The Mom Crowd

Phanfare.com is a private place online to share your photos and videos with your family and friends. I was asked to review the site by Rya, a friend of MommyZabs. Being that I love testing new software and have personal opinions about friendly user interfaces I couldn’t resist checking out this new site.

Phanfare gives you 1 GB (about 1,024 MB) of free storage for your photos and videos on the site. Unlimited storage is available for $54.95 per year. I uploaded 16 photos and still have about 1,009 MB of storage left, but I am afraid that I would run out of space rather quickly. In my iPhoto I have about 14,000 photos. The free account is nice, but I feel like it is a hook to get you to buy the $55 package. Which wouldn’t be a bad deal if you wanted to spend the money. Comparatively Flickr gives you 100 MB of free space each month and only the 200 most recent photos will be displayed. A Flickr ProAccount with unlimited storage and photos displayed is $24.95 per year. Phanfare does not offer any smaller packages, but I heard that they might be changing their pricing strategy in the next few months.

My favorite feature is that I am able to highlight the photos I want to upload in my iPhoto window and then drag and drop them into my Internet browser window. I don’t have to browse and individually choose each photo to upload. Uploading 15 photos at one time took about five minutes. After every upload you do you are prompted to invite your family and friends. I found this a little annoying, but not a big deal.

Once all your photos are uploaded into an album you can rotate, fix auto levels, zoom, and revert to the original. You can also choose a photo and manually drag and drop photos in the order you want them. You can also edit your album preferences. The entire site is incredibly easy to use. The default theme to show your photos is a nice black background.

One drawback about the album is that you can only comment on the entire album, instead of an individual photo. So if you want to comment about one photo you have to describe the one photo you are commenting on.

The slideshow is very nice and easy to control. There is a menu bar that appears if you hover over the bottom of the photo. The menu bar allows you to change some of the settings. The slideshow feature of my current online photo storage site looks amateur compared to Phanfare’s slideshow.

I uploaded two small videos in my account. Phanfare automatically converts your video into Flash format to be able to be played on their site. It could take anywhere between 1 and several hours for them to finish converting your video. Even when I use Vimeo it takes them a while to convert my videos too.

Phanfare is affiliated with Shutterfly, Kodak Gallery, and Snapfish. It is easy to order prints of your photos. You will need an account with one of the three affiliates before you can order any photos, because it prompts you for your email address and password. You will get a great photo, because you upload the full quality of your photo. I currently upload photos at a lower resolution to be placed on a website, but they are not at a high enough resolution to print them as a 4×6. This is a great feature for family and friends to order the photos they want online (especially my mom!).

Finally, the biggest feature of Phanfare is their desktop application. It is available for both Windows and Macs. The desktop application allows you to:

* Manage your photos and videos locally while synchronizing your content to the web
* View and organize your photos at full size
* Upload large files faster and easier than on the web
* Edit and organize your photos and videos even when you are not connected to the web
* Choose from over 70 styles for your shared albums
* Add your own music to your slideshows
* Select the awesome Phanfare screensaver

You can also use the desktop application to embed photos and videos on blogs. This is important to me, because I really like the Flickr plugins on websites that give you mosaics of your photos and show your most recent photos.

There are many more features such as groups, sharing with your family and friends, and visitor reporting. The best feature is that it is private and you know who exactly is viewing your photos. There shouldn’t be any concern for having your photos stolen. You may have heard about Sweetney’s pug being used during a football game on Fox or the one where a girl’s photo was stolen from Flickr by Virgin Mobile and used in an advertisement. Some of my photos are private and I don’t want to show them to the world. Phanfare offers an intimate place online to share your photos without being completely public to the world.

Update:  

I have heard from Smug Mug that they offer a very similar service for $39.95 per year. If you want to shop around Smug Mug is another photo site to check out!

Do you use an online photo-sharing site? Which one? How do you like it? Do you have any privacy concerns?

Connor’s room has these huge sliding closet doors. They take up nearly a whole wall in his room. When I decided to paint his room, I didn’t know what to do about the doors. Did I paint them the same blue that the walls were painted? Did I paint them in a complimentary color to make them more fun? I just wasn’t happy with any of my ideas. I posted my dilemma on a forum and got the great idea of using chalkboard paint

I headed out to Lowe’s and bought a quart of chalkboard paint for $12.00 and went to work. The paint was very oily. I used a brush instead of a roller and painted three coats letting them dry in between. Erasing them requires a wet washcloth, which isn’t too big of a deal. Everyone loves Connor’s chalkboard closet doors. I do have parents ask if this has encouraged my kids to write on walls, and it hasn’t. Both of them know to only write on the closet doors. Writing on regular walls with chalk wouldn’t be as rewarding, anyway! Besides, I’d much rather clean chalk off of my walls than marker or crayon.

What fun decorating ideas do you have for kids rooms?

Something that has struck me over the past 5 years was how important it is for mothers to be a support to one another and learn from one another. Since having kids I have connected with women in a whole new way. There is something woven in our inner beings that make moms come together. Maybe is the desperation we all feel to be good moms and raise our kids well. Maybe it is to overcome the overwhelming responsibility day after day of caring for our kids. Maybe it is simply to learn what worked for other moms so we can try it on our own kids. Whatever the reason, we moms need each other. I have learned so much from other moms but I felt that I must honor a good friend and mentor: Janell Leland.

Janell took interest in me before I was even pregnant with my first child. I was a young married woman and she– an older married woman, who happened to have 8 children. When I first met Janell she was like a superhero to me. I mean, she had 8 children! I was drawn to her quiet spirit and her wisdom. Janell is slow to speak, a good listener, a faithful friend, an honoring wife, a good mother, a thoughtful hostess. She had qualities and characteristics that I myself wanted as a wife and mother.

It was so interesting to go into her world and watch her mother her children. I would ask her questions about birth, breastfeeding, babies, and husband “stuff”. She was always happy to answer my questions, share her own experiences, and listen to my worries.

When I got pregnant for the first time she was top on my list to ask questions to. How did you get your babies to sleep? What were your labors like? How do you cope with the sleep loss? How do you take care of the younger kids who aren’t in school and homeschool your older kids? My husband is doing _fill in the blank_ does yours ever do that and how should I deal with it?

Over the years I have gotten some pretty good advice from Janell. Some of my favorites are:

1) Enjoy every baby as if it were your last. I have done this with my 3rd baby and it does make a world of difference! Even during the harder times this thought goes through my head and it helps me cherish my baby.

2) When you are about to have another baby nip any behavioral problems with the youngest child in the bud before the baby comes.

3) It isn’t the end of the world if you let your kid cry in the pack and play while you get some things done.

4) When your child does something wrong (like being unkind), learn to ask, “Was what you did right?” We more typically say, with a scold to our voice, “That was wrong!” By asking the question, we allow the child to better recognize that yes indeed, what s/he did was wrong. We must remember that God gave the child a conscience. Asking the question allows him/her to use it and become more aware of what’s right and wrong.

Those are just a few of the nuggets of wisdom that I have learned from Janell. I am sad that we don’t live in the same city anymore and that we don’t talk as often as I would like to but I am truly thankful for her investment in my own life. I hope that when I am an older mom that I will be a blessing to another young mom in the same way she was to me.

What about you….have you had a mentoring mom come your way? What was your experience? What characteristics/qualities do you look for in other moms that you want to emulate? Ever mentored a younger mom? What good advice did you get?

One year ago I became a mom and my relationships with friends changed. The need to hang out with other Preggies and moms is an intrinsic necessity put inside us when we become pregnant.

After I came home I made play dates with almost every stay-at-home-mom that I knew. I even planned one mega-huge play date to get us all in one place. After a couple of visits with many friends I realized that I couldn’t be a friend with every mom on the planet. Also, I just didn’t hit it off with some folks. Over time I have found my close friends whom I stay in contact with regularly.

One encouraging lady that I stay in contact with regularly is McKenna, who also writes for The Mom Crowd. She has been a long time friend of mine, but we weren’t always close. We became great friends in a young married’s small group, but when she had Darah our lives went in two different directions. Three years later I was pregnant and she just had her second baby. I would go over to her house after my check-ups, because her house was close to my doctor’s office. Our friendship instantly grew and I now count her as one of my best friends. However, we wouldn’t be as close as we are now if I never had my own child.

Another place I found new/old friends is on the web. Some of my old friends had moved away and we didn’t stay in touch. After I was pregnant I was able to reconnect with friends like Amelia and Dawn (who also write for TMC) and Sharon, because they had started their own blogs. I didn’t know that Amelia had become a Bradley Birth Instructor and I was able to get some fabulous birthing advance from her before I gave birth. It was fascinating catching up on their lives through their blog posts. I have also made new friends through the web. There are a lot of supportive and encouraging moms out here in the web world.

Some of my single-friends-without-kids have been very accommodating. I love that they are free to come to my house at night and watch t.v. with me whenever they want. (Shout out to Mells and Wells!) Getting a sitter and going out with friends isn’t always an option, but having friends over while Ace sleeps is just awesome. I know once they get married and have their own families our relationship may change some, but I am selfishly enjoying all their free time for me right now.

When I didn’t have children I never understood why parents were so strict with naps and bed times. I don’t know if I ever would have fully understood the impact of a fussy, crabby child who has not napped. I don’t expect my friends-without-kids to understand bed times and the loss of spontaneity that comes with a new little one. I am still chummy with my friends-without-kids, but we don’t hang out as much as we used to. Get-togethers require calendar coordination and the stars to align before we see each other.

The magnitude of the life change a baby brings sends shockwaves through your friendships. Some relationships may fade away, while new ones begin, and others make it through the quake unscathed.

Did you find new friends after you had a baby? Did you lose any friends? Did you notice how you didn’t click with some moms you thought you would?

Three weeks after my son Eli was born (via c-section), our family moved from Virginia to Alabama. Our daughter Lucy was 18 months old at that time. My husband got a new and better youth pastor job, which is why we transplanted ourselves. (We got the job about a month before Eli was born, so we basically waited till after the birth to make the big change.) We were excited and thankful for this, but boy, was it interesting. While we were preparing for Eli’s birth, we were also tying up loose ends, packing everything up, and saying goodbye to good friends.

After all the “new arrival” hoopla faded away here, I suddenly found myself in my new living room, stuck on the couch, nursing my new infant son while helping my toddler get acclimated to her new surroundings. I was alone. I was hormonal. And I was lonesome. No family or friends for hundreds of miles.

I’m a big people-person, so I knew I needed to find community immediately. We were already in a great church (by default!), so I started there. I joined a Friday morning ladies’ Bible study that provided child care. That was twice a month. (Two mornings down, 28 other mornings-per-month to go, I thought.) I attended church every week with my family, and I taught the middle school girls’ class on Wednesday nights. I felt I was doing everything I knew to do to make friends. But it wasn’t happening quickly enough for me. Plus, I really was trapped in the house with my tiny boy! It wasn’t so easy to take both babies out for activities in those first few months. I was pretty much down to asking people to come over and hang out with me and the kids. Some people did (and I am so grateful!), but it felt funny asking brand-new acquaintances to come over, you know? (“Hi, I’m Dawn. Can you come over tomorrow?” – yeah, a little weird.)

I emailed my good friend Laurie back in Virginia and asked for prayer. She encouraged me but gently reminded me that for some people, finding that they “fit in” to a new place takes sometimes up to a year! Yikes. I was only in month two. I was desperate for cameraderie – good friends – more than just a small-talk conversation with people I had just met. It was time to dig deeper. And I was in crisis mode.

I discovered a support ministry at my church that I decided to take advantage of. It’s called Stephen Ministry. Basically, I was matched with a “mentor” who would meet with me as often as I wanted and would just listen and support me through my season of hardship. So for six months, I met once a week with a woman 25 years older than me, and wow, did it help. Not only did we become friends, I had a standing weekly appointment in my calendar to look forward to. (When you have NOTHING in the datebook, that really means something!) My time with my Stephen minister completely encouraged me and helped me through my tough, lonely season.

Gradually, my acquaintances became friends. I found a few other moms who were free on Thursday mornings and started a playgroup. Wow! Another thing to look forward to each week! We rotate whose house we meet at each time, so once a month, I host my friends and their kids for a simple time of play while we moms try to talk. The moms and I have started going out for girls’ nights every few months or so for dinner & a movie, too (while dads stay with the kids). So much fun!

And throughout all of this, my Eli turned from an infant into a crawling tyke, while my Lucy turned straight-up preschooler (once a week, anyway). I am becoming more acclimated to my new hometown, more a “part of” things, and less lonely. Sometimes I may have seemed desperate to folks, but that’s because I was. I got tired of waiting on things to happen and realized I needed to make them happen myself. I lost the sense of embarrassment in openly asking people to be my friend. And it was worth it.

There’s no getting around it: moms who are new in town need friendships in order to make it. If you have lived in the same place for awhile, be sure to take notice of the new folks in town, and reach out to them. If you are in the same boat that I was, give me a call! don’t be afraid to tell people what you need. Here are other things I’ve done or that have been suggested to me; things that are fairly obvious but may be something you need to read today:

* Invite people over to your home for coffee, lemonade, cookies, muffins, what-have-you.

* Find other available moms and make your own playgroup!

* Attend activities at your house of worship.

* Find out if there is a local Mom’s Club to join. I have seen their activities calendars and they are packed!

* Take a class at the YMCA, or join Stroller Strides.

* Hang out with your neighbors.

* Let the kids play with the stuff at Barnes & Noble Jr. I can’t believe how many other families hang out there on Friday nights. My husband even made a new friend in another dad there!

* Initiate conversation with other moms at the park or mall play area.

* Bring the kids to story time at the library. It’s free and it’s air-conditioned!

* Check in with The Mom Crowd (and other mom forums) every day for encouragement. (cough*shameless plug*cough)

What about you? If you’ve recently moved, how did you survive the initial transition phase? Which of these things have you tried and enjoyed? What else can go on the list? What experiences can you share with us? (Also, I know some of our TMC readers are internationally-based. How do you cope with this?)