Nothing serious

OK, so it's been several months since my last post. I realize that haphazard postings are not a good MO for driving traffic to a blog. Gonna try to remedy that. So here are a few things I've been thinking/doing lately.

I may be jumping the gun a little, as it's only October 1 today and Halloween is still a full month away, but I have both girls' costumes in-house. Miss Molly, who adores her Rainbow Rob penguin book and will flip through the hard pages 17 times if you'll let her, is going to be a penguin. Freaking adorable. I'm just counting on the fact that she won't grow 4 inches in the next month and pop the stitching.

Miss Abby's costume arrived yesterday from oldnavy.com. She is going to be a monkey, with a banana in tow. Since she's obviously getting older, I figured that this is the last year I get to choose the costume; princesses and the like are coming, I'm pretty sure of it. But this year, I would like her to be a cute, fuzzy, cozy-toasty animal. So I found a few costumes online and narrowed them down to the Old Navy monkey and a darling frog costume. The great mom that I am, I asked her opinion. She said monkey. That was Tuesday.

On Wednesday, I asked again, just for verification. Frog. Uh-oh. On Thursday, I asked again, and the emphatic, repeated answer: monkey. Monkey, monkey, MONKEY. Fine. I ordered the monkey.

The weekend rolled around and I asked again, just for giggles. Frog. "Mommy, I want to be a FROG!" Well, hell. Too late, sister. Monkey's already on the truck. And "frog" was the answer for the next two days. Then Tuesday came around again and the answer switched to monkey. So I'm done asking. Lesson learned.

Next subject: I went to an AdFed (excuse me; it is now known as AAF of Wichita to comply with national preferences — sheesh) presentation yesterday to learn more about social media/interactive marketing. Sometimes I feel like a fish out of water at those meetings because the subject matter is often quite far from my normal field of writing/editing; I go to try to learn other aspects of the ad biz. And I'm definitely no social media expert. But it was one of the most interesting/informative/easy-to-follow presentations I've heard. I'm relatively new to Twitter and Facebook. (Though I've formed an opinion about Facebook vs. MySpace: MySpace is a pain the you-know. You have to scroll like crazy to get anywhere and it's just plain messy. Bleh.) However, I'm in the process of starting a grammar/writing/editing blog at work that should have new posts several times a week (that's the plan, anyway). I'm also going to start a podcast with the other copywriter at work about grammar/writing/editing/top-of-mind matters. And I'm going to be more diligent about posting to this blog. Phew.

Some of my friends think I'm very tech-savvy. Some think I don't know squat. Depending on the hour, I agree with one or the other. I suppose it's all relative. But it's all interesting and keeps me young. That, and running. Gotta get back to consistent running.

It was also groovy that I knew the speaker at AAF. Mark Logan went to my high school and had a younger brother in my class (who, btw, I just reconnected with on Facebook after two decades — that demonstrates the reach of social networking). Mark looked great, exactly as I remember him — no kidding. And he was well-spoken and knew his stuff. And now we're Twitter buds. You just never know who you'll reconnect with in life, so remember to not burn your bridges, no matter how fun and appropriate it might seem!

So enough preaching. I'll just add this: Try Twitter. It seemed completely inane to me at first, but I'm addicted. Same with Facebook. And yoga. And chocolate. And iced tea.

Until next time, happy trails!