Can you look at this product name without laughing like a kid?

 

Tell us your Blog’s story! What made you start blogging? Why did you decide to open up a slice of cyberspace and put your name on it? Tell us what your purpose was back then – is it the same today or have you changed focus?

Many blogs have a rich history, and as a bloggers life changes so does their blog. So it will be interesting to see everyone’s posts this week!

If you’ve never participated it’s easy to do so – don’t be shy. You have until Friday to share you link on the linky and get your mojo goin!

When I started blogging, I had been digital scrapbooking for awhile, and I was getting into photography. I noticed the blog train on scrapping forums where I belonged, so I started my blog as a way to show off the pages I was doing, and to help promote the designers I was working with at the time. In addition, it was a way to document what was going on in our lives. It gave me another creative outlet.

The more I got into the blogging, the more I moved away from the digiscrapping. It’s sad, but I haven’t scrapped in two years. Blogging has become my creative outlet while the rest has taken a backseat. Now, I’m still blogging about our lives, but less about the scrapping. It’s more about the three A’s – Autism, Allergies, and Army. That’s what is taking up the majority of our time these days.

It’s through blogging and social media that I’ve met a fantastic network of people of all kinds. I’m constantly learning, growing, and changing from the people who I’ve chosen to surround myself with – my virtual family.

-Another post on why you shouldn’t work for free. This one had me at “..form of business sluttery.”

-I participated in the “Roast in a Post” at Collective Bias again this year. If you’d like to see the kind words Chacoy wrote about me, you can check them out on her blog, Living in LaLa Land.

-If you’d like to see my non electrical take on the birdcage lamp, check out my guest post on Home to Heather.

That’s all I’ve got. I hope you have a good holiday weekend no matter what holiday you’re celebrating (seems at least a couple are overlapping this year)!

This week’s Monday Mojo (yes I know it’s Wednesday, but you have all week to link up, remember?):

For this week, we would love for you to share a picture of your Christmas Tree (if you celebrate!) Also, let us know what your favourite holiday traditions are! I know I love to hear how other people celebrate. We can’t wait to hear what you do!

I finally decorated our Christmas tree the other night after much nagging from my 5yo. I put it off as long as I could because:

1. I wasn’t in the mood.
2. The boys can’t leave the $&%(% tree alone.
3. The lights on two branches near the bottom of the tree just poofed the other day (see $%*@) tree).

It’s not perfect, but it’s decorated. Next year, I”m going back to our regular tree that I have to string the lights on myself. It fluffs better (real trees make me itch). The bald spots on this tree are really getting to me. I’m glad we didn’t pay any more for it than we did. We’ve gotten our money’s worth, and I think it’s done. (Excuse the crappy cell phone pic. My camera has turned into a princess and will only focus when it wants to. Check out some of our ornaments.

Other traditions that we have include:

• pizza on Christmas Eve
• leaving beer and cookies for Santa (who wants to put toys together sober?)
• Welsh cookies
• pancakes for breakfast Christmas morning, made by my husband (the best part)
• ravioli lasagna for Christmas dinner (I’m the only one who likes turkey, and no one like ham)
• something crafty for when the kids are bored with their Christmas gifts to help maintain our sanity over their break

This year, I drew Nicole of SAHM Reviews. I’ll be honest, I didn’t know Nicole at all before this. In the end, I got to know someone new, and that’s really cool (I just couldn’t friend her on Facebook or anything before now, or that would’ve been too obvious).

Now, SAHM Reviews is Nicole’s review blog. If you’re looking to learn about a variety of products, that’s the place to be. I really like the way Nicole really includes how the product fits into her life when she does reviews. It’s not simply information copied and pasted from the press emails or product websites. She really takes the time to give you a feel if you might be able to use it in your own home. In fact, I was sold on the Zero Scale until I read that your kids can mess up your numbers. I was liking that the scale just tells you how much you’ve lost or gained, not how much you weigh.

Then I was digging. And digging. And I learned through another review that Nicole has dogs that she loves dearly, but they have fur she needed to keep up with that was getting on her furniture. Then I found out she has two daughters. Then I was stuck. Then there’s Nicole’s site qponrs.com, but what information was I going to get from a coupon site?

So I let the information I found sit for awhile. Then I revisited Facebook. Then I revisited the sheet we filled out about ourselves letting the person who was roasting us know where we could find more information. Then I realized I had missed a site. Nicole also has SAHM Ramblings.

This is where I learned why Nicole started blogging, and that she started SAHM reviews after enjoying her work with BzzAgent.

I hope you got to know Nicole a little bit better. I know I did, and I look forward to getting to know her more through actual interaction, and not just stalking all of her social media accounts.

Merry Christmas, Nicole!

Also, I have changed email subscription services to one that should be more reliable for those who said they weren’t getting the feed. By using mail chimp, I’ll also be able to occasionally offer subscribers information or promotions that aren’t available to the masses here on the blog. If you’re a current email subscriber, please drop your current subscription and re-subscribe with the new service to make use of all of the new features.

Which brings up the point that if you’re not a Facebook subscriber, you may be missing out. I do post new articles and relevant information that I find on the Facebook fan page that I don’t necessarily post here. It’s much easier to grab a share off a page like the National Guard page for example than to write a whole post.

I look forward to wrapping up 2011 in the next couple weeks and starting fresh in 2012!

Monday Mojo Topic
For this week, we would love for you to share your favourite holiday recipes! I am always looking for new things! (Any holiday will do!)

Welsh cookie

I’d have to say that our favorite holiday recipe, hands down, is Welsh Cookies. It’s a tradition that comes from my husband’s family. His two grandmothers brought their respective family recipes over from Wales. I had never had them until I met my husband. For his family, they are a cookie unique to Christmas. They’re not your typical sweet cookie either. They’re more of what I’d consider a tea sort of cookie. I guess that’s why in his family the kids are allowed to have them for breakfast during the holiday season.

Last year, we had some cookies, from an unknown bakery that were so good. They were soft and moist. I’ve been working to try and replicate that in our cookies. I’ll be honest. I totally threw out his family’s recipes and started from scratch. I found a recipe online at Joy of Baking. Then I was talking with a friend who does way more baking than I do (I cook, but not so much in the baking department). She gave me some suggestions, and this is what I’ve come up with. They are a much lighter cookie, and if cooked right, soft and moist too. Hint: DO NOT BAKE YOUR WELSH COOKIES. THEY ARE NOT THE SAME. Just to let you know. I tried that this year too instead of the griddle.

Welsh Cookie Dough

Ingredients:
2 cups cake flour (yes, it does need to be cake flour)
1/3 cup sugar
2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4-1/2 teaspoon cinnamon (to taste)
1/4-1/2 teaspoon nutmeg (to taste)
1/4 cup cold shortening
1/4 cup cold butter
1/3 cup currants (I find raisins to be too big and icky)
1 large egg
4 tablespoons milk (this may be more or less depending on environment)

To Make Dough:

In a medium bowl, mix dry ingredients. Add shortening and butter, cutting in like making a pie crust. Add currants. Add milk until dough comes together, but don’t over mix. Form dough into a ball and refrigerate for at least 10 minutes (I usually make dough while I’m making dinner, and make cookies the next day).

To Make Cookies:

Take half the dough and roll to 1/4″ thickness. Cut into 2″ circles. Cook on medium heat on a griddle until browned on both sides, much like pancakes. Sprinkle with sugar when they come off the griddle if desired.

What do you do to get your mojo back when it seems to be missing? What are your suggestions for renewing creativity within yourself and how do you keep your writing fresh?

Ironic since yesterday I sat with this tab open all day and nothing came out. I just can’t write if I’m not moved. When I force it, it’s crap. If you’re a regular reader here, I’m sure you can tell which are the more forced posts and which flow more freely.

When I’m in a funk, I do several things. I play games in an effort to ignore said lack of writing. I sit and stare at the blank box where text should be in WordPress. I surf other blogs. I hang out on Twitter and Facebook. I’ve even been known to do laundry. I know, the horror! If it’s a weekend, I’ll search for a day trip to drag my family out of the house just so we not only have something to do, but I can take pictures and blog about what we did that day.

What do you do when you can’t seem to get the words out? Come join us for Monday Mojo and on the forum.

1. Edit your Twitter plug in to shorten links if possible.

2. Also with the Twitter plug in, make sure it adds “via @yourTwitterhandlehere.” That way people can see where the content came from, and if they like it, check out more. You may even get new followers.

3. If you use the CommentLuv plug in, go to the CommentLuv site, log in, and choose an icon for your blog. Otherwise, the CommentLuv icon appears as a broken graphic at the bottom of your comment area.

4. Add social media icons somewhere on your posts. Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon, Google+, etc. It’s so much easier to share, and people are more likely to do it if all they have to do is click a button.

5. OK, this one is just an annoyance. Please, stop Tweeting about Klout. It’s really clogging the streams, and I’m tempted to start unfollowing people. If you use Klout, you have a dashboard that tells you who gave you klout. There is no need to put all of this on public display and clog Twitter.