Summer Plans at Family Balance Sheet

June 1st! Can you believe it? Weren't we just talking about Frugal Holiday Fun? And now we're picking out bathing suits and stocking up on sunscreen.

While I'm looking forward to summer with my family, it does present a new set of challenges for us and I'm sure others as well.

• What will my kids do while I'm working from home or if I need to work at our business office?
• How can we encourage our soon-to-be second grader to keep up with her reading skills that she worked so hard on in first grade, but not feel like she's in summer school?
• What food can we eat that doesn't require the oven?
• And how can we have tons of {screen-free} summer fun for very little cash?

To answer some of those questions and make life a little easier around here, my summer posts will revolve around two themes: Easy Summer Food and my 2nd annual Summer Fun Guide.

I don't want to turn the oven on and I don't want to spend a lot of time in the kitchen--I just want to make (& eat) Easy Summer Food.


And I'll be looking for fun ideas that entertain and engage my family, but don't require a lot of cash and are guaranteed to make summer memories.


Personally, I'll take some online time off at some point over the summer to spend with my family relaxing at the beach. Also, in August, I'll increase my running mileage and start training for a fall half marathon.

Professionally, I'm heading to the Savvy Blogging Summit in June. It's my first overnight blogging conference and I can't wait to meet some blogging super stars that I have been following for years. I'm hoping that the summit will help me take FamilyBalanceSheet.org to the next level.

Family Balance Sheet is also getting a redesign over the summer. I'll start working with the designer this month and hopefully I'll have the redesign complete by the end of summer.

It's going to be busy around here, but I'm really excited about the summer of 2013!

What are your plans for the summer? Let us know in the comments.

Thanks for reading. If you would like to receive FREE updates of FBS, there are four ways to do so:

• have updates sent to your email,
• through your RSS Feed
• become a fan and 'like' FBS on Facebook
• become a Twitter follower

My Day @ Bloggy Boot Camp

This past Saturday, I woke up bright and early and headed east to Philadelphia to attend my first blog conference. I sucked up my fear of walking into a room and not knowing ANYONE and I spent the day listening, learning, and absorbing tons of information to help me improve my writing, my blog, and my business.

Bloggy Boot Camp is run by The SITS Girls: Tiffany Romero and Francesca Banducci. They are two witty, sharp, and savvy women who are a wealth of knowledge about blogging, business, and social media. They also lined up a stellar group of speakers. I took 15 pages of notes from the 6 sessions:

• Top 10 Tips for Blogging Success - Laurie Turk from Tip Junkie
• Video Unveiled: Getting View on You Tube - Colleen Padilla from ClassyMommy
• Expanding Your Platform Beyond Your Blog - Audrey McClellan from Mom Generations
• Business of Blogging Workshop run by Laurie Turk, Tiffany Romero, Allison Tallamantez, and Danielle Liss.
• SEO: 10 Things to Make Google Love Your Blog - Dali Burgado from Secrets to Web Success
• Proven Methods to Grow Your Site and Increase Your Influence - Sharon Rowley from Mom of 6

I also met a lot of other bloggers, traded tons of business cards, ate a delicious lunch provided by Kings Hawaiian, and received an unexpected, but sweet swag bag provided by all of the conference sponsors: Mirassou Winery, WaterPik, Happy Family Organic SuperFoods, and Care.com.

On the way home, my head was spinning with ideas and flashbacks from the day. Honestly, I think my head exploded somewhere along the PA Turnpike. I arrived home exhausted, but energized about all of the possibilities for Family Balance Sheet.

Thanks for reading. If you would like to receive FREE updates of FBS, there are four ways to do so:

• have updates sent to your email,
• through your RSS Feed
• become a fan and 'like' FBS on Facebook
• become a Twitter follower

Visit The SITS Girls for posts from other bloggers of their experience at Bloggy Boot Camp.

My First Blog Seminar @ PSMM

I attended my first blogging workshop this past weekend. I have never been in the company of so many other bloggers before. I was a bit excited and the organizer of the event, Philly Social Media Moms,  did not disappoint. The Philly Social Media Moms is an "organization providing community, support and education for 200+ mom bloggers in the greater Philadelphia area." The workshop took place in King of Prussia, which conveniently is only an hour and a half away from my home.

The topic was Pitch and Propose: Working with Brands. The speakers, Julie Meyers Pron of Just Precious and Kelly Whalen of The Centsible Life, were excellent. They are very successful bloggers who opened up and shared their experiences and strategies on working with brands. I learned quite a bit and it was fun to put a face to some of the bloggers that I have followed over the years.

I would love to attend more blogging conferences, but it isn't easy to juggle a travel schedule with my husband's work commitments, so this morning workshop was perfect for me.

Are you a blogger? What upcoming conferences or seminars are you planning to attend?

Thanks for reading. If you would like to receive FREE updates of FBS, there are four ways to do so:

• have updates sent to your email,
• through your RSS Feed
• become a fan and 'like' FBS on Facebook
• become a Twitter follower