Higher education: A blog is a blog, is a blog ... unless it is a book deal

Wednesday I put my professional look on and journeyed into the city to find out more about blogging.
I am trying to make this the most interesting of experiences for my readers (400-plus and counting), while furthering my dream of helping to pay off student loans for our offspring who have gone the private college route.
I rode the train, bumped into working people and law school students I know. Getting up so early to go into the loop on our limited Metra line reminded me of how much I want to continue working from home. My heart goes out to the people who commute to and from every day. Especially those who have their set seats on the train, who give the stink eye to random people disturbing their space and the peace.
Don't even get me started on the "quiet car" experience.
Two hours before my first seminar on "Mommy Blogging Your Way to Success," I enjoyed people watching and a breakfast at my favorite Lavazza coffee shop on Ohio Street. I had returned to the scene of a prior almost crime. A few years back a young thug attempted to sweet talk and scam me there. Stay tuned and I shall blog that story in the future.

Fueled by an excellent grande cappuccino, with perfect artistic swirls in its steamy foamed hat and the last almond croissant, I later ambled up Michigan Avenue to the Chicago Tribune Tower for a day of seminars to improve my proficiency in blogging. The Tribune was a host site to many Social Media Week/Chicago events this week. It was my first time around the revolving doors of the historic building.
Seventeen years ago I planned on continuing my newspaper career there after we moved to the Midwest from Orlando. I had no idea how far the loop was from my suburban zip code and prioritized raising a family over writing and editing. Surrounded by young editorial and advertising people carrying coffee and bicycle helmets I checked in and then found my way to the elevator bank. Off to a great start, while being distracted by a life I used to know, I got off on the wrong floor. Acting cool, calm and collected, I waited for another elevator to take me to the basement. Did you know there is a workout facility in the Tribune Building?
One of 90 mommy bloggers to sign up for Wednesday's event, I took a seat and waited for the other 89 to show up. Okay, I was a little bit eager, a little bit early.
As the rest of the bloggers drifted in (more than half of the registered lot and only two men) and the panel of experienced women got comfortable, I noticed I was on the empty-nest side of the pool instead of the Pampers/pre-school assemblage. After looking around the room I also noticed I am going to have to get much cooler eyeglass frames to be competitive with this group.
It's amazing what you can learn in an hour. I have notes to prove it.
Reoccurring themes, while the panelists snacked on Dove chocolates, were:

• You don't get rich from blogging.
• You should blog because you have a passion for writing. 
• Write less but more often.
• Book deals and speaking engagements are where the money is, if there is any money to be made off the blogosphere.
• Girl Scout cookies have already gone on sale.

I am more than up for the challenge. 

The afternoon's session which required another trip through the revolving doors and finding a different conference room was about reviving your blog. I figured by attending "TribU: Save My Blog," I would master a "prevent defense" for my losing interest in blogging. The event was overflowing with bloggers and with a lot of information I had been seeking.

Twitter vs. Facebook. Facebook page vs. Facebook fan page. Adding widgets and whatchamacallits.
Reoccurring themes at this session, besides not serving coffee, were:

• You don't get rich from blogging.
• You should blog because you have a passion for writing. 
• You are not writing "War and Peace" or even worrying about good writing.
• Don't get hung up in the posting queue -- send, send, send.

I can't promise to follow through on all of these suggestions. The journalist in me still worries about some of these suggestions. I may not have all the answers but I now have a new network of people to help me get this blog out there.

Now I must stop writing and try to figure out how to move one address book into another so I can let you know we are up and running.

Tweeting is not for everybody #really

I have 11 people following me on Twitter. Nine are total strangers.
It is pretty scary that there are strangers in my life. I've been warning my children about stranger danger on the Internet for years.
It is also pretty scary that I keep sending this blog out there and that only 11 people are following me.
I am the mom who has never had a Facebook page. Yes, I am the one.
I don't really want anyone I knew in elementary school, who has not found me in the past 40-plus years, to look me up now.
When I was living in the Tampa Bay area during the 80s -- and the Philadelphia Eagles were in a Super Bowl -- a handful of those people were looking for couch surfing reservations and even tickets to the game.
I broke it to them gently -- the Outdoors Writer, who also had to cover high school football, for the local newspaper, did not get a handful of tickets to help pay her tiny one-bedroom apartment's rent.
I wasn't even going to THAT game.
Back to Facebook.
The blogging and IT gurus I have spoken to have told me that in order for this blog to get a following, it has to have a Facebook and a Twitter account. Twitter is something else I have avoided, although I hope to get in on the IPO if my Fidelity broker can make it so.

My IT Gal and I have been trying to set up a Facebook that won't disclose my real identity. We've been distracted between shopping, pedicures, an out-of-town wedding, etc., and hope to get back to that project in a day or two.
She did get a Twitter account up and running after the fourth blog was published. She Tweeted the first few messages out there to show me how it works. Now I've signed up for two seminars on the subject this week in the city.
My Twitter account journeys out there to infinity and beyond under this moniker: @musingsmom58.
That's me, Mama K.
We even found an adorable cartoon illustration to tie it in with the Musings From The Laundry Room theme (the name of this blog just in case you have not made the connection) I have going here that a few people have become loyal readers of. Two are in my Google+ circles. This is something else I didn't know I had.
In the old days you got instant gratification by publishing a story or column by your editor no longer snarling about your deadlines. You could sometimes see the papers being delivered on you drive home to your tiny one-bedroom apartment. That also meant you had stayed out too long after literally putting the paper to bed.
Back then your feedback wasn't by Tweet or blog comment. It might have been a wake-up call by the father of the high school football player you criticized in the morning paper after his big-time-college-prospect son dropped the-game-winning pass, or the excessive pickup horn blaring outside your window because you didn't mention the  name of the guy who caught the biggest tarpon of the week in your Sunday column. I kid you not.
Since setting up the Twitter account I have become obsessed with checking it to see if anyone is following me. Crap, I only have seven followers now. Where did they go?
I spent a couple of hours connecting with comedy favorites, foodies, organizations, the Obamas ... . I keep hoping that someone I have reached out to will reach out and Tweet me.
Just logged on and saw that Oprah has recommended I add a few connections. Now I am going to wake up my IT Gal and get her to remind me what my password is, so I can add a few more people to my Tweets.
There's no #stopping me now.

Good pie belongs on its own pedestal

Recently a link went around that really set me on edge.
It proclaimed that pie is the next cupcake on the culinary dessert trend circuit.
This proclamation offended me.
I take pie quite seriously. Good pie belongs on its own pedestal. I've put it there for years.
Pie is one of my favorite desserts and probably one of my Hall of Fame comfort foods.
During my phormative years in Philadelphia, Tastykake fruit pies were occasionally permitted with a glass of milk as our family's version of the most important meal of the day. Tastykake lemon and blueberry pies were always my favorites. Our breakfast of champions before heading off on a walk to elementary school.
My mom was not a baker of pies. She claimed they were too hard to make. Transferring the crusts from counter to pie plate can be overwhelming for a lot of people.
I shall date myself by pulling up a memory of the Horn & Hardart Automat and coconut custard pie. No one makes coconut custard pie like that memory. It was also my dad's favorite.
I didn't bake my first pie, or appreciate the talent it takes to make a good one, until I moved into my first apartment in Clearwater, Fla. Young, single and sometimes lonely, I would try to master former Philadelphia City Councilwoman/pie entrepreneur Joan Specter's  apple walnut recipe and throw a pie-pity-party for some of my newspaper friends who worked nights and weekends.
I was homesick in Florida for the strawberry tarts I'd shared with friends in Philly at The Commissary. Pie can be and is emotionally soothing (I will get back to this on or around January 23, National Pie Day; not to be confused with March 14, Pi Day).
As you can see, I don't discriminate when it comes to pie. I like fruit pies, cream pies and nut pies. Shoo-Fly pie would not be in my top 10. I do enjoy chicken pot pie and shepherd's pie as dinner entrées. For the purpose of this blog I am concentrating on dessert pies.
Some of the best pies I've eaten were in Florida. Not too far from Clearwater's Jack Russell Stadium in the early 80s you could pick up amazing sweet potato pies on the ride back to the office to write baseball stories. Purchased and brown bagged right out of the oven of a talented woman's BBQ shack/home.
It wasn't until I was living in Orlando, that I realized there were pie people as obsessed as I.
A columnist at The Orlando Sentinel, who called himself Commander Coconut, was always on the lookout for another good slice of life and he would refer to the minions who enjoyed pie as much as he did as "Pie Butts."A badge of honor.
Diners down south were/are great sources for pie. Local dives and posh diners, such as the Peabody Hotel's B-Line in Orlando failed to disappoint. Years ago the B-Line's deep dish apple pie was the best I had ever eaten. I would actually order one or two for Thanksgiving dinner and return the pie tins with rave reviews days later. But pastry chefs move on...
Ever since Oprah announced to the world her love of Costco's pumpkin pie I have joined that bandwagon. Truthfully, I have never had a homemade version as good. And you can't beat the value.
One of the best things about pumpkin pie is it is a vegetable so I don't worry about the calorie issue.
For many years I have entered into many debates over the best Key Lime pie out there. I will share a little expertise with you about Key Lime pie -- if it is green you must stay away from it. If you want a good commercial version Hooters and Trader Joe's can fill a void. A slice at Joe's Stone Crab restaurants in Miami and Chicago still makes my heart skip a beat. My friend Marla -- who lives in Chicagoland -- makes my favorite homemade version.

Chi-town is striving to become a very good pie town -- not counting its formidable deep dish Pizza pies -- with more than a dozen places with good reps. If you have an extra nine hours try to duplicate Gale Gand's recipe for banana cream pie--DO IT. It is just one reason Gand, an Evanston native and one of the world's most celebrated pastry chefs, had a cooking show called "Sweet Dreams."
I have marched crews of friends and family to Emeril Lagasse's restaurants in Vegas and Orlando to indulge in his version of banana cream pie when it is on the menu.
A long-standing family tradition, after walking to raise money for Juvenile Diabetes in the Chicagoland area, is breakfast and pie at Bakers Square -- I kid you not. Their French Silk pie needs no justification.
If you eat pie while doing charity or philanthropy there are no calories in it. If you professionally eat pie you have a dream job. This "pie butt" enjoyed semi-pro status when she stepped up to judge pies at the Lake County (IL) Fair for a number of seasons.
A lot of homemade pies were enjoyed and rewarded ribbons during my tenure and a handful of pie frauds (really, don't try and serve that prepared crust to a real pie judge) were exposed.
Do you know that we used to have to post "pie police"to make sure jealous entrants would not switch awarded ribbons when no one was looking? Who would have thought pie baking could be so competitive.
After several years of judging pies I learned that not every pie baker has high standards and there are a whole lot of people out there who just don't know good pie. There are cheaters who have to be challenged when they enter pre-baked pies. And as you the pie judge are chewing, you never think about where and how these entries are baked. If you did, you could never do this demanding job. Oprah and her friend Gayle King took a stab at judging food at the Texas state fair one season.
Kudos to those who bake and even more kudos to those still judging.
A perfect job for me -- besides blogging -- would be to travel for pie. Finding good pie in the USA is not that difficult. One of the best places I've ever been to internationally and highly recommend is The Queen of Tarts in Dublin, Ireland.
Last year my daughter and I traveled there for breakfast. According to the American Pie Council 35 percent of all Americans have had pie for breakfast.
You guessed it -- lemon meringue pie with tea. I've grown up, I am not a big fan of milk unless I am dunking Oreos in it.

Truthfully I have had oil changes that have taken longer...

My husband had neck surgery to kick the week off -- once again testing our marriage vows.
Luckily, that in sickness and in health clause has been activated only a few times in our nearly 25 years legally together.
Hopefully this most recent procedure will alleviate the pains in his neck (stifle those jokes about his wife please) and the tingles in his arm (remember I am the funny writer here) that have been bugging him for far too long.
A little back story:
When the neurosurgeon looked at the CT scan a few weeks ago I admired the surgeon's confidence and the Maserati parked in his office lot. With a quick glance our specialist told us "he could fix it," and we believed.
Said husband, also a health professional, wasn't nervous at all that this might not work out.
The procedure, to fuse three discs in the neck with a titanium plate and remove bone spurs and debris, was supposed to take an hour. The incision would be in the front of the neck, near his throat. The procedure was scheduled as outpatient surgery, with a room reserved at the same hospital just in case the anesthesia and pain didn't agree with the patient, and vice versa.
I planted myself in the waiting area of our suburban hospital with a stack of books and my first cup of vending machine cafe. A color-coded chart hiding the identities of the patients with numbers, updated me periodically on his location behind the double doors -- pre OP, in Surgery, in recovery, in recovery II -- and the locker room where his possessions were stowed.
We had not told a lot of people outside of out-of-town family about the surgery. Didn't want people to worry.
Have you ever noticed that when you tell some people something medical they will dis your doctor or the location you have chosen to have the work done? Really? What good comes from that karma?
Back to the back story:
Our daughter offered to take off work to sit with me "if I wanted." Our at-college son, when apprised of the day's agenda weeks earlier, said: "He'll be fine." They are so different. She is more a worrier. He is a man of science like his dad.
I was barely on my third concoction of vending machine cafe (a mocha/cappuccino with milk and sugar; did I mention it was free?), when our  neurosurgeon came out to the waiting room -- sans scrubs -- to tell me how well the surgery had gone. Truthfully I have had oil changes that have taken longer.
I put down my copy of Getting Into Medical School for Dummies and tossed my empty third cup of vending machine cafe in the trash to do a caffeine induced happy dance.
The incision was barely 3 inches long with Frankenstein hash marks. The permanent marker and glue they pasted the wound closed with should be gone after several showers. The incision should not inhibit wearing bow ties in the future.
Poof, several weeks of worrying about everything from paralysis, to his losing his voice, to the inability to travel without setting off security alerts at airports everywhere, gone in an instant.
Checking the electronic chart, I saw I still had time peruse the gift shop and make a run to the cafeteria before they would release the patient back into my custody.
My husband is such a good guy, even under the stooper of anesthesia and muscle relaxers he insisted on putting his wedding band back on his finger before needing my assistance to get dressed. Three bags of fluids and the meds made that a super human task, the re-ringing, not the dressing. His fingers were swelled up a size or two.
A couple of graham crackers and Diet Pepsi's later, he was strong enough to stand up and eliminate all that excess liquid on the nurse's command. You aren't allowed to leave the hospital unless you show them you remember what to do in the washroom. I know, TMI.
The patient wasn't interested in staying no matter how many packages of Lorna Doones they left on the table.
I know there are a few women out there who would agree that there is nothing worse than a sick husband. I may have said that myself a few cold and flu seasons in our history. Or maybe I muttered it after he caught the chickenpox as an adult working in a pharmacy back when our daughter was a toddler. And then there was the time he had his tonsils and adenoids removed as an adult to help with his sleep apnea.
A McDonald's milkshake eased the interior scratchy throat on the ride home. He was in some discomfort, but after 24 hours was pain med and muscle relaxer free. It will be a few weeks until the tingling dissipates.
We have received a barrage of calls and texts from people who were concerned about him. After 24 hours he was answering the phone on his own.
Miracles of science.

You are never too old to chase your dreams

My breakfast buddy actually called Diana Nyad an "imbecile" between bites of her veggie egg white omelet one morning this week.
"The reason you don't hear about other people swimming from Cuba to Miami all the time is there aren't many people who would want to do something so crazy,'' she said. "Admit it."
"Never," I said as I slathered butter on my bagel.
 Nyad, 64, one of my all-time heroines, is my first choice for Sportsperson of the Year.
Earlier this week she swam 110 miles in shark-infested, jellyfish-filled waters to finally -- on her fifth attempt -- complete this "crazy" feat. She walked out of the water on her own and told supporters and microphones a trio of slurred tidbits: "One is, we should never ever give up; two is, you're never too old to chase your dreams. ...''
At 55, I have enough trouble hauling my butt out of bed each morning for a walk to Starbucks with one of my confidants. The thought of putting on a bathing suit and wearing it in front of television camera would paralyze me with fear. I can't even get motivated to drive over to my neighboring fitness center to take a water aerobics class with the rest of the mid-aged, Speedo-clad manatees.
The third comment Nyad, a motivational speaker and Hall of Fame distance swimmer, offered up was: "... it looks like a solitary sport, but it is a team.''
Nyad, along with her 35-member support team, without use of a shark cage, finished the journey to Key West in 53 hours. Years of science, research and her individual training helped her complete this journey. Nyad can credit the team, but it was her years of time in the water that paid off.
The audience is divided on Nyad's success. Some like my breakfast buddy have even accused Nyad of being an unashamed, self-promoter. How many people climb Mt. Everest and keep it a secret? How many people start a blog to get attention?
And with 24-hour news always looking to fill another minute or two I'd much rather see/hear/read about people who accomplish extraordinary feats instead of twerking (a dance move that is not well enough known for auto-correct to not override the usage of the word).
One mile in a 50-meter Olympic swimming pool is 16 laps (32 lengths). Before quitting my swim club team, 16 laps in a pool would drive me crazy with boredom. I also hated sweating while in the water.
A silicone mask, bodysuit, boots and gloves were Nyad's lone protection from sea creatures. Okay, in 1997 Australian Susie Maroney, with protection and draft of a shark cage, had also completed the trip. No less a feat if you ask me. If a shark cage makes you feel safer, go try it.
In Chicago there are restaurants called 90 Miles Cuban Cafe. Legend has it the cafes' Gonzalez family journeyed from Cuba in 1980 on a shrimp boat from Mariel Harbor to Key West. The boat, in stormy seas took 15 hours to hurl them to freedom and their first step towards building an American dream. My family loves Cuban food. It is approximately 30 miles to the nearest 90 Miles Cuban Cafe from my house. For some reason it has always been too overwhelming to drive on the Kennedy Expressway and I-90 (okay my aversion to driving on bridges and highways is a whole other blog) to get there for the cuisine. But here's a promise: We will get there this year and toast Nyad with a BYOB Cuba Libre and some Ropa Vieja.
Congratulations Diana Nyad.

It's time.

My son has thrown down the gauntlet. He has accused me of not completing a project. I've also never lost the baby weight from carrying him around, and he will be 20 in October.

One of my few remaining friends from the newspaper biz has challenged me and made me face a hard deadline by asking me the launch date for this blog. Of course she offered to shoot my book jacket photo 15 years ago and I never sat down to write the book.

My daughter -- who is also going to be my IT gal for this venture -- has started to make fun of me for saying "this would be good for my blog and that would be better."

For years I have "talked" about writing a book. Its not-so working title is: "Someday I'm Going To Write a Book." For years, despite encouragement from my very supportive husband, I have been away from the creative keyboard. We'll see if editing our children's elementary school's yearbooks, creating flyers for cross-country team pancake breakfasts and proof reading a collection of our rabbi's sermons has kept me from atrophying.

After batting around ideas and thoughts of going back to work as an editor/writer, I am sitting down to do this. Truthfully, I wanted to find something to do that wouldn't disrupt my incredibly-blessed-life. All the better if it helps to stave off early onset Alzheimer disease.

Worst case scenario, I will finally set down in type some of the stories and experiences that have left people in my life laughing and sometimes crying (mostly from laughter).

Fine if Depends wants to sponsor this endeavor while you are all pishing your pants from laughter. And it's okay if Kleenex wants in to wipe a few tears away. I am completely open to selling out. However, I am going to retain creative control. I am going to write when I want (most likely when there is laundry washing or drying in the laundry room), what I want and how I want. And someday I might figure out this Twitter thing before the next big thing comes along.

Of course there will be rules:

No animals will be harmed in the writing of this blog. 

I will change names to protect people I still want to talk to me.

I will try to only mention Oprah once in each blog.

Unlike many bloggers I will not be mean-spirited. 

Like The New York Times, I will write at a third-grade level so everyone can read and understand the contents. I am saving 25-cent words for my Words With Friends games.

I'm also going to check spelling and grammar, like the rest of you with Spellcheck.

This is a big thing for me. I put my career on hold when gauntlet-throwing son was 3 years old and our family moved to a new city. And, since Oprah didn't give me a reality talk show for her OWN network a few years back, I have a lot of stored up material to share.

Besides making fun of me, my IT gal/daughter gave me a really big motivational push as she rolled her eyes when I asked her to remind me what the blog password is. She told me if HBO decides to pick this up as a series, she would have them cast Julianne Moore as the lead. I can't imagine myself thinner.