Friday, June 19, 2009

My First Blog Challenge Begins! Bloggiesta! OLE!

This is PEDRO, the official mascot of the Bloggiesta. His name is an acronym that means
Plan Edit Develop Review Organize


It's Friday and the first day of my first blog challenge. When I heard about the Bloggiesta, I thought it was only for bloggers that review books. The idea Natasha from MawBooks had was to challenge bloggers to not only catch up with reviews and posts they had fallen behind on but also get ahead by having new posts ready to go when needed in the future. The more I heard about it the more I realized that this could work for any blogger.



Summer vacation has officially started here and what better time to get ahead on my own blog. I will still be adding new posts as the summer rolls on, but for those times when we get busy or just want to enjoy sitting by the pool with the kids I'll have posts all set and ready to go. This will be especially helpful for my Children's Book Review Series. I have decided to start running my CBRS reviews on the weekends only; leaving the weekdays for writing and family related posts. If you are a children's author and would like me to review your book(s) you can contact me for a mailing address. I have really enjoyed the books I have read so far and hope that this helps each author find more readers.



I am still figuring out the details of this challenge, so if you have questions or would like to jump in and join yourself go over to Natasha's blog.



http://blog.mawbooks.com/2009/06/19/bloggiesta-lets-begin-the-festivities/



Part of the Bloggiesta Challenge is to set a goal of how many hours you plan to allot to working on your blog. That is up to each blogger. I have set my goal fairly low (10 hours) for two reasons.



1. This is my first challenge and I want to start with a realistic goal. If I reach this goal it's a victory; if I exceed it I will be encouraged to join other challenges.



2. I don't know how or why, but every time I sit down in front of a computer and look like I am concentrating something strange happens. My mind gives off some kind of tractor beam or a large magnet is activated and all of a sudden my children are stuck to me. I've looked at this scientifically and have found the opposite occurs when I do other things; say dishes or any kind of cleaning. This is when they disappear, quickly.



To me the 10 hours seems a little daunting. I have come up with some ways to reach my goal before I reach the limits of my sanity. First, I will try to get in most of the time before my children wake up or after they have gone to bed. If that fails, as the best laid plans often do. I will use my scientific theory and place the vacuum next to the computer. Each time the kids are drawn to me I will counter the magnetic pull by switching it on and pretending to clean. According to my scientific discovery, they should disappear.



I have a goal, a plan of action, and best of all I have the fixings for tacos, nacho dips, and margaritas to get me through the weekend. Maybe I should hold off on the margaritas until I have reached my goal (no one wants to see my margarita mingled thoughts posted. Correction: I don't want to see them posted).



Wish me luck and let me know if you plan to join the challenge, officially or not.



!!BLOGGIESTA!! OLE!!



Kristin :D

4 comments:

  1. My two little boys LOVE to vacuum! That trick would not work in my house. They are three and two, I'm sure the novelty will wear off right when they are capable. Good luck with the challenge!

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  2. Bwahahaha! #2 seems a bit like murphy's law to me.

    I have a feeling you'll be able to put in your 10 hours and then some. Good luck :)

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  3. I set my goals low too, at about 11 hours. I'll probably be lucky if I get in half of that at this point with the way weekend is going so far (too many other things going on)...re: your Saturday, June 20 post: it sounds to me like you made right decision with switching publishers for the romance novel. You have to be true to yourself.

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  4. I didn't set a time goal for Bloggiesta - I was just hopeful that I would be able to cross a few things off my To Do list. We had guests for afternoon tea/dinner on Saturday and the usual weekend washing and cleaning to take care of.

    I wish I had read your blog eariler with your vacuum idea. I should have kept the pile of washing to fold next to the computer. I could have kept the kids away with a threat to make them help me.

    I hope that you've been able to get some productive work done this weekend and that you've had some fun as well.

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