Welcome to Meaningful Mama. Today I want to bring you a Meaningful Mama tour. Some of you have been coming here for a while. I have been encouraged by emails from people who visit frequently and have been inspired by the content on my site. Those emails keep my going and excited about what I am doing, so thank you. Some of you are new. You just found me recently and may still be trying to figure out what this site is all about. This post is for both of you. I have had a big change in my blog this year by switching from Blogger to Word Press. For those of you who have been around for that move, I hope you have found the new site easier to navigate so you can find you favorite ideas. The tour today should outline what my site offers and show you how to navigate things even better. If you have wanted to tell someone about my site, this would be a great post to forward along to friends or share on Facebook, Pinterest or Google+. The “share” is a bloggers best friend. Word of mouth is the way I grow. This post should make what I am doing here more clear. The “About Me” section will also be helpful in knowing a bit about me and why I even began blogging in the first place. To make sure you understand that I am a real mom with real struggles, make sure you check out my “Confessions of a Meaningful Mama” post. Let’s get started.
Let me first introduce you to the “Follow Me” buttons. How do you know what is going on at Meaningful Mama? Follow me! I share on all of my social network avenues. The symbols mean Facebook, Pinterest, RSS Feed, Twitter, Instagram and Email. This is one of two place you can sign up to receive my emails. I would love to have you follow me on these avenues. Instagram I treat a bit different. I share more of everyday life moments in photos on Instagram. No hoopla. No blogging. Just life. By following me on these avenues, you can stay in the loop as to what I have going on at my site and other things I’m discovering the blogging community.
When adding, don’t forget Google+. Google+ is a great network if you really want to receive the information I put out. I have found that Facebook has been sharing my content with less than 10% of my followers. If you join my circles on Google+, you will receive the content I put out there. If you are on Facebook, I hear if you go to my Meaningful Mama page, hover over the like button then you will receive the option to “get notifications.” Make sure that is selected. This should help out, but I don’t quite understand all of the ins and outs of Facebook and why my content doesn’t go out to those who chose to follow me if there is a link or picture involved. I am loving Google+, and I would encourage you to try it out. It takes a little bit of adjustment to understand the format, but it is like any new skill. You learn it, and it becomes second nature.
Welcome to my folders, tabs and search sections of Meaningful Mama. These are somewhat obvious, but “Home” will always take you back to my main screen. The About Me section you can learn about me, my family and why Meaningful Mama was born. “Contact Me” will let you email me. I love my emails and try and respond promptly. If you have any comments, questions or concerns, I love to hear from you. I am really encouraged by your messages and also have felt blessed to have a wonderful audience who has raised questions or concerns in a gracious way. Thank you for that. The “Featured” section showcases some of my blog achievements, but I may be changing that soon.
Search is obvious. You can search my site using key words. If you are looking for a holiday, I think it would be easier to go that tab and explore the sub tabs. Same with the recipes. However, if you remember something specific you are looking for, use the search. Actually, I often search back on my site for my own content. I go to my favorite recipes a lot. I have found it easiest to find what I am looking for by typing “Meaningful Mama” and the thing I am looking for in the Google or Bing search engine. For example, this weekend we made my pancakes. I search for “Meaningful Mama pancakes” on Google, and it is the first thing that pops up. The “search this website” on my site brings up any post that has any mention of pancakes and doesn’t seem to target that toward the top of the list. Therefore, you tend to have to weed through a lot more to find exactly what you are looking for on my site.
Next come my tabs. I want my site to be easy to navigate for you. The crafts and activities I see as the frosting of my blog. They are there to equip you to be more intentional in your parenting. I have a variety of ideas ranging from very simple and inexpensive to a bit more involved. I provide a lot of picture tutorials so I can really give you the tools (even if you are not a “crafty” mom) to be able to do some fun things with your kids.
The “Character Development” series I consider the HEART OF MY BLOG and the true meat. I am most excited about this series I developed. Last year I was crazy and blogging 3 times a day (one craft/activity, one character development post, and one parenting tip). I believe that character development founded on Biblical teaching is one of the most important things to teach children. Last year I chose one character trait to work on per week. That means that after a full year, I had worked on 52 traits with my kids. On Monday you were introduced to the word ring with the definition of the word and the corresponding Bible verse. On Tuesday, you were given the “I will…” statements for your kids to claim for the trait. The rest of the 5 days were filled with activities, crafts, books and ideas to help teach the trait. This year I have been adding one lesson a week to the same words. Therefore, you will find 7-8 interactive ideas for each of the 52 traits on which we focused. Each trait has a corresponding Bible verse for the kids to work on throughout the week. My goal, as a mom, is to continue to focus on these traits and verses each year to get the concepts really engrained in the hearts of my kids. I try and keep it fun and age appropriate. I do find that a lot of the activities can be adapted to a lot of different ages.
The “Parenting Tips” section is another huge part of the meat of my blog. Parenting has been a lot more challenging than I ever imagined. I was raised well. I have good role models. My husband is the same way. We actually start on the same page when it comes to parenting. Yet, it has been so challenging. We have mentors in our lives – our parents, the Pritchards, other families and friends who I admire, and we go to a family-equipping church that makes it a priority to give parents the tools to do their marriage and their parenting well. Yet, it has been so challenging. I found myself lost, questioning and wondering how to do it all. I was a teacher, tutor, youth group worker, and worked with homeless street youth. I had the experience and training. Yet, it has been so challenging. Doing this job day in and day out, I was humbled. I was given even more tools as I asked questions, observed other people I felt were doing it right and read books. The parenting tip section is a place where I pass that knowledge on to you – not because I’m brilliant but because I had to become a student again. I know that won’t end. There are a lot of parenting tips, but there are also some general house keeping, house management and cooking tips along the way too.
Then you will find some more frosting - recipes, cakes, parties, holidays, and link parties. I love to cook. Well, really I love to eat. Maybe cooking is just a means to and end. I have my mom who has passed down some great recipes, and I’m always on the lookout for other fabulous eats. Although I have always been a recipe follower, and a lot of it has been passing down my favorites to you, blogging has pushed my skills. I have been experimenting. It has been really rewarding and a lot of fun to bring you my own creations. Cakes are also a hobby. I am self taught and also want to provide skills in my cake section to inspire you if it might be a fun thing to try. I have tried a number of cake recipes and had cake taste tests. I think you’ll be pleased with my favorite recipes found here or under the recipes tab. I love entertaining, and you will find ideas that will inspire under my “parties.” Celebrating holidays is also important to our family. There are a number of “link parties” I attend to share my stuff and see what other bloggers are creating. My “link parties” tab will direct you to some great parties.
Sub Tabs!!! this is one of my favorite additions to my new blog format. I believe it makes it so much easier to navigate my site with this helpful tool. I recently realized how many people might not know that this is even a tool on my site. The key is the hover. Hover your mouse over the main tab and all the sub-tabs will appear. I am especially excited for what it does for my character development series. See (picture above) how you can see a list of all of the character qualities we have worked on throughout the year. You can scroll down to find more. The other tabs that have sub-tabs (as of now) are my recipes, parties and holidays. I am still working on the transition to Word Press, so not all of my sub tabs are complete. I’m trying to find the right balance between the blog and family, so have patience with me. When I switched to Word Press, some of my pictures came through blurry, so I am needing to go in manually and fix them all. I do that as I create the sub-tabs, so it’s been quite a process.
The rotating pictures at the top of my blog are a lot of fun. It is where I get to re-visit things I’ve done in the past to keep it relevant and accessible for you. I try and switch them out regularly and make them seasonal. They scroll automatically, but you can push the forward or back button found on the sides to navigate them quicker or go back to a picture that scrolled by too quickly. Just click on that picture if you want to be taken to the blog post.
In the right hand side bar you will find the other email sign-up option and a list of post archives. I also try and put my current giveaways at the top so you can find it easily. Also on the side bar you will find advertisements. This is an easy way to monetize my blog for the hard work I put in to giving you free content. If you see any advertising that is questionable, you can click on the advertisement and send me the landing site url. It’s the only way I have of contacting my advertising company to ask for removal. I appreciate your patience as I have found a few ads that don’t represent what I am all about. I am working hard to make this a family friendly site, and I appreciate your help. My advertising agency does a great job working with me on this. In the side bar I also have my blog button, Instagram photos, and my current “top ten” ratings (automatically changed out a few times a day to keep it current) with the highest pageviews for that day. These are obvious viewer favorites and so posts you might enjoy too.
We are reaching the end of the tour. This portion of the tour takes you to end of one of my posts. If you click on a post, and scroll to the bottom of the post, you will see something similar to the screen shot above. One section is the “You might also like…” section. This is an area where a plugin on my site goes back and grabs content similar to what you are looking at. It is saying, “If you like what you are seeing, you might also enjoy…” and gives suggestions. This is a great way to see content from the past on a topic that might interest you. Unfortunately, it only grabs my content from when I installed the plugin, so a lot of my earlier content won’t be found here.
Share!!! This is a blogger’s best friend. If you like what you see and enjoy coming to my site, please share with your friends. Word of the mouth is the way that my blog grows. I need your help! Blogging has become a passion of mine. I really want to be able to get my content out there to really inspire other moms. Yes, there are other elements here. It is really fun and rewarding to watch your audience grow. Yes, there can be a financial gain as the blog grows bigger. However, please hear my heart in that I want to be able to help be a part of the process in equipping parents to raise up the next generation in meaningful way. I want to make a difference in this world to impact others. Please help by sharing.
Leave a Comment. Talk to me. I love to hear from my readers. Did you try something and it worked? Did you love that recipe? I want to hear about it. Do you disagree with my point? I would love to hear your thoughtful, gracious response. I have been able to clarify some things within my writing on certain topics. I have been challenged to re-think how I’m doing things. I have learned from your ideas or your activities you are doing with your family. I would love to make this a community. I have had readers asked questions that have inspired other posts. When you interact with me, I get more encouragement that the time and effort I put into this blog is not only helping my family but might be influencing other families out there. I have a great group of readers, and I think you for spending your time with me. I would love to communicate with you here or though any of my other social media outlets. I will always try and respond.
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