Awesome Children

These photos are of my two sons and my niece from her recent birthday, she’s now a very grown up TWO year old!

Bloggers Fear Themselves

Are you scared to hit publish on your latest post?

Lately I’ve come to the realization that as a blogger, you tend to be one of two people.

The “tell-it-like-it-is” blogger, doesn’t mind confrontation, and can handle 200 comments calling them an evil bitch and still manages to sleep peacefully at night.

The “play-it-nice” blogger, refrains from posting anything TOO confrontational, and if in the heat of passion hits publish on their post, freaks out that someone will post a mean comment, doesn’t sleep well for a week, and will revise their live post many times over to make everyone happy.

I’ve been on both sides. The first six or so years of blogging I said what was on my mind with no issue. Most of my “drama” came from offline sources. The only nasty comments I’ve really ever received came from DS1’s bio-father and his friend.

However, in the past three years I’ve slowly started to censor what I say. I play nice, I don’t post anything controversial, I agonize on what to post to make everyone happy, and usually, no one pays attention anyway.

We have created a society of blogger fear. If you say too much about your job, they could fire you. If you bring up family matters, they will call you or email you freaking out and screaming. If you blog about your friends, well then, you might be very lonely on the weekends.

We have created a society of artificial personalities. You play nice hoping it will give you more hits, more readers, more followers. You worry if you post ANYTHING that may conflict with another persons sensibilities, they may no longer like you, follow you, and no longer comment on your posts.

Back in April, I posted 24 Facts About Myself and the next day got forwarded an email from my sister that our mother sent her with the following:

WHEN YOU HAVE TIME TODAY GO READ SARAHS BLOG ON ONESTARRYNIGHT. SHE SAYS AND I QUOTE, I HAVENT SPOKEN TO OR HAD CONTACT WIH MY MOTHER SINCE DECEMBER. LIFE IS MUCH MORE PEACEFULL NOW. THAT REALLY WOUNDED ME. I FEEL USED AND ABUSED. THERE IS NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT. TO HAVE TWO ADULT CHILDREN OF MINE TURN THEIR BACKS ON ME I CAN NEVER FORGIVE THEM. I CERTAINLY DONT DESERVE THE WAY THEY HAVE TREATED ME FOR YEARS. I LEAVE THEM NOTHING BEHIND WHEN I DIE. IT ALL GOES TO YOU. MOM

This really bothered me for a variety of reasons but that a tiny snippet of what I wrote could cause such an intense reaction threw me for a loop. Granted I really could write an epic post on how I grew up and the emails I’ve received from my mother.

It doesn’t matter WHAT you blog about, someone will take issue with it. Someone you don’t even KNOW will feel like YOU are attacking them personally.

If you post about breastfeeding, you will most likely get a few comments from mothers who will tell you “formula is just fine” or “how dare you make me feel bad about my choice to formula feed!”.

If you post on how people always use the word “privileged” when talking about being a SAHM, people will come out of the woodwork and even try to turn it into a matter about race or physical handicaps.

Don’t get me started on the RSS feed debate, partial or full? You will find people arguing for both sides. You are never RIGHT.

Not to say that posting something honest or even controversial, will automatically bring forth negative responses.

When I recently posted about embracing my fatness, I got a lot of great comments, helpful comments, and supportive comments. I will admit I wasn’t too pleased to see that a lot of people assume being fat = eating crap all day long, but overall, I found the response I got to be positive.

I’ve met some AMAZING people in the past nine years that without OSN, would never have happened.

So why then do we censor ourselves, if generally, no matter what we say, someone will take issue with it? Because at the end of the day we just want to feel connected to other people. We want friends, we want to KEEP the friends we already have, and not cause any waves. We want to be liked.

Do you censor yourself on your blog? Why or why not?

Also, just because I’m curious, have you ever had to deal with a negative reaction because of your blog, or had to deal with rude comments, twitter messages, emails, and such stemming from your online life? How did you handle it?

The Lotus

I Gave Up on Having a Mom

Now granted, that’s not possible in the biological sense but in the emotional sense? I finally released myself from desiring a healthy relationship with my mother.

I grew up in an abusive household. I have very few memories from my childhood. My counselor from when I was a teenager told me I was repressing the trauma. Fantastic.

I do remember being 5 or maybe 6 years old and refusing to take some liquid medicine (I can only assume I had a cold?) and having my mother throw the medicine in my face, calling me a little bitch, and making me take a bath while blaming me for her actions.

I was always labeled the “bad one”, which, being a twin, seems to hurt a bit more for some reason. I could do no right, I was always being told how she wished she could have aborted me, how I reminded her of my father. I was always to blame for HER struggles in life.

She informed me on my 15^th birthday that she had married a man I had never met, who was in jail at the time, by running to the bank and asking me to “grab my new marriage license from the glove box!”.

She would lament on what an awful daughter I was to anyone who would listen. I was a dropout from high school (I worked two fast food jobs instead), yet every time I came to her for educational support, I was ignored or hit or screamed at. She would tell people I was an alcoholic or doing drugs but then buy me wine coolers and cigarettes. She would accuse me of being a thief while taking the child support checks she got from my father and spending them on antique dishes or fabrics.

I will skip over the numerous times that she sent me to teen shelters (while “keeping” my twin sister), or how she had no problem driving me to the airport to live with a guy I met online (who ended up being DS1’s abusive bio-dad, ironic).

Our relationship once I became a mother became off and on. She would tell me that I was doing a great job with my son and then gossip maliciously behind my back, about my breastfeeding, co-sleeping, overall attachment parenting in general.

By the time I became pregnant with DS2, she tried to get back into my good graces. She would send me boxes and boxes of baby clothes she won from auctions, of which I was grateful. Granted, the majority of the clothing is in storage because it was seasonally inappropriate (a thick winter jacket sized for the middle of summer). However I appreciated the effort involved as I was so sick and on bedrest that I couldn’t go out shopping.

Then it turns out the clothing had “strings” attached. Every time I didn’t email her quick enough, or answer her phone calls, I would get an email or a voicemail attacking me or trying to make me feel guilty for not responding. How she spent money purchasing those baby clothes, so I OWED her now. That again, I was a terrible daughter for putting her through so much.

She met my first son when he was 18 months old. She has never met my second son. She didn’t ever make an effort to be their grandmother. They have no grandmother really as both my mother and their bio-father’s mothers’ never took an interest in them.

It kills me. I had a very close relationship with my maternal grandmother and had always wanted that for my boys.

By the time December of 2009 had rolled around. I had enough. It had me completely stressed out. I would panic every time I saw her number appear on my caller id, dreaded the mail arriving for fear of another written letter on how much of a disappointment I was to her. She made false promises to my oldest son about gifts she would send him but never would. It tore at me how excited he would get to see the mail truck arrive, only to NOT receive the “promised toys”.

I decided to cut her out of our lives. I didn’t want my children being exposed to her toxic nature.

Life has overall been peaceful since I made that choice. Granted, she will still send me emails, or I have my sister notify me of what our mother is saying about me. I try to take into account that my brother has also cut her out of his life so it can’t just be ME and MY thinking. I just try and ignore it. I don’t respond.

Whenever I would try to bring up the abuse she did to me, she would blame my father, blame DS1’s bio-dad, blame her mother (my grandmother)… she never takes any accountability for HER actions.

Snippets from Recent Emails

I AM THE ONLY MOTHER YOU WILL EVER HAVE.I AM DEEPLY HURT BY YOUR SILENCE. I AM MAKING A WILL. IF I DONT HEAR FROM YOU SOON I WILL LEAVE EVERYTHING I HAVE TO YOUR SISTER.

YOU DID TERRIBLE THINGS TO ME GROWING UP, BUT I DONT HOLD THEM AGAINST YOU OR THINK ABOUT THEM. LET THE PAST STAY IN THE PAST! THINK ABOUT THESE THINGS. GOD FORBID SOMETHING WOULD EVER HAPPEN TO KEITH. WHAT WOULD YOU DO? WHO WILL BE THERE FOR YOU ?????

I FEEL USED AND ABUSED. TO HAVE TWO ADULT CHILDREN OF MINE TURN THEIR BACKS ON ME I CAN NEVER FORGIVE THEM. I CERTAINLY DONT DESERVE THE WAY THEY HAVE TREATED ME FOR YEARS. I LEAVE THEM NOTHING BEHIND WHEN I DIE. IT ALL GOES TO YOU.

The worst would come from the written letters. Full of vile and hate really.

Would I want a relationship with my mother today? No. I don’t trust her. I, in some ways, even fear her.

Would I want my children to have a relationship with their grandmother? Yes. However, l don’t want my children getting hurt. She has already displayed her lack of interest in my children over the last 8 years. She has expressed that she feels that way partly because they are boys (she vastly prefers my niece, her granddaughter who she made an effort to visit as a baby).

How is your relationship with your parents? If you have them, with your in-laws?

How I Made a Facebook Landing Page

Go check out the awesomeness of my Facebook Fan Page. Seriously. I dare you.

I bet you totally want to learn to do it right? Right!

Now there are plenty of other tutorials out there but generally, I’m not fond of them. Overall they suggest creating a single boring graphic, it doesn’t help you link to your other outlets like twitter for example. A graphic is PRETTY but I’m all about connecting with links.

Now, I am going to assume you already have a facebook fan page (and you really should go and make a vanity URL just make sure 25 people are “liking” you!).

How to add the Static FBML application to your page

• Make sure you are logged into facebook
• Go to the Static FBML page
• Click “Add to my Page”
  
• A lovely window should pop up with all the pages you are an Admin of. Click “Add to Page” next to the page you want to make awesome.
• Go to your FB fan page and click “Edit Page”
  
• Go down to the Applications section until you see the FBML area
  
• Change the box title to something short and sweet.Put all of your glorious HTML into the box.
  
• Go to your FB fan page and click “Edit Page”
  
• Go down to the Applications section until you see the FBML area and click “Application Settings”
  
• A box will pop up asking if you want this new “page” to be a box or tab. We want it to be a tab.
  
• Look, you have a new tab! Click it and make sure your HTML is correct, everything looks and works the way you want it, etc.
  
• Now, we want to make this new tab the FIRST thing a new visitor will see, and hopefully they will be so amazed by your awesome creativity that they will “like” you!
  Go to your FB fan page and click “Edit Page”
  
• Go down to under and click “Edit” under the wall settings
  
• There’s a ton of settings but the only one we care about right now is “Default Landing Tab”
  

I know it looks like a lot of steps but really, it’s quite easy! The hard part is figuring out what you WANT on your landing page!

To help, here’s mine up for grabs! Download my FB Landing Page!

Now, in the comments, share YOUR Facebook Fan Page! Landing page or not, I want to become YOUR fan as well!

If you have any questions, need help, whatever it may be, feel free to ask!

Pink and Green in Nature

4 More Ways to Improve Your Blog

Awhile back I wrote a post called 5 Ways to Improve Your Blog, and because I want YOU to have the most awesome blog EVER, I will share four MORE ways that will help!

1. Improve SEO

You want search engines to find you, love on you, and lavish tons of traffic your way.

Use “pretty” Permalinks
A lot of times you will come across a URL that looks like this: yourdomain.com/?p=146. That gives us no information, doesn’t even LOOK appealing, and rarely will I click on a link that doesn’t have a descriptive title.

In WordPress it’s very simple to change how our permalinks look! I personally go with just the postname.

In your WP dashboard, navigate to settings -> permalinks and change them as such:

Now we have a URL as such: yourdomain.com/awesome-post-of-awesomeness.

Create an Archives Page
This is so easy! You can see how I have my archives page set up.

I use two plugins to achieve it:

• Compact Archives
• Simple Tags

I think the best features to have on an archives page are:

• search bar
• categories
• tags
• organized by month/year

I’m offering up my archives page up for download so you can see how I created mine!

2. Stop with the Sponsored Posts

This may not go over well with some individuals.

It’s one thing to give a specific review that you’ve been paid to do, to wax poetic about the latest and greatest service or product but it’s another to weave it randomly into your post! Here’s an example!

How did that make ANY sense? Weaving the phrase, baby shower invitations, into every other post may give you an extra $3 but at what cost to your readers?

If I come to a blog I want to read about a specific topic or about your personal life. When it’s obvious that you blog only do get those sponsored links in, it’s a big turn off.

Oh and, stop with the sponsored tweets. Seriously.

3. Enhance the Rss Experience

Ah the joys of RSS! Without it I don’t think any of us would be able to keep up with our daily reads!

Get Rid of Partial Feeds
Granted, there will always be the debate between full vs partial RSS feeds. Overall most READERS prefer full feeds. Those who offer up only partial feeds tend to believe that it will encourage click throughs… I feel it only encourages people to unsubscribe.

In your WP dashboard, navigate to settings -> reading and change them as such:

Create a RSS Footer
For this I use the RSS Footer Plugin. This is how I have mine set up:

<div style="border-top: 1px dotted #4f1029; font-size: 11px">
<br />
<img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3232/3130420002_60d2d338e7_t.jpg"
style="float: left; margin-right: 10px;" />
Thank you for subscribing to my RSS feed at %%BLOGLINK%%! I would appreciate
your comments and feedback on the entry you just read, %%POSTLINK%%. If you
write about similar topics, I would also like the opportunity to
<a href="http://onestarrynight.com/elsewhere">link to your blog
</a> or have you <a href="http://www.onestarrynight.com/guest-post-
guidelines/">write a guest blog entry</a>!</div>
<br style="clear:both" />

Don’t go overboard in trying to cram too much information in your RSS footer, on the flip side don’t have it be bland and boring. When I posted about this before in my post, Answers to Your Questions, I saw a few people had added it to their feed however it actually irritated me! Slapping in one line, thanks for subscribing to domain.com’s feed is a waste of space for me. I personally like to see a link to the original post, a call to action (such as asking people to comment on the post), and a recognizable image such as an avatar or logo.

4. Have a Fantastic Comments Page

We love comments don’t we! People have dedicated entire threads on forums to get comments on their post, heck, people have even quit blogging because they don’t feel they get enough comments!

So here are the plugins I use on my comments page:

• FeedBurnerCount
• Twounter
• Yet Another Related Posts Plugin
• TwitterLink Comments
• Subscribe to Comments
• Comment Reply Notification
• CommentLuv

I know, seems like a lot but they each have their purpose, so I highly recommend playing around with them!

I highly suggest including Gravatars in your comments. These days we tend to be recognized by our photo, our “avatar”. It’s very simple to include in your theme, just add this snippet to where you want the gravatar to be displayed.

<?php echo get_avatar( $comment, $size = '50' ); ?>

Now, I personally do threaded comments because I prefer to respond to each comment individually. This is how I have mine set up.

In my theme’s functions.php file, I created a custom function called osn_comment.

You can download my custom comment function, comments CSS file and the entire comments.php file to see how I have everything set up. Granted I don’t have the cleanest code since well, I code for myself, but still, it might help!

Be Social
I have it set up so that at the end of the post on the comments page, you awesome folks can tweet, share/like on facebook, and even stumble the post. I’ve found this helps reach individuals that normally wouldn’t come across your blog and perhaps even bring in new followers, subscribers, and friends!

Here are the snippets that can work on any WordPress blog, even without the use of plugins!

TweetMeme

<script type="text/javascript">
tweetmeme_url = '<?php the_permalink(); ?>';
</script>
<script type="text/javascript"
src="http://tweetmeme.com/i/scripts/button.js">
</script>

Share on Facebook

<script>var fbShare = {
size: 'small',
}</script>
<script src="http://widgets.fbshare.me/files/fbshare.js">
</script>

StumbleUpon

<script src="http://www.stumbleupon.com/hostedbadge.php?s=1">
</script>

Like on Facebook

<iframe src="http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=
<?php echo urlencode(get_permalink($post->ID)); ?>
&amp;layout=standard&amp;show_faces=false&amp;width=450
&amp;action=like&amp;colorscheme=light" scrolling="no"
frameborder="0" allowTransparency="true" style="border:none;
overflow:hidden; width:450px; height:60px"></iframe>

Hopefully those four suggestions will help!

Based on the recommendation of BabyBabyLemon, I created a “Tip Jar”! Feel free to use or not use as you wish

Lastly, a bonus tip, claim your blog on Technorati! For example, my claim code is: J438MBK99B7Z this says that I am the owner of OSN. I think in general it’s just the smart thing to do and can aide in more traffic!

Share in the comments some ways that you’ve improved your blog!

Overload: Animal Style

Building a Better Blog Challenge

At the persistence of my lovely friend Lynda, I’ve finally decided to go ahead and jump into the SITSgirls 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Challenge.

Since I’m broke, I didn’t purchase the e-book that is recommended however the steps are outlined at ProBlogger so I’m fairly confident that I will be able to follow along!

To Catch Up:

• read more about me
• check out my list post, 4 MORE Ways to Improve Your Blog
• learn more about photography with my tutorials: Basic Aperture & Basic Shutter Speed
• I also wrote that Bloggers Fear Themselves

Hopefully y’all will appreciate the more frequent posts here and OSN and maybe learn something along the way!

I Fear Change

I know I can’t be the only one.

The past decade has been packed full of drama and change that I’ve come to fear it in some ways. Just to give an idea, here’s a timeline:

• 2000: Got hit by Matt for the first time. Became codependent on him. Became very depressed. Used to use an online program called Palace. Started using online diaries and a manual blog on angelfire.
• 2001: I had a plan in place to move back to Tucson and leave Matt when I discovered I was pregnant with Danny in May. Started OSN.
• 2002: I gave birth via c-section to my first son.
• 2003: Discovered that my fiance of 4 yrs (at that point) had been cheating on me, stealing money from me and my family. Which in hindsight shouldn’t have been a surprise since if he was able to hit me, of course he was able to cheat. Kicked him out. Danny took his first steps at 14 months of age. Started working again. Dropped a ton of weight.
• 2004: Matt moved back in. Due to lack of transportation and pressure from Matt, I quit my job. Daniel chose to start potty learning. Switched from MovableType to ExpressionEngine. Started working again, this time for a plumbing company. Finally, at the end of the year, fully split up with Matt. He never did work while he lived with us. Gained back all the weight I had lost, and then some.
• 2005: Bought the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ20K camera. Had emergency gallbladder removal surgery. I also used to do podcasts. Got my Illinois drivers license. Started to work on my weight and health.
• 2006: Bought my first car (Scion xA) and first DSLR camera (Nikon D50). Just really dealt with being a single, full time WOHM momma. Daniel self-weaned. Got in a car accident.
• 2007: I quit my job at the plumbing company and started working at GeekSquad. I began playing World of Warcraft. My twin sister became pregnant.
• 2008: The year I went crazy. Got my first tattoo. Had one of the best summers of my life. One of the most drama filled as well. Daniel went to live with Matt for five miserable months. I met Keith. We moved in together. I was smoking a pack a day (didn’t handle Dan living with Matt very well).
• 2009: I discover I am pregnant with Tristan. I quit smoking cold turkey the same day. I dealt with the cat lady. I switched from ExpressionEngine to WordPress, and haven’t looked back. We decided to start unschooling. I gave birth via repeat c-section to Tristan.
• 2010 (so far): I posted my first vlog. Purchased my lovely iPhone 3gs and Nikon D90. I wrote why I am estranged from my mother.

Tomorrow Keith starts his new job. I’ve gotten so used to him being the other SAHP that I’m fairly sure the first few weeks will have a steep learning curve as I get readjusted to being a SAHM. Next month my oldest son will be going on his annual trip to Michigan with my twin sister and her fiance for a week. I think I will go stir crazy.

I don’t seem to handle these large changes as well as I used to. I think I am easily overwhelmed these days.

I’ve also met some awesome bloggers along the way. By no means is this a complete list!

Amber {twitter: ambienine} and I have been best friends since we were in highschool french class together. I don’t think I could have survived those years without her!

Gina {twitter: TheFeministBreeder} and I started talking the night I went into labor with Tristan. I was fighting for a VBAC. She contacted me via twitter and we started txting. I don’t think she even knows how much that still means to me.

Joni {twitter: KitchenWitch} and I developed a quick and strong friendship. We have a LOT in common. She has MAD artist skills to the point that I can’t contain my jealously. I txt her randomly through out the day and she hasn’t gotten irritated yet!

Lynda {twitter: lynda} and I have known each other for YEARS online. She has mad photography skills and is beyond intelligent. I only wish I was as well spoken as she is!

Catie {twitter: catielove} and I have run in the same online circles for a few years now and recently got closer! I love how supportive she is of attachment parenting and it’s always nice having someone to rant about CSS to LOL!

So how has this decade treated you so far?