Category Archives: National Blog Posting Month

National Blog Posting Month, Screen time

Watching bad movies is still time spent together

11/09/2010 Nichole 4 Comments

I watched “Letters to Juliet” this weekend with my 10-year-old niece. The movie was an eye-roller, but spending the one-on-one time with Sophie was worth it. We don’t see her all that often, but still. She seems to have grown up overnight. She looks and sounds more like a teenager than a little kid now. Except when the “old people” kiss onscreen and she has an “ewwwwwwww that’s so gross” conniption fit.

Anyway, the movie was lame and silly. But the scenery was gorgeous. Sophie and I decided that we’re going to France and Italy when she turns 21. (At which time I will be 42. Whoa.) She wants to go to Verona and put a letter on the Juliet wall about her French boyfriend Jean George, whom she’ll be meeting in Paris. I’m looking forward to it. (And Chloe? I promise Soph and Jean George will be well-chaperoned.)

menu plan Monday, National Blog Posting Month

The freezer section is playing a major role this week

11/08/2010 Nichole 3 Comments

We’re going to be having some unusual scheduling at the end of our week, because I’m going away with some friends for a few days and leaving Rockford in charge. I’ll tell you more about what’s going on with that next week. In the meantime, here’s what we’ll be eating this week:

Monday: General Chang’s Chicken: I don’t buy the frozen-meal-in-a-bag products very often, but I was intrigued when I saw that PF Changs was making them. I love PF Changs. The General Chang’s meal isn’t my favorite (that would be crab wontons + Kung Pao Scallops), but I’m hoping this will be delicious anyway.
Tuesday: Bean griddlecakes and cheese quesadillas: I know Poppy won’t touch the bean cakes, so I’m also making the quesadillas. Which means I’m seasoning the beans with the same salsa & taco seasoning blend again.
Wednesday: Eggs & veggie sausages: I used duck eggs for last week’s breakfast for dinner, and the kids said they were tasty. We’re back to chicken eggs this week, unless the neighbors bring us more of their ducks’ bounty.
Thursday: Pizza: Pizza Thursday two weeks in a row? Yes. And this week it’s an even lazier edition, in that I’m using a frozen pizza.

National Blog Posting Month, Social Media

Blog early, blog often: Finding things to write about

11/03/2010 Nichole 2 Comments

I’m participating in National Blog Posting Month, which means I have to come up with something to say here every day in November. I do post pretty frequently. Even so, it’s going to be a challenge to come up with something interesting to write every day. (Disclaimer: There’s no way I’ll come up with something interesting every day. But I will post something.)

Writing regularly is a good idea even if you aren’t participating in NaBloPoMo. For me, it helps me feel like I’m engaged in a world outside of peanut butter and fingerpainting. It also keeps my brain a little bit sharper, I think. (Except for when I’m taking cold medicine. Like, say, right now. Then I write things like “little bitter sharper,” which is sometimes accurate, too.)

I find that it helps to follow a schedule with my blog posting, and there are a lot of meme-type themes that make that really easy. Here, for example, I regularly do Menu Plan Monday and Works for Me Wednesday. The menu-planning is something I do anyway, and it’s really easy to type that up and share it here (even if it isn’t maybe the most fascinating thing). The “works for me” posts tend to be a little more difficult, because they require more thought. But they have made me pay more attention to what I’m doing on a daily basis in an effort to try to notice things that might be making my life easier. (I feel like that didn’t make much sense. Alka-Seltzer cold, take me away!) I also try to do a little rundown on our homeschooling week on Saturdays. The Daily Meme has a bunch of other blogging memes listed.

Beyond those regularly scheduled posts, I tend to just blather about things. (As I’m sure those of you who are regular readers have noticed.) I’m OK with that, but I might need more focus in November. So I’ve found a few writing-prompt sites that I plan to mine for NaBloPoMo. Maybe you’ll find them helpful, too.

Try Creative Writing focuses on prompts for creative writing, which absolutely is applicable to writing a blog. Some of it is clearly fiction-writing stuff, but there’s a lot of personal-experience fodder there, too.

The Write Prompts offers a new prompt every day, which would be a clear and simple way to do NaBloPoMo. They do the theme-days thing, too. Wednesdays are all about poetry, for example, and Tuesdays focus on discussing a provided image (much like what Casey and her friend are doing at YouSeeItDifferentlyThan.Me, but on a Internet-wide scale.)

Marelisa has put together a list of 119 journal prompts. I especially like the “100 Things I Love” section, in which she suggests subtopics of things like “10 People I Love” or “10 Restaurants I Love.” That would make for a nice series.

Do you have a go-to inspiration for writing?