Category: Thoughts

A Letter To My Future Self

I’ve seen posts like this a thousand times. I think I even remember writing one when I was in school. But I am at a time in my life where I want to look back and remember what it was like to be a stay-at-home mom to two small children. To remember this overwhelming feeling of being needed. By EVERYONE.

While my threenager is tugging on my shirt, pitching a fit for whatever reason it is this time. Or while my now 7-month-old is screaming (because she is just totally obsessed with her own voice) in her jumparoo. I want to remember how stressful and completely exhausting it is to be surrounded by children 24/7.

I want to remember how my poor husband must feel neglected because I just can’t possibly do anything besides sit in peace once the kids are in bed. I want to remember the feeling of defeat as I look around my house and see the monstrosity of a mess that my 3-year-old can make. SO. DAMN. FAST.  I want to remember the mountain of laundry. And the dishes that need to be washed and put away.

I want to remember all of it. And then I want to remember how I conquered it. I want to remember how I won at life. Not that that has happened or anything…I mean this is a letter to my FUTURE self. Hopefully, one day it’ll happen. But until then, I want to remember all of the good and bad times….

So here it goes.

dear future me

Dear Future Katy, 

First of all, I hope that you still enjoy everything about Brabbly and that it never grows old, because seriously, it’s awesome and hilarious.  I hope that this blog has become everything you wanted it to be and more. And please, …

Mommy Market Saturated?

I usually don’t publish my comments to other blog posts here, but this one was long enough that I thought it deserved space here as well. As you know, I’ve entered the world of mommy blogging and I’m a freelance writer (check my last post on a comprehensive guide to stethoscopes), so have quite a few thoughts on the below issue.

Jeremiah Owyang of Forrester wrote an interesting post after attending a BlogHer party – he poses the following questions after commenting about the swag that the BlogHer party attendees received:

When this organic and natural market gets saturated from the many vendors pitching at them (would make Scoble blush) what impacts does this have to: 1) credibility of the women bloggers, 2) Effectiveness of brands trying to reach this inundated market? 3) If credibility and demand is reduced to this market, will it decrease their influence? How will they be able to maintain these levels? I think something has to give.

Of course, me being me, I responded. The comment I left was this:

Very interesting post. I’m a mom, and I blog – making me a mommy blogger, I suppose. I run a group parenting and sleep blog at https://www.sleepdeeper.net and we are often approached by companies about reviewing their products.

You address the issue of swag and tons of free product, but how is this really any different than what has been happening with magazines for years? We all know that magazine beauty editors don’t go out and purchase all of the items they review in their magazines, but it isn’t specifically spelled out – why are mom bloggers different?

When we do reviews on our site, it’s with the understanding that the company has sent us something to review. We don’t get paid to write

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