We actually offer two places where your blog posts can be featured - www.NanaHood.com and here at www.theNanaBlogs.com.  If you think you have an article or post that others NEED to read,  send an email with your blog link to submissions@nanahood.com

Topic ideas:

• Fun (and affordable) activities to do with (your) grandchildren
• Anything hobby related
• Challenges facing grandparents today (special needs grandchildren, raising your grandchildren, etc)
• Legacy – what do you want your grandchildren to know and value
• Bring on the funny – humorous stories about the grandkiddos
• Reviews – music, movies, art, tv, books – we want to hear your opinion

Please don’t feel limited to our list of topic ideas – if you have an idea, we hope you will share!

Again, the email address is submissions@nanahood.com What are you waiting for??

We reserve the right to NOT publish anything that we deem inappropriate for our website and goals.

Here at theNanaBlogs.com, we are offering free blog space.  Our goal in starting this website was to offer a way/place/setting for Grandmas and Nanas and Memas (and Mamas too) to have a wordpress blog for free, AND to be part of a larger community of Nana Bloggers (and Grandma Bloggers, and all the rest).

We call it the NanaHood Neighborhood.  And it’s just getting started!  The spaces are available, plenty of lots are empty here in the Neighborhood, just waiting for new Nanas and Grandmas to join us and break ground on their new blog home. Construction has started on quite a few, and we’re so excited about the new Nana Bloggers we’ve met lately.

Won’t you join us?  If you are interested, you can read more about how to sign up, here.  And you can always send a message with questions or concerns through our contact page.  If you need help with setting up your blog, adding a new theme, or just blogging in general, let us know!

This post is linked up at LifeasMOM.com‘s Frugal Friday post.

What Nana Bloggers Know Best …

10.  Causes. Women my age have sat through way too many PTA meetings.  We have volunteered countless, thankless hours at schools, and helped our kids persuade our friends and neighbors to buy everything from Girl Scout cookies to overpriced candles. At this stage in our lives we have a little more time and can afford to give of our time and talents to organizations that depend on volunteers to help others.  Pick one – Haitian relief, the Red Cross, Save the Children, World Vision, Compassion, the environment. Whatever you care about, blog about it.

9.  Men. Yes, they are from Mars. They think PMS is a television channel.  They don’t understand why women prefer Sleepless in Seattle to The Terminator or Rambo.  Young boys are made of frogs, snails and puppy dog’s tails.  Teenage boys are made of dreams of teenage girls, pizza and trucks.  Real men are made of Old Spice and M&Ms – they’re hard on the outside, soft on the inside, and they melt in a woman’s arms.  Behind every successful Grandpa there’s a Nana who helped him get there.  Where would they be without us?

8.  Kids. We push them in baby carriages, push them to join play groups, push them to get into the best schools, push them out of the house and into college, sometimes they boomerang and come back to us so we push them back out of the house… again, we push them into marriage and finally, we push them to give us grandchildren.  Then the mom pushes the baby out and, voila, we start all over again.

7. Medication. Ailments, we got ‘em: constipation, heart burn, heart attacks, cataracts, cholesterol, Geritol, colonoscopies, mammograms, menopause, migraines, hypertension, depression, diarrhea, bunions, root canals, insomnia, acupuncture, arthritis, bursitis, and colitis.  Been there, done that.  Nanas can give advice, loan you pills, and recommend a doctor, a hospital, a procedure, a surgeon.  Whatever malady you have had Nanas have either had it, know someone who has or know someone who’s going to get it any day now.  If someone in the family is sick don’t call the doctor first — call Nana.  She’ll tell you what to do (and you won’t even need your insurance card).

6.  Politics. Let’s face it: when it comes to politics the Nana Generation has seen it all. We’ve lived through decades of people who never should have been in politics but somehow ended up there.  We’ve had Presidents who were actors and adulterers. Presidents who thought it was okay to spy on the opposing party, and Presidents whose mouths needed to be washed out with soap.  Politics and politicians are fun to blog about because usually government is packed with very smart people who do really stupid things.  I mean, what woman would come home from having an affair and tell her husband she wants to work things out and she’s sorry she had a fling with her soul mate?  Absolutely no woman hiking the Appalachian Trail, that’s for sure.

5.  Sports. You think men are the only ones who can blog about sports?  Think again.  We don’t wear jock straps but we sure suffer with the jocks.  By the time a woman is my age she has endured enough little league, grade school, high school and college basketball ballgames that she could referee better than most paid officials from mid-court, using only a pair of binoculars (though I can’t run up and down a court without having a heart attack) and a whistle (the hearing isn’t what it used to be, either).

4.  Food. Even women who don’t cook love food and often get more excited over going to a 5-star restaurant than they do from a blue-light special at K-Mart.  Nanas love bargains but they love good food even more.  Especially when someone else does the cooking.  And you don’t need to be Julia Child to be a nana food blogger – you just need to be hungry.

3.  Decorating. Home improvements are fun to talk about because what starts out as a small project always morphs into a whole-house makeover.  Decorating comes natural for women with Martha Stewart genes but the rest of us have to find gay guys with good taste to help us out.  (Besides, gay guys are so much fun to hang out with.  Aside from having impeccable design sense, they’re not prone to plumber-butt… as some spouses, ahem, all too often are.)

2.  All women talk about the Big Three: boobs, butt and belly.  Whenever a group of women get together it’s just a matter of time before they discuss body parts.  They talk about the need and cost to fix them, and whether or not it’s worth it.  They compare whose are the biggest or sag the most.  Whose is wider or sticks out more.  It never ends.  No matter what we look like, we are never, ever satisfied.  Which is why cosmetic surgery appears to be one of the few truly recession-proof industries.

1.  And the number one thing Nanas can blog about better than anyone else: the grandkids (of course). If you didn’t guess that one, you obviously haven’t seen pictures of my granddaughter.  She’s the most beautiful, smartest, most talented child in the universe.  The only other children as beautiful as she is have not been born yet. They are my future grandchildren — and I can’t wait to be their nana, too!

About TheNanaBlogs

TheNanaBlogs.com is a new site dedicated to turning nanas, grandmas, memas (and moms) into bloggers.  The site provides them with the space and the technology to begin blogging. Nanablogs offer grandparents a voice, a place to share thoughts, a place to brag about grandkids – and a new way to connect with family.   Like its sister site, NanaHood.com, TheNanaBlogs.com is a creation of Teresa Bell Kindred.  Teresa is a wife, mom, author, and proud nanablogger.

This post is linked up with Works For Me Wednesday.

But even if you are passionate about healthy eating… or your grandkids… or your hobby or craft – writer’s block can still set in occasionally.  Well, one of the best ways to jump start the creative juices again is to simply look at the calendar. How simple is that?

Every month, week, and day, there are strange, fun and downright funny holidays and observances celebrated everywhere. In fact, you can even make up your own ‘holiday’ to celebrate on your blog with your readers.

But you don’t have to make it ALL up yourself.  I found a blogging calendar that features some of these fun, crazy holidays. And it has room to jot down your own ideas!  You can use it to literally plan out the year’s content – or just a month or two ahead if you’re not the planning type. This really helps keep your blog going without rushing to write last minute posts.

Download and check it out for yourself. I bet you can find at least a few posts  you can write about from the prompts.  And you can even write about them right away and schedule them for future dates.  (If you need a tutorial on how to schedule a post, click HERE).

Yes, I’m printing out the calendar as I type… you can expect to see at least a few blog posts in 2010 based on the prompts.

What are YOU blogging about today?  Feel free to share your blog links in the comments!

Here are a few ideas to bring extra traffic to your blog:

1.         Fresh Content – no one wants to visit a blog day after day and see the same posts. We recommend that you update your blog content at least twice a week. One easy way to do this is to write several posts ahead of time and upload them at the appropriate times.

2.         Social Networking – these sites are everywhere. Join Facebook, MySpace, Squidoo, Twitter or a dozen others and make connections. You can join groups of like-minded people who are also bloggers, nanas, or even entrepreneurs.  (We’ll write in more detail about this topic in another post!)

3.         Viral Marketing – this is where you spread the word about your blog. Talk to friends, family and even strangers.  You might even consider giving out business cards (or calling cards) that have your blog address on them.

4.         Use RSS Feeds – RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication.” Readers can subscribe to your feed and get email updates when new content is posted. It is an easy way for them to keep up with your blog without spending all day online.

4.         Submit Blog to Search Engines – doing this allows your blog to be ranked. Google and Yahoo! are two of the most popular search engines you want to crawl your blog pages.

5.         Visit other blogs – show your appreciation to those who visit you by also posting comments on their blogs. It is a kindness that shows others you are not just out to advertise your blog alone.

6.       Social Bookmarking – submitting posts to social bookmarking sites allows others who are members of those sites to track you back to your blog.

Using any of these ideas will start the traffic moving in your direction. It takes time but you CAN build the readership you want.

And as always, we are here to help!  If you need assistance with any of the suggetions above, feel free to use the Contact Form and ask your question(s).