Highs (HGTV) & Lows (work)

I'm kinda glad super glad that whole Month 4 Moms thing is finished, completed, on the books, all done, over and out. It was a time-sucker! High five to you pro-bloggers who churn out 30ish blogs per month and maintain some semblance of engaging material. I don't think I've ever had 19 separate posts in one month, although about half of which were guest blogs, so I can't take credit for all that post-age. Regardless, it was a major time commitment to organize everything, correspond with my lovely lovely guest bloggers, make those graphic thingies and then put it all together in a neat -but more importantly, coherent- package. A few months ago when these ideas first started kicking around in my head, I didn't take into consideration the energy that would be required -- considerably more than tossing some words on a page during nap time. It wasn't all bad though! In fact, it wasn't really "bad" at all, despite the ranting nature of this entire paragraph.  I made a few new friends and I learned some new things.  It was real. It was fun. It was real fun. But I'm spent.

My fear is that I am now lumped into the "mom blog" category, which I both dread and accept. Conundrum? Yes. I am a mom... and I blog,... thus "mom blog." But if I would describe my blog, I wouldn't outright say it's all-mom-all-the-time. Weird thing is, I don't really know what category I'd lump myself into, so does that mean I'm a "lifestyle" blog? Maybe to prove my non-momblog stance, I'll refrain from talking about Isaac for the remainder of this post, which is easier said than done! Also, have I ever mentioned that I HATE tooting my own horn? The blog has its own Facebook page now and I cringe every time I update my status with a link & a comment. Oh, you stinky pride.

Aside from the M4M, March at the M house was high on HGTV and low on work. Spring is never a very busy time in labor & delivery, which doesn't go over well for those of us PRN employees. I worked a grand total of 3 shifts the entire month of March- yes, you read that right, three. Two of those three shifts were last week alone. It was like going on another short maternity leave, which like the previous leave I took, was also unpaid. Ouch. Stumbling aimlessly through the day is an understatement when you've been off for 3 weeks, but I made it. Incidentally (comically?), I'm on-call again today.  So, on these many days off, I mostly watched HGTV. In true Novogratz-style, I reorganized my bookcases by color. I'd say "I should be more productive than that and work on things like baby proofing the house" but I said I wouldn't talk about Isaac, so I won't. Ha!

I'd like to give a little shout-out (Pause: Do people even say that anymore? Shout out? I feel like it's so 1999.... like when people actually listened to the radio and called in their Shout Outs. Raise your hand if you did that. Howabout Props? What's the terminology/lingo these days? I'm so lame. End Pause.) to Emily over at Sweet Bella Roo's for the great blog re-design. I got an itch to redo things around here a few weeks ago and have a bit of an obsessive personality, so I tenaciously latched onto the design remix idea. Enter Emily, who both put up with my ridiculous know-nothing questions about blog design and web site coding (great customer service!), AND cut me a little deal on some extras that I added to the original design AND had the new design up & running within like 24 hours of requesting her services. That's Mr. Flash-kinda speedy! Anyway, she is an awesome person to work with and I would recommend her in a heartbeat. She's also a Texas gal, which automatically scores her a few cool points.

Well that was about as random, stream-of-consciousness as it gets. I've got a few non-baby related product reviews in the works (take that mommyblog), so hang in there. Organized & coherent thoughts ahead!