Creating Kris ~ a young mom blogs…

Learning How to Knit!

So I guess it wasn’t “learning how to knit” as “re-learning” but since I haven’t done any knitting since I was a young girl it certainly felt like learning for the first time. I had actually kind of hoped some of it might come back to me without consulting other resources first but no go. I held the knitting needles and played around felt the wool and tried twisting it up a little and called forth the memories of my youth and… nothing.

So I did what any modern-day beginner would do and searched online. And I have one big tip for anyone else learning how to knit: skip the written tutorials and go for the videos instead. They are waaay more helpful. Unless of course you already know you are more of a learner by wrote. But I think for most of us, seeing is more helpful for this type of task than just reading about it. Or even diagrams. That being said, I did still consult a few written tutorials (see links below), but after trying those with no success, I went ahead to YouTube videos (again, see links at the end) and finally got the hang of things a little…

continue reading »

Introducing the me underneath it all…

I usually don’t write much about my disabilities and my problems with pain anymore, but I’d like to step into that area a little for the sake of participating (for the very first time) in a blog “carnival”. One of my favourite new blogs, Graceful Agony is hosting the carnival and the first topic is “Let me Introduce Myself”.

For me this is an interesting topic because I have changed SO much since I started suffering from chronic pain that I feel like I’m introducing a whole other person. On the surface, I appear the same, but there’s another “me underneath” that only a few people ever see or hear from. Usually people only see that I’m a busy young mom with a home and family to take care of. We enjoy a beautiful home that makes people say “you’re so lucky!” but I can only think “if only you knew…“…

If you can look beyond the exterior of my upper-middle class family environment (with a supportive spouse, two relatively-healthy kids – a boy and girl, and a nice new house in a great family neighbourhood), my youth and attractiveness (“you don’t look like you’re hurting that much!” or “you’re too young to be this disabled”), my seemingly-set-for-life career possibilities (a couple of university degrees, a glowing CV), my talents and abilities, my previous fitness level, my previously sharp brain and amazing memory, etc.!, you’ll see a different picture entirely than what you expect:
continue reading »

Why is “mompreneur” not in my dictionary yet?!

I have 2 blog entries started with the latest scrappy/stampy projects… but I don’t want to post the hand-stamped card entry until after my hubby goes to the baby shower at work on Thursday (you just never want to spoil a surprise). And for the latest scrapbook layout, I did both sides separately so the 2nd side of the 12×12″ double-page album layout needs to have it’s photos uploaded and all that.

So in the meantime, I’ll bring you an important and much-needed blog announcement! In my exploration of life as a WAHM and savvy web mompreneur, I’ve always been open about my business activities – for the sake of honesty and transparency, but also to help other moms find out what it’s really like out for the average mommy blogger and webmaster (who is not of Dooce-caliber-fame).

It’s tough out there but I am doing my best to make something happen. You hear all the time about people earning $ from the web just doing nothing, so it absolutely infuriates me that I’ve gotten next to nowhere after a couple years of working hard to try to earn some income from my already-in-progress projects (and those couple years came after a decade of volunteer work and running websites and groups for free!!!).

If I ever get famous though, I’m taking my friends with me, dammit. I know so many talented, crafty, and hard-working women who are running their own businesses (either on their own, online or offline, or through an established Home-Sales company like Stampin’ Up or Creative Memories) and just aren’t tapping into what is promised. There’s gotta be some tips out there to help create success, and I’m on the lookout…

Here are the changes that’ve been made in the past week or so to increase privacy, but also increase website success:

continue reading »