Category Archives: Maggie

Cranky Reader Survey Results

May
09

Posted by: Maggie

Last week, in preparation for our redesign, I put up a survey for you all. I wanted to find out what you love and what you don’t love about Cranky to create a better blog for you.  I appreciate you all coming back day after day and I want you to really enjoy reading Cranky.

If you haven’t taken it yet, I’d really appreciate it if you did. It only takes about two minutes to complete. Just CLICK HERE to take the survey.

I thought I’d share some of the results from those of you who have taken it:

YOUR STATS

90% of you are women! Give it up for the  gentlemen in the 10%! Hello fellas!

90% of you are 25-35

REGULAR FEATURES

ALL of you want more Family & Eleanor stories. I guess we aren’t as boring as I thought.

80% of you want more Cranky Cooking and Cranky Living. And you will get it!

Less than 50% of you enjoy Wordless Wednesday or Fabulous Friday. So Wordless Wednesday is out! But, for Fabulous Friday I’m using my bloggers veto to overrule you guys, because I like it. It will continue, but I’ll try to jazz it up a bit. If anyone has any suggestions for the type of things you’d like to see in Fabulous Friday let me know in the comments or send me an email.

NEW POSTS

These surprised me a bit. You all have very little interest in guest posts or giveaways. I must be terribly entertaining all on my own! Thanks friends!

But you all really want Parenting Info/Ideas posts (90%). You guys are really pushing us toward being a Mommy Blog! Oh crab cakes, are we already a Mommy Blog?! Well that would explain all the posts about poop!

And about 80% of you want some photography tips from me!

You guys will get what you ask for. I’m happy to write some posts about our adventures in parenting, what’s worked for us and what hasn’t. And of course I will add some photo tutorials to the blog! I also have some other photo related projects in the works for you all coming later this year, probably fall, so look out for those! (p.s. if you haven’t bought my ebook yet, now would be an excellent time to do that!)

THE COMMENTS

I got some great individual comments. I had a  bunch of photography related comments and a couple specific requests for home decor and especially holiday decorating posts! Yay! I love those myself and I want to let you know that I have some big summer decorating plans in the works so you can look forward to those posts coming soon!

The main theme was that you guys like my photography and hearing about our life, parenting, home projects, and decorating. That is great news! I have plenty of material to work with there. I’m happy to share how and why we do what we do.

Oh, and, you can expect slightly more frequent posting from Josh. Because he told me he would. He is, after all, the real writer in the family.

I want to thank you all so much for reading! I appreciate your support of our little place on the web. I’ll do my best to keep it fun and fabulous so you’ll keep coming back for more!

A Mother’s Day Ode to Not Doing it All

May
09

Posted by: Maggie

I had planned on posting this yesterday, but I didn’t want to take anything away from the very sweet Mother’s Day post Josh wrote for me. So here is a slightly belated Mother’s Day Ode.

I’m an optimist and not much of a complainer. I also am not a fan being too self-deprecating. In general, I think that sounds a little sad. So I don’t criticize myself much on this blog, or write about my faults much. Josh says that I might paint a slightly too rosy picture of our life. I would never want to make motherhood and small business ownership seem easy. It’s not.

I hear from readers who applaud me for being able to do it all. But on this Mother’s Day I want to let you in on my little secret. I might be “doing it all.” But I certainly am not doing it all well. Some things I’m doing perfectly poorly!

Here’s a short list (that could be done much longer) of the many things that I’m not so hot at!

  • I forget things. Lots of things. I forget appointments and to return phone calls and emails, I forget to write tasks on my to do list. I forget to look at my to do list. I forget to have Eleanor do her homework, and when she does I forget to turn it in.
  • I rarely remember that Eleanor was supposed to bring something in to school for a project or special event.
  • Sometimes I go a couple days without showering because I just don’t want to waste that time when I could be working.
  • I drink too much coffee.
  • I let Eleanor eat on the couch.
  • I eat on the couch.
  • I let Eleanor watch more tv than she probably should.
  • I am tired most of the time.
  • I have a hard time going without working or being on a computer for any amount of time.
  • My bathroom hasn’t been cleaned in a few weeks.
  • I always intend to write hand-written thank you notes, but rarely get around to doing it.
  • The Post Office is a little out of the way, so things that need to be mailed often sit in my car for a week.
  • I rarely get Eleanor to school on time, and by rarely I mean never.
  • I refuse to take Eleanor to the park anymore because I can’t stand making small talk with the other parents.
  • I convince myself of reasons why I just don’t have time to go the gym today.
  • I could add twenty more things to this list, but I have a short attention span, so I have to move on to something else now.

Now you know my secret to doing it all! Don’t do it all, or do most things half-way! And, you know what? I think I’m okay with that.

Happy Mother’s Day!

To Momma, on a Mother’s Day in 2011

May
08

Posted by: Josh

To my baby’s momma, on Mother’s Day, an ode to your motherfulness.

Thank you for being the fantastical momma that you are. You are the engine that makes our family GO, even when you have to drag us behind you like broken-down trailers. You are our fearless leader, and we will follow you wherever you think we should go, unless we are feeling very tired and then maybe we’ll just sit on the couch for a little while. But you will be there too, and I will have your baby get your booties because your feet are probably cold. Also, ice cream? Because even if your feet are cold, ice cream is a good idea.

So today is your day, to do mommy things, or to more likely not, depending on you how feel. Maybe Mother’s Day really means No Mothers Day, because the mommas can all disappear from mothering, and we should all remember how nice it was to have a momma to momma us, and we will write poems, make brunches, draw cards to convince them to come back for another year. And in the meantime, you can just be a Person, who may or may not continue to momma this family, depending on the quality and quantity of our toadying and the majesty of our tribute, and you can just chill, and watch some Weeds or 30 Rock or something, or maybe just banish your subjects from sight because those guys are like ALWAYS here doing stuff and it gets old. So old.

But hopefully we can show you that sticking around for another year really is a terrific idea, or that at least you’ll break-even, because look at all the hilarious stuff we can do!, and you wouldn’t need to find any packing boxes. And also I made you this food! Yum!

Now, we put our heads together and made a list of your finest qualities, all of which we’ve witnessed in person, so the people can believe that they are bona fide, but I left it with your daughter and now suddenly as if by magic it is disappeared and while I don’t believe her story that the shadows on the sun took it and then gave it to the bubbles bubbles bubbles with the spider and now its in the tree on her wall (with the pink owl) and we can’t get it anymore, I haven’t pressed her. But because I am all grown up and have lived with you for like a long time now, I can still remember most of them, some being 1. you are the sweetest 2. the most positive 3. the most reasonable 4. most smartest and 5. most loving momma in our family. So thanks for that. “Daddy, say ‘Good Job!’” she says to me. To say to you.

Good Job!

Happy Mother’s Day!

And we love you.

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