Five Blondes » blogging

I guess this means I have to (finally) get new camera batteries.

Leah — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 12:34:29 +0000

Somebody recently asked me what my favourite topic to blog about was. At the time, I was dumbfounded – I hadn’t really thought about it objectively before. Upon ruminating about blog topics, I realize that my favourite things to blog about are not exactly what I actually blog about. I like to blog about fashion/style, and I like to make people laugh. How often do I blog about fashion/style? Not often? BARELY EVER! I love to get dressed up and I love to do my hair and my makeup and shop and I love to wear ridiculous shoes and I’d like to show them off. I loooove love love reading fashion blogs, and I love when bloggers do ‘OOTD’s’ (outfit of the days), so that’s one thing I’d like to start doing.

As for the whole ‘making people laugh’ thing, well, I like to think I make you laugh every so often. Although, some ridiculous outfits of days gone by have definitely incited giggles and stares from the girls, so perhaps I am on the right track with the outfits posts. I’ve since chucked the zebra striped pants and I don’t wear bright orange tutu skirts with brown flowered blouses and rain boots anymore, and I feel like ‘Toronto Leah’ has good style, and I’d share that style with YOU!

Happy Birthday Leah!

Lauren — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 16:03:42 +0000

Today it is Leah’s 24th birthday! A lot has gone on since her last birthday, including a new baby in the family, a big move across the country, which we are all so excited about, and her search for a job, which you have all been through with her while reading her blog posts. We are so happy that she is closer to the whole family, and can’t wait until she and Tim get settled in Toronto and she gets a job!
Happy birthday Leah!

ps. Today is our last day of NaBloPoMo. Can you believe it?! This month has gone by so quickly, and it feels like only yesterday that Erica posted our first post of the month announcing it.
Thanks so much to everyone who read and commented, and I hope you continue to do the same in the coming months!

How To Blog With Your Sisters (and still get along at the end of the day)

Erica — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 01:15:10 +0000

Running a multi-authored blog is not the easiest thing in the world. Throw in the fact that the other four authors are your sisters and you’ve got an entirely different ball of wax. We’ve been “co-blogging” (or whatever you want to call it!) for 3.5 years so today I thought I’d share a few of the pro’s and con’s of blogging with your sisters (from Erica’s POV!)

PRO:
Committing to NaBloPoMo means writing 6 posts, not 30.

CON:
Majority rules when deciding to participate in NaBloPoMo! Well, I think we were pretty much all for it

PRO:
You don’t need to post as much as if you were a solo blogger in order to keep the blog going.

CON:
Guilt trips when you’re not blogging as much as everyone else…something I felt a lot of, and something I deserved over the summer.

PRO:
Variety! On any given day, there may be a post about cheerleading, moving across the country, motherhood, buying a house, finding a great new job, or any number of life events.

CON:
Our lives seem to mesh together for some readers – especially first-time visitors or off-line friends of just one of us. I’ve been congratulated for being pregnant after tweeting about a blog post written by Katelyn or Micaela before.

PRO:
Five different heads with ideas about our blog should look like.

CON:
Five different heads with ideas about our blog should look like.

PRO:
One blog, five marketers

CON:
Sometimes we rely a little too much on ‘someone else replying to that email’!

PRO:
We’re more open with each other and with what is going on in our lives.

CON:
…I’m out of cons!

More PROS:
Reading a blog draft is a little like reading your sister’s diary – but it’s OK because she’s going to share it with the world anyway!

FB is a reason and a place for us to share stories and pictures and recall childhood memories.

There you have it! Blogging with your sisters: it’s not always easy – but it is always fun and rewarding.

She's over the prairies and far away

Leah — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 10:26:19 +0000

If you’re an avid reader of our cutie-pie little abode, you just might recognize the name “Natalie” – Natalie is my Calgary BFF and has even written a few guest posts for us in the past. Her gorgeous mug is plastered all over my posts, so creepers? Stalk away.

Well, friends, Natalie has taken a big step in her life – she has started her Very Own Blog.

over the prairies and far away

Let’s all help out with breaking her blogging virginity and leave her a comment or two … or ten. She’s a beautiful writer and I promise you won’t be disappointed. (And she’s got quite a few stories to tell that’ll keep you busting a gut over and over again.)

Something really awesome happened yesterday

Leah — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 10:38:11 +0000

… but if you think it was a baby you are terribly mistaken. Still waiting for that one. Still waiting, and possibly getting a bit impatient!

THIS HAPPENED!

And because yesterday was possibly the most awesome day of all times on the internets this also happened in support of an completely awesome blogger named brandy.

So thank you to everybody who voted for us (or voted at all) and to everybody who donated to the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation at www.loveharder.org. You helped make yesterday a great one. In fact, it was so awesome I was convinced Kate was going to pop. It was really the only thing that would have made yesterday better.

When worlds collide.

Micaela — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 23:43:50 +0000

As many of our readers know, I’ve been trying to get a teaching job for a million years a few months. Because I am a person of little patience who wants everything to be perfect at all times, I have let this stress me out too much. I am not too much of a planner, but I do like to be able to plan and dream in my head for the future and it’s much nicer when these dreams consist of spending my days in bright happy schools, cute teacher-y outfits, a reason to get up early and do something (I’ll be kicking myself for this wish though), money to save for our own house, for my new camera, and for the guitar of his dreams for Kent, and to get through this year of weddings (six close friends and family) without going broke.

And you might just think this is another complainy blog, maybe you are three sentences away from clicking “mark as read,” but it’s not. Promise. I had a big big big interview on Friday for the exact teaching job that I want and spent last week as a nervous wreck preparing for it. My lovely in laws (recently retired teachers) picked me up and brought me there like I was a child on her first day of kindergarten and made sure not to say anything to make me even more nervous (not possible.) For various reasons I have a lot of hope about it and while positive is a strong word… well the more I think about it the more nervous about it I get, so I’ll stop there. Anyways. Let’s just pretend I do get the job.

Now my question – do blogging and teaching mix? I know a few bloggers who are teachers, some post pictures, and most use their real names. Some share stories about their students, many write things I doubt they would want their students reading. I don’t know if they take any precautions; make sure co-workers don’t know about their blogs, keep their blog secret from anyone they know in real life, but I know I couldn’t do any of that at this point. So many of our readers are real life friends and family, and when I worked at a bank my co-workers would make sure to inform me during the day if someone had updated our blog. I really like it being part of my real life, not a secret thing that I have to be careful about.

Also, even if I decided to keep my posts student-friendly, this is a shared blog and my sisters are of course free to write about whatever they want. Not that my sisters are writing about anything too out there, but do I want my students reading about my sisters’ roommate problems or work problems, for example? Not really. And I don’t think the school would appreciate it either. It’s a big school board, not just a small private school so getting fired would really not be preferable. Not that it ever would be.

So where does that bring me? I guess I have three options – keep blogging here and hope for the best, stop blogging, or start my own blog. I would be interested in starting something like Young House Love or Cupcakes and Cashmere, something that can feed my creativity and talk about my life without going into anything personal. If I do have my own blog I want it to be something I feel comfortable telling my students about. We don’t have an old house that we’ve fixed up into a masterpiece and I don’t have a wardrobe or fashion sense to die for, but we have our cute little apartment and will hopefully buy a house sometime this year. I could work on the wardrobe thing, especially if I did have a teaching job.

So tell me what you think – what would you do in my position, knowing me well or not knowing me at all? Or what would you do if you were in this position?

No related posts.

Best Group Blog nomination- 20sb Bootlegger Awards

Leah — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 05:08:43 +0000

I am so very excited and pleased to announce that Five Blondes has been nominated for an award! The award is for the 20sb Bootlegger Awards, and we were nominated for Best Group Blog. If you are a 20sb-er (that’s twenty something bloggers to you non-blogging readers) then do consider us for your important vote! Vote here, but only if you are a 20sb-er. If you aren’t but still want to give us your vote, leave a comment telling us how much you absolutely adore us. Those count, in our minds anyways.

I thought this would be a good opportunity to showcase some of my favourite posts from this year as well. Going through all of the posts and re-reading them and the comments left on them made me so incredibly proud of what Five Blondes has become. I love our little blog and everyday it makes me happy. Thank you to ALL of our readers for helping us to keep writing, and to keep growing. We have lots of plans and ideas for FB the year to come so stay tuned!

We’ll go through the sisters one by one in order of age so hold on to your horses.

Erica:

On the 20-Something Blogging Community

It’s one thing to drift apart, and another to take off running in the other direction.

Finally.

Lost and Found

Micaela:

The wonderful world of twitter.

What I believe today.

When life is hard.

Sisterly connections and unbirthdays.

Long live Dragon Baby.

The Micaelaest.

Kate:

Playing Photographer

Raspbaby

Can you really KNOW?! +12 weeks

37 weeks & Maternity photos

Leah:

Haters to the Left

A Thank You

Reading and just being.

Lauren:

I never thought I was girly…until now

I love you more than…

Thanks for reading! I know I’m biased, but I think we have the best readers and friends around.

(A little birdie told me that one of our most faithful commenting readers and very close family friend is currently popping out a baby! We’re sending you lots of positive thoughts L, here’s to a healthy birth. This baby and Kate’s baby are going to be the best of friends.)

Blog Swap: The Spirit of Christmas

Leah — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 06:04:17 +0000

I chose to participate in another creative writing blog swap. For full details see Pam’s blog. I was fortunately paired up with a great friend of mine, Mich. (It was her birthday yesterday! We went out on Saturday and had a blast.)

I did this previously in September and was paired with Dutch Being Me – see her post here and my poem here. Thanks for hanging out with the Blondes today, Mich!

What is the spirit of Christmas?

It’s not something you can buy at a store. Or put in a box under the tree with a pretty bow on it. It’s not something you put on your plate. And it’s not something you say.

Its something you feel.

It’s how you feel when you hug the ones you love and say “Merry Christmas”.

It’s how you feel when you are writing a Christmas card to those in places far away from you, wondering when they will open it and imagining the smile on their face when they do.

It’s the magical feeling you get when you see the giant Christmas tree lit up at the mall, covered in lights and shiny ornaments.

It’s the feeling you get when you hear your favorite Christmas song, and hum along to it.

It’s the fresh snow on the ground and watching the twinkling lights reflect off the snowflakes on the trees.

It’s decorating the tree and pulling out your favorite ornaments from when you were a child, and remembering….

It’s shoveling the walk, with a nose that is rosy from the cold, knowing that family and friends are on their way to visit.

For me, its hearing my grandmother sing “We wish you a merry Christmas” every year in her German accent, and laughing as she makes a brooch or a hat out of the bows and ribbons instead of opening her gifts.

For me it’s the drive home from my grandparent’s house on Christmas Eve, stuffed full from the turkey dinner and chocolates, staring out the window, watching the lights, singing to the Christmas songs on the radio.

For me, it’s the magic.

Always, Sometimes, Never

Leah — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 22:48:10 +0000

I always…

Make mental notes about good blog topics and promptly forget them.
Love my hands.
Look for ways to make myself a better person.
Laugh at my own jokes.
Say I love you only when I really, truly mean it.
Feel weightless and settled when I walk into my beautiful condo.

I sometimes…

Freak out and want to get married RIGHTNOW.
Check my voicemail on my cell phone (Sorry, friends.)
Have nice handwriting.
Think wisely before spending money.
Wear perfume.
Say what I am really thinking.

I never…

Like to see people in pain.
Take off my toe nail polish (I just paint over it. Ew, I know.)
Go to church. But I think about it a lot.
File my papers and bills.
Have enough self-confidence.
Drink tequila on its own. I will, however, drink it mixed with Jack Daniels.

(Thank you to Brandy, Wishcake and Kyla for the idea!)

No related posts.

On the 20-Something Blogging Community

Erica — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 19:20:52 +0000

I find myself right now in the middle of an interesting discussion on Twitter regarding the state of the 20-Something blogging community, particularly the community as it is defined by members of the 20 Something Bloggers social network (Are you 20-something? Do ya blog? Join! And friend me!).

I feel that the community managers and admin have been doing a tremendous job in recent months, organizing the first-ever meetup (that I was excited to attend – until Micaela’s stag and doe was scheduled on the same weekend), the blog swaps, blog carnival, etc. The community recently reached a milestone of over 7000 members.

It’s easy to feel lost in a crowd of 7000.

I feel lost at times. Kyla feels left out. I’ve heard people compare the community to high school, with cliques being formed. It’s a natural process to find those that you like and feel a connection to. When a small group has formed that seems to converse only with themselves, it can be intimidating. I gravitated away from the 20-something community some time ago because I wanted to connect with my local blogging and social media community – now that I have made invaluable connections, I feel like I’m missing out on my 20-something friends!

I know the community managers of 20SB are working on this – I’ve shared a suggestion or two via Twitter to help. There are ideas being thrown around left, right and center (I love Twitter! #20sb ). I feel that those who speak up and make themselves heard are positioned to get the most out of 20SB – which sadly is exactly why I’m getting nothing out of it right now. But the times, they are a-changin’.

What’s your take? Do you ever feel left out? Do you have any suggestions on how a large online community can thrive?