posts tagged with 'self-promotion'
we're begging again
Speaking of cycling, it's about that time for our favorite sign of summer's imminent arrival, the PMC Kids Ride. There was some question about whether it would even happen this year... most the folks in charge of organizing last year decided they were done, and as late as mid-March the call for volunteers was plaintive enough that I, for a tiny moment, thought I might help out. Thankfully for everyone that wasn't necessary, and even without my organizing skills the ride is going ahead on June 15. Which means it's your turn to help out!
We've got a donation page up here... as of this writing our total pledged stands at $0.00, so every little bit helps! The kids are excited about the ride and about the party afterwards, but they also do enjoy knowing that they can make a contribution towards cancer research. Harvey and Zion will be riding the longest course offered this year, 7.5 miles, and Lijah will once again be wheeling his way through the tricycle obstacle course. For the last time, I promise! Thanks so much for any amount you can give.
charity ride begging post
We're doing this PMC Kids Ride thing again and we need your support! We had intentions of starting our fund-raising earlier this year than we did last time, but as with so many of our plans these days we never got beyond the thinking stage. But it's not too late—there's still almost a week for you to donate to the cause. Act now and be the *ahem* first one to make a pledge!
Team Archibald on the move (last year)
We're going to totally rock it, by the way. Harvey has a new bike that fits him; Zion is going to be riding a full half-mile; both Leah and I are volunteering so we'll get shirts too. It'll be awesome, and you totally want to be part of it by donating money. Plus it'll go towards helping to stop cancer or something, which is good too.
Here's that phone number pledge link again. Don't delay; pledge today!
farmy writing
I was going to do a blog post about talking, but I ran out of steam after writing something for my farming site. Since I know nobody looks at it but me (and oh, do I look at it, joy of my heart that it is) I'll link to the piece hear on the off chance that you want to read my thought on volunteer seedlings in the garden.
comment craziness!!
I was going to write a post this evening about why I drove instead of riding my bicycle today, but I got distracted by the awesome comment thread we've got going on a few posts down. Check it out if you haven't already, and add your two cents!
And maybe I'll write about cycling tomorrow, especially if I'm continuing to procrastinate over getting my Christmas presents made. The delay is getting epic!
our writing elsewhere
Our church has a newish writers' group to which, by virtue of being "bloggers", we are tenuously connected. But tenuous or not, when we heard there was a plan to put together a collection of writing pieces on Advent we jumped at the chance to be part of it—you might have noticed that we enjoy sharing our thoughts over the internet. The first post went up yesterday: "A mixed up animal house", by Leah.
My post is coming up sometime later; I don't know exactly when, so you should subscribe to the RSS over there to be sure not to miss it. Because, you know, there's at least a three percent chance that I won't mention it again when it does come out.
Thank you to old readers and new ones
At the Patriot's day parade today I ran into an old high school chum who kindly mentioned that he sometimes visit the blog (Hi Derek!) I am always overjoyed when I hear that people are reading. My desire is for everyone I know to follow this blog, and then I won't ever have to talk to people. No, just kidding. I'd talk to MORE people because old friends will be like, "Hey, I'm into that stuff too" and then they'd email me and we'd make a date to hang out. Or something like that in my little lonely fantasy land.
I does give me pause sometimes to think about the things I write about and the people who could be reading them. I believe there's value in being transparent, but I do wince sometimes to think that an ex boyfriend will find out that I'm living in poverty, or that I only ever had sex with my husband twice and I got pregnant both times. (Well, that's an exaggeration.... that I plan to tell my children when they reach puberty.)
I hope everyone follows the blog on an RSS reader, because if you don't that stresses me out that I should be putting up new content every day. And also we put all the content into the RSS, and we don't serve ads there or anywhere, so there's no excuse for you. Download NetNewsWire and stop wasting so much of your time seeing if your favorite blogs posted new content. I'm only saying this for your own good.
Anyway, if you want to start reading this blog but haven't ever before, here's the rundown:
I (Leah) am a stay at home mom of two lovely boys, Harvey who is almost 3 and Zion who is almost 1. Dan works in the public schools. We live at around the poverty line, and sometimes we write about how we have no money. I do a lot of crafting and sometimes I pretend like this is a craft blog and put up photos and talk in lingo that no one understands. Dan is an awesome gardener and sometimes writes about that, as well as about biking at which he also smokes the competition. We have four chickens and a dog but they're not allowed to hang out together.
We are also people of faith and sometimes we write about that. I hope in a way that isn't too off-putting, but I don't try hard enough to not put folks off. We also sometimes talk about politics, and I'm SURE we're off putting when we do that.
If you want a blog that is both beautiful and sexy, you should read my cousin Helen's blog. If you want to read about my hair and cute things my kids say, you're in the right place.
Thank you everybody who reads our blog! You are always welcome to come over and hang out and take home some eggs. Just email me and give me a little warning so I can pretend like I keep a clean house.
farming on the web
I sowed more seeds today under the lights. There's something very enjoyable about the activity: it's the only part of gardening where I manage any science or method. Variables can be controlled. Once those seedlings graduate from the hot box, though, all that goes out the window. I had to write off the onions, for example, and the corn that Harvey planted isn't looking too good either. Still, I'm sure something will come out alright.
In order to keep track of things a little better and in furtherance of certain grand (if vague) plans, I've created another little corner of the squibix web: squibix farm. Check it out and tell me what you think!
Not the shy type
I have a guest post published today at Not The Religious Type on germophobia, parenting, and the kosher laws. Happily they didn't edit it at all, making me the only guest blogger so far to end my missive with a self-depricating reference to untreated OCD. Pretty sweet, I know. Check it out and leave a heavily worded comment!
new month, new look
You may have noticed that we've changed things up a little here at the squibix family blog; more so even than when we replaced the green look with those cute snowmen a couple months ago. This time it's not only a new look, it's new functionality (that means stuff that does stuff) as well! Read on for some details (unless you only take in our content via RSS reader; in that case, go enjoy your coffee or whatever).
After a couple years menu-less, the menus have returned to the left-hand side. I asked Leah if she wanted the blog to look more spacious and zen, and she replied in the extreme negative—something about wasted space and not having anywhere to focus on the page. I compromised by making the menus fold up, so they don't take up too much attention-space if you don't want to look at them. Since I'm the spiritual head of the household, you'll notice they start out folded.
We also added tags, which were all the rage some three-four years ago. We wanted to make sure they had legs, you know. We've gone back and tagged about a year's worth of posts; the tagging work will continue, if only because we get a kick out of reading our old material.
Finally, there's now an archive, for the historically-minded reader. I particularly recommend the full page of calendars, because the principal reason I ever write in this blog is to fill up the little numbers with links. I also am prouder of that calendar code than anything else I've ever written.
Of course, as with any new software project, there are bound to be issues: what are known colloquially, in the business, as "bugs". Some of them we even know about, but didn't bother to fix quite yet: for example, Leah doesn't really like the tree drawing on the masthead. I promised to make her a better one, but I couldn't deny you the opportunity to read our twitter posts in the sidebar for the time that would take. So, later. Others we might not notice unless you tell us, so please don't hesitate to offer your feedback.
I know, with all that don't I sound like this is a real important blog, like people are reading?! Hi mom, hi Oona! Still, I had fun putting all this new stuff together, so I get to talk about it a little bit. I hope you enjoy!
hooray!
With this post, we have written something every day this month. It's the first time we managed to fill up a whole month, something that I naturally count with a major achievement on par with, oh, I don't know, sitting through a Star Wars marathon. Something that involves sitting, in any case, and not much actual hard work. That doesn't make me feel any less triumphant, though!
We came close last month, missing just a single day (stupid January 8th... what do you think we were doing instead?!), as well as January of 2007 and February, 2004 (the latter is still our best month by number of posts, but I have no doubt that record will soon be smashed as well).
So hooray! And maybe later this evening Leah will even write something with actual content.