Hey there, Melisa here.

I’m guest-posting for Momo because she is in the dark (literally) due to storms in her area, and the estimate for the restoration of electricity is currently July 7 or 8. (I wish I were joking.)

A little while ago, I was sitting in my living room when I heard my cell phone ringing downstairs. I didn’t run to get it, because I don’t know about you but Every Single Time I do that, it’s the blood center scheduling person wanting to know when I’m coming back in to donate (soon!), or some similarly annoying person.

I took my time going down to get the phone after it stopped ringing, and when I checked to see who it was, it was Momo. Figures. The girl NEVER CALLS ME. EVER. She’s so darn busy that I end up calling her and catching her just before she has a conference call or as she’s on her way out to a doctor’s appointment or…wait, should I be reading some signals here?

But I digress.

I called her back immediately because I knew she was without electricity, AND SHE DIDN’T ANSWER. (Don’t you hate that???)

I left her a message, and she still didn’t call back.
I called her again–and YES, I have friendly-stalker tendencies, thanks for asking–and she didn’t answer AGAIN. I admit I was a little worried.

I sent her a text:
Call me back! I’m here!

Nothing. So then, as I tend to do, I decided to become a thorn in her side. I sent a bunch of rapid-fire texts:

Hello? Did you butt-dial me?

Sigh.

Finally, after an eternity (or seven minutes), she called me back on my home phone. After she told me that I am the funniest person she has ever met (<-----slight exaggeration), she said, "Do you still have the log-in information for my blog, in case I die?" Yikes. I should have hung on to it the last time she gave it to me. I told her that I didn't, and did she need me to do something? "Yes! I need a post to go up! Would you want to write one for me? I can't post from my phone!" This was my moment. "SQUEEEEEEE!" I screamed. Wiping tears from my eyes (not really but I want to make Momo feel really good here), I said, "I'd be happy to!!" So there you have it, a guest post by me on why I'm guest posting. (Does this qualify as "Soooo meta"?) Fingers crossed that the power in Momo's neck of the woods is restored much sooner than they think. Just in case, I'm planning a great post for Tuesday about...aww, I'm not telling. You'll have to wait and see.

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I was going to write a post tonight about how my mom told my 10 year old son that she has a lot of bumps and bruises and he asked, “Why?”

She said, “Because I’m a klutz.”

Then he said, “Oh, I thought it was because you’re old … and a klutz.”

But, when I logged in to start writing, I noted the date. I started blogging here on June 26, 2007. It’s my five-year blogoversary!

A lot has changed since then. A whole lot. Mostly, that my husband thought blogging was a huge waste of time and now HE’S ALL FOR IT. Of all the things I’ve been right about, I’m glad it was blogging. Okay, it’s the only thing I’ve been right about, but I should get extra credit for it!

I have told countless stories like the one up there, because OHBOY does my son like to hurl insults. Of course, now that he’s ten instead of five, I feel like I need to tell people it’s because of his sub-threshold autism, and not just because he’s rotten. Though, he is that too. He’s still about the same size as he was five years ago, but not much else has changed.

My daughter has gone from eight to thirteen. That’s, like, a whole lifetime. *eye roll* She’ll be going to college in five years. SHUT UP! Don’t say that! Oh, I said that? Well, take note people, THAT’S how fast it goes. Blink and your kids are grown. Also, when you’re 41 years old instead of 36, you blink and you sprout a gray chin hair.

More than anything I want to say thank you to the most amazing, fabulous, delightful, kind, funny, faithful readers and commenters in the blogosphere. You are good people.

If I’m really lucky, you’ll still be around when I’m old and klutzy.

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I get emails on a daily basis from people who want to start blogging and who are looking for tips and advice. I want to tell them that I stumbled into this profession and that it’s all been dumb luck, but I suspect they’re looking for something more concrete.

If you want to blog for a hobby, or just have a place to journal, then you can move along. Nothing to see here. Go on! Git!

For the rest of you, who want to join the ranks of the 181 million blogs worldwide (NielsenWire, March 2012) and make money doing it, then read these pros and cons. There is no advice here, just the cold, hard facts of what you’ll face when you get started. Okay, they’re really just opinions. But, they’re my opinions and that makes them facts in my mind.

Con: If you want to be a successful blogger, you have to be involved in all aspects of social media to promote your content: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn, Google+, etc.

Pro: Social media is where you will find an amazing community of like-minded people. They read your posts, comment, give you affirmation, and commiserate with you. Sometimes, they even make you laugh.

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Con: It takes a lot of time to be a professional blogger. See this graph from Technorati? It doesn’t lie.

Pro: If you can put full-time hours into blogging, you would be hard-pressed to NOT make money from it (unless your content is awful, and in that case I got nothin’). And, if you can make money from blogging, there is no better job in the world. Last week, I got paid to take my family to an amusement park. Today, I’m working on a review for Michelob. Also, I’m wearing yoga pants.

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Con: You work from home. Sure everyone thinks working from home is fantastic, but just for a moment, picture yourself working on spreadsheets, or trying to do your taxes, with two kids fighting, playing loudly, the dog barking, people coming to the door selling candy bars (okay, that’s not so bad) and being surrounded by the mess that you can never get completely cleaned up. Not to mention, that most nights I find myself working until very late into the evening. It’s not uncommon for me to still be plugging away at 11:00pm. My husband loves that.

Pro: Yoga pants.

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Con: People don’t take your profession seriously.

Pro: If you’re a blogger, then you’re a writer. Call yourself that and people are immediately impressed. It also helps if you wear blazers with suede elbow patches, just not with your yoga pants.

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Con: You have to know how to use blogging software or pay someone who does.

Pro: You can teach yourself. I am 100% self-taught. I can’t embed videos, but I’ve only been blogging for five years. Give me time. For the stuff that was over my head, I waited until I had earned money and hired a designer. See that tree in my header? If left to my own devices, it would look like this:

Don’t be intimidated by my skills.

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Con: People think it’s easy. It’s not easy. You get writer’s block, you get a ton of emails, you have all of the ups and downs that go with self-employment, your spouse won’t understand WHAT THE HECK YOU’RE DOING ONLINE ALL THE TIME, you have to write proposals, create presentations and self-promote, self-promote, self-promote.

Pro: All the hard work is TOTALLY  worth it.

Blogging has changed my life, introduced me to brilliant, successful, hilarious people and been the catalyst for a whole new career.

Really, need I say more?

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“If you can’t make it better, you can laugh at it.” -Erma Bombeck

When I tell people what I do for a living, it is inevitable that they will ask, “What do you write about?”

My usual reply is, “I write a humor blog. A lot of the posts are about my son who has sub-threshold autism, congenital heart disease, moderate hearing loss, a missing tear duct, and he often chokes and vomits.” Then I’ll follow with, “Isn’t that hilarious?! Just wait until I tell you about all of his surgeries!”

One of the best things about attending the Erma Bombeck Writer’s Workshop this weekend was that no one looked at me like I had two heads when I gave them that answer. They understood that it’s okay to laugh at bad situations.

Sure, humor can come from light, but quite frequently it comes from someplace dark. It is how many a comedian or author has coped with tragedy and pain. It’s how I cope with mine. That, and peanut butter, but that’s another story.

Let me ask you a few questions: Are you going through a tough time? Are you laughing anyway? Why the heck not?

At the closing keynote of the Erma workshop, humorist, Gina Barreca, talked about motivational quotes; specifically, the one that says, “Bloom where you’re planted.” She urged us NOT to follow that advice.

Instead of being forced into the ground where someone else has decided to plant you, she told us to pick up and plant ourselves where WE choose. I agree. If you want to grow, move to an open, sunlit area free of all of the suffocating dirt. And, worms. Unless you like worms, in which case you should move yourself to a compost pile.

For me, laughter is the sun. It is where I go when I need to pull myself away from the weeds and it is what has saved me from going mad because of all the curve-balls life has thrown my way. Don’t worry, I won’t go from gardening metaphors to baseball metaphors. Well, other than that curve-ball thing. And, to be honest, it’s kind of killing me not to say something about line-drives.

My point is that it’s good to laugh. It’s good for for the heart, the soul, the mind and for laundry detergent manufacturers. Don’t tell me you’ve never peed your pants while laughing. No, really. Don’t tell me. *pauses writing to concentrate on kegels*

Listen to Erma, Gina and me (please excuse my lack of modesty while I insert myself into a sentence with those two legends), especially when I tell you that you owe me money. Or, when I tell you to laugh.

Because if you can laugh in the face of adversity your plant will flower through every season.

And that, my friends, feels a lot like hitting one out of the park.

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