All About Blogging

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Speaker 1: Hi. This is Laura Vandercamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist, and speaker. And this is Sarah Hart Hunger. I'm a mother of three, a practicing physician and blogger. On the side. We are two working parents who love our careers and our families. Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about how real women manage work, family, and time for fun, from figuring out childcare to mapping out long term career goals. We want you to get the most out of life. Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura. This is episode one hundred and fifty one, which is first airing in late June of twenty twenty. We are going to be discussing blogging today. This came from a request on I believe my blog or Instagram or something. I lose track of where people are reaching out to us. But Sarah and I have both been blogging for a great many years, and both of us are doing it in a little different way than a lot of the blogs that are online these days. So we realize there's a lot out there on how to optimize your SEO and make a side hustle living whatever from your blog. Neither of us are particularly cashing in on our blog, but we have been maintaining the narrative blog format for ten plus years. So what are your favorite other blogs? Sarah? Yeah, I mean, I'm I'm with you, like I think you have a similar preference, which is that I tend to read these long running narrative blogs with a very low click to comment ratio, meaning these are probably mostly not bloggers making their living off of blogging, which I think is part of the appeal right because I'm not as interested in someone live in the lux blogger lifestyle. I mean, maybe you would be, but I'm not really. I'm more interested in people with other careers and other things that they do for most of their lives, rather than someone who is a career influencer who has interesting things to say about life. And you know, there are two schools of thought. One is that like, no one cares when you write a day to day account of your life because that's boring and only interesting to you. But as a reader, there are many people where I've gotten sucked in long enough that I definitely care. Yeah, and I care both on a like voyeuristic level and also on a personal level. I mean, I had a blogger that I've read for many years lost her father recently, and I was crying as I read her posts and her Instagram because that's, you know, I feel like I know her even though I haven't met her in person, so, you know, like you can build these interesting relationships, especially with commenting and with other interactions via social media, so it's not entirely a one sided like I'm just watching and not you know, this person would know who I am, too, And there are many commenters that comment frequently enough that I feel like we have some sort of relationship even though it's virtual. Anyway, those are the types of blogs I tend to like to read as well as right, and I just thought of I went to my list this morning, and I know I've mentioned some of my favorite blogs before, but I don't know that I've mentioned a couple of these random ones. Retire by forty what's that one? That night? This is the most random blog. It's written by a man who is in his forties and retired at forty as an engineer. Although it's kind of misleading because his wife works, so it's not like, yeah, although they are living off of their passive income. Really it's it's interesting. He I like his blog because there's the FI aspect of it, which I find fascinating. And he's one of those very super frugal FI people, meaning like, yes he's financially yeh, financial, but it's because he's living off of like some incredibly low budget and they are socking away I believe, like fifty percent of even their passive income right now, which is fascinating. And so I like his blog because he shares both the numbers and then also these like insights into what does family life and daily life look like when you're living this uber frugal lifestyle. Like it's just interesting. I also really like Kelsey of The Girl's next Door podcast. She has a blog called Rising Shining and it's it's just adorable. It's like an extension of her podcast, but it's very personal. She shares things about her life, she shares cute baby pictures, and you guys all know that I am a huge fan of lag live's blogs. She was one of our earliest guests on this podcast. It's flag live dot blogspot dot com. She has three children in a similar age ratio to mine, and so it's like a little glimpse into what my future family life might look like if my husband was a stay at home or not sorry, an entrepreneur who is mostly home, so not really, but still it's very interesting. And she has a great narrative voice as well, and she's an example of someone who doesn't always post so consistently, but at the same time, I feel like she manages to keep the narrative going. Yeah, I mean it's hard to find that many blogs like this, I mean partly because it takes time, and so if you are somebody who has a different career, like why would you do this right for long term? And that's that's what a lot of people encounter, right that they're like, well, you know, something has to give. It's probably not going to be your career or your kids. So the blog is like most hobbies, that would not be the thing that is going to get time when you're really busy. So there's it's hard to find blogs like this that are then also narrative and not focused on, you know, earning a living for the person. So yeah, I mean, I like also the Frugal Girl, and we've mentioned we read that very narrative. She actually earns like she actually makes some money off of her blog, which is fantastic. But I agree she's got kind of both sides going on because it's a very personal it's starsal is way more narrative than most of the financial oriented blog so I enjoy reading that. Let's see, I started reading Frugal Woods. She doesn't post all that often. I think it would be she writes it epically long blog posts when she does, but I wish she would just do like five times a week, but much shorter. It would be a little bit more. But my advice to have blogged this much well more red than mine. So I'll stop. That's work for her. Let's work for her, So I won't go into that. But yeah, no, so there's it's hard to find these, but I always feel like, oh, it's a great gem when I when I do, you started, as you've talked about on this podcast way back in the dawn of blogging, I did. I started, And you know, like it's funny because I feel like the people, by the way that keep up these narrative blogs that are not necessarily very lucrative or lucrative at all, or maybe they even cost people money, you have to love doing it, like these are not people who like, you know, it's not like I'm like, oh, God, another morning, I have to write another post. Like I love that ritual in my life. I love it just as much as I love anything. I mean, it's one of my favorite things. Or also, I wouldn't have done it for so incredibly long, So I guess, like my biggest piece of advice about starting a blog is like, don't do it unless you really feel drawn to doing it. And if you don't enjoy writing and journaling, then you may not enjoy it. I mean, it's always fine to give it a try, but I don't necessarily think it's like everyone should have a blog, Like, no, I know everyone should not have a blog. Yeah, it's if you want to have a blog and you find that you enjoy that process. So I did start in two thousand and four. I have this very good friend named Vicky. She is a pathologist and she's very smart, and I went to college with her and sometimes she listens to the podcast, So hi, Vicky, if you're listening, and she's like my personal influencer. Like there are just so many things in my life that I can attribute to like, oh, Vicky's doing this, and I'm gonna try it too, and like she's always right, like she just she's just ahead of the curve in many ways, and now she's embarrassed because that's how she is. But anyway, she had a blog, which is sort of hard for me to believe now because I can't picture her doing that. She has a very subdued social media presence these days. And I copied her. I was like, oh, that looks fun, and she had kind of like a snarky tone, and it was it was pretty anonymous. I don't think that either of us. You know, back then everyone was doing these like live journals, and it was kind of sneaky, and I never put my name in it. It was it was pretty anonymous, and I was writing as a med student. I was on a rotation out in the middle of the country in North Carolina, kind of a suburb of Fayetteville called Pembroke, which is just tiny, tiny, tiny, and I was alone. I hadn't really wanted to go on this experience, although in retrospect it was actually pretty eye opening, So thank you Duke School of Medicine for forcing me. Anyway, so I was on this rotation, I was by myself, and I had a lot of free time, and I thought, oh, Vicky has this blog. I'm going to start a blog and I shall call it Lost and All Alone because I am lost and all alone in the backwoods of North Carolina. I found that I really really just loved sitting down and writing my experiences and writing a post every day. I haven't really gone back to Delvin. I was careful, like I never included patient names, but I certainly like went a little more detailed into some patient vignettes than I ever would today writing a non anonymous blog, because now I'm like, well, I know patients google me and like, there may be some listening to this podcast right now, and that's okay, which means I have to be sensitive and I can't tell very specific stories. But back then it was very different, and I know nobody was looking at my name and finding that blog, and in fact, it didn't have my name on it. Like I remember writing a story about and I can talk tell the story because it was from like sixteen years ago some random dermatology patient where I looked in his boot and a bug crawled out, and I was like, that is just the epitome, you know, like these med student experiences that would otherwise have been lost, but because I had this fun blog, I could write about them. Now it's changed a lot, and I don't feel like I can write about those things, but I'm certainly glad I wrote about them back then. And also just the experience of being a med student and then being in the lab and then being a resident and so on and so on. So you know, yeah, that's kind of my story of how it started and how it grew, and I've certainly kind of gotten caught up in different trends along the way. I went through a little healthy living blog kind of phase in two thousand and eight or so. I had discovered the blog Catheates, and I actually had met kathin person. She's a very sweet and nice person, and I felt sort of pressure to go down that road because it was just like the newest thing. I look at those posts and I just cringe, like I just can't, even though I'm still obviously interested in fitness and those kinds of health. I mean, that was just a very interesting and bizarre movement, and it's weird that I was part of it, but you know, there you go, you live, and you learn. I was looking at my WordPress site and I have three one hundred and fifty posts written over the last sixteen years, so clearly I enjoy doing it. Yeah. No, I mean I think the people who would stick with this best who have other jobs to be people who have a side interest in writing, right that they might have seen themselves doing that as a life thing if they hadn't done whatever it is that they are in fact doing. And I know you've faked about writing books and things like that, so I know that you have an interest there. At what point did you start using capital letters? Not that long ago? Embarrassingly like embarrassingly not that long ago. I'm going to say, I have to go back twenty thirteen fourt I think I was at you then, but the I won, Okay, So, like when I started, everyone was using lowercase letters. It was like cool. I mean, I know that sounds ridiculous, but it was fairly normal. And then I kept doing it because I had done it. Like you know, there were new blogs being launched in two thousand and nine when it was no longer cool, and they were probably using capital letters. But I was kind of stuck because when I had started, and I felt like I had to be consistent to how I'd started, and so it took too quite a long time. I did migrate to the shoebo dot com from lost and all Alone dot blogspot dot com. That one didn't get a lot of organic traffic somehow back in like twenty ten, And I why did you come up with that? I mean, obviously you weren't heart Hunger prior to a certain point in here. Well, but it's heart Hunger starting in two thousand and six, so you only had like two years of blogging before you were actually that before I changed. Yes, that's true. How did I? I mean, I still don't really love the name now, even I guess I wanted to come up with something fairly generic because a lot of blogs, again this was sort of that healthy living phase, and a lot of blogs were like cookies and cupcakes and celery or something you know, like or like running in this and I was like, no, I don't want to do that because I don't want to, you know, stick myself into some particular brand. And so a lot of people were calling me Sahu like that was kind of my nickname at work, and I don't remember. It might have been my husband's. He's good at naming things. He might have came out with the shoe box and I was like, oh, yeah, that kind of fits everything. And I had my college roommate Azusa designed the logo to my blog, which is still there because I love it. It's very minimal and cute, and she's like a professional graphic designer, so it's cool to have a little piece of her work on my site. Yeah, and it looks like little shoebox, so it's I kind of feel like I've gone with the theme. Although you know, today most people just use their names. I feel like most professional blogs, Sarah Harthunger is a lot though it's a lot of letters, so in a way, I feel like it's at least better than my Duayne doesn't have, you know, that many letters, although yours does. But your name is very phonetic, like you're not. It's pretty easy to Oh, people have murdered it. I mean it's I remember the first day of seventh grade when they were we were all in the gym and they were calling names to go to our homeroom and somebody missed. They mispronounced it Laura van Dorkum, which is no great for the first day of seventh grade. You're like, still hearing it right now, still hearing it right now, but sorry, that is not will you know books? So tell me tell me your blogging story. That was like epic. We're almost ready for an ad break, but I'll be mine really short before the ad break, which is that my first blog was actually a paid gig. I had helped write a book called Genius Denied with a foundation that specializes in gifted education. I was writing that in two thousand and three, two thousand and four of the book came out, and then they decided to launch a blog shortly thereafter, so they hired me to maintain that. I did that for several years, you know, just being paid by the hour of the post or something like that. I had written a book called Grindhopping that came out in two thousand and six, and so built a website. I had to help build a website, but I had a website for that that I posted on occasionally. I had owned Laura vandercam for years, but it was just sort of a placeholder. My one sixty eight hours was when I launched one hundred sixty eight hours. I built up the site about a year before the book came out, my one six eight hours dot com where I did start blog loogging more regularly. So that was the first that I was blogging for my promotion at a regular basis. And then I bought like All the Money dot com all hyphen v hyphen moneyed. I realized, eventually, this is what happens when you don't know what you're doing right. You know, all this should be just in my brand, as opposed to separate brands for each book and each thing I'm doing. So eventually all those websites became directed to Laura vandercam dot com. And at some point around when I think when All the Money of the World came out, I started blogging there, just only at Laura vandercam dot com. So it actually, you know, hasn't been that long that I've been there, but I have been blogging for a long time in various different places. Okay, we're going to take a quick break and then I have some more questions for you. Okay, we're back, we're blog Yes, so question you must. I mean, I feel like most writers, they might like the idea of maintaining a blog, but I feel like you go above and beyond is that because you also really enjoy the ritualistic part. Do you like it as a record? Like what you know? What are your motivations to continue blogging so frequently and regularly? Yeah, I'd say all of the above. I mean I like it as a record of my life. I enjoy interacting with my community just as telling stories about my life and answering questions and discussing issues to gather. I agree, sometimes it is hard to keep up with it just because it's one more thing I am writing, and you know, I don't like to think of it all in terms of economics. It's the one thing I'm not getting paid for, so that makes it a little The tendency is always to have it be the last thing, but I try not to have that be the case because it is my home on the Internet. Is where I present myself in the way I wish to be seen. It's where you can go read my work if you want to. You can see who I am, and so it's worth maintaining. I feel like, you know, I have a lot of community members who've been there for a long time. I really enjoy interacting with these people. It's a social outlet I guess is how I would put it. So yeah, that's I mean, I think that's one reason I really do like it. Like you said, I like having that creative outlet. I like talking about my life. I don't like I said, it's hard to believe anyone else is interested in it, but you do. And I see that as I read other people's I mean, I became interested in your life by reading your blog, so I assume something similar must happen for at least a few people who come to my site. And that's that's kind of fun. Yeah. I've been probably posting on average about four times a week for ten years as well, So yeah, it's a lot. You must like it, We must like it. Yeah. I mean, some people might wonder I do have ads on my site, but it is not I think I do that. I mean I could just not do it at all and earn nothing. I think there's something fun about like, you know, unlike Laura, I don't earn that much for my creative you know, her life is she can kind of promote her writing and see that as an adjacent thing, but I certainly cannot. Especially, I might feel differently if I like own my own practice and I was my own brand and like charging patients, and they were like hiring me. But I work for a big company, so I don't get that kind of like I made something and earned it myself kind of a feeling. And so that's why I do enjoy the fact that my blog earns like a pittance. Like if you I was doing the I actually hadn't really even thought about the calculations, but I spent about one thousand dollars per year on hosting costs, because it does cost money to host a site, and the more visitors you have, the more it actually costs a host. And I like, I think I pay like a flat feed, like three fifty a year, but then I also have to pay about fifty dollars a month in overage trees. That's like six hundred more a year, So it's about thousand dollars. And then occasionally there'll be other expenses in like having somebody upgrade my site or update something, or like I hired someone to do my newsletter that kind of a thing. So if there's an expenses associated with it, and then with all those expenses, I earn like a whopping like at the most five hundred dollars a month, so that would be six thousand a year, but honestly, that's a rare month. The funny thing is with COVID, my traffic has increased, but the reimbursement per traffic has been cut about in half. So I'm earning I don't know, like three hundred a month most months, so it's enough to keep the lights on and like almost earn a minimum wage I spend doing it. Yes, it might be because I, you know, I might only spend like an I probably been than an hour of day, okay, less it Yeah, then it's ten dollars an hour, so yeah, yeah, so like, hey it's ten dollars, there's an hour plus I can deduct some of the expenses so that I so you know that that three hundred a month that's before taxes, but I kind of deduct some of the expenses associated with a blog, like the hosting costs and stuff. So it's it's very interesting, yeah, and not people don't understand that necessarily, that that you pay for increased traffic, and that that is the case for a lot of places. So if you have a very well read blog, it's it's not a free thing to have out in the world, like it actually costs you money to produce. Yeah, if you don't have ADS and you have a well read blog, then yes, unless you have some other way of earning revenue, you're going to be at a loss. I mean that's for me. That's one reason that I have ads, because I don't want my blog to cost me purely cost me money. I mean, I feel like should get something out of the effort. Okay, let's do favorite least favorite posts of all time. So I only have a favorite because I guess my least favorites are the ones that get no attention whatsoever. And like, you know, I think that people will be excited about it and then like nothing, crickets. You don't have anything that you can look back and be like, oh I wrote that. I mean, I'm sure there is, but I don't know. I mean, because I've been writing under my own name, like I've always been somewhat aware that this is going to be out and this is going to be me, and so I mean I haven't had particular huge changes in like life, philosophy or anything since this has been out, So there's been slightly less of that. I look back on some of my you know, writing from high school in college and be like, whoa, but this is this is different this. Since I probably started blogging consistently mid to late twenties, I guess it was more set at that point. But I mean, one of my favorite posts is sort of when I think of is Me. It was called Dear Missus Patten and I don't know if people remember this, but the Princeton mom so a couple of years ago she wrote an She wrote a letter to the Daily Princetonian about how ladies on campus should be looking for a husband their freshman year, as you do. I'm having been a freshman at Princeton. I'm pretty sure that the gentleman at Princeton would not have been prime picking in that stage of life. But anyway, so she suggested this. It sort of blew over whatever, and then she got a book deal and wrote a whole book about this. So I decided to write a response. It was partly about how bad an idea this was. I mean, if you meet someone awesome, great, but probably that's not. Her point was also that Princeton ladies weren't going to be satisfied with anyone who was less than a Princeton man, and in particular, she was like, you know, going on about like state schools and stuff, and of course my husband graduated from a state school, and so you know, I had this whole riff about like, you know, yet somehow he seems to understand my intellectual awesomeness, and so it was it was just you know, snarky, It was about women. It was a you know, professional women. So it's all these things I like to do. And so that was one of my absolute favorites. I think one of the smartest ones I ever wrote, which was inadvertently smart, was to tease up the fact that I planned to write about how I had been tracking my time for a year, and it happened to be seen by the right person who either forwarded or this editor at the New York Times had seen it. I don't know if she was reading my blog or what, but she reached out to see if I wanted to write about it for them, and so I then wrote an article about tracking my time for a year for The New York Times, and that got a lot of attention, which then also allowed the folks that ted saw that article and reached out to me about doing a Ted Talk in two thousand and sixteen, and that was sort of a very instrumental thing in building a career as a speaker obviously. So yeah, that turned out to be a good post to have written. How about you? So some of my favorite I don't have favorite posts, as I mean, I should do a deeper dive, because I feel like there's a lot of there's a lot of treasures buried in there, but they're definitely buried. And when you have that much content, actually it's very easy to kind of lose it all because who wants to sift through three thousand posts and find the good ones? But there are some that I tend to link to more than others and enjoy going back to myself. I'm very glad I have a record of all my children's birth stories, actually because I've gone to them on multiple occasions. Certainly whenever I was pregnant with the subsequent child, I like to go back to the pregnancy prior and see what the birth was like and like what was happening at that week of pregnancy. So those are kind of fun. I think it was great when I wrote about starting a podcast and I got like nine million positive comments and then you emailed me like the next day and was like, let's start a podcast. So that was a that was a successful post. But yea, yeah, I don't have like a great list of favorites. I do like some of my planning posts and they are captured in like there's like a planning tab in my blog. So I did corral some of my most recent planning posts that I enjoyed. There least favorite, I guess. I was like, should I even admit this? I had this post from back in two thousand and nine. I'm embarrassed because I thought maybe it was earlier, which would you know, if I was twenty four that's kind of like a child, and you can excuse me, but twenty nine, I don't know. And I was writing this tongue in chief piece like little piece about wanting a running partner, and I wrote at the end like no Republicans need apply, like who am I? And someone called me out on that, and I deserve it. I'm friends with Republicans now, like they may be a Republican for various reasons. We may have disagreements, but hey, that would lead to juicy conversations while running, perhaps as long as it was done in a respectful way, So that's my least favorite. I should just delete it, but I like part of me is such an archivist that I don't want to feel free to lead me some more hate comments on that post. But I hate myself for it, so you know, don't need to like grind it, So that would be my least favorite post. I mean, sometimes people write comments that are not in the nicest fain, and I don't mean comments that disagree. Like I wrote a post earlier this week that I had some people disagree, and most of the disagreements were totally respectful. They're like, well, this is what I think and these are my reasons, and I'm like, oh, okay, that's good. But then every once in a while you get a comment that's just like, you're a selfish, horrible human for writing this post and maybe not with those words, but like kind of with those words or like very much implied, and that sucks. Like, I mean, it's fine to comment disagree, but if you've chosen to spend time reading, it would be nice if you could at least express things in a kind way. I mean, people sometimes just don't understand that people on the internet are real human beings, Like I feel that there's this I don't know, I mean, and even though like we're sort of obviously real people like that we about our own lives, which are not in any way staged, it's like, oh, this person is just a figure on the internet, and so therefore they don't have real feelings or they're in the public, so it's like commenting on any public figures. We're not you know, we're not We're not like Beyonce or something. I mean, there's just it's but so what I you know, I've occasionally written people who've said something mean and personal and be like, here's why, I know, would like to have this conversation, like you know whatever. And I found that at least half the time if I've sent a personal email to the person, they respond in such a like nice and empathetic way, because I think it's just people do forget that it's a real person. Now, there's some people who may disagree with me for X, Y or Z reason, and that's fine, they're never going to be interested in having a conversation. But I think that yeah, or they write as a non ann But but I think, you know, in general, people who comment on my blog are incredibly nice and thoughtful, the same as yours, and I so appreciate that because I know some blogs have had to basically stop commenting because of how atrocious the comments become. So I'm really grateful that that's so as far has not happened. Yeah, no, me too. It's ninety nine percent is good and I and I really again, I appreciate when someone disagrees and does it in like a nice way, because often they bring up points that like I'm like, oh, yeah, that's a that's a good point. My point. My post was about school, and someone's like, you know, don't forget that there's like elderly staff people at school, and so that's a consideration. I'm like, yeah, that's that's a good point. And you didn't say it in like augh, this is so stupid. You forgot about You must be a jerk. It was like Grandma killer. Maybe maybe you didn't yeah, maybe you didn't think of this. And it's like oh, and then I noticed that other commenters will actually say things like oh, I love how people will write comments here without getting angry, and I'm like, yes, that's that's the best. So you're right, Yeah, ninety nine percent at the time. It's great, all right, So Sarah, it is not two thousand and six. Should people start blogging if they want to, they want to? Yeah, I mean, and then there's there's people that might want to start blogging purely as a business and they're looking for clicks, and I almost feel like that's an entirely different discussion. I mean, I don't even know if you want to call it a blog. There are probably like curated online shops or kind of influencer type careers that one may embark on that is very different than what I think of as blogging. So I think you have to think about what you want out of the process. If you're interested in having a personal record of your life, which is actually very fun, and building a community and maybe sharpening up your writing skills and building a daily ritual or weekly ritual or whatever of writing, then yeah, try it. Why not? I do recommend considering starting with WordPress, because Blogger does work, and it is a little bit more user friendly to start, like a tiny bit maybe, but it is kind of hard to convert to word Press later on if you choose to, you know, monetize or certain things you can't Blogger just has less flexibility. It's if you then want to convert it into like, yes, exactly blog. Yeah, so I recommend looking at WordPress, although there's other newer kids on the block too in terms of ways to start sites now that I probably don't even know about square space and Wix and do you come up with your ideas so random. I just sit down and I'm like, this is what I feel like writing today. There was like no planning. Yeah, because what about you? Because it seems like you might be the kind of person who would have a blog calendar. Nope, And when I try to do that, I like don't enjoy it anymore because then it feels like an assignment. I don't want it to feel like an assignment. I want to be like, this is what we're riffing on this morning. So yeah, I guess that's kind of kind of different. But you don't have a plan either. I don't, do you not terribly. I mean, I each week, when I'm setting my various priorities for the week, I list out potential topics for the blog, and you know, some of it is seasonal and some of it is based on what's going on in my life or articles people have sent me that they say you should comment on this or whatever, But yeah, I don't necessarily stick with what I've written there either, so because usually things are inspired by something you've read or something that happened, and it's harder to plan that. And I do find that well, I mean, I think it gets me in trouble sometimes because if you write about something when something's too fresh, you may not have considered all angles. I mean, but that's the beauty of the fact that it's a blog and not like a New Yorker piece, right, Like a blog can be spontaneous like that, and it doesn't have to have all the nuances, and maybe the commenters will bring out some of the nuances that you forgot, as long as you leave your language fairly open and you don't act like you're stating like the rules for life or facts or something like that, which it can be easy to fall into that sometimes because you're like, well, it's my site, but you know, there's a fine line and you can keep a running list somewhere. If people do find it a little paralyzing to sit down and write, I mean, it does get easier. If Sarah's written three thousand posts like probably she's not going to run out of ideas on number three thousand, But you know, you could keep a running list somewhere of ideas that might be interesting or topics you've seen other bloggers cover, you know, just things about your life. What you did this weekend. I mean that's always a topic you can write about, what we did this weekend. So yeah, recurring themes can be fun too, Like I have a few blogs I like where they like lag live always lists her dinner plans like every two weeks, and I enjoy that. So if you come up with certain things that you like to write about and can kind of add variations on those, if you want that more templated approach, you could go there. All right, well shall we any other blogging advice you have? Or okay, well I wish on one tiny last thing because people wonder about like posting your kid's pictures. When my kids were babies, I did not ask permission. I know some controversy in the world. I feel like babies or babies and as long as you're sensitive. This is my own opinion again, like not what's right in the world, but I felt like, as long as I'm not posting full frontal nudes, and I'm kind of picking pictures where my kids are cute, Like, I'm not gonna post tantrum pictures. I don't like that. Then I think it's okay. And then as they get older and more cognizant, like kind of Cameron's just reaching that age now he's six, I will show them. I'll be like, I'm posting these pictures, is that okay? And ninety nine percent of the time they're like, that's fine, because again, I'm not choosing pictures where they're making like a dirty face or like doing something dumb or having a tantrum, because that would not be nice. And I don't want one of their classmates to, you know, pull that up and message it to them five years from now and have it be embarrassing. So I do kind of include them in the decision making, and I try to be sensitive about topics or use a little bit of anonymity. Having multiple kids helps with that, although you're better off than I am because people can kind of figure things out sometimes. Yeah, now, well with five, I mean you could sort of figure it out with the five of them anyway, but no, I mean baby pictures. It seems to me is fine and that you know, now I've been posting a lot more pictures of a kid on the blog now that I have a baby again, I tend not to do it that much just which but then I have been on Instagram, so it's hard to know what's right to do there or not. The one exception now is is Jasper because he's doing more stuff as him and he's cultivating his own he's cultivating media owne presence. And we've discussed that of being very careful of it. And you know that who you wish to be at thirteen to the world that may be different from who you wish to be at eighteen and at twenty three and at twenty eight and all that, so making sure that things will always be okay. But you know, I think it's okay that he wants to write for places, and you know, it's the same thing why I started a blog. You like to have a place to write your stuff that you want to write, and if I can, you know, let him have that opportunity. Sometimes he's happy to write posts for me. So's the well. We could check out his writing tips they were just published. Plus we're running the The Little yet but back In late May, he had a guest Google Jasper's writing tips, Laura vander Cambell. Exactly. All right, quick, let's get to the Q and a yes. So, oh, any recommendations for a book on how to I just planted this random question. You better come up with that something well. One. So Lindsay Pollock, who's a friend of mine and is well known and sort of the career spheres is, has a book called Becoming the Boss, and I think that that's a good title for anyone who's moving into a leadership position. It's probably aimed slightly at younger people, not like twenty two, but if let's say you're thirty and your first time you're in management, this would be a good book for you to check out. Bruce Toulgan has a book called It's Okay to Be the Boss, which is another one for people who are moving into management and need to figure out how I do that right, Like, how what do I do to give instructions to people, to give feedback to people when I'm you know, I have only had the experience of being an individual contributor before. So those are two options to check out. And by the way, this question was specifically by someone that is starting a new leadership role after returning from maternity leave. So I'll also give a quick shout out to the Fifth Trimester by Laurence Smith Birdie, which is all about going back to work after maturnity leave, and it's a nice, light, friendly read talking about that special period of life. Yes, exactly, all right, So love of the Week Sarah is no longer sweating. I guess yeah, I'm going to give my love to Florida Power and Light because we had a big power outage at like five point thirty in the morning, and I frantically emailed Laura using my phone's data saying, oh my god, our powers, how are we going to record podcasts? And also our air conditioning is now out, so that's terrible. And then about an hour later, at like seven fifteen, I gleefully emailed you that it was back on. So yeah, Florida Power and Light so easy to take for granted when we have it, and then when you don't, it's like the worst thing ever. So I've been really grateful for Did I already mention the pool? I'm sure I did the Pool as a Love of the Week, but we're really loving it this week, and I'm thinking of it right now because the cover just broke, So it's it's a Love of the week that is not available today, sadly enough, but we we've really been appreciating been able to go in that as the weather gets nicer and we're still unable to go to anything else, so Love the Week. Hopefully by the time this airs, you will be enjoying that pool once again. I assume we will. All right, Well, this has been best of both worlds. We've been talking about blogging and we will be back next week with more on making work in life fit together. Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the shoe box dot com or at the Underscore shoe Box on Instagram, and you can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please join us next time for more on making work and life work together.