Velveteen Mind

A Few Loose Strings from my Threadbare Mind

I'm taking another turn on the eBay blog rollercoaster.  This time the ride is called Sparkplugging, my personal car is called eBay and eCommerce, and I'm graced with a new passenger/ co-author.  Frankly, this ride sounds much more exciting than eMoms at Home, dontcha think?.  Wanna check it out?

I have butterflies in my stomach just thinking about it.

Hopefully I won't fly out of the car this time and forget to write anything for, say, five months.  Well, I was busy.  I'm writing now.  Deal.

;)

I'll be continuing my eBay Selling for eParents channel at Sparkplugging, writing about starting and managing an eBay store.   My co-author is Kristie McDonald from Nitro Toyz and she will be covering much of the how-to nuts and bolts of opening and running an eCommerce store, which extends far beyond eBay.

So, yes, I'll pretty much be prattling on about personal eBay stories, crazy customers, and my envy of much-cuter-than-mine eBay stores, while Kristie will tell you how to get some real work done.  Sounds like a deal to me.

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If the work-at-home generation is not your style, then take a swing over to my other project, Blog Nosh Magazine. A divine new banner is up, courtesy of Sam at Temptation Designs and you have to check it out.    Seriously, I want to eat that banner.  I literally had to go out and buy a pack of chocolate doughnuts after we were done with the design.  Yeah, I didn't have a craving for a ripe red apple, strangely enough.

And then my butt and thighs chuckle to themselves.

I am still organizing the site and I still need your help.  Particularly, I need your help finding a few good men.  Aaaaawwww yeah. 

No, seriously, we need some testosterone in that joint and I'm not talking about the kind that makes us sprout hairs in weird places.

Do you know some amazing dad bloggers?  Male gamers?  Men who eat food?  Send 'em my way.

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Don't care about working at home or promoting your own blog and those of others?  Rather just splash out on some snazzy new fitted tees?  You'll be happy to know that this is a project I have absolutely nothing to do with:

Mrs. Fussypants is launching her new CafePress store today!     Blissfully Domestic Designs offers clever products in categories ranging from Blissful Babies to Mommy Bloggers.  Going to BlogHer this year?  Buy your wardrobe from Blissfully Domestic Designs! 

They also have coffee mugs (buying all of them, I swear), bags, and hats.  Seriously, just a ton of stuff.  All with that Blissfully beautiful air about them.

Ooh, and if you are a particular fan of Mrs. Fussypants, finding yourself consistently flattered by her complimenting of your beautimous face and cute shoes, followed by her big sweet "MWAH!" kisses, then sneak over to Mrs. Fussypants Baby Shower today and wish her well on shooting out baby boy #5. 

Yeah, the woman is insane.

This is why you need to buy something from her new CafePress store above.  The chick needs to pay for 90 packs of diapers a month.

The Baby Shower blog will feature well-wishing posts from some of your favorite mommybloggers today, including me, if I ever write anything.  Love you, Alli!  I thank God every day that I am able to manage two little boys.   Five?  Bless your heart.

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So, clearly, what I am saying to you today is:  Be anywhere but here.  Because here at Velveteen Mind today, I got nothing.  But all of those other places?  I got tons.

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All that work and I don't get to be in the picture?

Peek-a-Booooooooo!....

Two days before this 1919 photograph was taken of World War I R.A.F. Airmen, fellow airman Freddy Jackson, an air mechanic, was killed in an accident involving an airplane propeller. 

The group squadron photo was taken the day of his funeral...

Looks like Freddy was sticking around for the group photo op.   See him in the back row, four guys from the left?
His fellow airmen easily recognized him immediately upon seeing the photograph.

Ghosts love a Kodak moment just as much as the rest of us.

Happy Halloween, ya'll!

 

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One More Day til Halloween

from a simple apology by Mark Gleim

Mike Rowe, look here: The Queen is requesting your attention.

This is Mike Rowe.
This is the Discovery Channel, where they feature Mike Rowe
in virtually every frickin' show.
This is the Queen of Shake-Shake.
This is the Queen of Shake-Shake's blog, where she features Mike Rowe in virtually every frickin' post.
This is the Queen of Shake-Shake's current topic
on which she is the #1 authority.
This is the topic of which the Queen of Shake-Shake
would like to be the #1 authority.

She'd like to do this so that maybe some peon over at the Discovery Channel will stumble across her odes to Mike Rowe while they are Googling, say, who is covering the 150th Dirty Job Extravaganza, which airs October 23 from 9-11 pm ET and then point Mike in her direction.  To celebrate Mike's 150th dirty job, the Discovery Channel is airing an all-day marathon of Dirty Jobs episodes.   This is a good time to be Googling Dirty Jobs.

I know you Discovery Channel employees are out there in Google land, looking for Mike Rowe buzz, so you need to go see Heather, The Queen of Shake-Shake and all things Mike Rowe.

We gotta help a mutha out folks.  It's a dirty job but someone's gotta do it.  Here's how we're going to do it:

According to the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) research I've been doing to promote TopBlogMag and eBay Selling for eParents, Google gives higher rank on search results pages to websites it deems to have some authority on the keyword being searched.  Higher search results listing means better odds of Mike Rowe Googling himself and finding the Queen.

One way to aid those search results rankings is through anchor text.  That means stuff like this:

Want to find an authority on Mike Rowe and Dirty Jobs?
Look no further than the Queen.

Think Mike Rowe is sexy?  So does the Queen.  Just ask her.

Want to know if Mike Rowe is married or single or dating? 
Well, the Queen is married, too, but a girl can be curious.

Want to see pictures of Mike Rowe shirtless? 
I imagine the Queen may someday build a shirtless tribute to him, as she thinks he is hot.  Actually, she thinks he is "hawt."

Trying to hunt down Mike Rowe's biography or MySpace page?  Share it with the Queen when you do.

Now, when someone searches those terms, Google will link that text to the Queen of Shake-Shake in it's little cyber mind and move her blog posts toward the top of the results...  and one step closer to Mike Rowe showing some love to a mommy blogger who has a dirty job or two for him to consider.

*For the record, we are huge Dirty Jobs fans here.  I watched enough Dirty Jobs marathons while I was pregnant with Goose that I will be shocked if he doesn't grow up to be a pig farmer.  The number of times we admired Mike Rowe's voice-over work on Deadliest Catch should alternately guarantee that Pants will become a voice-over guy for the Discovery Channel, too. 

In fact, Pants walked up to a pile of old, rotting firewood yesterday and announced, "Dirty Jobs time." before he started sorting the pile into toddler-specified distinctions.  Oh yeah, it's a dirty job but someone's gotta do it.

 

BOSSY is the new Dooce.

Ever played Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon?  Well, we're going to play Two Degrees of Dooce.  Yep, that's right, I'm going to connect myself to Dooce in two degrees.  Here we go:

Megan loves Bossy.
Bossy loves Dooce.
The end.

Impressed, right? 

Wait, did you not know that Bossy loves Dooce?  In fact, there is a movie about it.  It's fabulous, sure to win some kind of blog award this year.  Watch it right now.  Bossy Loves Dooce.  The Movie.

So Bossy was looking for some well-deserved Dooce love.  I don't know if she ever got it, but I offered her some Megan Love, which I affectionately refer to as Mooce Love.  But Bossy deserves better than a little Mooce Love in Bossy's comments.

If you aren't reading Bossy, you should.  Right now.  I've been hooked on her since the first time I stumbled into her site.  Now I hope with each new Bossy post that Bossy might some day think of Megan when she mentions her readers reader.  But I have a sneaking suspicion that Bossy might reserve her nods for the readers reader who leaves comments.  Unfortunately for Megan, Bossy's readers are almost as funny as Bossy is, so Megan is usually too hesitant to leave a lame comment that would pale in comparison to Bossy's hilarious comment stack.

This is where I make up for that lack of commenting thing.

In the fanatic style of Pink is the new Blog readers, who send in photos of themselves holding up signs that say things like "Pink is the new College Tour" or "Pink is the new Vatican City," as well as photos of themselves in different situations sporting a Pink is the new Blog bumper sticker, I present to you... my ode to i am bossy.com...

Bossy is the new Dooce.
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BOSSY is the new Morning Routine.

BOSSY is the new Full Monty.

BOSSY is the new Ride to School.
BOSSY is the new Early Morning Beach Mama.

BOSSY is the new Early Morning Beach Beverage.

BOSSY is the new Baby Entertainment.

BOSSY is the new Land Yacht Pimp Mobile Interior.


BOSSY is the new Hurricane Camille Relic.  *The photo with me in it was taken by a random Harley biker, thank you very much.  Bossy brings bikers and stay-at-home moms together.
BOSSY is the new Make the Most of What You've Got Left.

BOSSY is the new Carcoleptic.
BOSSY is the new Knee Licking Ride Home from School.
BOSSY is the new Space Monkey.
BOSSY is the new Toddler Van Gogh. *Pants's take on what a "bossy person" would look like.
BOSSY is the new Paparazzi Shield.
BOSSY is the new Toddler's Dream Sand Castle.
BOSSY is the new Horseshoe Crab Meet-up.

BOSSY is the new Inability to Follow Simple Directions like
"Hold this sticker, Goose."
BOSSY is the new Fine Dining Experience.  Waffle House.  Holla!
BOSSY is the new Tongue-Poking Inspiration.

Megan loves Bossy. Fo' evah evah.

*You, too, can create your own ode to Bossy with your very own i am bossy.com bumper sticker.

Related Posts:

BOSSY is the new Marlon Brando or And Then BOSSY Yelled "Stella!" (the one where I meet BOSSY)