Archive for the 'A Little Bit of Business' Category

Why I Don’t Write About My Mother

Published on Monday, March 1, 2010 in A Little Bit of Business and Conversing With the Rain. 33 Comments

You’ve asked.  Lots of you have asked.  More lately, and I’m not sure why.  Maybe because it is such an obvious gap in the narrative.  Ducky, Gran,  that Grand Man, the aunts, the brother.  But never my mother.

And the answer is:  because I don’t feel like it.  Maybe some day I will, but not today.

What I will tell you is that all parenting — good and bad – is a reaction, good and bad, to the way we were parented.  And that one day a little girl decided the one thing she would never ever be was Mom.  And she fought and worked and grew up to be DaMomma, and that pleases her greatly, and the joy she has in it she shares as widely as she can.

My compassion, my desire for privacy, my stage of life will allow no more discussion than that.

33 Comments

Congratulations, Commenter #73

Published on Sunday, February 21, 2010 in A Little Bit of Business. 4 Comments

Me:  Pick a number between 1 and 97.

Cute Husband:  73.

Me:  You sure?

Cute Husband:  Yeah, why?

Me:  Why the hell would anyone pick 73?

Cute Husband:  I like 73.  It seems nice.  — And what did I just do?

Me: You picked the winner of the Sweet Potato Queen book.

Cute Husband: I feel so benevolent and powerful!

Congratulations, Kath!  You are comment number 73!  I don’t have the book from Jill yet, but when I do I will send it on.  Go to my contact form and send me your mailing address.  And numbers 1-72 and 74-97, don’t hate Cute Husband in his benevolant glory.  He really is a spud stud.

4 Comments

I’m On Facebook

Published on Thursday, February 11, 2010 in A Little Bit of Business. 4 Comments

4 Comments

Winner — Blessing of a Skinned Knee

Published on Tuesday, February 2, 2010 in A Little Bit of Business. 3 Comments

Congratulations Timmarie !  You are the winner of The Blessing of a Skinned Knee.  Drop me an e-mail with your mailing address and I’ll get it off to you.

Mare: "Is my hair right?" Ren: "Dis is a GREAT book, Momma!" Me: "You kids, shut up and smile like the best behaved self-reliant little angels in the whoooole wide world."

 As you can see from my super-awesome photograph, I have two copies here.  So one goes to the random winner, and one goes to a commentor who caught my attention.  You’ll get an e-mail from me asking for your e-mail address.

Thanks for the great comments!  I read them all and really enjoyed them.

P.S. Day five — count ‘em FIVE — on Doodley’s pink dress.

3 Comments

New Format

Published on Monday, January 4, 2010 in A Little Bit of Business. 38 Comments

In case you hadn’t noticed, we’ve been tweaking things over here at damomma.com.

I would love your feedback on the new format, either here in the comments or via contact form.  We’ve had some complaints about funky margins and fonts, so please let me know if it’s working for you and what system you are on.

Thanks so much for your help!

38 Comments

A Little Bit of Business — Percy

Published on Saturday, November 14, 2009 in A Little Bit of Business. 3 Comments

I am over the moon at all the Percy applications I have been receiving.  Also tons of questions, so let me answer them here:

  1. Percy’s destination is NOT first-come, first-serve.  I look for geograhic factors — try to cut down the distance between each location and also paint a consistent regional picture.  The visits are planned pretty far out, but I am all up for detours if something comes up on your calendar that’s interesting;
  2. The major factor in choosing a destination isn’t geography, it’s story: the story of you, your family, your place on the Earth.  Yes, I would send Percy to Dullsville Kansas (no offense meant to Kansas.  Or Dullsville.) in a heartbeat if someone wanted him there and had a story to tell;
  3. I have more applications right now than could fill two years.  Send yours, anyway.  I may need one from your region, or your story may be one I am particularly excited to tell;
  4. The way to apply for a visit from Percy is to fill out the form.  Dropping me an e-mail or filling out the comment form with a Percy request confuses me and makes me cry.  The Percy form goes to its own folder and I can sort it by region and keep it all straight.  I try to reply to every application to let you know I have it, but I can’t always.  I’m sorry about that, I do try to be a faithful correspondent but the mail can overwhelm.

Lastly — my little laptop crisis has meant, among other things, that the Percy file is gone.  Percy’s box contains all the mailing information for the scheduled stops, but my copy of that information is missing.  (That Grand Man would be so disappointed that I failed to have it backed up sixteen places. With duct tape.)

If you are a confirmed host, please drop me an e-mail with your visit number and the proposed visit date so I can update you on the schedule.

Thanks so much!

3 Comments

New Format

Published on Monday, September 7, 2009 in A Little Bit of Business. 25 Comments

Doesn’t the blog look great?

DaMomma.com has a team — my brother Nick does the technical work. I have a layout guy and an artist for the drawings. I think she’s going to do the drawings for Volume II of MISNFW, which is in the works.

The format will undergo some additional changes in the coming week — we’re hoping to add a left sidebar and move some stuff around.

As soon as they offer me some links, I’ll tell you who the team is and how to hire them. In the meantime, my thanks to them, for making my blog look so good.

DaMomma

25 Comments

It’s not a toomah

Published on Saturday, September 5, 2009 in A Little Bit of Business. 7 Comments

I have no idea what’s going on with my blog. Thanks for the e-mails and Tweets. Sorry you can’t comment.

Behind the scenes at DaMomma.com, people are dinking. When people dink, bad things happen.

But when the dinking is over, it should look quite spectacular. So stay tuned.

7 Comments

The question of money

Published on Monday, August 24, 2009 in A Little Bit of Business. 57 Comments

This month marks my fifth blogiversary. I can’t quite believe it.

I’ve been asked in various forums and circumstances The Big Questions — what blogging is, why do I do it, and do I have ethical/safety concerns about writing about my children?

Answers: I dunno; hmm .. can’t explain; yes.

I hear the term “professional blogger” tossed wildly about and I am not sure what it means. Does it mean to live off of one’s blog? Does it mean to blog to a professional rather than amateur standard? What are those standards and who decides?

I have not wanted to attempt to make a living off my blog because I did not have the answers to these questions and because the idea of entering into this as a commercial pursuit was distasteful. However, it is becoming increasingly difficult to justify the amount of time I spend on this blog in light of the fact that it is not income-producing.

“You do have a right to make a living, you know,” Ama Beth said to me recently. That stuck with me. Ama Beth makes her living in ministry. She labors in love, but also has a family to feed.

So do I.

At the moment the blog is a money-losing endeavor. I pay someone to do the graphics and layout and I pay hosting fees. I really can’t justify that any more. Last year I made the decision to stop blogging because I did not want to take ads and it was time to focus on working for a living. Life intervened and I put the decision off for a year. This year, I am making the decision to see if the blog can pay for itself, or better yet provide a little extra income for my family.

To that end, I am taking two steps.

First, I will be selling ads on this site. They should post by the end of this week, beginning of next.

Second, I have put up a PayPal donation button. My plan is to put that button up once a year for a few weeks. If you are a reader of my blog, if it brings you a smile or a little peace or a chance to laugh at someone else, I’d ask you to send me just one dollar. If enough of you send one dollar, it might at least make the blog self-sustaining, and that would make a big difference.

Lastly — thank you all so much for your readership and your friendship. I read every comment — and all the e-mails and Tweets — and am not always good at responding. But they do mean a lot, they keep me smiling and make me so incredibly proud that you come here.

Sincerely,
DaMomma

57 Comments