Mom Off Track

Positive Clicking. Help A Charity Get a New Car

barb — Wed, 16 May 2012 21:58:49 +0000

Yeah, I know. I said a new positive thing everyday in May and I already failed yesterday. I suck. Sort of. Cause I am going to make up for it by sharing an awesome thing you can do to help award 100 charities with brand new cars from Toyota. Watch this. It’s only 90 seconds.

Now, wasn’t that worth 90 seconds of your time? Ready to give a charity another 90 seconds? Go over to 100 Cars For Good on Facebook and vote for one of the five charities profiled today and everyday through August 21st.

The thing I love most about this promo? No one is a loser.

Five nonprofit organizations will be profiled each day. Registered Facebook users will be able to vote once daily for the nonprofit they think can do the most good with a new vehicle. The organization with the most votes at the end of the day will win a new vehicle. The four runners-up will each receive a $1,000 cash grant from Toyota.

That’s right. Even if the charity doesn’t get the car, they still get $1000! Please bookmark this to participate in each day. With the economy the way it is, charities need funds now more than ever. Let’s encourage big companies to continue making a difference by giving them 90 seconds of our time each day!

Disclosure: I was selected for participation in the TWIN community through a program with Clever Girls Collective. I did not receive any compensation for writing this post, or payment in exchange for participating. The opinions expressed herein are mine, and do not reflect the views of Toyota. I am happy to be working on promotions such as these and hope my readers get involved!

Let Us All be Thankful

barb — Mon, 14 May 2012 16:17:09 +0000

When it rains, it pours. It’s been pouring a lot lately in my life.

But I don’t want to concentrate on that. I want to concentrate on being grateful for the truly blessed life I do have. So each day for the rest of May I am going to post a small quote here that has made me think outside my bubble. Something maybe that will inspire you to think beyond your daily challenges. I just want to spread a little positive into our world.

I hope something in the next month resonates with you! Please send me a note in the comments if it does

Todays thought:

“Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn’t learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn’t learn a little, at least we didn’t get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn’t die; so, let us all be thankful.” — Buddha

Love,
Barb

Mom Blogs I Think You Should Know

barb — Thu, 10 May 2012 20:08:20 +0000

Friends. We all need them. Sometimes more than others.

The great thing about these friends of mine? They are there whenever I need them. Sometimes that’s a call, or a drink, or a facebook post. Or sometimes that is just crawling through their blogs late at night when the insomnia monster rears its ugly head.

Some of them blog about adoption, some special needs, some local events, and others education. Some just randomly blog. But the one thing they all have in common? The writers are my friends.

So, here is my Mother’s Day gift to all of you. My Colorado blogging friends…..read them, love them, laugh with them and enjoy them as much as I do!

Bantering Blonde

Casual Perfectionist

Imagination Soup

Projects for Preschoolers

Write Mind Open Heart

Misty Montano

Mama Bird’s Blog

Crazy Blogging Canuck!

Crunchy Green Lovin’ Mom

RajeanBlomquist – Because I said so

Broomfield Macaroni Kid

Highlands Ranch Macaroni Kid

Is a Disney Cruise Right for Your Special Needs Family?

barb — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 12:13:56 +0000

Before I left for the media preview Fantasy Cruise last month, I did some price comparison. While my husband, oldest and I have all cruised multiple times, I have yet to take our youngest. And I feel really badly about that. But to be honest with both the wheelchair and autism hurdles to overcome with him, I just have never been quite sure how he would do. Since he is such a Disney fan I always thought that his first cruise would probably work best on a Disney ship. Every time I went to book one though two things stopped me: the price and the fact that they always seemed sold out of the itineraries we wanted.

Disney cruises aren’t cheap. Comparing the cost between two fictitious similar itineraries to Mexico, Princess Cruises were close to $3000 less than the Disney counterpart & 3 days longer.

;

Which is the point where I would take my hand off the ‘book’ button and walk away, dazed and confused to exactly why I thought that sailing on a Disney ship was going to be so much better.

I’ll be honest. I posed this question to several friends that had cruised Disney before. They all assured me that once I was on board I would see why they are almost always booked and why people were willing to pay so much more.

Fast forward to my cruise. I landed in Orlando and had the option to make my luggage magically appear in my room at the Animal Kingdom Lodge. Flying in from Denver pretty much necessitates an overnight stay somewhere in FL before cruising from Port Canaveral. The next morning, I again had the luxurious option of having my bags magically appear in my stateroom on board as I was transported to the port. Score 1 for Disney magic.

The check in process was flawless. Which has not always been the case on other cruise lines. Another point. We were on the ship as quick as you can say Tinkerbell. There was no mass crowding to get on board and the Disney crew announces each new group by name as they board.

The lunch buffet prepared in Cabana’s was the perfect place to get a bite to eat, get oriented and meet up with all my friends sailing with me.

I went back to my room to change into the bathing suit I had in my day bag and found my luggage already at the room. My deluxe stateroom with verandah was beautiful. We were only the second group to sail out on the Fantasy so everything was new and beautiful! I was thinking though how my tall teen boys would do in this room and my 6’8″ husband would feel about that Queen sized bed (which turned out to be SO comfortable just for me). Comfortable, deluxe bed is another big plus but no doubt, 4 people (all adult sized) would be cramped in here.

Which made me worry that if my family of four would be cramped here, how in the world would a room like this accommodate Carters wheelchair? Thankfully a friend traveling with our group was using an ECV and had booked an accessible room. She wrote that her room was perfectly able to accommodate her needs.

While the group of friends I traveled with did not bring their families on this preview cruise, many others did and what I was constantly struck by was how often I did not see kids! You would have thought the ship would be crawling with lots of loud kids enjoying Disney. But the adult areas are well defined and while the kids are off having their fun, parents had plenty of time to be in the adult areas. Parents on board told me they barely had seen their children. Disney does onboard what it is best known for-it entertains little ones! Which give parents plenty of worry free time alone. Another huge score for the well defined, adults only areas to relax.

Cruise ship food can be a great place to taste mediocre food. Not on the Disney Fantasy. Each night dinner was a well coordinated ordeal. The lobsters were huge, the desserts fabulous and the staff attentive. Every dining opportunity was used as a chance to entertain and the fun in Animators Palace is not to be missed by kids or adults.

Some other nice touches that scored big points with me:

Fireworks. Disney is the only line allowed to shoot fireworks off the ship. One night, the Dream passed us and we stopped as they shot off a whole fireworks show for us, and we returned the favor by doing the same for them. It was a fun night and was interesting to see all the other cruise lines in the area pull in close enough to get a glimpse at the shooting sister ships.
The nightclub areas for adults had amazing themes such as London Tubes, Irish Pubs, and a Skyline that constantly changed scenery.
Soda is free and is easy to get. All of the food on board was above what I expected to find and allergy options were clearly marked

Another reason to choose a Disney Cruise is picking an itinerary that includes a day on Castaway Cay, their private island, which in fact feels much more like your very own private island. There was much to do and see on this Island but I enjoyed heading out to the adult beach and ordering an adult beverage, sinking my lawn chair in the ocean and relaxing away the day. It was just what I needed. Or maybe he was just what I needed…

I was very pleased to see the large amount of sand wheelchairs available on Castaway Cay. I was disappointed in that this style would force an independent chair user to rely on someone else to push.

All in all I had a wonderful time on this brand new, beautiful cruise but sadly cannot say whether or not the extra cost would be worth this for a special needs family. I would need of see how they deal with kids with autism, how things like toileting are handled in the children’s programs. I would like to know how many child’s crew members can sign and how they deal with ‘runners’. Mainly I would like to see how inclusive their amazing programming is. That would determine if I could really recommend a Disney Cruise to special needs families. As it is now, I see how a typical family with kids under 12 could justify that all the Disney magic really is worth the extra money.

Here is hoping to another chance to bring Carter and really get the chance to see how this works for families like ours!

The Case For Being Clickable VS Pinable #pinterest

barb — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 21:15:45 +0000

As many of you know I handle the social media for a company I am a partner in, The Organized Cook. Last month, I gave a presentation on the Disney Fantasy Cruise on using Pinterest to gain traffic for your blog and increase brand recognition. The crux of my presentation was sharing the discoveries I have made through trial and error pinning food, lifestyle, and DIY photos for the purpose of driving web traffic.

I cautioned people to learn from a mistake I made last month in trying to make our photo’s pin-able. What I found is that being pin-able does not always translate to being click-able. Which is the goal of most people trying to use the pinterest platform to drive traffic. Mind you, I use Pinterest for many reasons other than traffic building but as pointed out all over the web, for some lucky sites Pinterest now drives more traffic than google +, linkedin and youtube combined.

Case in point are two DIY posts we had recently on our lifestyle blog, Toni Spilsbury: Skip The Frosting Cupcakes and The Lorax Dinner Makeover.

As you can see from the graphic, the Skip The Frosting post was repinned approximately 62,000 times and resulted in 89,000 pageviews while The Lorax Dinner Makeover had a great Pinterest showing of 48,000 repins but only 9,000 pageviews.

Looking at a sample of these two pins it is easy to see why.

The pasta pin tells you everything you need to know in the description. The cupcake pin gives you a reason to click on it to see what is happening in this photo.

One is pin-able. One is click-able.

We can’t control how other people describe our photos when they are pinning but more often then not, people tend to just hit the “repin” button and leave the original comment. Start your pins off right and don’t give it all away in the description. Just a teaser will do if you want to earn the click through to your site!

At Organized Cook we use the Pin It plugin to help us gain a little control over pins generated from our site by allowing us to pre-select suggested images and descriptions. Would love to hear if you have any other suggestions!