This post is one of those that comes into my heart and has to be published. It's messy and raw and real. I have these moments where I just need to write. I am having a moment now so please indulge me by not caring about the way it comes out. Would Someone Please Stop the Merry-Go-Round? Really. I am tired. and dizzy. and I just don't know how many turns I can take at this. The ups and downs and the constant round and round. Never really getting anywhere. No finish line to reach. When your kids are little and they have a special challenge like spina bifida you have so many people there cheering you on. Cheerleaders do it out of love for you, your child, and a tiny hope that they are right. They say, "keep going" "you are in the hard years" "it will get better". Theoretically, they are lying. I don't think it is even a lie they are aware of. I have told it so many times myself. Somethings DO get better, but mostly you just get stronger. You transform from the crumbled mess you were on the day you heard your child's horrific diagnoses. You become harder to beat down. You readjust your vision of 'normal'. It's who we are as humans, as mothers and fathers. We ...
Klout: What Is It? And Why Should You Care?
Klout is a company that measures your influence across the social networking platforms of twitter, facebook, and recently added, linkedin. The official description from their site is: The Klout Score is the measurement of your overall online influence. The scores range from 1 to 100 with higher scores representing a wider and stronger sphere of influence. Klout uses over 35 variables on Facebook and Twitter to measure True Reach, Amplification Probability, and Network Score. Measuring social influence is not something new. Grader and plenty of others have been doing it for a long time. So, what is the big deal about Klout? The big deal is that it has quickly become the social media score lots of companies care about. What does that really mean? It means that your score could play an important role in your ability to be a part of campaigns, sell ad space, or even get noticed through customer service. There is a lot of backroom shop talk about how Klout is being used. It is becoming widely known that big hotel chains use it to decide if you are worthy of an upgrade. There are stories of people being moved to large suites and penthouses simply by mentioning their score. There ...
3 Premium WordPress Plugins Worth Having
Why pay for premium wordpress plugins when there are so many free, quality plug-ins available? Believe me, it is a question I asked more than once while setting up this blog. The answer I always came back to was this: I spend a lot of time and effort blogging! Why would I not invest in something so close to my heart? I wouldn't skimp on something for my boys, so why should I skimp on my writing platform? The paid plugins I talk about below all make my blogging life easier and the readers experience here better. They help to make sure my content is noticed by search engines and easily read by visitors. So, the reason to why I spend money on plugins? I value your time and effort as well as mine! WPtouch Pro- One of the complaints I would get on the old blog was that the site was really hard to navigate from a mobile device. This plugin makes my blog mobile friendly by creating a mobile theme. Go ahead, try it. Get out your smart phone and visit Mom Off Track mobile version. The PRO version of this plugin has a one time fee of $39. There is a free version of this available as well at ! I chose to go with the Pro version so that I could customize it more to look like ...
iPad 2 How I Love You
I snagged one of the elusive iPad 2's! I was at Best Buy the other day contemplating yet another Sony Vaio laptop for our family. Carter's is a little over 4 years old now and he really could use a faster speed for all the things he does. When I walked in I half joked, as I always do, asking if the new iPads had come in. Of course the girl shook her head no and we made some jokes about how lame Apple is that they can never meet demand. Which we were then told by an eavesdropper that the reason why there was such a back order is because they are made in Japan and production has been difficult post tsunami. So, off I went and purchased the aforementioned Vaio and as I was checking out, I guy walked by with two boxes of what appeared to be iPad 2's. "Could it be" I asked in amazement? He informed me that they had received a box in while I was shopping but the people on the very long prepaid list rejected these. They were white and only 16 g's. The equivalent of the red headed step child apparently in Mac geek world. But I didn't care. I have a 32 gig iPhone 4 and several Vaio laptops. This was just meant to be a shiny new toy for me to use at the hospital and while traveling. ...
On Getting Opinionated
...if you’re not worried about the backlash you’ll get from your writing, you’re probably not tackling anything terribly important.-Heretics, Superheroes, and Fighting the Lonely War of the Writer I can't tell you how many blog posts I have sitting in 'drafts' that I sat down and passionately poured my opinions out in. Yet, when it came time to hit the 'publish' button, I just didn't have the guts to. Fear. It is an interesting thing. I live in an interestingly, contradictory world. I love to write. I love to connect. I love it when someone actually reads what I have to write. But I am afraid to put my opinions out there for all to possibly criticize. I am afraid you may actually read what I have to write. What if I write something you don't like? Or we don't have the same politics? Or you don't get my sarcastically, quirky humor? You may make fun of me. You may leave me nasty comments. You might trash me online. I am OK with that. We probably weren't meant to be BFF's anyway. But what if you are a little crazier than that? And you go digging through all my posts and put together where I live, my social security number and even what color panties I wear on ...