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 ...
The Case For Being Clickable VS Pinable #pinterest
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 that I orchestrated the social media behind (a relationship that has since ended) 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 ...
Bit By the Photo Bug
I admit it. Every time I see one of my friends carrying around all of this photo equipment (those DSLR's) I am simultaneously jealous and grateful. Grateful because I am not the one having to lug all that equipment around but jealous over the amazing photo's these take. Photography is just one thing that really never made any sense to me. I don't get all the lighting stuff, focal points, lenses..... it's all always been Greek to me. Until I had the chance to learn some great tips from Kymri Wilt during the Traveling Mom Retreat last week. HTC sent us the cute little Rhyme phones which I snobbishly sort of set aside as something I would have to play with a bit before getting back to my beloved iPhone 4S. But when Kymri asked us to pick it up and play with it a bit during her session, I was a teensy bit impressed. So I took it out a bit more while I was on the Disney Fantasy Cruise. And I took some amazing panoramic shots on Castaway Cay (Disney's private island). I love this one. To me, it looks like a postcard. That night while getting ready for dinner the sunset was too beautiful to at least not try. After the cruise I still didn't want to stop playing with it so I ...
Investing In Your Blogging Career #blissdom At HOME
Through the years, I have tried to write posts that help new bloggers reach their goals. This is a hard business to break into and few bloggers truly make a living at it.....well, a living that includes more than Tide coupons and free movies. But I would say for most 'mom bloggers' the goal isn't to make a full time salary- we do it for more personal reasons. One of those being, we find our bliss in it. Last month I was able to go to the Blissdom Conference in Nashville. The level of talent among the speakers there was amazing. But I couldn't be everywhere at all times and there were plenty of sessions I missed, most regrettably the Photography Track with Me Ra Koh. Thankfully, as a Blissdom Community Leader I was given the gift of a membership to Blissdom at Home so now I can take my time and work through all of the sessions at my own pace. Blissdom at Home is just like being there. All the sessions were taped and you can watch the videos of the presentations, listen to the audio (I fell asleep last night listening to Shoot Like a Woman session) and have all the handouts and slideshows as if you were sitting there. This year Blissdom at Home is trickling the information in ...
On Being Happy at 40
In the first surreal moments of my over 40 existence I found myself waking up here in a room fit for a princess. I made my way to this perfectly pink little room in our Orlando vacation home because as it turns out, after close to 19 years of marriage I have discovered my prince charming sleeps more like Shrek. I reverted to my inner child and sought solace from the sleeping ogre. And then I just laid here in bed and stared at the pretty princesses on the wall, thinking about all the dreams I had as a young girl to be one. Well, wake up sister. Cause 40 just reared it's ugly head. I am laughing to myself about all the blog posts I read "40 is the New 30" and even better, "40 is the New 20". Maybe Tinkerbell sprinkled them with some extra special magic fairy dust on them but I am going to get real and say "40 is the New 40". I don't know, maybe it is the end of whirlwind 12 days I have been gone. First on a preview cruise for the new Disney Fantasy Cruise or the ensuing days of theme parking but I am about ready to return home to reality. An over 40 reality. Its really just one day that has passed. But if I said it wasn't a big deal, I would be lying. I am ...