I met the site’s editor at BlogHer back in August, but in typical “me” style, I took my time to figure out what to write about.  The more time that went by after our meeting, I lost my confidence and worried that my debut would never happen.

And then I went to the Les Misérables press conference and a bell went off in my head.  I thought, “I have so much content here, I must find a publication to pitch my stories to.”  And it was sitting right under my nose. Women & Hollywood.

So, I published two Les Mis stories – you must check them out!  One on Anne Hathaway’s transformation and one on newcomer Samantha Barks. Then I sat down with cultural historian Lori Rotskoff and interviewed her on her new book, When We Were Free to Be.

It is so, so, so satisfying to see my byline on a site I so admire and respect.

Here’s to 2013 and challenging myself for more of the same.

Then in high school I left a very academic institution to attend a high school of performing arts.  I thought my life would be like the show “Fame” – kids would dance and sing on the tables in the lunch room and my life would be one big show after another.  Well, I did have a few leads in shows.  I studied Shakespeare, Ibsen, Wendy Wasserstein and Sam Shepard.  But I also convinced that acting wasn’t my calling.  I was awkward looking.  I was sensitive and didn’t have the stamina that an actor needs.  My sisters lived in NYC at the time and every time I came to visit, we spent all our time on Broadway.

So, I moved to New York City, where I’ve spent the last 20 years or so being a real voyeur and connoisseur of the theater world.  I’ve been a little bird on the wall, loving the experience every time I’ve sat down to watch a play.  I’ve saved all my Playbills (it’s a big pile!) and am a proud member of several theaters.

This year something happened.  Because of this blog I actually had a role in bringing two shows to the NYC stage.  It was all quite incidental.  Because of this blog, I have met women with similar interests.  Because of these women, I have discovered my true passion.  Because of this passion, I feel restored.

How did it all start?  At BlogHer in 2010, I walked up to Ann Imig of AnnsRants.com and asked her if I could have anything to do with her show Listen to Your Mother should it come to NYC.   She and Amy Wilson of WhenDidIGetLikeThis.com had led a panel called “From Blog to Page” and I was mesmerized by their words.  I just wanted to have the slightest involvement with the show, given my lack of knowledge and experience in the theatre world.

Ann got in touch with me right when I got back and suddenly, I was involved with bringing an actual show to New York.  And I mean really involved.  I learned the nuts and bolt of bringing a show to the stage. Along with Amy and Varda Steinhardt from SquashedMom.com, I helped to produce a show.  It was invigorating.

When that experience ended, I was depressed.  Where do I go from here?  I was glad to know that there would potentially be another LTYM show a year later and I would look forward to that.  But to have loved something so much and do it on a daily basis.  Would I be able to do that again?

Not much later I saw that Amy was working on a new show called The Best of Everything by Rona Jaffe, a play she had been working on for a long time with her writing and producing partner of 20 years, Julie Kramer.  Craving to have the slightest involvement, I fearfully asked her if she needed help. My hopes were so high and when she embraced the idea and brought me in, I was walking on air.

Photo credit: Leah Michalos

For the last 3 months, I have watched the birth of a show. I have been a part of something so important.  This show, one that Amy and Julie sank their hearts and souls into, is now a bonafide hit, playing at the Here Arts Center in Soho.  Last week it received 4 stars in the New York Times by Ben Brantley, one of the, if not the most important, theater critics in NYC.

After that review, and several other fabulous ones, the show has sold out its entire run and is truly the hottest ticket in town.

How was I so lucky to have stumbled into something I love so much? All because of this little blog. Amy and Julie’s mentorship have been worth a million dollars.

Have you stumbled into your passion through a back door? I’d love to hear your story.

Nearly two weeks ago, I had the chance to watch the magic unfold once again at BlogHer during the LTYM Open Mic Salon.  Led by the amazing Ann Imig, the night was dedicated to bringing in voices from the nearly 5K attendees.  I was asked to work behind the table outside the salon and organize everyone who wanted to speak signed in.  It was thrilling to see so many women fill out the forms, and make their way into the salon to read one of their most poignant posts revolving around Life, Humor or Rants. There was a space on the form for “Prison Nickname” which generated a lot of laughter and chatter around the sign-in table.

My fellow LTYM:NYC 2012 Director Amy Wilson kicked off the evening, reading her hilarious post about Buckyballs from her site When Did I Get Like This. I managed to sneak in to see her reading.  Every time one of my fellow friends and colleagues get up on stage, an enormous sense of pride builds up in my being and this was no exception.  Other people I know sat in the audience, praying that would get called up but only a lucky selection of about 20 got randomly picked.  Several of my friends were fortunate enough to get called upon, and I’m sure it was both satisfying and electrifying to go up and read for a room full of dynamic women.  Ann listed the night’s readers on the LTYM site, check out the list. Other friends of mine who got selected (all random, I had no pull) were Randi Chapnik Myers, Jessica Bern and Julia Roberts.  As I was working outside, I only heard a few, but I did walk in at the end to hear Julia, who read her piece “On this Day of Suicide Prevention” which had me in tears.  I immediately went up to her at the end to let her know its impact on me.  That kind of feeling that you have to hug the person who read is what LTYM is all about. They are that close to your heart.

One of the most meaningful aspects of the show in NYC in the spring was donating a portion of the show’s proceeds to a non-profit, in our case Room to Grow.  The national show raised 6K for charities around the country. Leave it to Ann to choose a charity for this special night to donate to: Violence Unsilenced.  With its mission to educate about domestic abuse, sexual abuse, and violence in general, one of the salon readers spoke up about being  a survivor.  I happened to be in the room to hear her confession and it made everything about the night seem even more important.

I’m so happy to say that I am officially a part of the 2013 NYC LTYM crew, joining my colleagues Amy Wilson, Varda Steinhardt and Betsy Cadel once again.  The memory just keeps going…..

It was an honor to be included in this group of amazing women. It was surreal to have been included in a room full of women who have made such an impact as as writers with huge voices, as entrepreneurs, as women, as moms.  Meeting Kristin Davis was icing on the cake, and now I really have to see her in Gore Vidal’s The Best Man on Broadway.  I asked her how the cast was feeling about Vidal’s death and even shared information about the two shows I’ve personally worked on myself this year.  She could not have been a more genuine person and expressed her own pleasure gained from being in the room with so many inspiring women. (and, yes, I did thank her for all those important years of bringing Sex and the City into my life, how could I not?)

Here are some photos from this first-class event:

Kristen Davis and our host, the fabulous Liz Gumbinner from Cool Mom Picks

Varda Steinhardt from Squashed Mom, Elissa Freeman, Kristen Davis and myself (left to right)

Kristin Davis’s shared her own healthy tips for new moms and I’ll vouch for each one of them:

·         Eat Right
Prepare healthy meals and snacks (like brown rice) when you have a few minutes so you can throw it in the refrigerator and have something healthy on hand when you get the chance to eat.

·         Go Natural
Rely on natural products you can trust, especially when you get sick.  You can’t be at your best when you feel terrible!  I love Zarbee’s because it’s an all natural product that helps with coughs and allergies without making me drowsy.

·         Make Time for Yourself

It is hectic being a mom so try to carve out some “me” time during the day – even just a minute to breathe and assess what you need so you can be at your best for your baby.

Zarbee’s Cough Syrup is all natural and gluten free, contains no drugs, alcohol and dyes, has no side effects and carries no risk of overdose.  Also, Zarbee’s has no Dextromethorphan (DM), the most common over-the-counter treatment for coughs, which is not supported by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Disclosure: I was invited as a guest to this luncheon, for which they provided the images viewed above.  It was an honor to be there and I’m excited to try out this product.

This small blog that you’re reading has led to so many opportunities and has truly been a window both into myself and what I want to do in life. Because of social media, I’m plugging back into skills and abilities that I thought were long gone, particularly after I had the kids.  It basically pulled me out of the darkness. Because of social media, I truly know that anything is possible and I don’t have to wait for things to happen.  Because of social media, I’ve become a better marketer and it’s led to new career opportunities.  Because of social media, I’ve also found a new network of friends around the world.  These are women and men who inspire me to no end and have helped me find my inner potential.

This isn’t easy to explain to my non-social media friends.  When I told a close friend that I was about to head off to BlogHer 2012 in NYC this past weekend, she naively stated, “I’m sure you’ll do some great networking there.”  I’m not sure if you know anything about BlogHer, but BlogHer for me is not just about networking.  It’s about meeting and seeing people with whom I have real connections.  These connections started online but they’ve translated to my real life and qualify as deep and meaningful.  Many of these people are my friends now, and conferences like BlogHer always gives us the chance to meet and hang out.  I read their blogs, they follow me here or know what I’m to through my various outlets, we communicate daily on Twitter and Facebook and somehow the bond we have formed is far greater than anything I have ever known.  These are women who inspire me, and to be able to spend three days in their presence is just plain fortuitous.  It’s an honor to meet so many of these women, many who, like me, are using social media for work and have re-discovered their love for writing, or are using their words to move mountains and make a difference in the world.

They’re not all moms – they’re WOMEN.  BlogHer is not a “mommy blogging” conference although I was saddened to hear the term used throughout the conference over and over again.  There are a lot of moms in the room, but there are also plenty of women without children.  And there are all kinds of bloggers, as well as women like me who use social media to advance their profession (for me, as a marketer), so I wished that the term was used more carefully, or not used at all, and I wondered if I was the only one in the audience slightly irritated by it.  If you looked carefully at this room full of inspirational and powerful women (and men), you would have seen so much more than a room full of “mommy bloggers”.

I was inspired by BlogHer’s key note speakers, it was impossible not to be. They each yield a certain amount of power in this world and understand the power of blogging and of this particular audience of over 4,000 women. Check them out:

Women are not a monolithic group, you are not an interest group.  You make up more than half of our country and nearly half of our workforce, not to mention 80% of my household if you count my mother-in-law. – Barak Obama. Check out Obama’s BlogHer speech here.

Tweeting gets your message out instantaneously. I use Twitter for research and instantaneous surveys. I get thousands and thousands and thousands of responses when asking questions on Twitter. – Martha Stewart

“It would take a pretty fantastic group of people to convince me to spend a Saturday afternoon during the dog days of summer in a hotel conference room.” – Katie Couric

Solutions are complex and require a functioning healthcare system, which isn’t available everywhere around the world. We need to start in a place where we all understand and build awareness from there.  - Christy Turlington – (Yes, that’s me – more on my fondness for everything Christy and her fabulous non-profit, Every Mother Counts, in an upcoming post.)

This year’s BlogHer conference was different for me in that after 2-1/2 years of blogging and handling community and social media marketing for various companies, the sessions weren’t as helpful for me as they could have been. I had several friends who avoided the sessions altogether and came to BlogHer for the connections.  Though I did pick up several tips in some of the sessions I went to, I decided to focus my efforts on Bloganthropy and went to several sessions on using my voice for social good.  You may not realize it, but I have managed to use my voice for several causes in the last two year (particularly for the folks at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital where I raised tens of thousands of dollars through an integrated campaign that I ran for my company) through my work and here on this blog. Advocacy is a huge part of my parenting style, and how I want to use my platform.  Bloganthropy.com hosted a panel with many wonderful bloggers, including one of my friends, Emily Vanek, who use their experience to benefit others. They have figured out to use social media to save news, create laws and their words have helped so many.

A few highlights of the conference for me included Voices of the Year in which my friends Varda Steinhardt and Shari Simpson and so many others read posts straight from their heart, defining the essence of how blogging can touch the lives of so many simply by sharing a story or rite of passage. I also enjoyed a glamorous Lifetime Moms party at Lord & Taylor where I had the chance to meet some of the current Project Runway designers, get a makeover (I told the artist to go easy on this non make-up wearer and she did) and find out about new falls trends.  I joined the gang at Nickelodeon, my old stomping ground, to hear about their new upcoming programming block, which I’ll write more about on this blog in the days to come.  I met the wonderful actress Kristin Davis, now starting in The Best Man, on Broadway, at an event for Zarbee’s Cough Syrup.  I reunited with the crew from all the 10 cities for Listen to Your Mother and I helped my friend, Ann, run the open mic for all BlogHer attendees.  It was a night of openness and amazing stories, one that I will not forget for some time to come.

As always, I found myself wondering if I was making the most out of the conference.  I was never quite in the right place at the right time, however I left happy and content.  I saw my soul sisters.  I feel as though as I’ve arrived in this world and I was exactly where I needed to be this past weekend.

Next year the conference is being held in Chicago and I’ll be there, but hopefully by that point, I’ll figure out what I want to get out of it and make it happen. Meanwhile, I’m getting closer to that point and after being in surrounded by so many powerful and amazing women this past weekend, I’m on my way.

Disclosure: I fully funded my own trip to BlogHer.

When Holly first emailed me and asked if I wanted to participate in this series, my first thought was that I was woefully unqualified to discuss being a woman who does it all. I almost always feel like I need to be – should be capable of – doing more. But I suppose that’s the big secret, isn’t it? Even the most productive among us imagines that there is even more we could be doing.

While I might not be doing everything, I am consistently doing enough.

More than that, I am doing the things that mean the most to me. That, I think, is the key to a life that feels happy and successful to the one to whom it belongs.

My sister-in-law, a 25-year old mother of three who is pregnant with her fourth and working a fulltime job in healthcare, recently asked her Facebook friends how she could do it all. She expressed a frustration that I find so common among women: a lack of balance and a fear that important people and obligations in her life are getting short -changed.

My suggestion was to lower her standards and stick with the basics.

She didn’t respond, but I imagine she hated that advice. I know I would have hated that advice when I was at a similar place in my own life. Being told to lower my standards would have been tantamount to being told to give up, to settle for less than what I and my family deserved, to admit that I wasn’t as capable of doing it all as those other women I saw who were handling so much so smoothly.

Giving up was probably the best thing I ever did for myself and my family.

I gave up trying to be super mom and focused on being a good mom. I decided that my kids didn’t care near as much about home-baked school treats and well-organized craft time as they did love, time, and attention. They’re wants and needs are pretty minimal and amount, in a nutshell, to a mother who is kind more often than stressed and affectionate more often than perfect.

So, too, did I give up on the dream of being the ideal wife. I have chosen, instead, to focus on loving my husband in the small ways he prefers and to trust that he will take care of keeping himself happy. His happiness is his responsibility; effectively loving him is mine. My husbands standards for love are even lower than my children’s; the challenge is that we speak different “love languages” and so I have to constantly remind myself to love him in his own language of touch and time, instead of the one I prefer of words and service.

In my mind, I’ve chosen to add on very little to the priority list after my family and friends. I have my work, which is also my passion; my health, which is a necessity more than a pleasure; and my obsession with personal happiness, which is really at the core of every other priority.

That’s really not much. It’s not all that I do -  occasionally I find myself with extra time for incidental items – but it’s all that I need to focus on in order to feel like I’m doing enough.

*My work at Ruckus Media Group has continued to thrive and I have been able to oversee their campaign as a partner of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.  For the last six weeks, we have donated a portion of sales to children who need it most and I am very proud of our work.

*I launched a company called MamaDrama with Erin Leigh Peck.  We are bridging the world of theater and social media and have already managed significant social media campaigns for Godspell, Queen of the Mist and Motherhood Out Loud. As 2012 kicks off, we have two new clients and we are so excited about our future.

*I had my first credit in an actual book as “Editor” in Come Closer: How Tourism is Shaping the Future of Nations.  It is Anita Mendiratta’s debut book, and I loved working with her.

*I became a contributor over at CBS Local New York and have written a bunch of articles about the city I know most, NYC.  You can check my list out here.

*I worked on several significant Social Good campaigns that hold a special place in my heart.  Early in the year, I raised $850 for the Haitian Amputee Mother’s Alliance.  Just this past month, Passports with Purpose raised more than 90K to build libraries in Namibia and my prize that was donated by Wyndham Bonnet Creek was a contributor to that amount.  I was part of ABC’s Million Moms Challenge to raise awareness and funds to help women and children everywhere survive and thrive and got to share my own experiences over on the site.  I also joined the committee of my local chapter of  Room to Read (the same organization that Passports with Purpose helped) and worked on a local fundraiser which raised $25,000 for Room to Read.  I joined the One Organization as a One Mom and now get to blog about issues of utmost importance to me and the world – last month, I brought their campaign closer to home and taught my own kids about local hunger.  And lastly, I made my TV debut onGood Morning America and Nightline talking about the issue of local hunger, thanks to my good friend Scary Mommy who led a campaign which fed 4,000 families.

* I had the chance to meet and interview some of my favorite celebrities including Marlo Thomas, Emily Watson, Julianne Moore, Hugh Jackman, Andie MacDowell and Selena Gomez (and my daughter got to do the interview with me, a thrill for both of us).

* I joined an amazing crew of women to produce a show called Listen to Your Mother and garnered myself my first Associate Producer title.  We are bringing the show to NYC this spring and I am so privileged to be a part of it under Ann Imig, its marvelous creator.

*I brought a Holocaust survivor to our synagogue and the response was overwhelming.  It was a night I will never forget, nor will the people who came to hear her.  I also spearheaded my synogogue’s Purim carnival, reluctantly at first, but in the end, quite happily as it achieved great results (as in hundreds of kids had a ball!).  And I led a group of women from my shul to the Jewish Film Festival at the Jacob Burns Film Center.

*Travel:

Looking back to 2011, I can’t believe the places I have gone, considering my kids are ages 7 and 8, and just a few short years ago, I thought my traveling life had ended.  On the contrary!  I had the great pleasure to attend a trip with the gals at the Motherhood to Cape May to stay at the fabulous Congress Hall.  That was a weekend I will never forget.  My weekend in Beaver Creek was certainly a memorable one, as was my press trip to Montreal where I galavanted all over the city covering family-friendly attractions and restaurants.  Our family vacation to my home town, Atlanta, became a different kind of experience when we stayed at the Ritz Carlton and Four Seasons there for the first time as a family.  Our summer vacation in London, Provence and Paris fulfilled that part of me that craves international travel.  I wrote about why I travel with kids and how I embrace the challenges that go along with it.  After attending a press trip to Orlando and doing Disney on my own in January, I took my kids back in May and discovered a new way to stay comfortably near the park grounds at the Wyndham Bonnet Creek.  I attended conferences like Blissdom in Nashville, Bloggy Boot Camp in Boston and BlogHer in San Diego.  We also went as a family to Mystic, Connecticut, where we bonded over pizza and whales and to Philadelphia where we explored the amazing Ben Franklin Institute.

Question for you: What’s your greatest achievement of 2011 and what are you looking forward to in 2012?

Here’s to another great year.  I can’t wait to see what happens next.

Best Movies:

I loved that my son enjoyed the dazzling film directed by Martin Scorcese, Hugo, just as much as I did. A long time fan of Woody Allen, I adored Midnight in Paris and found it just as compelling and genuine as some of his early films.  I saw it in a Brooklyn film house with other longtime Woody Allen fans and it was one of my most memorable cinematic experiences of the year.  I laughed out loud with all the ladies of the hit movie Bridesmaids and am thrilled that women took over the screen once again. Another great film for and about women was The Help, a well-written version of a book that rocked the hearts of millions of readers.  It was brought to life through the eyes of great actresses.  Viola Davis must surely be up for the Academy Award when time rolls around.

Best Plays:

I managed to catch Brief Encounter just before it left NYC, and I am so grateful that I did.  It reminded me of how much I love New York City, theater and film.  It was a great way to kick off 2011.  Another Noel Coward play happened to come to town this year featuring one of my favorite actors, Alan Rickman: Seminar.  The combination of Rickman and Theresa Rebeck was electrifying and it was one of my favorite nights on Broadway this year.  Another drama that I enjoyed was Other Desert Cities, a play I caught early in its off-Broadway run at Lincoln Center starring Stockard Channing and Linda Lavin.  Written by Jon Robin Baitz, who I am so glad has returned to the stage, it had such fresh dialogue and humor, and as the secrets unraveled throughout the show, I was almost falling off my seat.  And The Normal Heart on Broadway was one of the most richest, fulfilling stories I have seen on stage in a long time, as well as powerful performances such as Ellen Barkin, who won a Tony for her performance.  Other musicals that I enjoyed this year included Queen of the Mist by the Transport Group, The People in the Picture at the Roundabout Theater, and I finally got around to seeing the camp musical, Mamma Mia.

Best Books:

On the non-fiction front, I just finished Then Again by Diane Keaton and it’s fresh in my mind, but the book had me laughing and relating all the way through to the end.  I also appreciated The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin and have since tried to incorporate several of the lessons I learned in the book to be happier.  In her book, I learned that we can all be happy by making small changes in our life.  We are all unique and can do whatever works for us. And I’m certainly planning to start going to bed earlier in 2012!  Like everyone else on this planet, I also laughed and cried along with Tina Fey reading Bossypants. Her strokes of brilliance resonated with me and shall remain etched in my mind.  On the fiction side, Those Who Saved Us by Jenna Blum and A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan and A Mountain of Crumbs by Elena Gorokhova stand out in my memory.

My Favorite TV Shows:

While I am anxiously awaiting the return of Mad Men, I have been enjoying Parenthood on NBC.  Lauren Graham and Peter Krause together in one hour of programming delights me to no end, and I love the way the show carefully explores issues that I care about as a parent: special needs, aging parents, infertility issues, marital relationships and more.  I also spent the year enjoying True Blood and Curb Your Enthusiasm on HBO, Glee on Fox and Modern Family.  I nearly broke down when Oprah went off the air, and I’ve been trying to get into her programming on OWN, but it hasn’t worked for me yet.

What were your favorite films, TV shows, plays or books of 2012?

Who would have thought my inspiration to movewould arrive at my doorstep in a small box?

I was recently sent a digital fitness pedometer called Striiv, which I had heard about while at a BlogHer event hosted by my friends in the Blogging Angels a few months earlier, and I supposed I offered to be a early reviewer.  Now maybe now I wouldn’t just think about walking to my kids to school or taking the steps instead of the elevator into my doctor’s office. Now I would realize that even walking from one room to another burns calories, and that seeing the results in my hand on a device would actually inspire me, all with the help of a gadget you can git into the palm of your hand.  Using TruMotion technology based on an accelerometer and gyroscope, the gadget figures out whether you’re jogging, climbing stairs, dancing or doing some other type of exercise.  If you want to see what I’m talking about, watch this:

Striiv is challenging.  It inspires me to get up and move.  There are personal challenges, games and even donation opportunities based on how much exercise I get.  The more I move, the more I achieve.  I can play games and spend my points on trophies or badges (you have to see these to understand what I mean) and they push me to work harder.

But what I really like best about Striiv is that the more you walk or exercise, the device calculates your every move and donates to a charity on your behalf.  It’s very special. and very motivating.  Striiv, with the help of sponsors, has carefully chosen charities to donate to, including GlobalGiving which donates clean water to children in South America or a polio vaccine to children in India.

So, now when I am sitting at my desk, working or blogging, I sometimes still wear my gym clothes that I throw on when I work from home.  Only now, I grab my Striiv and head out the door, even if I have a short time period, feeling motivated to earn points to give back and shed some pounds. All while giving back.  How cool is that?

Striiv retails for $99 on the official Striiv website.

Disclosure: I was provided with a Striiv gadget to facilitate this review, but all opinions are my own.

But when I got a request from one of my favorite bloggers turned IRL friends, Rebecca from BeccaRama, I couldn’t say “no”.  First of all, I was flattered to be short-listed; secondly, the topic is blogging, which I love to talk about.  It’s a challenge called the My 7 Links Challenge where I have to curate my own blog posts and pin-point my favorites in certain categories, like the most “beautiful” or “popular” or “controversial”.

At first, I wondered, how am I up for this challenge?  Don’t my readers think of me as purely event focused and NYC-centric?  After all, I talk a lot about theater, travel, films, reading, television, etc.

Well, if you haven’t realized it, every now and then, I let down my guard and write about my personal life.  It isn’t always here on this blog, however.  Sometimes I guest post over at friends’ blogs where I can escape the attentive eyes of my family members, or simply to garner more comments than I would get here.  And you know what?  These are the blog posts that I treasure the most, being able to start a conversation amongst my readers and peers.  I admit that I do have some controversial parenting skills – some that I have written about, some that I haven’t.  I did write about how I regretted quitting my full time job to trade in my paycheck to become a SAHM, but I have never written about the fact that I used Benadryl to get my kids to sleep on planes when they were younger.  My good friend,  Scary Mommy, did that instead.

But, who knows?  Maybe I will.  For me, the comments and conversation have created a forum and outlet like none other I have ever experienced.

I’m actually looking forward to digging into my  own archives and pointing out some of my more personal stories to you.  Think what you may, but I do aim to write more of them.  The question is, which blog will they go on and will you be able to find them?

My most beautiful post:  One of the first posts I wrote for New York City Moms, a site that is now defunct but  truly brought me into the mom blogging world, was this one about the bond between my first child, and how quick it was to form.  But with my son, it took much longer to form.  Here it is: They Had Me at Hello .

My most popular post:  Well, I might have to say that my recent BlogHer post was quite popular.  I came back from BlogHer happy yet conflicted.  The comments really helped me grapple with the experience.

My most controversial post:  Like I said, I don’t blog personal very often, so when one post about work vs. staying home over at Scary Mommy garnered 90 comments, I was chuffed. (If you haven’t noticed, yes, I am a huge fan of hers).  There was a bit of debate over the fact in the comments that I never liked being home, but, for the most part, I got a lot of support and realized that I’m not alone feeling this way.

My most helpful post: Since I blog a lot about culture, I was honored when the New Victory Theater asked me to be a guest contributor to their blog.  The topic was Integrating Culture Into Family Life.  I enjoyed writing this post and I’m still proud of being asked by one of the best kid’s theaters in New York City for a feature.

My post whose success surprised me: One day I was lying in bed with a terrible sinus infection and I got the news (on Twitter, of course), that Amy Winehouse had died.  I was instantly dismayed and blogged about how much I despised the fact that people were pointing immediately to hard drugs as the cause of her death and seemed to be undermining the news that she had left the world before her time.  I found the discussion on Twitter as heartless.   Sympathy for Amy Winehouse led to various commentators, many of whom had never visited my blog before, some of whom belittled me for ignoring what had happened in Norway (the shooting) that same day.  Strangely enough, today’s news says that the toxicology reports of her death state that she had no illegal drugs in her system when she died.

My post I feel didn’t get the attention it deserved:  Well, I don’t blog personal often, so when I do, not many people stop by for a read.  I really liked this one: I’m Not Perfect.  How do I Know? Ask My Kids.

My post that I am most proud of: Well, this is hard for me.  I still haven’t written that great post that will help change the world.  I’m working on it.  Advocacy is a priority and I hope to be getting involved in some very special projects that will help me achieve that goal; stay tuned.  Meanwhile, I wrote a blog a few months ago called Advocacy: Teaching Kids to Make a Difference in which I described a clothing and toy drive that I spearheaded at my synagogue’s nursery school.  It got little attention, but I was proud of it regardless.

To end, I have to talk about one more post of significance to me.  One of my first personal posts right here on this blog was called Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes about aging and losing track of time.  Since I started writing this blog and since I have entered into this amazing community of bloggers around the world, I have been inspired and am on a daily basis by Rebecca mentioned above who recently started her own business, KidzVuz, I have been compelled to make changes in my life.  I am not afraid to do anything and am more pro-active than ever.

My 7 Links Challenge has become 8.

Now I get to nominate 5 Bloggers I love to name their 7 links:

1. TheTwinCoach.com
2. MommyShorts.com
3. DustyEarthMother.com
4. TheseLittleWaves.com
5. MarriedMySugarDaddy.com

Disclosure: This blog was written out of pure enjoyment and nothing else.