Ideas from BlogHer08 - it's about time!

As I think about getting Kitchen Gadget Girl up and running, and driving traffic and readers to the site, I uncovered a host of ideas from BlogHer that I had not processed. I share them here, mostly to keep track for myself, but just in case they might be useful to someone else.

One of the speakers I heard that weekend was Anne-Marie Nichols. Her Write Spot blog shows bloggers how to promote your site through social networking. Since that is pretty much the game now, her tips and tricks are useful. I enjoyed her recent article on joining a Blog Network, and she wrote up her suggestions from BlogHer.

At the same session, I listened to Gwen Bell, who summed up her talk here. The main takeaway for me was to check out Kirtsy, and start my own Flickr photostream.

From the writing session, Amy Gahran of Contentious provided these tips:

• Clarify my goal in writing
• Who is my core community (picture a real person when writing)
• Make points, set content, have a call to action/next steps
• Keep it to 250 words
• Remove flab

She also suggested checking out Lijit, Wordtracker.com, and co.mments.com.

Elise Bauer from Simply Recipes had tons of great ideas for building traffic. The first one I implemented was the Blogger Blog List for UpTake. In the case of UpTake, it allowed me to build an RSS feed of the travel bloggers that I read a lot. I have not figured out the best way to use it on Kitchen Gadget Girl yet.

She also suggested connecting with other bloggers at the same stage of life. In the technology front, Elise suggested checking out Google Share, Picassa, Fireworks, iPhoto, Picnik, Browsershots.org, Sitemeter, and Google Alerts (to keep track of your content).

And finally, at the FAQs for Beginning Bloggers session, I picked up these hints:

• Adding a banner to my blog, which I desperately need for Eco Play
• When linking to another blog, use the name of the post in your link
• You can add a watermark in photoshop, GIMP or Picnik
• Finding photos for the web

Photo tips for Flickr

I love using Flickr - I mostly use it to make photos ready for my blogs. My food blog, Kitchen Gadget Girl, uses lots of photos, so this morning, I ran out of room on my free Flickr account. Fortunately, I remembered how to make my photos smaller by exporting them out of iPhoto. Once I did that, I was able to upload everything I needed. Here is what I did:

1. In iPhoto, select the photos I want to upload (I do this by putting 3 stars next to the ones I like)
2. Click on File -> Export
3. Select File Export, then Scale Images. I used 1024 for the width, and it automatically figured out the height. I keep the filename, but I created a new folder on my desktop to store all the smaller photos in. Click on Export.
4. Open up Flickr Uploadr, drag and drop the now-small photos into the window, click Upload.

And there you have it. The picture above is Little A helping me can tomatoes yesterday!

Money does grow on trees...

at least, that is what my kids think!

The Big Guy is actually pretty good with money management. In January, we decided to give him an allowance, and after figuring out that a weekly plan would not work for us (who ever has $1 bills in their wallet) we came up with a monthly payout. The first of each month, he gets his allowance and promptly organizes it into his Learning Cents Bank - 55% in spend, 30% in save and 15% in give.

For the money that he saves, we deposit it regularly into a bank account, and my husband and I match the savings 1:1. So, if he deposits $20, we deposit $20 into his account. Nice.

Same thing for the giving, although we have yet to actually give any money. This will be my next project, putting together some options that we can talk about as a family. High on the Big Guy's list now is his school library and Ronald MacDonald House.

Now, we also implemented an allowance plan for Little A at the same time, however, she is less quick to catch on to the plan. Although, after a recent trip to the Apple Store, she now has her heart set on a new iPod Nano, and seems to get that she needs to save her $199 to buy one.

Several times this year, we have caught her in her room with her bank, giving out money to whatever friend was over playing. As a result, we keep her bank in our room and bring it out on allowance day.

Both kids are allowed to buy what they would like with their spend money, but we do try to point out that they have many options. The Big Guy is currently obsessed with Pokemon, and spends most of his allowance on the trading cards - once he reaches 800 cards, I have told him that he cannot spend anymore money on Pokemon. He seems cool with that, and is already talking about saving up for something big.

Our goal in giving our kids money was to teach them how to manage it. When I was growing up, I did not have the same education, and money in my house was a bad thing, a scarce thing, a not-talked-about thing, and it was rare for me to have my own money and make my own decisions.

I would like my kids to understand the importance of saving and giving, and being able to make sound decisions about money. I want to encourage them to make smart choices when it comes to spending their money, and want them to think beyond the short term. Just like their mother, hah!

Thanks to superdumb supervillain for reminding me about the Parent Bloggers Network Blog Blast about money management and children, in conjunction with the financial literacy partnership between Consumer Action and Capital One, highlighting the new Moneywi$e eLearning Tool.

Remembering September 11th

The internet is full of beautifully written tributes to 9/11, some are here, here and here. But this afternoon, as I stopped by our local fire station to take this picture, I tried to explain to my kids what happened on 9/11/01.

Both kids talked about it in class today, talked about the Twin Towers and the disaster. I am not sure how many details they heard, but for some reason, tonight I felt as though I could share more information about the awfulness of the day with my two kids.

My daughter wanted to know how it happened. I explained about the airplanes, the really bad men, the towers falling. Why did they do that, she wanted to know. Because they want to hurt the United States.

My son wanted to know what happened to the bad men. I explained they died in the plane crash. I also tried to explain the incredible bravery of the women and men on United Airlines flight 93, the passengers who thwarted the terrorists attempts to crash the plane which was headed for San Francisco.

This particular element still makes me choke up - I can imagine the passengers, frightened out of their minds, thinking about their loved ones at home, determined to stop what is clearly happening before their eyes. I think of their sacrifice, my heart hurts.

After 7 years, I still don't know what to make of this tragedy. I ache thinking about 9/10/01 and how everything was so much simpler that day, just the day before. My son, 13 months old at the time, will never know a time in which this tragedy did not exist. My daughter will always know about the bad people in the world who took over planes on 9/11 and crashed them into buildings.

I have run out of words to describe how I feel. It is still heartbreaking.