Do you smell that?

People will ask me, “How do you keep UP with all those sites you write?”

My honest answer is generally, “Have you seen the condition of my house?”

And I ain’t lying on that one.

But it’s not as much heavy lifting as you’d think.

First of all, this blog is the only one I write full time on my own, the review site is only written about 4-5 times a month as I get specific projects (although the pimping of the reviews is a full time job of it’s OWN) and I post for 5 Minutes for Special Needs once a week.

A good portion of my time is spent Twittering about chocolate-covered bacon updating my Facebook status about how much I love the Cha Cha Slide networking and shameless self-promotion *HAI! Have you entered my contest for the IPod Touch yet? No? Are you still here?*.

Because the thing no one told me was that part of blogging was becoming your own marketing and PR team. HOLY crow did I not understand that. Because you can be the most amazing writer to ever put fingertip to key and if you don’t bust your butt to let others know about it, no one will ever read it. *The shameless self-promotion does not include nicknaming myself the “most amazing writer to ever put fingertip to key” but if you feel the need to call me that inside your head, that’s ok with me*

Like so many things I do, I tiptoed into this blogging world and then just fell in up to my ear tips.  Because I don’t do things halfway.  I charge in, blindly sometimes, and throw everything I have into it (well, except in regards to mopping my floors…I have yet to find the joy in that) and hope that it works out the way I wanted.

Sometimes it blows up in my face.

Sometimes when it blows up it showers me with candy and rose petals.

I’m never sure which way it’s going to go.

Some of you have been here with me from the very start. Those first sad days of this blog, when words were hard to come by, hope held us together. The years that followed as I worked hard to find my voice in the things I felt were happening to us, everything in my life felt reactionary.

Then came a point when I got to start taking action.  Pete and I talked about it TO DEATH, taking the blog in a different direction, both look and content.

Taking an adventure…seeing where it would lead.

I visited my hairdresser today (yeah, I got mah hair done, looks sassy) and he asked me what the draw was about being a blogger.

What I explained to him was that it was MY identity.  Something I’d sort of lost over the past years.  I was the kids’ mom, Pete’s wife and then I became a cancer mom and spent every drop of energy being HER, that person who had to find the strength, the patience and endurance to help bring my family through hell.

And I don’t resent her.  I love her.  I admire her because she reached down and found peace in places I never knew she could.

This is my time to meld all those pieces together and reconfigure who I am.

What I want to be when I grow up.

If I grow up.

My trip to Nashville opened my eyes to so much.  Parts of me that had been buried under the things I HAD to do, my ambitions and dreams and goals that I’d pushed aside to deal with the important things. All of a sudden, those things felt important again.

I want to write.

I have things to say, stories to tell..and they might not be earth-shattering, but they’re important to me.

I want to have things that are uniquely ME.

I want my identity to be about me and not just the people I love more than life itself…although they are the core base of who I am…it’s very circular, no?

Selfish?  Maybe to some.

But as things start to blow up around me, and I sniff to find the scent of candy and roses, it’s exciting.

And the heavy lifting is about to begin.

Attending the Blissdom conference has opened doors and possibilities that would have otherwise gone unrealized.  Opportunities to find out who I am, what I’m made of, what I’m capable of when I’m not just reacting, but seeking to make things happen.

I’m stepping back from my writing job at 5 Minutes For Special Needs for a wonderful reason: we are out of treatment and part of me feels it’s not the right venue for me anymore.  I will be staying on as part of the team because I fully believe in the tremendous community growing around it, but behind the scenes, helping where I can to make sure things run smoothly so more families can be welcomed.

I’ve joined the team of editors at Blog Nosh Magazine as a Race and Ethnicity editor, where I’ll be busy plumbing the depths of the blogiverse to find the voices out there waiting to be heard and shared. Not writing, but reading, discovering, widening the views and, hopefully, raising consciousness.

I have also taken on a writing position with the Silicon Valley Mom Group, writing for their Deep South Moms blog (because I’m a deeply southern woman, right?  Hey, it’s all about finding all the wonderful different parts that make the whole).

And in the super-secret labs, me and a team of brilliant geniuses scientists monkeys bloggers are brewing up something that I am ready to pour my heart and soul into…but that’s not for now…later…soon, though.

Do you hear that?

tick tick tick tick….

That’s the sound of something about to blow.

Do you smell candy?

****************************

{Yanked from the Caffeinatrix because I was too lazy to write anymore tonight when she says it so beautifully}

Okay, on a different note, this is a shameless plug for the “Room of Your Own” session at the BlogHer 09 conference that myself, Tanis (from Redneck Mommy) and Janet  (from the Caffeinatrix, the blogger formerly known as IzzyMom) will be hosting. In order to actually be able to host this awesome room, we need you to say you will attend (like a pre-headcount to gauge interest).

Of course, you don’t HAVE to attend but you know, but we need your support anyway so we have enough votes to have our idea approved. You don’t even have to be registered for BlogHer to say you would attend. You’re just expressing an interest, presumably because it’s an incredibly interesting topic being presented by three of your nicest, coolest (and terribly modest) fellow blogging friends!

Please help us insure we get a room because, seriously, our topic is one that every blogger on earth can relate to and people clearly want to talk about it. And yes, I’m both rambling AND groveling for your support and your willingness to say that if you are/were going to be there that there is nowhere else you’d rather be than in OUR “Room of Your Own“.

Just click the link right below the title that says you would attend (because you ARE, right? Right?) *bats eyelashes*

Thanks in advance for your support 🙂

xo
Janet, Tanis and Anissa