best to keep her safe.
So I’ll be doing away with my current personal page in favor of this new public page. This way, I can re-join with a private personal page just for a handful of family and the moms in my real-life playgroup. Not much is changing, except that I’ll be posting my status updates on the new fb page. Honestly? Business-wise moving to the new page is a bit of a bummer because there are a few drawbacks to it but Miss S is my first priority and I can adjust some settings (like location stuff) better on a public page. I hope this makes sense, as I’ve always opened up my personal facebook page to blog readers in the past and I don’t want y’all to be like “WHAT?!” when I’m gone and think I went and blocked you or something! I’d love for those of y’all who I’ve added as fb friends to join me on the new fan page. ETA:I’ll still be posting Scarlette pictures and stories on the blog, I love sharing about her here. I’m a proud mommy 😉
Plus, if you “like” the new facebook page (or if you saw this on fb and already liked it), you’ll get an extra entry in the amazon.com gift card drawing. I am all about the incentives.
Speaking of giveaways, the winner of the BOON INC. Whale Bath Pod is: Entry #12, Lindsey B and the winners of the book 7 are Entry #22, Kim S. and Entry #79, Chris P. The winner of the $50 DaySpring.com gift card is Entry # 82, Jill P! Congrats, watch your inbox for an email from me!
And a little shout-out to swagbucks because cashing in my swagbucks for amazon.com giftcards is the way I’m able to do some fun non-sponsored giveaways like this here!
(I’m running this giveaway via rafflecopter so be sure to click I DID THIS! after leaving a comment or to note that you’re a fb fan. If you can’t see the rafflecopter box, make a note of that in your comment and I’ll manually enter you)
*photo via DaySpring.com because I own that tea cup and their picture is way cuter than mine. Also, referral links included for DaySpring and swagbucks. I am providing this giveaway and I am writing these sentences because I like keeping things legal around here, even though I think it’s a bit much FTC.
