A blog post about a blog post

I've had the idea rolling around in my mind about starting a website with funny somethings on it.  I have this little blog, but I was thinking of a real, money-making, pinterest-faking mommy website!   Then I thought about my babies and how they need me and how I tend to be obsessive about my projects.  Not to mention when you have your own website it is like being in charge of a magazine where you are the publisher, editor, photographer, web-designer, PR representative, quality-control person, advertising person,  writing person, CRAZY person.  And in this click-click-click world of ours, an article can be forgotten in minutes, so you have to POST like a crazy person to keep up with the competition.  Nope.  Not for me.  I'm happy to have this poorly designed little blog where I write my somethings.  But...

It has always been a dream of mine to be a PAID writer.  I started to research from-home writing jobs (you know you are loading viruses on your computer when you click on work-from-home ads).  I even created a profile at Elance.com.  All of the projects posted seemed a little scary and my resume has been blank for the last 6 years (that is if you are with the majority of the workforce who believe child-rearing is NOT a resume-worthy job!!).   So, I nix the Elance staletto-wearing New York jobs and look for something a little smaller, more for a sweat-pants, flip-flips mom in North Central Florida. 

I contact the owner of a couponing blog I have been following about a job opening.  She says I am too far for the job but she may be able to use me to write content.  I wasn't going to let this chance pass by.  I IMMEDIATLY wrote her back with an article proposal.  She gave me the go-ahead but said "The key to good recipe posts is good pictures."  AAAAHHHHHHH!  Self, you can do this, forget about all of your ipad snap-shot, grainy photos and step up to the plate!  Sooo I dust off my husband's camera and foot-long lens which cost 2x our rent in dental school which he used take gorey pictures of patients' mouths.  Not this time camera, no more shoving you into the scary mouths of strangers, you're going to make us famous!  

I pull together a little recipe using Pillsbury crescent rolls and literally PRAY that it will taste good.  The first try was terrible...apple dumplings with crescent roll dough--it was spit-out terrible.  DONT GIVE UP...THINK...THINK...THINK!  Something savory.  Something that is easy to make and relatively inexpensive.  I combine a few classic casserole recipes swimming in my head and come up with Chicken Cordon Bleu Bites.  I THROW it together, writing my measured ingredients on a grease-stained scrap paper as I go, and again PRAY that it will taste good.  They did! It has to look good too.  Egg wash!!  My sisters, many genius cookers, inspired me with this little one.  You wash the pastry with a little egg white/water mix to make it look SHINY!  It worked.  Meanwhile I am still mothering.  Jacob poops, Ashley poops, and I wash my hands in-between ingredients and poop thanking heaven that readers couldn't SMELL in the picture.   Chicken Cordon-Poop Bites aren't usually a reader favorite. 

Then I take pictures.  Luckily husband left the camera on auto focus otherwise I's have blurry Chicken poop rolls.  The pictures turned out ok.  It needed something.  Dear Top Chef, I've wasting many hours watching you, now it's your turn to inspire a D-blogger.  A SPRIG, I NEEDED A SPRIG.   I didn't have anything leafy and bright green, I only had the questionably-dated green onions I used in the recipe.  These would have to do.  I start husking them, like corn.  Pulling away layer and layer of nasty until I found the perfect little artistic flare of an onion sprig to accent my plate.  snap. snap. snap. 

I manipulated the final crescent roll so many times to deem it inedible.  But the audience would be eating with their eyes!  You can find the final photo at couponersunited.com  !

My hat is off to those moms who have blogs with perfect everything.  It takes hard, hard work to make things look nice.  And you really have to earn an audience's trust...so my little bun that looked like it was vomiting ham-goop would not gain their trust.  OR inspire them to cook.  So I tried, and tried again.  Until I had something nice to look at.  I sent my pics and my quick recipe to the blog owner and she said it was perfect.  Just what she was looking for.  Wheewwww.  The money would be in my PayPal account by nighttime.  Wow, I am tired, my kitchen is a mess, and there is a little ham-goop on pricey camera, but guess what guys, I'm a PAID writer.  Dream big, start small...that's the lesson for today.