The kids when I started San Diego Momma.
The kids now.
Me when I started San Diego Momma.
Me now.
When I started this blog in late 2007, I knew one thing: I’d update it regularly. I’d let my “other” blog go around the bend of my first pregnancy and vowed to avoid that dreaded drop-off this time around. But with San Diego Momma, it’d be different: I’d show up, I’d post drivel if need be, but I’d be there. Every day.
And I was at first. And I posted drivel. And I went around the bend. But I was there.
Every day.
Things have changed, obviously. My thoughts on blogging have altered quite drastically. When I started blogging in early 2000, there were wonderful stories and personal glimpses and real people. I don’t feel that so much anymore, as blogging, like anything else popular, became commoditized and commercialized.
And that’s OK.
But it’s not my thing. At least not on the blogging side of it.
And as I continued to move in this space, I moved farther and farther away from the heart of what brought me here in the first place: the stories and the connections.
But this isn’t about that.
Blogging’s brought me so many opportunities: freelance writing jobs, new businesses, creative projects I just dreamed about before (IRL). And what those opportunities brought was less time to spend here, which still – even with my shifting views of the online world – makes my heart bittersweet.
I don’t have near the readers I had once, because a blog is a garden you must water. Plus it’s good to visit other gardens and sprinkle it with comment compost now and again. Yet and still I thought I’d update on what’s happening and hope you’ll share with me what’s happening over by you. Let’s talk garden to garden. I miss so many of you.
Two Funny Brains
This is a company founded with my partner, Jessica Bern, who was one of my very first blog loves. She and I began blogging at roughly the same time and we’d visit each other’s sites and a handful of others (Slouching Mom, Thursday Drive (as it was called then), Tootsie Farklepants – I MISS TOOTSIE FARKLEPANTS!), Mommy Pie (who founded the amazing Swap Mamas) (I still remember how she sent me the prototype of that site, which went on to fabulous success), Vodka Mom, Blog This Mom, and Auds, many of who became dear friends. Jess and I came to know each other through comments. Then we met in person at a 2010 event and became fast pals. And in 2011, Two Funny Brains became a thing. In short, we noticed that advertisers weren’t reaching women with effective online brand videos, and so we swooped in to fix that with funny video concepts that speak to “today’s” women. Who are anything but genres or stereotypes.
Jess and I bonded over the stories we used to enjoy reading at the blogs we loved, and vowed to make storytelling front and center again.
Wish us luck.
BlogTHAT!
This is another Jess-Deb project, but it started in Jess’s brain way before she met me. The story of a single mom living in LA and navigating the oceans of Hollywood ageism and after-40-trying-to-find-a-new-life, BlogTHAT weaves the blogging lifestyle into the cheeky tale. We filmed the pilot in early November and the footage is being edited right now as I write (finally, on this blog).
The Others
There are many others – editing, writing, ghost blogging (BUT WHY AM I STILL BROKE??) – that eat my keyboard-pounding fingers. But that’s no excuse.
The theme here is I miss this corner.
What I’m trying so desperately to say is that blogging has brought wonderful things, blogging has taken wonderful things, and in the end like everything else, it’s a balance. God, I hate that word.
And I don’t give a crap if I haven’t built my niche or grown my blog.
I just want to be here again.
With the stories, you know?
Because that’s where it all started.
Mwah!!!
Deb, true to my tagline, I am so very grateful to have stumbled onto San Diego Momma! I can’t remember when, and I can’t remember how. Back then I just jumped from blog to blog via blogrolls. And I found my own little community of kindred spirits. You be one!
— Blogging has indeed changed. We all evolve, I guess, and that’s not a bad thing. It’s good! Just look at all those wonderful people and things you mentioned! — And then, of course, there is facebook. I can’t imagine how many potentially good bloggers and writers have been lost to fb. I think fb has been the one biggest reason why blogging isn’t what it used to be. But it’s here, it’s a reality, and I’ll even say it’s good, too.— In any event, regardless where our fortunes take us, I’l always be grateful for and remember certain eFriends, like you. And I’ll hope our paths continue to cross, in one way or another, for a long, long time!
:-)
I was just wondering about you and your endeavors! Happy to read this update and happy for you. My freelance career is just starting to take off and I wonder of the ability to be in ten places at once. I don’t think we can do it. But we can do our best.
Exactly! I was sad to learn my blog had been hacked sometime in December. I felt like I left the baby out in the rain. I think we’ve finally gotten it all fixed up, but in the process I looked at stats and such and realized I had no readers, just spambots. The good news is much has changed in my real life, leaving little time for writing on the blog. I’ll keep it in the hopes that writing for writing’s sake will come back into fashion at some point. Hey! If those cheesy mustaches from the ’70s and ’80s can come back, so can regular ol’ blogging, right?
I look way back to my early blogging days, too, sometimes and it makes me happy to see your name in my comments. Yours has always been one of my favorite blogs because you’re a beautiful, soulful writer…and you know how to have fun, too.
Oh, and you know good music. And you like ghost-y things. And you’re just really awesome in so many ways. So glad to still know you. xo