31DBBB: 2 Weeks Down!

So, I made it through the first two weeks of the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Challenge (see here for more explanation, I am trying not to be redundant.) without too many problems. When I decided to sign up for this thing, I wasn't sure what I was getting myself into, to be honest. All I knew is that A) It would help improve my blog and B) It would connect me to a lot of other bloggers, which is something I love to do. So I signed up and I followed along with the tasks and I posted in the forums and here I am, still just me and my blog, trying to make it through. A few of the things I have learned throughout this journey:

• I have major Wordpress envy. Every time I see something cool on others blogs and ask "how did you do that?" The answer is always a Wordpress plug in. When I read The Pink Crab's Blogger vs. Wordpress post last week, all the comments voted Wordpress was better. I get it. Wordpress is the bomb. Now who wants to tell me how to afford it? I am just a poor college student after all!
  
  
• Blogging is so much more than just writing down your random thoughts and publishing them for all to read, which is what I thought it was when I decided to start one. It is like a business. You have to market it, improve it, change it, and so on and so on. It's insane. I never realized how much effort blogging takes to be "successful" and how much behind the scenes stuff there is to it.
  
  
• Apparently I'm supposed to know what my blog is about. According to the ProBlogger dude who started this 31 Days challenge "if you don't know what your blog is about, no one else will either." Great. So because I don't limit myself to blogging about one thing no one will know what my blog is about, and therefore not want to read it? Also, I am supposed to have a "niche" and there are supposed to be other bloggers out there who fit into my "niche".  I googled college bloggers, college student bloggers to see what I could find. And the answer was pretty much nothing. Still searching for my "niche". Thoughts are appreciated.
  
  
• Blogging is kind of high school. You either have to be really smart or really funny or something to be recognized by the "cool kids".  If you want your blog post featured on the SITS weekly wrap ups, or Nirvana Mamma's blog or even just tweeted about by one of the leaders of this challenge.. well you better post something brilliant that people absolutely need to know or something so hysterical that people peed their pants. Yeah, I'm not gonna hold my breath for that one. The difference is, the homework for this challenge is way more fun than high school! The other day our assignment was to go to the mall... if that's not the best homework ever, I don't know what is!
  
  
• Sometimes you have to go outside your comfort zone, but it's all for a good cause! A couple of these challenges have made me nervous, like early on when we were supposed to promote one our posts. This is when all my insecurities come out & I am afraid to ask people to read my stuff. But, once I stepped outside my comfort zone I got great feedback and it really paid off in the end!
  
  
• It is pretty much impossible to keep up with all the blogs you read before the challenge, all the blogs you find through the challenge, and keep up with writing stuff on your own blog. Not to mention the daily challenges, and the forum posts. And forget about commenting. Also, if you have 15 minutes or whatever to read blogs, and you chose to peruse twitter for 31DBBB posts, be prepared for bloggy friend guilt. I always feel guilty because I am neglecting my current blog friends in hopes of making some new ones. That's the trade off I guess.
  
  
• When you start dreaming about 31DBBB and all that you still need to accomplish because you are a few days behind, you know you have probably put a little too much pressure on yourself. It is supposed to be fun, after all. Although, it would be nice if you could accomplish things for real in your dreams. Like I had a dream that I got this post done, and voila it's done! If only...!
  
  
• When you explain 31DBBB to one of your IRL friends that follows you on Twitter, their immediate response is "oh, is that what you've been going on and on about on Twitter?" Yes. Yes it is. Because tweeting about it is half the fun! To "outsiders" it seems that's all you tweet about, to 31DBBB people, you're normal.
  
  
• The blogosphere is a small, small world. It is so fun to realize how many of 31DBBB friends know my other blog friends! We travel similar circles, and that is cool! Who can blame them? I know a lot of really awesome people here in the blogosphere!
  
  
• When you get together a group of women (and one man as far as I know!) who are all talented, smart, creative and willing to help one another, great ideas are born!
  

Those are just a few of the things I have learned so far. I am sure I am forgetting things, and I am sure there are even more things yet to be learned in the next 15 days of the challenge!

Now, if inquiring minds want to know, I will show you my stats from the last 2 weeks. (A big thank you to Hannah at Bubbleboo who has answered all of my questions about how to make my stats look perfect!) The first week, I saw a steady incline in my numbers, but this week they were a lot lower. I'm not too worried about it, though. I was on vacation on not posting much, so why would people be coming over here?! The numbers might be down, but numbers aren't everything. I know my blog is improving and I am learning a lot! Here's my spreadsheet, color coded and everything!

So, there you have it... 14 days down, 15 to go! 31dbbb peers, what do you have to add to the list of what we've learned? Let me know!

7 Things You'll Thank Me For Later

Today is Day 7 of the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Challenge. Yeah, remember I mentioned that like a week ago? I haven't really been slacking, I just didn't think that every task required a post.

One of our first task was to make a list post. Obviously, I haven't done this yet, and today's post is to write a link post, so I figured I would kill two birds with one stone and make a list of 7 bloggers (7 for day 7 of the challenge!) who are also doing the challenge that you should definitely check out... and that you will want to thank me later for introducing you to! So, without further ado, meet my new blog friends! (Well, I hope they'll be my friends ;) )

1. Cate at Real Life With Kids- Last week when I tweeted that I couldn't complete that days task to promote yourself because I didn't feel any of my posts were worthy, she came over to my blog and found one she liked and linked up to me in her post that day! It really made me feel good! Not only is she so sweet to do that, but she is hilarious and awesome. She wrote a very informative post for the list day about why Cheeto's are awesome. The Cheeto's people should take note and get this girl on board to be their very own Cheeto blogger or something cool like that. Seriously, check her out and thank me later!
2. Kathryn at The Coastal Chick- This girl is not only sweet but she is funny! Her elevator pitch on Day 1 of the challenge not only made me feel like I'd known her forever, but it made me literally laugh out loud!
3. Designer Wife at The Glamorous Life of A Designer Wife- I was first impressed by her beautiful blog, but the content is even better than the design. She wrote a list about the 16 things she wished someone had told her before becoming a housewife, and it was hysterical! Also, she watches the Real Housewives on Bravo, which wins cool points in my book!
4. Multiple Mama- I clicked over to her site yesterday and instantly fell in love! Her blog is so well written! She's sarcastic, funny, and witty and you can't stop reading her blog. She summed up the first week of The ProBlogger challenge so well in her post Cool Girls Blog School (Part One) yesterday.
5. Cameron at Ingenue Mom- I found her blog last week, and ever since have not stopped reading! She is funny and very knowledgeable and has an all around fun blog to read! When we had to stalk observe another blogger in our niche, she wrote about Dear Baby, and got featured on SITS! Yesterday, she summed up the million articles we had to read by pointing out the best ones and talking about what she was going to do to improve her blog, which included a lot of GREAT ideas!
6. Melissa at The Pink Crab- I love her blog because she is super informative. Yesterday, she compiled a great list of the pros and cons of wordpress vs blogger, and it really helped me understand the differences! Also, last week, she listed free things you could get on the internet, and who doesn't link free things?!
7. Amy at Somebody's Parents- The first time I clicked over to Amy's blog, I knew I loved it. Not only is it really pretty, but it also had great content. Amy is expecting her first baby in less than 99 days, and she blogs about her journey of becoming someones parent & what goes along with it.

So, there you have it! I hope you will stop by and give these fabulous bloggers some love! I am so thankful I have found so many great blogs to read through this challenge! 

(By the way, my fan page is 2 away from having 100 fans, so if you would please "like" it & help me get to 100!!)

1 Minute in the Elevator With Me

So let's say you and I are in the elevator together, going up to the top floor or whatever. Don't get excited, this is not that kind of game (you know, where you say who you'd "hook up" with if you were stuck in an elevator with them... what I'm the only one whose mind went there? Whatever.). Anyway, so you and I are on the elevator and I have about a minute (or however long it takes to get to the top floor of wherever we are) to pitch my product (a.k.a. this blog) to you! What would I say to get you hooked? To have you leaving that elevator getting on your iPhone to look up my blog...

This is a challenge that was presented to me by ProBloggers 31 Days To Build A Better Blog Challenge, which I (along with 400 other women bloggers!) am participating in through SITS. One of the first things I did to start the challenge was to check out my stats, and thanks to Lynda, I put them in a spread sheet so I can track the progress throughout the 31 days! If inquiring minds want to know, here's a picture of the spreadsheet. My stats are not at all glamorous but I am just happy to have any and not all 0's across the board! ha! (Thanks bubbleboo for helping me figure out how to do this!)

Next, since I knew where I stood statistically (that is not an easy word to say!), I could get to work on Task 1: Create an Elevator Pitch and a Tagline for your blog. 

This sounds easy enough, but when you think about what your blog has to offer other people, it gets a little fuzzy. It did for me, at least. After careful consideration (and some help from my new twitter friends), I came up with a tagline:
Just a college and sorority girl, trying to find the woman in me and living to blog about it. 

It's not perfect, but I used some of the words from my header, which yes, are not my words, they are Britney Spears', but I wanted to incorporate the fact that I am at the in between stage in life, and that is what my blog is all about (or at least pretty much).

Next, I had to come up with my elevator pitch, to make you want to read my blog after we talked in the elevator (assuming that people actually talk in the elevator. Have you noticed that a conversation almost never takes place between strangers in an elevator? just saying). The elevator pitch would presumably go on your About Me page (which is coming one of these days), so people can understand what you're blog is all about. It's a work in progress, but here's what I came up with:

Short pitch: College girl wandering her way through her 20's and blogging every step of the way.

Longer pitch (assuming I got your attention with the short one, and you want to know more): College girl wandering her way through her 20's, and blogging all the moments of life including sorority life, a sister with cancer and everything else that comes along. It will make you laugh and it will make you cry, but come along for the ride as this girl looks to find the woman in her and leave behind the girl. 

So what do you think?! You can be totally honest! I know it's not perfect, but I think it's a start, and hopefully throughout these 31 days as I learn more about my blog and blogging in general, I will continue to tweak it until it's perfect! 

Make sure you check out all the other amazing bloggers participating in the challenge, and get ready for more blog bettering over here! (That's a word, ok!)

Over My Head

(Is anyone else now singing the Fray "Over My Head" in their heads now? Because I have been since I titled this post & just wondering if I'm the only crazy one! ha Just a side note!) Sometimes I have a habit of taking on too much at once. I have trouble saying no, and I really enjoy getting involved in things, so sometimes I often jump right into things without thinking about all that I have going on first. Now is one of those times where I feel like I am doing too much, and I am in over my head. (still singing the song: "everyone knows I'm in over my head, over my heaaddd..." just me?)

This summer so far has been pretty low-key, not too stressful. Which is nice because I am stressed enough during the year that when I have the summer off, I really want to be off for real. Only now that it's ending, I suddenly feel like I have a million things on my plate I took on all at once (at least it seems that way).

First of all, I started summer school this week. Blah. Don't even get me started. I am not the least bit happy about this, and even less happy about the fact that it won't be over until like 2 days before I go back to school. Awesome. It's just one class, and it's online so I don't even have to go to class, but it overwhelms me. School in general just totally stresses me out and overwhelms me because it doesn't come naturally to me, and I am a slow learner. So school over the summer? Ugh. Plus, this class is a lot harder than I expected. Last summer I took another online history class and it was pretty much a breeze. This one.. not so much. It's all essay writing, and reading 10 chapters a week. Thank goodness my mom is helping or I would be really losing it.

Also, there's this thing called a job. I love my job. I love where I work and who I work with, and this is probably my last summer there after like 4 years, so I really want to enjoy it. And, I am. But it means full hour days (ok like 10-5, but still), and when you have class on top of that, it makes for a long day. Also, on the job note, I am interning again for College Lifestyles. Which is such an amazing internship, and I love it. But, when I am working and doing summer school, it's hard to keep up with another internship and even harder to come up with creative post ideas.

Because that's not enough, I have the stress of trying to lose weight before I go back to school. I finally graduated from Boot Camp yesterday. With a total loss of like 2 pounds. Awesome. Somedays, I think my clothes are fitting better so maybe I lost inches (or at least centimeters! ha), but ask me again tomorrow & I'll probably tell you my jeans are tighter than ever. This happens to me every summer. I come home with the intention to lose weight, then when it gets to July and I haven't lost anything yet, I panic. It's just part of who I am. I'm not giving up yet, I still have the rest of the summer and I even signed up for 2 more weeks of boot camp (I could only do 2 because of vacation and then going back to school), so there's hope yet! I just have to figure out how to squeeze exercise into my schedule.

On a blog note, not only do I have to keep up with this blog (which I really don't think of as a chore at all, it's definitely a hobby, but sometimes I have total blogger's block & I stress about not posting frequently enough to keep people interested. Silly, I know), but I also signed up for the SITS Girls' ProBlogger 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Challenge. This is something I am super excited about, because although I've been blogging for two years now, I still feel like I have a lot to learn about blogging and this will teach me that stuff! Plus, I it will be a great way to connect to other bloggers that are also doing the challenge. And connecting with other bloggers is one of the best parts about blogging, so that's awesome! However, when I started thinking about the fact that this starts on Monday, and everything else I have going on, I started to feel like I had gotten in way over my head. Then when it's all over, I have to turn around and go back to school.

I know that it will all be okay. I've made it through other busy times, and I can do it again. And since most of the things I'm doing are things I love anyway, it really isn't so bad! And at least when I start thinking that I've gotten in over my head, that song pops back into my head and I can laugh at myself for being a dork! ha Sorry for whining, I know people have way worse problems and other people are way busier than I am, but this is my life and I think it's busy, and this is my blog so I get to complain blog about it if I want to! I'm off to go to write a summer school essay... *happy dance*