Blogging | Hip to be Mom

What I’d like to be eating right now

May 112012

Can you believe I haven’t published a single post about food this week? Strange, I know. I find writing recipe posts a bit of a drag but food posts are okay. So let’s drool over some of my favorite foods.

I love, love, love this Cranberry, Apple, Walnut Grilled Chicken Salad. The minute I grab this off the counter at Carl’s Jr, my fingers are going crazy ripping open the little bags of dried cranberries and glazed walnuts. Once when I couldn’t crack them fast enough, I brought them back to the counter to have the guy cut the bags open for me.

When it comes to In-and-Out burgers, I’m usually quite conservative and never go beyond a single. I look across at the folks having double and triple burgers and I’m wondering how to even start eating it. Do you eat it one layer at a time, or try to cram all 3 layers in at once ?! It’d be interesting to watch me try it!

And Cheesecake Factory, I absolutely love. I don’t care how many thousand calories my order is. I really don’t. I don’t count calories so what do I care?!! I just want to get at my pasta. OMG, this is so rich and so so so ~~fattening~~ good! I can usually only get through half my serving with no room left for cheesecake. But then next day, I can’t wait to get to the leftovers. Yums.

Ack, I’m super hungry just looking at these pictures.

Distracted and derailed?

Posted by Clairity 12 Responses »

May 062012

I’ve been distracted over the past coupla weeks. Distracted by nothing in particular. Just finding it hard to sit down and crank up a post.

Today I read two distinctly opposite posts written by two distinctly different bloggers. A mommy blogger says she’s given up on her blog and that blogging is dead because everyone’s moved to Facebook. That so? *shrug* Those are her words, not mine.

Well, it depends on how you look at it. If you blog because you love to write, like moi, then blogging can never be dead for you. But if you’re constantly glued to FB and letting it take over your relationships, romance and dinner time, then you either have to strike a laboratory balance or you’re just never going to find time to blog.

So. Then I came across another post written by a daddy blogger who says, if you want to improve your writing, write every day, even if you have nothing to write about. Practice makes perfect, he says and he’s exactly right. So what if no one reads your blog. You’re writing because you love to write, not because you’re trying to please anyone.

I have a small collection of blogs that I love reading. I think they’re really well written – great style, great flair – but strangely, they’re not the most read or commented on. Can’t help it if folks don’t appreciate good writing. So now, I think I might just go join NaBloPoMo or some other pick-me-upper to jumpstart my keyboard again.

Let’s do the Google+

Posted by Clairity 4 Responses »

Dec 052011

So word on the street is that Google will be pulling the plug on Google Friend Connect. There goes my 900 odd GFC followers and their blogs that I’d sure hate to lose. I’m sure a lot of us worked very hard at those numbers and this is such a shame. So what do you say we do this? Add me on Google+ (and I really hope you do) and I’ll add you back .

If you aren’t already on Google+, it’s a great way to while away entire afternoons collecting friends and getting all social-like. Just don’t forget to pick up the kids from school (though that’s never happened to me ).

If� you’ve already got a Gmail account, all you’ve got to do is log in, click on your email address on the top right corner to “Join Google+” and it takes you directly to the signup page. If you don’t have a Gmail account, you can still create a Google+ account on its own.

I find Google+ is much easier to navigate than the deep, dark dungeons of Facebook. I like the clean-cut interface that makes it a cinch to drag/drop people into circles (or groups) and even some of other stuff is a lot more intuitive. And if you have a minute, please consider following me on RSS, Twitter or Facebook as well.

Where was this picture taken?

Posted by Clairity 3 Responses »

Sep 262011

Notice anything different about this blog? Yup, I had made a new header. The result of an idle mind. I was rummaging through some photos from my 2 trips to Cali last year and found a photo that Skye took. As you can see, each tile is different. Some are drawings, some are text and some have objects stuck on. Too cute.

Does anyone recognize where this picture was taken?

Let’s have a bit of fun here to brighten up another manic Monday. Leave your answer/guess in the comment box and let’s see who gets it right . The correct answer will be posted later.

Edited to add – Hint, picture is part of a wall in a public place with high foot and air traffic.

Learn Something New Tuesday

Posted by Clairity 7 Responses »

Aug 302011

The saying goes, you learn something new every day and I guess Tuesday’s as good a day as any. LSNT is co-hosted by my bloggy friend, Jen of What Would Jen Do and I haven’t done one in a while, so here goes:

1. What is your favorite breakfast food?

The kind I don’t have to cook myself. Serve me bacon and eggs, dimsum (Chinese dumplings) or banana leaf breakfast and I promise to love you, muacks.

2. Do you do any fun crafts?

Love painting T-shirts and making jewelry. Wish I had the time for more.

3. Do you care if the toilet paper goes over or under?

Very much so. I must have it going over and goodness help whoever puts it the wrong way.

4. If you have to name your daughter after a state, which one would it be?

Cali, that’s how much I love thee.

5. Do you have a touch, full out keyboard, or flip phone?

Mine is a pocket PC – touch screen with full keyboard.� I’ve already reserved a spot for it at the museum. I’m kinda waiting for the iPhone 5 which I may or may not buy. Well, it depends? I’m not entirely sold on Apple products but if you can give me 3 good reasons why I need an iPhone, I’m all ears .

6. If you were someone else, would you be friends with yourself?

It takes a while to get to know me but once I get past the initial awkwardness, I think yeah, I could be friends with myself .

Happy Tuesday!

Hip2bMom.com is on the Top 75 Bloggers Parents of Teens Should Read

Posted by Clairity 2 Responses »

Aug 162011

With Monday crazy as it was, I almost forgot to mention the good news…

I woke up Saturday morning to find Hip2bMom.com listed on Top 75 blogs that parents of teens should read at

How cool is that!

The article says, “Bold Earth Teen Adventures, a leader in teen adventure trips around the world, today (August 8, 2011) announced their first official list of the �Top 75 Bloggers Parents of Teens Should Read.�� The list honors deserving bloggers and provides a unique resource for people searching for relatable, fresh content and inspiring, fun lifestyle reads from one parent to another.

Team members at the student travel company searched the web to find bloggers from all types of genres with a distinct point of view as a parent of teenagers or pre-teens. They used specific criteria to award the top 75 blogs, such as interesting content, openness and honesty, posting frequency, comments, tips, look and feel and much more…”

Go read the rest of the article here and check out the complete list of top parenting teen bloggers. What made this surprise even sweeter is the fact that they found me from out of all those blogs out there. I had no idea I was even listed .

And if you believe in coincidences, this also happens to be Hip2bMom.com’s 4th blogiversary this past August 3. Although I’ve been blogging for well over 6 years, this blog is, by far, my favorite blog. And I have all my readers and commenters (and loyal lurkers, I see you!) to thank for both of these successes.

By the way, I’m testing out a new theme and I hope it’s working as I would like it to. Would love to hear how it’s working out for you – love it, hate it, snags, snitches, whatever. Edited to add: Just realized some of you may be having problems loading this theme? So I’m kinda changing it back and forth. Still very much a work in progress theme at this stage. Thanks for your patience .