Oh look, more soft stuff in the house to sleep & hang out on! – kitties

These poor babies are in for a shock to their world when this little guy comes home with us.  All their “new toys” are going to suddenly belong to him.

Happy Monday, y’all.

 Don’t forget to enter the giveaway for a free online web development class! 

One of the main reasons why I have been looking to revive this blog is that I’ve been learning more about the structure of websites and search engines.  More specifically, I’ve been participating in an online learning group called Codagogy.  The group is run by Nicole and Susan of Web Start Women.  Codagogy specializes in providing women with a collaborative online space to learn web development tools at each person’s own pace.  Sounds pretty hardcore doesn’t it? At first, I thought so too!  Turns out, it’s not as intimidating as I thought… maybe even called “fun”.

Check out this 60 second video to hear it from them!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VT2DGNyXK30

The Classes:

When Codagogy first started, I piloted the HTML class.  Personally, I didn’t learn a ton because I learned HTML as a young 14-year old back in the day.  But that’s just it… it’s a basics class.  This class is perfect for people who don’t have a ton of coding experience and want to really get the basics.  I found it to be a good refresher course, but if you’re relatively familiar with HTML I would say skip this one and move on to the next one.

Time passed and I started to get an itch to revitalize the blog again.  It definitely helps that I moved over from a wordpress.com blog to a self-hosted wordpress.org blog.  I gained so much control over the look and feel of the blog.  The problem became one of visibility and audience.  Some people may say that they blog for personal enjoyment.  Heck, I’ve said that myself.  But, honestly now, blogging is a ton more fun when you have an audience– preferably an audience who interact with you.  Wouldn’t you agree?  That’s when I decided to check out the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) class.  I returned to Codagogy.  They’re really budget-friendly, and they were looking to expand.  Lucky me!  Nicole and Susan offered me an opportunity to check out the SEO course.

Each class is scheduled for 2 weeks.  Lessons are posted every couple days with “challenges” to be completed at the end of each lesson.  I’ll be honest.  I started out both classes all excited and ready to stay on task.  After a week, I usually fell off the wagon and lessons got pushed down on my list of priorities.  I’m THAT bad student.  Even though I didn’t complete my lessons and challenges “on time”, I still have access to all the materials.  I just extended the lessons out to as many weeks as I needed to get it done.  Even to this day, I have access to all the materials and the forums.

Codagogy also offers classes in CSS, JavaSript, Adobe Photoshop, WordPress, PhP, MySQL, and GIT.  Seriously?  I don’t even know what half those words mean.  Next on my list is a Photoshop for the Web class though.  I think I’ll wait until I get this baby boy out of me and learn how to be a mama though.

The Lessons: Above is a screen clip of a lesson.  You can see that their lessons are user friendly and cute!  Just look at their class icons.  Cute, right?  I enjoyed how clean the lessons felt.  As an educator in my other life, I know the pain that students go through when teachers use word heavy, boring language.  Codagogy has this very playful tone to their lessons.  They feel like long time friends walking me through the lessons.  They also have video tutorials and other web enhancements to help get you through the lesson.

The People: Codagogy is designed to be a space for women.  My classes had a pretty large range of people who identified as bloggers, web managers, photographers, and small business owners of all kinds.  I enjoyed having a space where the people were learning at about the same pace and level as myself.  It was definitely less intimidating.

Cost: $50 per class with full access to forums and materials.  Check below for a chance to win a free class!

Verdict: Would I do it again?  Of course!  I’ve done it twice.  It’s totally reasonably priced.  I’m a student at heart and really love learning in a community.  After all, I did blog for Weddingbee (Mrs Hot Wings, anyone?) and truly loved being in that almost all woman community.  More importantly, the lessons allowed me to work on my own blog and to learn more about how it operates.  I’m inspired to make it something real that really gives something to my readers.  That’s why I’ve been trying to work on reviving it!

So now it’s your turn.  If you want a shot to join the Codagogy community and learn more about web development, join my giveaway below!  Another round of classes start on June 23rd!  They’ll be offering classes on HTML, CSS Basics, CSS Layouts, JavaScript & jQuery, and SEO. One of the students could be YOU!  Please note that the giveaway is open to new students only.  Good luck!

Full Disclosure:  Nicole and Susan are my friends.  However, I truly believe in their work and the educational programming they developed and are providing.  Check it out, and you can decide for yourself.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Father’s Day

• Did you forget to get your daddy a Father’s Day card?  Or are you broke?  No worries.  Laid Off Mom has you covered.  Check out her free downloadable Father’s Day Card.
• Last minute Father’s Day Gifts. (link)

Tech News

• Some Purdue electrical engineering students used their smarts for evil and got caught hacking into professor accounts to change their grades.  (link)
• Windows Uninstaller Software Promotion – Revo Uninstaller 50% off.  I love Revo, but am totally satisfied with the free version. (link)
• Share links to your DropBox files by right clicking on the file on your desktop. (link)

Family Fun

• DIY Star Wars Kids Party (link)
• Motivating kids to save for the family vacation (link)

Have you discovered anything fun on the web this week?

Till this day, my family still describes me as bossy. My mom tells my husband this almost every single time she sees him.

The experience that really changed me actually happened in high school. In 9th grade, I stepped over some people on student counsel when they were not being leaders and took over their jobs. That was HORRIBLE, I know. I am forever grateful to the one person who pulled me aside to let me know what I was doing and how others perceived it.  She was kind about it and helped me work out how to best resolve the issue.  From this, I learned and have always tried to work with my peers instead of climbing over them. But that was my nature. I really wanted to stay “on task” and get stuff done.  A nature that needed to be molded into something more productive and inclusive.

By the end of high school, some friends decided to sit around in a circle to have a tell-all session before we all left for college. When it came to me, nothing good came out. They told me about how competitive I was and how I scared them. They were “intimidated” by me.  I learned a lot about myself and how others perceived me that day.  This was also the beginning of learning to let go of unproductive and even potentially harmful relationships in my life.  Sometimes, you just have to let go.  I needed to venture off and find “my peoples”. Others who had similar high ambitions, understood my drive, and wanted to stand side-by-side with me as we grew to harness our power.

So even while I know that a lot of this had to do with the circle of people (women) I had around me. I also needed those experiences to tame my ambition. I needed to mature and learn to use my competitiveness and bossy tendencies for good, not evil.  I needed that early on so I could learn to be a better leader.

Perhaps having female leaders to look up to during those formative years would have saved me from going through these traumatic experiences to come out on the other side. This has caused me to think more about my “leadership style”.

So while I agree with Sandburg that little girls are more frequently called “bossy” than little boys (the research supports this notion as well), it’s not only in how we characterize her behavior that we must be mindful.  We also need to re-frame the issue.  Let’s not throw away the concept all together.  Instead, let’s add leadership style and providing our girls with role models of different types of leadership styles to the discussion.

What thoughts has the discussion of bossy little girls conjured for you?  Can you relate?

As I continue to consider how to streamline this blog, I’m going to keep track of my tasks here in this to do list.  An organizer at heart, I like to cross things off.  So here is my list.  I could use your help generating more tasks that would help to update and streamline as well.  There isn’t really an order to this list, but I do want to start with brainstorming my 10 keywords for my blog and attempting to redesign my banner.

Blog Content

• Brainstorm 10 keywords that describe my blog content
• Clean up Categories
• Clean up Tags
• Re-write About Me Page

Appearance

• Design new banner
• Update tagline
• Blog re-design?
• Streamline fonts
• Streamline photos

Other

• Decide on blog posting timeline
• Decide on social media presence
• Decide how to best use Twitter & Facebook to add value to blog (if any)

Week 31 – The semester came to a close and baby preparations started to take shape.  This was also probably the last week that non-maternity clothes still fit.

Something happened in week 32.  What it was, I have no idea.  Somehow, I forgot to have hubs take my weekly belly photo.  I do recall going and getting my hair cut though!  So there it is.  Onward…

Oh the heat wave.  It hit during week 33, and this pregnant lady was not happy.  I could have sworn that my body was consistently running at least 10 degrees warmer than the thermostat read.  Not fun!

34 Works in the Sun Porch of our Seaside Cottage Baby Moon Home

Thank goodness for the cool down.  In week 34, the New England area got a very welcome cool down.  Hubs and I also took our last little baby moon.  We rented a little cottage by the water in Gloucester, MA and spent some much needed quiet time away from the city.

We also had our last ultrasound.  Baby boy is head down and our midwife believes that it is very unlikely that he will turn at this point.  We’re hoping to reach a healthy 38 weeks, but are definitely picking up on the baby home prepping just in case.

I’m getting pretty excited.  Sleep is difficult, and I am definitely uncomfortable most of the day but the end is near.  You can’t be pregnant forever, right?

Towards the end of the academic semester, my department moved into a brand spanking new building.  So I got myself a pretty nice office upgrade.  Above is my old office.  You can see the asbestos tiles on the floor and the soundproofing material on the wall.  It use to be a music practice room back in the day.  No central air and a nice view of the dumpster and parking lot.

Allow me to present you with my new office.  It’s the same standard set up that everyone got, but it’s brand new.  Lots of windows, central heating and air, carpeting, and many more square feet.  I can even fit 3 students comfortably and my pregnant self in there and still have room to breathe!

You can see how empty the shelves are.  I purged all the books and binders I could before the move.  I scanned a ton more.  And now I have space for fun decor to liven up the joint.

Any suggestions for adding color and character to this pretty sterile space?

source

Oh the business of blogging… the hosting of a blog… the writing of a blog.

I have been putting my life on the web since the tender age of 14 when I first learned HTML using my dad’s books.  Those early webpages did nothing more than hold cute images and shout outs, but they nurtured my love of creating web content.

Skip forward to 2010 when Hubs proposed marriage and I began the task of planning a multicultural wedding.  That’s when I really became serious about blogging.  It has now been over 3 years since I started that first blog that would lead to my blogging officially for Weddingbee.  After the wedding planning and sharing of the wedding itself ended, I started a blog called Wired, Witty, and Well-Dressed that later morphed into the Our Wired Lives blog that you see before you.  The big difference between today’s blog and the blog I started over 3 years ago is the main goal.  I originally began blogging because I wanted to share my unique experiences of wedding planning from afar and across cultural boundaries– something that I felt was not fully represented on the internet at that time.

I originally intended for Our Wired Lives to be a blog that included my love of technology, social media, and all things techy in my life.  It was to include reviews of products and tips/ideas for making the most of such a techy life.  Well, along the way it became more of a lifestyle blog that included a smattering of random things that looked more like a diary and update journal for family and friends than a blog to share knowledge and information.  This, my friends, is a problem for streamlining this blog.  I’ve lost my theme.  So it makes sense that I would lose my audience as well.

So what now?  Well, I’ve been thinking a lot about the next steps.  I even took an SEO (search engine optimization) class from Codagogy.  More than just learning about attracting an audience, it forced me to really start thinking about what this blog is about and what I want it to be about.  Stay tuned for my review of their online program and a giveaway.

So maybe if your blog is falling victim to the same problems we can embark on this journey of streamlining our blogs together.  I’m not sure where I’ll end up on the other side, but I’m certain that the trip is necessary.

30 weeks marked the end of my academic semester!  I made it.  Thank goodness.  The discomforts really started to set in and the stress of teaching, grading, and wearing professional clothing was really starting to wear on me.

My department also threw me a baby shower during finals week!  How sweet are they.

Work Baby Shower Cake

We’ve decided that Baby boy will take his daddy’s last name, so this cake was about the only time that Baby boy got to be referred to as Baby T.  I enjoyed it.  Baby B is my coworkers little girl.  She’s due in September.

This week, I’m getting larger and baby boy is kicking up a storm.  I think I’ve been able to feel him move a lot more.  Some kicks are even a bit painful.  I’ve been working diligently on preparing for his arrival and doing lots of online ordering for items that are on sale.  I’ll share some of these purchases real soon.

Fun note, I spent some time on the Boston subway last weekend with my very visible baby bump, during a busy time.  Guess how many people got up to give me their seat?

ZERO!

Fun times, y’all.  Everyone wants to touch, stare, and ask questions… just about everything except give up their seat on the bus/train.  People can be so strange.

Hope everyone is staying in and safe today.  We’re in the Boston-area, home safe, with the TV on all day.  Stay safe.