Heather says
2012 is rapidly winding down, and in all honesty 2012 probably won’t go down as my favorite year ever. I’m looking to 2013 for a fresh, new start.
Are you?
I want to create a community of encouragement around here and I’d like your help on brainstorming ways to meet that goal. How do we interact with one another without relying on a platform like FaceBook (which can take away that community at their discretion) in a way that respects your privacy without allowing complete anonymity, because frankly that’s when some unsavory types may decide to show up and I need, for all of our sake, to have the ability to moderate.
I want to open up Home-Ec a little more to user contribution, but I don’t want to do it in a way that gets abused by people looking to promote their sites on selling insurance or college admissions or what have you. I am in full support of paying contributors -granted at this point it cannot be a lot, but as we get back on the growth path, that will, over time, change to a respectable amount. However, even at this stage, the content has to meet Home-Ec 101 standards. If you want to discuss this with me, feel free to message me privately. Active Home-Eccers will be given preferential treatment.
What are your opinions on this matter?
As many of you know, I have taken on a full-time, grown-up, real, big-girl job with FeedBlitz. I love it. I’m still working at the Irish pub which lets me see actual adults. -One of the major sources of stress / anxiety for me was how isolated I’d allowed myself to become over the years. I won’t allow that to happen again. That said, these things have cut into my ability to work on Home-Ec, but we’re going to figure this out. Right?
Now for the stuff of more general interest.
At this time of year, many people are searching for a cleaning routine or a printable chore schedule and you’re in luck, I have got one just for you. Are you thinking of learning how to cook? Are you determined to start menu planning? Perhaps you’re just looking to start cutting out processed foods?
Are you making resolutions or setting goals?
What are they?
My goals for this site are:
- To continue adding recipes, cooking tutorials, and answering reader questions as I have done for nearly 6 years. (Don’t forget, you can send your household and cooking questions to helpme@home-ec101.com)
- To encourage more of a community feel to Home-Ec 101 without losing the tone or voice.
Is there anything you want to see happen with Home-Ec 101 over the next year?
I can’t promise it’ll happen, but I can certainly listen and give your ideas consideration. And no, I’m not coming over to clean your house. Completely unrelated, I hate it when I make an offhand comment about completing some chore or another and someone pipes up with, “Now come do that at my house.” Dude, I never said I enjoyed doing said task, what on earth makes you think I’m all gung-ho about doing it for you? Chances are it took all my will power to complete the task for myself. Grr.
Do you have any New Year’s traditions?
I always make hoppin’ john, collard greens, and cornbread for luck and prosperity (settle down, it’s tradition not superstition). If you’d like, I also have a vegan version of collard greens that are ah-mazing.
What do you serve?
Thankfully, the world did not end on December 21. (Please don’t think I actually gave that prediction any actual credence)
That said, it’s important to some basic, rational steps toward emergency preparedness. You’ll thank me during the next actual minor emergency.
Happy New Year. Thank you for everything.
Site hosts like Squarespace and Ning support community social features similar to the ones you describe. Appoint moderators to patrol the posts, comments, and chats so you don’t have to do it all yourself. I’ve done similar in the past and am setting up to do it again (on Squarespace), so feel free to pick my rusty geek brain.
Well, I learned my lesson with Drupal, it’s a giant resource hog. I am a bit concerned about relying on a third party, which is why I want to take the self-hosted route, although at this point it may be worth saying to heck with trying to find perfect and just settling on decent and letting the community grow while I search for the best option.
Hurray for run on sentences.
I’m hopeful that people will want to help moderate the space.
I would love to learn how to use my pressure canner as a pressure cooker. It’s a season of roasts and whole birds. How do I do that?
I actually decided years ago that I prefer Red Beans and Rice to Hoppin’ John, so that is what I serve each New Year’s Day, with collards and corn bread and baked apple slices.
Im looking to learn to can have tried water bath with mixed results must admit I am a little afraid of the pressure canner but must learn for our garden
I really like forums. I really loved the kellymom forum (i almost cried when they shut the forums down and moved the community to facebook). I have no idea how that forum was established/maintained except that they had great moderators and clear community guidelines. 🙂
I’d really like advice on how to organize things – especially toys. All the toy organizers I buy for my dd1 (4 yrs old) and my dd2 (19 months) turn into toys, and by that I mean they dump all the toys to play with the bins, or totes, diaper boxes, ect. Always. Bookshelves, too – they are great to climb up/crawl into/scare mommy lol. Since we live in an apartment, and most of their toys are in a corner in the living room, it becomes hard to keep up with all of the toys at times.
I’d also like advice on cooking from scratch/making use of the food you have leftover.
I just stumbled on your website (via Amazon) while looking for how-to-clean books. Your book looks great and I plan to buy it-your website looks like a lot of fun and has that pride-of-ownership look that good websites have-however-I noticed that many of the “hints” are based on the fact that one is home and has extra time. For instance, Monday-Laundry Day would be impossible for me-actually any day in the working week would be hard for me or really any of my friends to do. I would love to see more hints/advice on how to keep one’s house under control (I dare not say clean) during a 40-50 hour work week. My best hint is make sure you have guests over at least once a month-that way you can be sure your house will be cleaned once a month! 😉
Heather, You have tons of great info on your site. It’s my first go-to when I have question. I think your ask the reader posts are a nice community feature. I found a site about working with toddlers that does a round-up every Monday. Other bloggers can link up and show what they’ve been doing that week. You could do a “routine” round -up, a “what I’ve figured out how to do”, or just make it opened ended. You might get a few spammers initially, but if you take them off promptly, I think there are alot of smaller bloggers out there who would enjoy the chance to share. I’ve found the toddler site’s round-up extremely helpful, and I think a home-ec. equivalent could be useful.
I used to love your website, especially your recipes, but lately there hasn’t been too much going on over here. I wish you would post more recipes but I understand you do have a busy life with other things going on. On that note, I have tried the Method products after you recommended them and will continue to use them in the future (they are great). However, I wish this site didn’t feel like a constant advertisement for the brand. Since you have been posting less frequently I feel like every few posts are about Method tends to be a bit much. I apologize if this sounds mean as that was not my intention. I really enjoy your recipes, schedules and meal plans so if anything I wanted to encourage you to post more (not less) as I missed you in 2012!
I am glad you managed to sort your stress and anxiety. I used to get that a lot too. check here to see info on what anxiety disorders are about. the blog gives a detailed account on all about anxiety and panic disorders do i have anxiety
I am glad you managed to sort your stress and anxiety. I used to get that a lot too. check here to see info on what anxiety disorders are about. the blog gives a detailed account on all about anxiety and panic disorders do i have anxiety