Blog Envy

To say that I've had myself a case of blog envy for the past few weeks, would be putting it mildly. After watching "Julie and Julia" (which I loved, by the way;) on New Year's day I was ridiculously, jealous of Julie's blogging success. I mean all she did (not to minimize it,) was to follow each recipe in Julia Child's cookbook and write about it and she got a gazillion readers, writing gigs, and a movie; and yet here I sit, coming up with original material of (I'm told) an admirable caliber, and I'm virtually unknown. Heck, even "Ugly Betty" started her own blog last week and next week she's up for a blog AWARD. (YES, I know that's pretend; but you get the picture!) I was in a nasty, unbecoming place.

So,in the midst of my covetousness and self doubt, I couldn't come up with a complete blog for last week and so I opted out. Oh, I had ideas alright, but nothing that I seemed to be able to formulate into an entire blog; though God knows I tried. First I started with "Ya Gotta have Friends," the blog I felt driven to write because when I was giving out fundraiser flyers to the parents in our soccer league and I asked one dad to take two, (so that he could give one to a friend,) he replied "I don't have any friends." Now, in his case, that's a statement that I easily could believe; because he is kind of a jerky guy and by a jerky guy I mean A JERK. But this other mom, (on one of my kids teams;) who is SO NICE and friendly with many other moms, gave me the same response; "I don't really have any friends" and that's when I started hearing Bette Midler's "Ya gotta HAVE FRIENDS" song, over and over in my head (to the point where I was frequently singing it out loud.) I was overwhelmed with a compulsion to write about how very sad it would be,not to have friends. I felt the need to write about how grateful I am for MY friends and how much I LOVE and rely on my friends; because they really are the family that you choose for yourself; but alas, no blog was written about it. (wink wink.)

I thought about giving you an update on Nicky and B (from the Winter Wonderland dance,) because although she was very attentive towards him when they returned to school; after the Christmas break, the same could not be said. In fact, Nicky came home after a couple of days of being back to school and he looked unusually sad. I asked him what was wrong and he told me that B was not talking to him anymore. He explained that he would say "Hi," but she didn't respond; and I just felt terrible for him. He hadn't even liked this girl before the dance and once she started talking to him, Luis and I encouraged him to be more friendly towards her and now he was heartbroken. For the next few days, I would ask if he had seen B and he would say "yes," and I would ask if they had spoken, and he'd say "no;" and so finally I said "well, you know what they say," and he replied "love em and leave em." Oh my god, oh my god; I laughed my butt off and so did Nicky. I was actually going to say "there are more fish in the sea." How on earth did my quiet, shy, boy know the expression, love em and leave em? I guess it just goes to show, you have to watch out for the quiet ones; but for some reason I couldn't convey that message in a blog either.

I thought about writing about how I hadn't been feeling the love for or from the world for the past few weeks, and how I couldn't put my finger on why; but now I know - it was due to the blog envy.

So on Tuesday I was at the Orthodontist for Lyndzi and I picked up an issue of "Parents Magazine," because although it's typically geared towards parents with younger children, there were a few captions that caught my attention; and while I was flipping through the pages, to get to the article about taking the icky out of the picky eater; I came across an article about moms who blog and need I say the blog envy crept in and almost choked me. It was truly a good article and highlighted some of the success that moms who blog had been having and there it was; right there in print it said GO TO Parents.com/mommy-blog to tell us about your favorite mom run blog and so I got the idea to enlist help from my Facebook fan club and friends.

I sent a message through the fan club and an email to approximately 20 people, requesting that they go to this website and let "Parents Magazine" know about me. I thought about checking the link before posting it, but yah, that would have just made TOO MUCH SENSE; and as I am NOT the Queen of THE INTERNET; I didn't. So was I surprised when shortly after sending these pleas out into the universe, my friend David emailed me to let me know that the link didn't work? Of course not; that's just par for the course for me. And in my own defense I'll just attribute my overzealousness to the fact that I had just been told Lyndzi's orthodonture was going to cost about $5000 AFTER my dental insurance and multi- family member discount and so I wanted to get the ball rolling immediately.

So, back to the drawing board I went. I emailed everyone that the link didn't work and I sucked up yet another one of my faux pas. But I will add, shame on you "Parents magazine." I really thought that there was a possibility that we were going to be getting to know each other; but alas; no. Or perhaps I should say; not right now. Of course you know that I am NOT giving up on this. I WILL find a way to get myself known and set myself apart from the thousands of mommy bloggers out there, because I am not JUST a mommy blogger; heck; I'm the Queen of EVERYTHING! But, if you have any ideas or know anyone who might be able to provide me with some assistance, guidance or encouragement; please send them my way.

In the meantime, I went back to that stinkin link and took another stab at it. This time I was more successful, though it wasn't as direct of a hit as one might have assumed by "Parents" link post. SO, at the risk of seeming like I'm begging, pleading, or sounding pathetic, you can email editors@goodyblog.com and let them know why YOU enjoy "The Bumpy Ride," which just happens to be a MOM run blog. You can also email any other literary magazine where you think they might enjoy my work. After all there is strength in numbers AND you know that I for one am ALWAYS looking out for YOUR GREATER GOOD.

Till next time...

Queen of EVERYTHING