Up North Mommy

Please join me at the New and Improved Up North Mommy!

Hey, if you're here, you're in the wrong place!

But don't worry, you can find me at the New and Vastly Improved Up North Mommy.

Come on by!  Mimosas and breakfast goodies on the house!

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Fat Ticker Friday

Today's my first weigh in day for the Summer of Me! weight loss contest hosted by Baby Tea Leaves. I hopped on the scale first thing this morning and saw that I lost 1 pound. Not too bad.  I was hoping for 1.5 or 2 pounds, but I'll take the 1. 

So, I've got 1 pound down and 7 to go.  My goal is to lose 8 pounds by July 25th and 25 pounds total by the Fall.

To help me with my weight loss, I picked up a Pilates book that's actually three books in one from Barnes & Noble yesterday. I had a great beginner pilates DVD that I can't find anywhere, so I'm hoping this book helps motivate me.   

Aloha Friday #1

Hawaii is about as far away from Northern Michigan as you can get, but I love Kailani's  Aloha Friday meme.  The point is to ask a question and allow readers to answer, so here's mine:

What do you do on the weekends to relax after a hectic week?

I tried to install Mr. Linky into my post, but it's not showing up, so just leave a comment for me.  Thanks!

My new blog design is almost ready

I'm really looking forward to unveiling my new blog design for Up North Mommy. I've enlisted the design expertise of Natalie of Personatalie for this project, and I can tell you that she is doing a great job. It looks fantastic.  We've got only a few tweaks and then it will be ready for launch.

I have given in to the peer pressure. I'm Twittering.

It seems every time I go onto someone's blog, I'm faced with the pressure. Come Twitter with me! It's fun! Everyone's doing it!   Fussy, 5 Minutes for Mom, Mrs. Flinger, Darla. Everyone's Twittering.  Even my brother-in-law is Twittering, for crying out loud.

So last night I succumbed to the pressure and finally signed up for Twitter.

And I'm hooked already.

So, to you guys who aren't Twittering yet: what's up with you? Get over to Twitter and start following! You can find me right here.

Hey! I won something!

Wow.  I just won a month of free advertising from 5 Minutes for Mom.  In case you don't know 5 Minutes for Mom is one the biggest mom blogs out there in the mom blogosphere. In fact the twin sisters who own the site were mentioned in a Wall Street Journal piece about mommy bloggers. 

And a big congratulations to Trina who won the caboose trailer bike. She has an 8 year old child who's blind and has cerebral palsy and autism. How exciting that her little one will now be able to go for a bike ride safely. How fun for Trina and her family.

One of my favorite blogs

I love to read other moms' blogs because I love to read about what's going on in their lives, about their kids, what they're doing. In one case, however, one of the blogs I read isn't really about this woman's life, but about her creative journey.  Whenever I click over to her site, I know I'm going to be impressed by her work.  If you haven't been to Thinking Inking, I highly recommend you stop by and take a look at what Debbie Olson has created. She is a card maker, and she makes some of the most beautiful cards I have ever seen. Her creativity and attention to detail are simply amazing.  She's truly an artist. 

Mom blogs are the blogs to watch

Michelle at Scribbit has a piece about the power of mom blogs that was published over at Problogger. In it she argues that mom blogs are the blogs to watch, and she's absolutely right. She writes why mom blogs will only grow. However, her strongest argument is her final one. Here's a portion of what she writes:

In Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point he writes of the importance of mavens–those who are trusted for their opinions and who pass along information on what products, services and ideas are the best–and mom blogs are the maven nesting grounds. Moms want to know which products work and which don’t; they want to give an opinion on what’s worked for them and share their experiences with others and advertisers are just beginning to discover this advertising pot of gold.

Because women are generally the buyers for their homes in everything from clothing to food to minivans mom blogs talk about things that can be bought and sold, products that can be promoted and services that most households need. Proctor and Gamble, Sony or General Electric can throw up their logos on PerezHilton and that might make them look rather hip but if they can get Dooce to say she liked their stuff that’s when the sales start rolling in. You’ve heard “The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world”? Well she who does the shopping then blogs about it rules the net.

Michelle's argument is entirely true. Take for example the mom blog 5 Minutes for Mom. Twin sisters and moms Susan and Janice are constantly being asked by a variety of companies who are trying to market their products to moms and their families to review products for them.  That's huge exposure for these companies that is in some ways far more effective than television advertising. Commercials are shown on the television, but there's no guarantee that people will actually see those commercials or even pay attention to them if they do. It's advertising into the unknown in many ways. However, when a mom other moms trust blog about a product and recommend it, that's an interactive advertising that is better than the passivity of television commercials.

A little blog housekeeping

This is now my blog home base, so I'll be transferring my posts from Embracing Momminess over here. I'm also going to transfer my EM feed to this feed as well, so I'm hoping that means my feed subscriptions will transfer. So bear with me as I get all techy stuff figured out.

Update: From what I can tell so far, I can't automatically have my feed subscriptions transfer to my new blog, so I'm going to have to ask my readers from Embracing Momminess to resubscribe to my new blog.