The good news is that we have an official photo for the site. The bad news is that I’m not exactly sure how to incorporate it yet.
Regardless, I couldn’t wait to share:
I hope you like it.
By the way, Monday’s post is scheduled for 10am Central, just like Friday’s. It’s written by yours truly, so I’m really looking forward to seeing what you all have to say on the topic.
Hope everyone had a terrific weekend! -wfi
Wow, this is really happening, you guys. The first official entry for The Totebag, penned by the world renowned Honolulu Mother, is scheduled to post at 10am central today (just a few minutes from now). I think you’re all really going to love it!
Here’s how things are shaping up:
Posting schedule. We’re going to try a Monday/Wednesday/Friday schedule, with all posts scheduled for 10am central. Let me know how this setup feels — we can tweak as we go along.
Mondays will be traditional entries, Wednesdays will be advice-based ‘Ask The Totebag’ entries, and Fridays will be ‘Friday Fun.’
For Monday, I’ll be writing an entry about kids and nutrition that will expose my own totebaggery ways and put our collective holier-than-thou values to the test.
For Wednesday, SBJ has submitted the first ‘Ask The Totebag’ topic, which I will post. I already have another lined up after that, too. (Heck, I think I could populate the ‘Ask The Totebag’ segment with my own personal questions for the rest of the year. But don’t let that keep you from sending in yours — y’all will tire of my neurosis very quickly.)
Next Friday is open, but I’m confident we’ll have a topic ready.
Please-oh-please send me your entry submissions and topic ideas! Email them to totebagger (at) gmail (dot) com.
‘About The Totebag’ and ‘About The Name’. These pages are complete! Thanks to all who helped form them. It’s really neat to have immortalized our long-running totebag reference.
Comment format. It seems that we all liked the idea of threaded comments, but very few of us enjoy the actual experience. I have switched the setting back to non-threaded, so we can take it for a spin, and I’ve opened a poll on the topic below. If you feel strongly about it, be sure and vote!
The Totebag photo. Speaking of voting, the last poll was a landslide in favor of the organic apples and totebag photo. I’ll make that change over the next few days, and possibly tweak the overall blog layout in the process — more on that soon.
Contributor bios. Saacnmama and cal atty have expressed an interest in doing this. If you two will email in your bios, I’ll write one for myself and post them on a new page, and we’ll see how it looks. Others are obviously welcome to send their bios, too — but putting up three of them seems like a nice way to test out the idea.
On a personal note, I’m “tickled to death” about seeing you all here, as we say in Texas. For now, every single comment gets emailed to me, and it’s been really cool having all of you buzzing me on my phone throughout the day (although I’ve been on the road lately and haven’t been able to respond very quickly). Let’s see how much fun we can have with this!
-Laura, aka WhiteFluffyIcing
First, let me say: I’m floored at all of the hits and comments we’ve received here. I naively thought that I could set up the site, mull it over, decide if you guys were serious, and announce it at some opportune moment. Not so! Wow.
We have a few more decisions to make before we get started:
‘About’ and ‘About The Name’. Honolulu Mother and Upstate NY Dad graciously wrote the ‘About’ page. (Thank you!)
I thought it might also be nice to immortalize the origin of the totebag reference, either on a separate ‘About The Name’ page, or incorporated into the existing ‘About’ page. Thoughts on that? (See the comments on the ‘About The Name’ page itself for more details.)
Posting Schedule. One of the things that frustrated many of us on the other site was the erratic — or lack of a — posting schedule. I think a daily schedule might be a bit lofty at first. How about Mondays and Fridays, to start? A regular topic on Monday, to be chewed on through Thursday, and then a fun topic each Friday? Or Monday / Wednesday / Friday?
In addition to the weekly schedule, what time of day should we schedule the posts to go up? SF Mom mentioned that the 8am Eastern posts are mostly exhausted by the time the west coast folks are on-line, and we’re in full hijack mode. Suggestions here? Perhaps certain days of the week are always posted at a given time?
First Entry. Honolulu has graciously volunteered to write the first entry, and we’re loosely aiming for Friday, June 22. Who else wants in? Check out the new ‘Suggested Topics’ page and email entries to totebagger (at) gmail (dot) com.
Optional Bios? Saac suggested that we consider creating a page for brief bios, for those interested in participating. Thoughts on that? Does that have you all running for the hills? They can be as vague/anonymous/humorous as you like…
Theme Photo. I’m trying out the polling feature for this one… let’s see how we do:
Well, here we are. I hope you all weren’t kidding about starting a supplemental blog.
I certainly wasn’t kidding about crowd sourcing the thing!
Theme Photo. The first order of business is aesthetics. We need to replace the default photo (of the steering wheel) with something more fitting with our theme. Unless any of you want to volunteer your photography skills, I prefer iStockphoto for this task. My official suggestion is this photo, although I’m sure there are better ones out there. Suggestions for a photo?
Tagline. We need to determine whether we want a tagline under the title at the top of the page, and if so, what it should be. My tongue in cheek line won’t cut it — I was just trying to be funny. Any thoughts?
The ‘About’ Page. Who wants to volunteer to write it?
Comments. Last but not least, leaving comments here will let us test drive the functionality. I’ve allowed nesting replies to comments up to three levels deep, but we can change the setting to allow up to ten levels. I can also customize the number of hyperlinks allowed in the comments — right now, comments with two links will automatically go through, but those with three links will be held for approval. Any preferences on this? I certainly don’t want to play whack-a-troll all day.
There are hundreds of settings to tweak for just about every aspect of the site, so speak up and let me hear your preferences….
