Stephanie, Author at Binkies and Briefcases • Page 43 of 80

Bloggy Boot Camp: Charlotte, NC

May 20, 2013 By: Stephanie11 Comments

We got back last night from the 4 day trip that I WON to Bloggy Boot Camp in Charlotte, NC. (Thank you SITS Girls, I’ll love you forever.)

We left on Thursday from Pennsylvania and drove down to Charlotte. We spent all day driving, and pulled in at 1am, so we didn’t technically get there until Friday. Eddie went with me. It was a kid-free long weekend! (our first one since 2011.)

I will have more posts coming telling you all about Charlotte. Today I want to focus on the conference.

It started Friday night with a kick-off cocktail party. I buddied up with Brenna from Life After Laundry. We “met” online last year during Online BlogCon, but this was the first time we met in real life. Brenna is adorable and so sweet and I could listen to her southern accent ALL DAY.

Saturday was the day of the actual conference. Eddie booked tee times at two different golf courses and was gone all day, so don’t worry about him. We were told to dress casually and that the room might be chilly because of the air conditioning, so this is what I wore.

Shirt: Calvin Klein
Jeans: the Limited
Flip Flops: LL Bean

We got our name tags and were assigned seats for the first few sessions. Brew Over Ice was there with Keurigs so that we could make iced coffee or Snapple. (Did you know they make Snapple K-cups? I didn’t.)

Tiffany and Fran, founders of the SITS Girls and Bloggy Boot Camp, did some talking and then the presentations began.

First we heard from Ashley and Shell, two bloggers who had been able to turn their love of social media into real jobs (making real money) managing Facebook or other social media accounts for businesses.

Then we heard from Casey, the Director of Analytics for Collective Bias. He spoke about Search Engine Optimization and Analytics. A year ago I might have fallen asleep, but I’ve fallen deep enough down the blogging rabbit hole that these numbers are important to me and I was really engaged.

Then we heard Brittany from That’s Vandy speak about blog design. She had some great tips that I definitely plan to implement. I think her talk was my favorite of all the tech-focused. (I’ll do another post soon with my top 10 take aways)

We broke for lunch (chicken, veggies, and key lime pie) and then my favorite part…

I got to hear Robin O’Bryant! Robin is the author of the hilarious book Ketchup Is a Vegetable and Other Lies Moms Tell Themselves. I was offered a trip to the Bloggy Boot Camp of my choosing, but I chose to go to Charlotte because I knew Robin would be speaking. She spoke about the world of publishing and how to break through the door.

With Lori from Loripalooza and Robin O’Bryant.

Then Cynthia from Nap Warden designs spoke a little bit about photo editing, specifically using PicMonkey. I got a few take aways from this session as well, like the way I save my files. I’ll be saving as .png instead of .jpeg from now on.

Then Tiffany and Fran from the SITS Girls spoke some more and we all broke for a wine tasting. I don’t drink alcohol, so this normally wouldn’t be up my alley, but I had a great time.

I got to meet Stephanie from When Crazy Meets Exhaustion and a lot of other new friends.

I had an awesome time. I think if I was a new blogger I would have been completely overwhelmed and curled up in the fetal position after all of the tech-speak and business talk, but I am at a point in my blogging career that made everything very relevant and super helpful.

Thank you SITS Girls!!!!!

Building the Dream: Cross Bracing

May 15, 2013 By: Stephaniecomment

Cross-Bracing Building Our Home

This week they continued adding support to the floor joists and started laying the plywood decking that will support the first floor. (I don’t have pictures of that yet.) The excavator is also planning to come back and dig out the areas that will have crawl spaces.

We also planted a row of young maple and birch trees that will eventually hide most of our view of that commercial property you see on the right side in the first picture.

Nicholas loves this survey wheel. It marks how many feet you walk. He likes to just walk around and around the property. Once he went over a mile!

Out of all of the kids, Abby takes the most interest in the building process. She likes to look at the plans on our computer and try to get an idea of what everything will look like or go stand “on the concrete” down inside of the basement. Sometimes I print the plans on a regular sheet of computer paper and she will use crayons to “decorate” her room.

It won’t be long now until the framing starts. I can’t wait to get a better idea of the size of the rooms and see it start to come together!

How to heal your heels for flip-flop season

May 14, 2013 By: Stephanie22 Comments

Warning: This post is full of nasty pictures of my feet.

My feet are gross. They are the only part of my body that my husband truly cannot stand. They are SUPER dry and my heels crack and sometimes bleed.

How to heal dry, cracked feet

Once, as a gift, my mom even gave me a cream meant for a cow’s udders, hoping it would help. It didn’t.

Yes, I have already had a pedicure this year (and paid extra for the “scraping”) and my heels still looked like this:

Yuck. I know.

But then I read somewhere (I think it was a Facebook comment on a recipe) that coconut oil made a great moisturizer, so I decided to try it on my heels.

Method #1: Coconut Oil

We had this one on hand because it is what I like to use to pop our popcorn. They sell it at our regular grocery store. You can also buy it here.

I’ll walk you through how I use it in case you need to heal your heels too.

It is solid in the container and looks like this

I use about a teaspoon’s worth for each foot.

I spread it on with a washcloth because I don’t like the way it makes my hands feel greasy for hours if I use my fingers.

Grease up your feet and put on a pair of socks. Otherwise you will slip and fall trying to walk on laminate or tile floors. Not that I would know. (Yeah, I totally fell on my butt the first time.)

This is after 2 treatments. I’m going to continue twice a day every day until Thursday. There are still a few small cracks in the back right now. Hopefully after a few more treatments I won’t be too embarrassed to break out the flip-flops when we are in North Carolina for Bloggy Boot Camp this weekend!

I should also note that I have REALLY sensitive, fair skin. I can’t even use most laundry detergents without breaking out in hives. The coconut oil is very gentle and doesn’t cause me any irritation. It also doesn’t have any odor, which is a plus.

Method #2: Stridex and Vaseline

I have also had very good luck in the past with a tip I leaned on an old episode of the Oprah show. The doctor on the show said to use a Stridex pad (if I remember correctly, the dermatologist on the show said it has to be Stridex because the active ingredient in those pads was a little different than other brands), and then coating my feet with Vaseline and sleeping in a pair of white cotton socks. After about a week of using that method my feet were perfect!

Let me know if you try either one of these tips and how they work for you!

Hello Monday

May 13, 2013 By: Stephaniecomment

I’m joining Lisa Leonard for her Hello Monday link-up.

I’ve been looking forward to this week for months, so it seemed like an appropriate time to jump in and say…

Hello to a week with only 3 “work” days.

Hello to more progress on our future home.

Hello to the possibility of signing on the line for a temporary summer apartment (with a pool!) that would shorten Eddie’s commute by over an hour each way and give us back our family time.

Hello to the spa gift card I got for Mother’s Day.

Hello to a much-needed (and FREE!) get-away with my husband and my first ever blog conference. I’ve been reeling since October at the fact that I WON a trip to the Bloggy Boot Camp of my choice this year. I chose Charlotte, NC and the week is here!

Hello to the kindergartner’s parent/teacher conference this afternoon.

Hello to a toddler who seems to be learning 3 or 4 new words every day.

And Hello to a few more weeks of watching this through the window, while we have such a great back-yard here at my in-laws.

Hope you all had a great Mother’s Day weekend. And remember, it’s not too late to sign up for my newsletter and get your free eBook.

Happy Mother’s Day

May 12, 2013 By: Stephanie2 Comments

Wishing moms everywhere an amazing day!

If you are subscribed to my newsletter, you will find a free gift in your email today. I’m sending you an eBook. I collaborated with a few of my favorite fellow moms and bloggers and put together a 15-page book filled with 10 easy ideas for creating a special bond with your kids.

If you are not already a subscriber, just fill out your email address in the box on my sidebar that says “Get the Newsletter.” I’ll send out another batch to new subscribers.

Have an awesome day!!

Building the Dream: Let the Framing Begin

May 9, 2013 By: Stephanie1 Comment

I’m a day late and several dollars shorter. I know I said I would post house updates on Wednesdays and also, building a house is very ‘spensive.

We’re moving along! In the past week, the concrete floors have been poured in the basement and the floor joists (I think that’s what these are) are going in.

Yay! In just a few weeks it should actually start looking like a house.

On Raising Dumb Girls: Let’s Not

May 8, 2013 By: Stephanie6 Comments

What do you hate?

Like, if there was just one thing that you could wipe off the face of the earth, what would it be?

I hate stupid girls.

More accurately, I hate girls who act stupid when they really are not because they think it will get them somewhere.

Raising Smart Girls

I hate it even more when that actually works.

I am NOT a stupid girl. You probably wouldn’t know it by the sentence fragments and misuse of commas on this blog, but I actually went to college on a full academic scholarship and graduated a year early, then stayed and earned my Master’s degree in my fourth year at school. I graduated with a 3.89 undergrad GPA and a 3.9 on my graduate work.

I chose to do my schooling at a women’s college that chose to live by the phrase “Educate a woman, educate a nation.”

And now I have two gorgeous daughters and they are pretty smart cookies if I do say so myself.

The other night I was sitting with my four-year-old and playing a learning game on the iPad. It was meant for younger kids and was too easy for her. This is the girl who likes to stand over her older brother’s shoulder while he’s doing his homework and shout the answers before he can figure them out. She was supposed to count how many of each kind of animal came on the screen. The first several times she did it correctly, but then she got bored. She started saying the wrong number on purpose and she thought it was hysterical.

“Three!” laughs “Look, Mommy, there are three zebras, right? I only see three” (There are really five.)

“That’s not funny.”

“Heeeeheeeeheee. There are only three, right? I can only count to three.” (She can count much higher.)

She thought this was hilarious. I thought it was frightening. Is it possible that it could be ingrained in her this early that it is cool to act dumber than you are?

“That’s not funny. Acting dumb is never funny. Girls who act dumb are very, very stupid. And you, my dear, are NOT a stupid girl. You’re a smart one. Do you understand?” (Yeah, I read Carol Dwek. The research says I shouldn’t tell her she’s smart. The research can shove it.)

“Yes, Mommy. Look, there are five zebras.”

“Good job honey! Do you want to play a different game?”

“Yeah, this one is too easy. Let’s play Candy Crush.”

And we did. We crushed it. Because that’s what we do.

We’re SMART girls and I don’t intend to let my daughters forget it.

Blogger or WordPress?

May 7, 2013 By: Stephanie7 Comments

I make no claims to be a tech expert. I’m just a lady with a blog who writes funny stories about my kids and is hoping to parlay that into a writing career. (So far this plan is going surprisingly well. Don’t let the powers that be in on our little secret that I have no idea what I’m doing, k?)

Lately I have had “quite a few” people tell me they were interested in starting a blog and ask if I would give them tips on how to get started… Okay. Fine. You win. It was only two. Two people asked recently and one more asked a few months ago. Regardless, I know a lot of other people have the same question, so I thought I would spend some time focusing on it today.

The first thing people need to decide when they are starting a blog is if they want to use Blogger or WordPress, the two main platforms available.

I will tell you that I started out on Blogger and I loved my little site over there for several reasons. I stayed over there for years.

WHY I LOVED BLOGGER:

It is very user-friendly. Anyone can set up a site in a matter of a few hours, sometimes less.
It’s free
It’s easy to customize. There are tons of great resources on Etsy for very affordable customization options or you can easily design your own headers, buttons, etc. in a software program like PicMonkey.
The community is nice. It is easy to follow other blogs right from the reader on your dashboard. The people who use Blogger tend to comment on each other’s posts more often, participate in link parties, and just check-in regularly, in my experience.
You can pay to have the .blogspot removed from your name and make yourself appear more professional. I know A LOT (I have connection, yo. Actually, what happened was I somehow managed to weasel my way into a book with several of them.) of very successful writers who use Blogger and it works for them on a professional level. These ladies use Blogger and are still swimming in money a la Scrooge McDuck. I actually do personally know-because of my involvement as the founder of the BlogU conference- several prominent writers who get literally millions of pageviews per month who are very loyal to Blogger because it is free and can handle their traffic.
You don’t have to worry about things like plug-ins and widgets, for the most part. Google owns it, which helps with the usability, and it is very easy to track your stats and create your design. It’s simple to use upfront AND it is easier to customize, in my opinion.

Blogger is perfect for you if you just want to start a small family blog or if you are a small business or a student.

Having said all of that, I still made the choice to switch to WordPress last year. There was a BIG learning curve for me. For starters. I learned the hard way that WordPress.com is TOTALLY DIFFERENT than WordPress.org.

IF YOU ARE GOING TO GO WITH WORDPRESS, YOU WANT TO BE SELF-HOSTED ON WORDPRESS.ORG!

I’m sorry I yelled at you. I just can’t stress that enough. WordPress.com was nothing but a big headache for me. You can only use certain templates, so if you have a specific design in mind, you can’t do it and it is just very limiting all-around. It was not a good match for a creative type like me. They also do not allow sponsored content, so you can’t make money. However, WordPress.com is free, so it does have that going for it.

If you want to be self-hosted on WordPress.org, which tends to be what all of the pros recommend, you need to know some things up front:

Make the switch early. It is a big pain in the neck to switch from Blogger to WordPress if you are keeping track of your stats. If you work with sponsors your stats are very important. When you switch you will basically be building your following from scratch. It is not fun and it takes a while to regain momentum. If you think you may ever want to become one of the “big guns” and turn blogging into more of a career than a hobby, just start on WordPress from the beginning.
Have a budget. It can be kind of expensive in comparison to other options. (Because the other options are free.) You will need to purchase a domain name and hosting and a good theme. I like the Genesis theme because it has a lot of nice child themes that fit my style and it has some great plug-ins.

Now that I am over the initial learning curve for WordPress I am glad that I made the switch.

REASONS I LOVE WORDPRESS:

The plug-ins. Think of a way you would like to improve your blog. There’s a plug-in for that. I never even thought of SEO before switching to WordPress, but now I use the SEO by Yoast Plug-in to optimize every post and it makes a big difference in my traffic. I also like Jetpack and the social sharing plug-ins.
It’s social media friendly. It’s VERY important to have options for sharing on social media on your posts and it is much easier to do that with WordPress. I have plug-ins that puts options for sharing my posts to Facbook, Twitter, Google Plus, and Pinterest with one click. (This feature has been updated on Blogger since this post was written.)
Less spam. SOOOO much less spam. I get at least 30 emails every day from anonymous commenters on my Blogger blog trying to hype their diet pills or whatever. I’ve been blogging on WordPress for about 7 months and I think I’ve only gotten about 5 spam comments.
Connecting to readers. It’s much easier to find a reader by clicking on their name in the comment they left on your blog and getting an email address than it is to get in touch with the readers who comment on Blogger blogs without any contact information in their profiles. I find that it is a little easier to build an internal community with the people who read my blog now, but WordPress users tend to be on their own little islands and it is harder to find connections between bloggers, if that makes sense. I think it has a lot to do with the dashboard not having a reader on it. Now I have to seek out other blogs to read and I often forget to do it because they just aren’t right there in front of me like they used to be. WordPress users also tend to be more “seasoned” and focused on their own blogs and will not usually return a comment for a comment, as was a little more common when I was on Blogger. However, it is easier to see a response from a blogger using WordPress because it will often be emailed to you that you were given a reply on a comment you left on someone’s post. On Blogger if you left a question on someone’s blog, you had to remember to keep going back and checking to see if they answered you. If they sent you a private email response, no one else who read the post and had the same question would get to see the answer.
Expanding your reach. In the 7 months since I’ve switched to WordPress I have seen my traffic and following expand to about 10x more than it used to be. A lot of that has to do with my own networking, but I attribute a great deal to the WordPress SEO and social media factors above.
You own it. Kayla of Sweet Anne Designs recently pointed out in a discussion about this very topic that she would not feel comfortable setting up a client on Blogger because Google owns your site if it is hosted on that platform and they could possibly decide to shut it down in the future (re: the recent Google Reader fiasco). If you are self-hosted, you own your own site and you have all the control and peace of mind that comes with that.

I like to think of the difference between Blogger and WordPress as the difference leasing and buying a car. With Blogger you are just leasing your website from Google, you don’t actually own it. With WordPress, it is completely 100% yours to do with as you please. There have been cases where blogs have been marked as spam and removed from Blogger for months. If your blog is a main source of income for your family, that is a serious problem. I’m not a lawyer, so I’m not here to give you business advice, but I do I do think that it’s preferable, at least for me, to have complete ownership in every aspect of my company.

However, there is a much bigger cost factor involved with WordPress, especially as your blog starts to grow. Once your traffic reaches the point where you need to move to a dedicated server, you should be prepared to spend anywhere between fifty to several hundred per month in addition to your domain and hosting fees. That is the trade of for the security of ownership.

I made this handy-dandy chart for those of us who like visuals.

That’s pretty much all I know. I hope it helps a little. 🙂

My Stitch Fix Experience

May 2, 2013 By: Stephanie2 Comments

Back in February I tried Stitch Fix for the first time. I was really excited about the idea of having clothes delivered to my door so that I didn’t have to deal with the pain of shopping with three kids.

I’m going to two blog conferences this year (The first one is in just two weeks!) and I’m having a little bit of anxiety over what to wear. I have never been before, but I have visions of showing up looking all plain jane and everyone else wearing adorable handmade vintage clothes they bought from secret Etsy stores where all the cool kids (read: not me) shop. I was really excited when my first fix arrived a day early, just in time for Valentine’s Day.

I thought Stitch fix might be a great option to get some trendy pieces that still felt like my style. Here is what they sent in my first fix:

Yeah, I modeled these without brushing my hair or putting on any make up. Sue me. I liked this shirt a lot. It was really comfortable and the collared look was not something I would have chosen, but I liked it once it was on. I thought it had the most flattering fit of all the pieces they sent. It’s the only piece that lets you see the actual shape of my body. Plus it reminded me of something Zooey Deschanel would wear on New Girl and I loved that. However, I did not like that it was completely see through. I hate having to layer clothes because it makes extra laundry for me. If the material would have been thicker I would have kept this one, but I couldn’t justify paying $50 for a shirt that felt like it came from Forever 21.

This striped shirt tied for my least favorite piece. The fabric was terrible, like a scratchy outdoor cushion, it was totally see-though (again) and it was also pretty expensive. All of the items in my fix were between $50-75 dollars. I felt like this was the most uncomfortable piece to actually wear and it wasn’t very flattering on my body type.

I HATED this one. I don’t even have one good thing to say about it. You can see in my face, I’m pretty annoyed. It’s like a bad maternity shirt, completely see through (AGAIN) and expensive to boot. Definitely the most unflattering thing I have ever put on my body. I’m really not sure I believe that a professional stylist could have possibly chosen this for someone on purpose.

This black one I actually liked and it was pretty comfortable. But it showed off too much of the ladies and again it was a bit pricey for the type of material. I also felt like it made me look bigger than I actually am, which is always a negative. Back it went.

This white sweater is the only piece I chose to keep. I needed a white sweater anyway and I liked the placement of the pockets and the material is not too heavy or too flimsy. This is actually the sweater I wore to my first book signing.

Now that I have had some time to reflect, my final thoughts on Stitch Fix Are:

PROs-

*I actually liked 3 out of 5 of the items they sent and I kept one. Not bad for the first time.

*Delivered to my door meant I didn’t waste any time or energy lugging three kids around the mall or spend any money on a baby sitter.

*The convenience of the return was awesome. You just stick the clothes you don’t want into the paid envelope they provide and mail it via a regular mailbox.

*I like the way that you can earn credit by referring friends and the way that your $20 styling fee is applied to whatever you choose to keep. (Disclaimer: if you place an order through my link I will get credit towards my next fix, if I chose to order again.)

*I liked the style cards that came with each piece, suggesting a few ways to wear it. This is the one from the sweater I kept:

CONs-

*They don’t seem to be great at dressing “plus sized” women. In real life I fluctuate between a size 8 and a size 12. None of those sizes are actually plus sized, but unfortunately in the fashion industry they are considered humongous. I asked for size 10 clothes for this fix. Everything fit me, but you will notice they only sent shirts and 4 out of 5 (including the sweater) were pretty matronly. This might be my fault because I chose “mostly loose” on my style profile when they asked how I prefer my tops to fit. I also asked that they avoid sending pants because I don’t need any. That does not explain why I didn’t receive any dresses, jewelry, or other accessories in this fix.

*I was nursing a baby at the time (thus why I chose “mostly loose”) and the sweater that I kept was the only option that was convenient for that. Again, this isn’t really their fault, but might be something the company could consider in the future.

*The quality of the clothes, in my opinion, was definitely not worth the price they were charging. I understand that they have overhead costs, but so do the stores at the mall and I really felt like the quality of the clothes I got was comparable to a store like Forever 21 or H&M. I would have paid less than half of what Stitch Fix was charging by going to those stores.

*I have other friends whose fixes have included a tank to wear under a sheer top. I thought it was a little unfair to send me 3 sheer pieces and nothing to wear under them.

*They don’t seem to really understand their audience. Stitch fix seems to be catering to young professionals. However, most of the young professionals I know are too savvy to pay these prices for this quality. Those are the women who can find time to shop and buy nice clothes and have them tailored. They don’t want cheap fabric. The idea behind Stitch Fix is genius and I love it, but they would be smarter to cater to moms and bloggers who have the influence to expand their reach and are willing to pay for convenience. (Says the woman who happily pays for the groceries to be delivered or for baby sitting services in the mall.) As it is, I got the impression that my lifestyle and my body type just weren’t hip enough to fit into their ideal client base. That just seems dumb to me. Moms buy clothes too, and not just for ourselves, for our entire families. I feel like they are missing a big opportunity by not catering to moms and don’t really care because they want to seem cool.

After the fix I filled out the report they requested explaining what I thought of each piece. I feel like that might help personalize my order the next time around, if I chose to try again. So far I have not placed an order for another fix, but I might consider it in the future. Overall, I’d give my experience with them a B-.

Have you tried Stitch Fix? What was your experience with them like?

Building the Dream: With Superior Walls

May 1, 2013 By: Stephanie7 Comments

Last Wednesday our basement walls went in! The crew spent the rest of the week leveling and tamping the stone to support the concrete floor, roughing in plumbing, and doing other important stuff that I don’t really understand.

Superior Walls in Our Basement

We chose to go with a company called Superior Walls because our builder recommended them and Eddie, who is a professional engineer, was really impressed with the kind of concrete they use and the way they are installed on top of many inches of stone. Apparently, the way they manufacture and install these walls is very similar to the way some types of bridges are built and, since a bridge is made to be much stronger than a house, this is a good thing. They are also more water-resistant than your average basement. Eddie says this is because of the fiber and steel-reinforced high-strength concrete that they use, which is continuously poured within climate-controlled conditions. Although they are more expensive up-front, they come with insulation (R 12.5) and concrete studs with metal facing already in place, which means it will cost us less money and be a faster process when we go to finish the basement in a few years.

My favorite part, though, was that it only took about 3 hours for them to go up!

I spoke to Eddie at 8:45 and the crane was just arriving. By the time I pulled onto our land at 11:15, this is what we saw:

We went back a few times this week. Saturday we spent all day relocating a few baby trees and climbing giant piles of dirt.

The kids were in their element, especially Nick.

I liked being able to get a good idea of the size of the basement and see actual work being done! We’ve spent SOOOO long just waiting for permits and weather that it was an overwhelmingly happy experience to see it start to become a reality.

The concrete floors are scheduled to be poured today, but it has been raining all week so that might need to be postponed another day or two.

I’ll check back in next Wednesday. It will be fun to see how much gets done each week!

SUBSCRIBE

Bloggy Boot Camp: Charlotte, NC

Building the Dream: Cross Bracing

How to heal your heels for flip-flop season

Hello Monday

Happy Mother’s Day

Building the Dream: Let the Framing Begin

On Raising Dumb Girls: Let’s Not

Blogger or WordPress?

My Stitch Fix Experience

Building the Dream: With Superior Walls

Binkies and Briefcases with Stephanie Giese

What You’re Saying

Latest Posts

ALL I Never Knowed: The Book Is Here!

Save Money with Fetch

Splendid Spoon Review

My Networks

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Binkies and Briefcases with Stephanie Giese

What You’re Saying

Latest Posts

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

My Networks