On New Year’s day, I decided to brighten things up a bit here on Sophistishe. Refresh if you haven’t been blasted with hot pink goodness. Since Google Friend Connect is going away, I’ve decided to start a newsletter. Please subscribe and I promise not to go buck wild on the emails! I named the newsletter Sheena Tatum’s E-Bits, which I think is so lame, but it’s the first thing that came to mind. It’s little roadblocks like these that keep me from accomplishing things. So I rolled with it. I can change it later. I’ve also integrated my BlogFrog Community with my blog. I’m starting to enjoy BlogFrog, so I decided to make my community more accessible. So that’s what’s up with Sophistishe. I’m working on some things, but in true Sheena fashion, I’m keeping quiet until things are organized and complete.

And now for the obligatory Resolution-y meme I lifted from Jenn.

1. What was the best part of 2011?

Being released from a burden of 3-ish years that affected numerous areas in my life. And if you think I’m talking about the kid, shame on you!

Drastically improving our finances without realizing until looking at financial reports. I can only imagine what 2012 will look like with dietary changes and better budgeting.

Retreating to Jamaica for some R&R and Sisterhood.

Visiting with family in New York.

Pinterest! Pinterest is MY LIFE! Whenever I am feeling down or lost, I turn to Pinterest for inspiration. Whether I’m looking for ways to organize my kitchen cabinets or try something new with my nails, Pinterest is a constant reminder of how easy making and doing can be! *waves to Kathleen*

2. What do you look forward to in 2012?

More leisure time to get lost in sewing (finally bought a sewing machine!), designing for our personal projects, photography, reading (I buy books and then don’t read them), and experimental cooking and beautifying :). I also look forward to mental clarity that will enable me to be more productive and pleasant in everything that I do. *plugs this post by The Bloggess (I don’t suffer from depression, but it was a very good read.)*

3. Do you actually keep your new years resolutions?

Somewhat…

4. What are your top 3 resolutions for the new year?

1. Improve my overall health. I’m not sick, but something just isn’t right (and I suspect the Mirena may be the cause, but that’s a story for another post). My mind is not as clear as it should be, I am easily distracted and irritated and have had an increase of anxiousness (it’s been a struggle). And I refuse to chalk it all up to having a rambunctious toddler little human running around. So I will be handling the Mirena situation, going on a Paleo diet *waves to Candice and Kristina*, exercising (more than running up and down the stairs), taking some helpful supplements, and whatever else that I discover because I’ve had ENOUGH. #fireeyes #hitsthegong

2. Strengthen our online businesses while streamlining a lot of things. With a radiant mind, body, and spirit, I’ll be a beast.

3. Carpe the hell out of the Diem *waves to Katja* and UNMUTE *waves to Akilah*. Need I say more?

5. Did you have any fun New Year’s traditions or plans?

Nope! This year, we watched the countdowns at Times Square and Chicago and watched Jayden boogie down. Greg and I used to watch the fireworks from Lakshore Dr. before parenthood. Maybe next year. Having survived another year for the past 3+ has been “fun” enough, though, and I can’t complain about our “lack of celebrating”.

© Sophistishe 2012 | Permalink | 5 comments - Let's chat!

Hello and welcome to my Ultimate Blog Party! If you have no idea what’s going on, check in here. I’m Sheena, owner of this here blog. Not much has changed since the last Ultimate Blog Party, so I won’t restate what’s still current. You all have other blogs to explore!

Jayden will be turning 3 (someone hold me) on April 26th and that Junior High Sweetheart of mine, Greg? We finally got married :). I’m an introvert with a side of shy. I love being around people, but doing so wears me out! I’ve taken up painting as a new hobby and I’m lovin’ it. I wear my hair in dreadlocks (it’s a personal journey) and I love, love, love nail polish. This is a hop, so I’ll keep it short. Feel free to read more about me here and here.

Feel free to introduce yourself in the comments below and link up your UBP posts in the linky! I’m giving away some bareMinerals Pure Transformation Night Treatment below and if you go here, you can enter to win loads of fabulous prizes, including a Fellowes DS-1200Cs Paper Shredder that I donated to the UBP prize pool!

Oh, if you want a chance to win $1,000 cash via Paypal, enter the Boost Your Buzz Giveaway over at SimplyStacie.net!

© Sophistishe 2011 | Permalink | 22 comments - Let's chat!

If you’re stopping by from the Social Parade, leave a comment so that I can check out your blog and start following you!

Are you participating in The Ultimate Blog Party? If not, you don’t know what you’re missing!!!

If you’re feeling lucky, you can enter to win $1,000 in the Boost Your Buzz Giveaway over at SimplyStacie.net!

© Sophistishe 2011 | Permalink | 6 comments - Let's chat!

If you arrived here via Friendly Friday, leave a comment and link up. I can’t wait to meet you!

© Sophistishe 2011 | Permalink | 9 comments - Let's chat!

Winner: Susan Randle

So how many of you have yet to do your taxes? Raise your hands. Let everybody see you. Shame on you!

Just kidding. Greg actually completed our taxes last night, so we were tardy to the tax party too.

The folks at Fellowes provided me with some tips to prevent identity theft during tax season. Check them out and continue reading to find out why I had to shred my Paypal debit card. There may be an awesome giveaway waiting for you too :).

Totally unrelated to taxes, but identity theft… On Monday, we were informed by Paypal that someone in Alabama was going buck wild using our Paypal debit card info! We were able to report the transactions as fraud and file for a new card. We have never experienced such a thing and never thought something like this would happen to us…because we are super careful. But there have been reports in the area of people hacking the ATMs for credit/debit info. There was little we could do in this case. And it couldn’t have happened at a “better” time…while funds were low. We were able to recover from a scary situation and all is well now. It’s kind of sad though. Just how protected are we when we purchase and pay for things electronically? Sigh.

Since our, then current, debit card was pretty much useless, I took it upon myself to shred it using the Fellowes DS-1200Cs shredder Fellowes sent me. Timely, huh?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrRjfvTfA1k

The first feature that stood out to me was the SafeSense technology sensor (the chrome strip), which stops the shredder immediately when hands or large pets come too close to the paper opening. Having a toddler in the house, this is very important to me. We keep the shredder on the workstation in our office, unplugged. The power switch is located on the back of the shredder, which is also a plus. As for shredding capabilities, this particular shredder uses a cross-cut technology, which destroys a single piece of paper into 399 particles. Aside from paper and credit cards, it also has the ability to shred staples! The shredder has a four gallon pull-out bin that easily slides out for disposing. Four gallons? That’s alot of paper and plastic! The DS-1200Cs is also able to shred continuously for five minutes straight without having to cool down. If you’ve watched the video, you’ll see that it’s kind of loud, but I’ve never heard of a quiet paper shredder. You can pick of this incredible shredder at Office Depot for $99.99 or enter to win one!

This giveaway is exclusive to new and old Sophistishe Subscribers! I mean no harm by this. I just feel it is more important to offer great giveaways to my regular subscribers. In the upcoming months, I will be randomly rewarding subscribers with goodies as a thanks!

If you subscribe to Sophistishe via Emailed RSS or through the Facebook Fanpage, then you can enter!

Become a Facebook Fan or Subscribe to Emailed RSS updates

To Enter

You must subscribe 1st! *points up there* Let me know how you’d use the shredder if you won. Also, let me know how you subscribe (Emailed RSS or Facebook Fanpage) and what email/name you subscribe under!

Extra Entries

Leave a separate comment for each entry you complete.

• Become a fan of Fellowes.
• Become a fan of She {Hearts} It.
• Tweet about this givewaway. You can tweet daily!

Comments will close on April 1st, 2011 at 7PM CST. A winner from the U.S. will then be randomly selected and announced at the top of this post. Check out my Giveaway Rules if you have any questions. Good luck!

© Sophistishe 2011 | Permalink | 318 comments - Let's chat!

My friend Drea (we’ve known each other for about 4yrs!) and I have teamed up to launch a new blog called She {hearts} It! It will be review driven, but will also feature crafts, recipes, and topics on organic living and homescooling. We strive to feature unique products that make you say, “Ooo” from eco-friendly laptop messenger bags to vintage tea kettles! We look forward to partnering with small/family owned businesses first and foremost, but we also welcome the big guys too. So come check us out! I’m talking about baked jerk chicken and Drea’s giving away Pure Anada skincare! ♥

© Sophistishe 2011 | Permalink | 1 comment - Let's chat!

The bulk of this post was written in November. I guess I should have published it, huh? Oh… and things are looking up and I *think* I may be on my way to blogging more. > This < surely helped :).

When I first became a “mom blogger”, I was so excited to join the community. I was expecting my very first child and I was going to blog with my husband (then fiancé) about how exciting our lives would be. The rainbows, the poop chronicles, the skips throw glorious sunny meadows, the happy family portraits, and trips to the park. Our blog was exciting, but somewhere down the line, we went through some changes. Life started to idle, I lost desire to chronicle firsts, and baby grew up. I still have photos of my lil’ dumplin’ that I have yet to edit and share… with ANYONE.

Jayden is nearing 3 years old and he has lost his new baby smell. He’s a toddler. He can be bratty at times. Yes, I referred to my child as bratty on my blog, oh my! I could call him “strong willed” or “spirited”, but it’s not me.

I remember the days where we could lay him down under an activity pad and he would… stay put. I remember the days when all it took to soothe him was some good ‘ol “Mama Nom Noms” (breastmilk).

I feel like I don’t gush over my child enough sometimes. I don’t even know if the “look at my cute kid” route is what I really want anymore. Uploading photos and videos. It’s work at times. I dunno, maybe I’m just going through a thing. Maybe I should live in the moment and forget about blogging in the moment…

There are times where I want to sit down and blog, but the boy has been trouble all day long. Do I tell it like it is or put on my poker face and end with a Hallejuah chorus with a side of snuggles?

Jenny asked me, “How much time do you spend with your family and friends *not* thinking about blogging or taking pictures, but just being in the moment?”

Before I go on, this is not an attack; just one of my regularly scheduled rambles. Blame the introvert; we bottle, then burst.

Not a day goes by where I’m not thinking about blogging and taking photos. Those two things have embedded themselves in me. No matter how frequently I do them, I still think about them. They may seem like time consuming tasks… but there is a big picture here (heh), at least in my world.

I have this deep want to blog in the moment, but by the time I sit down and get ready to do so, I’d rather not. There’s the process of writing, making sure my thoughts make sense. Making sure I don’t leave anything out. Making sure I am not misunderstood. Making sure the post doesn’t get too long because I actually have to be able to finish it in a timely manner (ugh, like this one). Making sure the post doesn’t come off as half-assed because it’s too short. Making sure that by saying something, I don’t open up a new can of worms that I have to respond to (like asking y’all to ask me questions! Ha!). Longer posts = more mistakes. I end up leaving my incomplete thoughts to be left in drafts or I don’t even attempt starting one because something so simple turns into a long-drawn-out process.

I am finally at a place where I don’t care what people think of my blogging habits. I’m not worried about my personal content to sponsored content ratio. In the past, I let this silliness work me up to the point where I fell behind in my sponsored obligations. I kept thinking, “Crap, I need to write x amount of personal posts before I write this review, host this giveaway, take this opportunity. Maybe I just need to scale back. Maybe I’d be more productive if… Maybe I could focus better if…” If I kept up with this thinking, I’d never get anything done. I did plan on scaling back, instead I created another blog. Whether I took sponsored opportunities or not, I probably would still be lacking personal (unsponsored if that’s what you want to call it) content. It’s just a time in my life that differs (see going through changes and bratty behavior). And I don’t feel like blogging about it every darn day to please others or annoy others with my cryptic or misconstrued thoughts.

Here we go…

My life isn’t all that interesting or adventurous as I’d like for it to be. That statement reads as written. I am not in a dark place. Trying, but not dark. Maaaybe I’ll have something in the next month, but I don’t like to count my chickens before they hatch. In between the terrific two’s, potty training, and sorting out other matters, I don’t have much fodder that excites me to the point of posting. But then again…is it my job to entertain? So anyway, yes there’s a lot going on, lots that won’t be published here (soon anyway). There’s a time and there’s a place. All is as well as it will be for now. That has been my answer to all who have asked, “Sheena, how are you?” I am just focusing on keeping a clear mind and weeding out anything that counteracts with my zen. I’m working towards FABULOUS by the time I turn 25. I’ll be 24… soon.

I blog (see sponsored obligations) so that I can live in the moment. My blogging gigs help me get closer to my online career goals. The more successful I am at what I do (managing a collection of internet businesses; some you see, some you don’t), I can spend less time working towards building those businesses in the future. I can wake up and say, “Hey, lets have fun today ’cause we don’t have to worry about any work that requires our immediate action.” That is the life that I want to live.

Sidenote: Can I just say that success is fully achievable without being in the limelight? Don’t feel like you have to be – especially if it makes you feel overwhelmingly uncomfortable. You don’t have to be all up in somebody’s face to make an impact.

Moving on…

As for taking pictures, I would actually like to do more of that. I’ve be picking up my camera less and less. Winter has that effect on me. I’d rather photograph beautiful flowers, green grass, the playground, the beach… warm stuff.

Taking pictures isn’t something I consider life consuming and I don’t take them soley to publish here. In fact, I think all people should take more pictures to document their lives. Those pictures will be with your loved ones forever and may have a positive impact on the lives of others.

Anyway.

Blogging in the moment, I choose not to do so if I can’t muster up the energy or passion.

I want my blog to display quality vs quantity. My blog is far from crème de la crème, but I’m not going to publish three words and a picture to boost my personal post count. That’s what Twitter and Facebook’s for.

With all that being rambled, I won’t get myself all worked up over blogging in the moment. If I can’t, I won’t. What I should be doing is living in the moment.

This post took me a month 4 months to complete.

*publish*

© Sophistishe 2011 | Permalink | 16 comments - Let's chat!