Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Can I "Hack" It?



My my, it looks like Bill Gates will be getting a new hacker employee in a few years. Meanwhile, I wonder what Mom is going to do to Dad's blog. Hmmmm. If it were my hubby and I, we would write embarrassing things on each other's blogs and then wait for the other one to log on and the fun to begin! Yes, we're sick like that! HA!

Anyway- speaking of hacking it (you didn't think the cartoon was it did you?) I have been a very busy girl the last few days. It all started this weekend when my wonderful blogsister, Eliza, and I were talking about reviews we had coming up. It is important to both of us to see our review blogs succeed so while we were talking and nervously asking each other if we should just email some companies, I remembered something my husband always says...

"The worst they can say is NO"

That's right, the worst they CAN say is "no". It doesn't get any worse than that so why not give it a try? Eliza and I spent the rest of the evening and into the early morning searching for email addresses, deciding how to word our emails, laughing with each other, passing on links that didn't work for us but worked for the other one, and just having a ton of fun!

Eliza- thank you again, I'm so glad to get to know you better and I AM sending that chicken soup and chocolate, woman! ;)

I'll be honest and say I expected mostly "no" from these companies so my hope was if I sent out 20 emails I would get at least 2 "yes" emails back. Ummmm yeah, didn't work out that way at all! I sent out 20 emails and got about 18 "yes" emails back!! It has been a wild few days but so much fun and I have finally found my niche. It feels good to find where I belong in the blogworld whether that makes sense to others or not. I've never been a "mommyblogger" because I've never fit in with most of them and I don't write much about my kids. I'm a "mom blogger" in the aspect that I'm a mother who blogs but that's where it ends.

So that left me floating wondering if I even had a purpose with blogging. Do I keep being funny, run 5 or 6 blogs because I can't organize all my thoughts on one, and burn out too quickly? Do I find out what I'm suppose to do, probably lose a few readers, and have a little fun in my life that not only makes me feel better and gives me a chance to pretend I'm not sick all the time but it also gives me more time with my kids?

I chose the second one and don't regret it a bit. I will be doing only a few reviews here on LWH and sponsored/paid posts are probably going to be slim to none. I'm not making actual money doing reviews right now but I don't care, I'm meeting some of the most amazing small business owners and enjoying that so much. Yes, I'm happy. Not happy as a mom. Not happy as a wife. Happy as a woman who has found something that is just her's yet doesn't leave out the people she loves most.

The best part? My health keeps me from working a "real" job which leaves me watching my poor husband work and wear himself thin while I can do nothing about it. Now, this is going places and it's going to help my family so much without quite bluntly.... literally killing me.

So far this week I have become a Product Reviewer (is there a fancy name for it?), a Homeschooling Consultant (one of the PR people from a company asked for MY advice! It rocked!!), and in the new future I will be helping a company with a game of their's in the prototype phase. Just unreal!

That is why I've been missing and why I'll probably be missing quite alot. I'll still post in between reviews here but I fully expect all of you to read my reviews over at Sona Creidhe Reviews too. If things go well there may even be a LWH Reviews soon. Right now I'm sticking to educational games and toys that you can learn from and have a ball with. Christmas is coming and these companies (most) are small businesses, so support the little guy if you see something you like in my reviews. Definately leave me comments as well.

14 comments:

Homemom3 said...

awww shucks girl. I had a lot of fun those last few nights. Too bad it had to end early yesterday and not sure how much today. You'll understand when you read my yahoo messenger. Sicker than I've been in a long while. But I'll recovery....chocolate sounds GREAT! lol. Too bad chocolate companies wn't send me samples. :) Keep up the great work and remember...."It's like window shopping...Only better!"

Anonymous said...

I'm so glad you have found this niche that makes you happy. It's such a good feeling to 'come into your own' and I am smiling for you.

Anonymous said...

Jo, that is amazing! You do great reviews at Sona Creidhe, so I'm sure LWH Reviews will be just as great! And I LOVE Eliza, she is a networking genius :) Congratulations to both of you!

Julie Pippert said...

Wow, that sounds great. Congrats to you!

Anonymous said...

Oh and P.S.-I'm sure everyone is going to be asking you this, but I would love to get any secret tips you have. Did you really just pick educational toy companies, email them, and ask them if they had any products to send you in exchange for a review? Is it really that easy?

Anonymous said...

Jo, that's awesome. You definitely seem legitimately happy. And you certainly deserve some of that. You'll find a ton of companies are more than willing to provide info and samples if it means they'll be getting publicity. So never be shy about asking. In fact... I'm going to to do a little checking around on your behalf to see if I can hook you up with some more toy companies (even some of the bigger ones), since I used to be in the biz...

Anonymous said...

Congratulations on finding your niche! That's great news! BTW, I wanted to let you know that I signed up for the blog chick roll from your site. Three of my blogs were approved and a 4th one she said no to because it was supposedly too "controversial" and it wasn't even my angela-stevens.com blog - BIG shocker. Anyway, after having all the blog chick stuff in my side bar for over a month I got tired of waiting for them to add my 3 blogs that they did like and just booted them. Just thought you should know since I found them on your blog. :)

Anonymous said...

How completely cool!! I want to be you when I grow up...really I do! and yes please pass on the tips to us! lol!!

oh...I almost forgot...I gave you an award over at my new blog...you've received it before but deserve another!!

Wife Soup said...

Wow! Thanks for sharing. You are much further along then me (in the blogging world), but I see myself struggling with some of the same questions. Exactly where do I fit in? And where am I taking this? It helps to hear others experiences.

Summer said...

You're my hero.

You know I actually contacted someone about a review and got a $20 car thing for the boys! For free! They gave it to me! I'm still amazed. Now to write the review. LOL

Anonymous said...

hehe funny - I think there are growing up many Bill G. for the future. Now we can work with computers without problems. Our parants have some... I ask me how it will be in a few years?

Anonymous said...

Awesome post. I totally identify with feeling like I need to label myself. I am a (fill in the blank) and I am a good (fill in the blank) therefore I'm okay. I also give you kudos for biting the bullet and going for it- the worst anyone can say is no. I should probably be better at practicing what I type, but your post gave me a shot in the arm about some stuff that I need to either do or be done with, if that makes sense. Thanks.

CapCity said...

hey Jo, it's been a minute since i've visited your corner of the world, so i wanted to come by & say HI! u've been a busy woman! ;-) congrats & best wishes with the review biz!

Jo said...

Thank you for all the comments. I'm sorry it took me so long to get back to you.

Eliza- what a trip right?! Definately better than window shopping! I can't wait for RD to launch!!

Jill- thank you so much, that truly means alot to me.

Elizabeth- aww thanks girl I appreciate the compliment. It looks like LWH Reviews is a no go though. Have something even better in the works. ;) Eliza is definately great and I couldn't do this without her!

Julie- thanks sweety! :)

Andrew- thanks for all your help so far. I contacted some of the companies you suggested and I think I'm doing reviews for two of them so far. You rock!!

Angela- That blogroll goes wonky all the time, I've had trouble with it myself. I'm sorry it's such a hassle. I get SOME traffic because of it but not the loads I expected. Thank you for the congrats.

Jenny- oh honey you most definately don't want to be me that's for sure. Keep your organs instead of cancer. MUCH easier and you get to keep a sex drive to boot!!! AHAHAHA. THank you for the award and email me for info on how I'm doing things. I'm keeping a list of interested moms in case the companies ask me for more reviewers. ;)

Kallie- I'm glad I could help a little. Never hesitate to email me if you just want to talk. I'm more than happy to listen. I've only really gotten into blogging in this past year. Before that it was just a way to remember our lives. lol.

Summer- I saw that! Would you believe they were snotty to me when I contacted them?? Butts!

OWC- yes, I'm not an old woman but the younger generation is definately more technically competant than we are. I'm excited to see what my childrens' generation does with all this. Hopefully better than we did with what we had.

Frog- I emailed that book long comment to you. For everyone else, my reply was longgggggggggg so I sent it to Frog. LOL

Cap- Nice to see you again and hope all is well with you. :)