Grind It 'Til It Hurts

I woke up bright and cheery this Monday morning, birds chirping at my window. I checked my email and received my victim for the week, The Daily Grind. I strolled on over and checked out her blog. The template is great, probably one of the nicest Blogger templates that I have seen. I had high hopes. Well, they say hope is a cruel thing.

Stephanie is an accountant. Her husband is a soldier. She posts about honoring the troops and tells a story of an airline flight where the passengers applaud the troops. I might have thought that cheesy, but I have seen it happen. One of my kids is a soldier, and once when I picked her up at the airport, she was in uniform and people left and right thanked her for serving. I guess people on planes are just thinking more about the whole terrorism thing, than those of us on the ground. Anyway, I give Stephanie credit for using her blog to support the troops.

Content:

Stephanie relentlessly talks about her money like a spoiled cheerleader. She shows photos of her brand-new Beemer (you can see part of it at the top of this review), which her husband just bought her for her birthday. Congratulations, I officially hate you. My husband can't remember to get me a card.

She takes care of her kids, with the help of an au pair. She tells us not to call her stuck up, but it seems like the shoe just might fit in this case. It's always in poor taste to brag about your bank account and possessions. Ditch that attitude.

We need things to keep us humble in life. Stephanie's got a mother that she doesn't quite get on with. That makes the writer more real to me. My mom's in the ground, and I miss her, but we had spectacular fights when she was still breathing. Once she called me a bitch. She was right.

Memes, Tuesday Toot, Wordless Wednesday and Friday Hodge Podge. 'Nuff said? These themes scream, "Give me a topic and I will dribble something out." Too often, in blogs all across the world, that something ends up resembling sphincter-blistering anal leakage, which goes on and on, like dry heaves of the ass. Stephanie, ditch the themes. Lead the pack of mommy bloggers out of the darkness, by coming up with your own ideas. If you must use themes to drum up traffic, write excellent, thought-provoking posts that shine.

Slepping Problems:

Don'tcha think that if you were going to request us to review your blog, you might at least check your spelling? Obviously not.

You're a professional woman, Stephanie. Invest the time it takes to spell properly. Do you ever mention your blog to clients? Can you imagine what they are thinking when they see that you suck at spelling and you're the one handling their money? Use your spell checker, it makes us all smarter. Learn how to use commas, periods and caps. Alternatively, you could just have your au pair type things up for you. She's on the clock, anyway.

The Sidebar from Hell:

You're ruining this gorgeous template with column headers which are intentional misspellings of your title. They are repeated twelve times down the column. It's like some sort of screening test to keep out the dyslexics. Ditch those, they're not working for you.

You have ads, banners, awards, and to cap it off, a category listing that is forfuckingever long with eighty categories holding an average* of 2.2875 posts each. I think that's a record, folks. Pare that shit down.

Roll up your archives and move them up in your sidebar. Banners, awards, move that stuff down. Link your top banner with your blog's web address (www.whalenmom.blogspot.com), this will help keep traffic at your site.

The Grand Finale:

At the bottom of the blog is a self-congratulatory banner, which proclaims:

Isn't that a kicker to the rest of us? She's the pinnacle, the rest of you schmucks can turn in your keyboards and go home.

You get the award for the spelling and grammar mistakes


and for the pundit blog banner and the bragging.

Clean it up, you have some devoted readers who deserve better than what you're giving them. I see good in your blog, but you're doing a great job of keeping it hidden. Come back in a year and see us again. I am sure there are stars in your future. Keep the rad template.

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*Yes, I did the math. And I'm not even an accountant.