Heather B. Armstrong is the creator of Dooce and is considered a pioneer of the “mommy blog” movement. She is the author of three books, including the most recent It Sucked and Then I Cried. Armstrong has faced more than a few challenges in her past including battling a sever bout of postpartum depression and denouncing Mormonism. The popularity of Dooce over the years has allowed Armstrong to turn a one-time hobby into a full-time career. Armstrong spoke with me about, blogging boundaries, the perks of running her own business, and turning hate into charity.

Chris Bowman: I watched the Today Show interview from last year featuring “Mom Bloggers”. One of the questions addressed the notion that what’s said on the blogs will live on forever. The response was that one needs to be comfortable with whatever it is they’re writing at the time, and to be sure they’ll be comfortable reading in five or ten years. Do you agree with that?

Heather Armstrong: I do. It’s a really layered answer to this question. My critics bring up this question all the time, saying that I’m violating my daughter’s privacy, saying that I’m giving all of her potential enemies this fuel to use against her in the future. First of all I think that privacy and the notion of privacy and information on the Internet is rapidly changing, especially this generation and next generation. And mommy blogging is becoming, much more mainstream than it used to be. A lot of us are writing about our children and the thing is, people have been writing about their children for years and years and have been using their family and children as material for books and comedy routines for many many years and I wonder if they’ve faced the same questions. I mean, their books will live on for eternity, the same as whatever is put online.

To find out more from Heather B. Armstrong click Read More.

We here at Maximum Fun do our best to bring you all things awesome. We look far and wide. But sometimes awesome is closer than we realize. Neil Pasricha is the creator of the 1000 Awesome Things blog. It’s a countdown of all the awesome things that we come across in our daily lives that we may not always acknowledge. Some of them you’ll immediately identify with, and others you’ll think to yourself, “Oh yeah! That IS awesome.” Pasricha spoke with me about awesome smells, chicken wings, and the kindness of people.

Chris Bowman: 1000 Awesome Things was originally started as a diversion from all the bad news that seems to circulate every hour of every day. How did you settle on this idea?

Neil Pasricha: Well basically, I started in June of 2008. At that time, if you flipped open the newspaper it was filled with the same stuff every day. The polar ice caps were melting, there were pirates storming the seas, the economy was on the verge of collapse, and there were wars going on all over the world. Everything was so heavy. 1000 Awesome Things was meant to be that one little place where we turn the lights out, put a blanket over our heads, and just talk about popping bubble wrap, or snow days, or the smell of a bakery.

To find out what else Neil Pasricha has to say click Read More