'Round the Block: Straight talk from two women just like you who have been there and done that.

Bloggers Megan of Soy Boy Mama and Holly of Bringing Home the Bacon have survived growing up in the '80s, college, graduate school, married life, motherhood and the corporate jungle. They want to warn you that calls from the corporate lactation room may show up on caller ID as "Lactation Room."

Holly: Ok. So this is our new column and it's going to straddle our two blogs. How should we start? Introduce ourselves? Take a question from the audience?

Megan: cricket ... ::blink:blink:: ... cricket ... cricket ... Um, Holly, can I talk to you in private?

Holly: Listen, Megan, you agreed to do this. Don't go chickening out on me now. It's going to work. We can take a topic and discuss or take a question from our readership. Ok, so I may have to make up the first question myself but just think of it as a conversation starter.
I'm going to kick things off by introducing Megan. A fabulous writer who shares slices of her life on her blog, Soy Boy Mama, Megan is on hiatus from her life as a corporate communications guru. She is currently raising two classically suburban boys who know Ikea and Costco better than their own play room. She is married to a WONDERFUL man who was willing to give up his cat to spend a hairball-free life with her.

Megan: Well, that wasn't very private. BTW, can I use "declared a 'corporate communications guru' by top Web site" on my resume´? I'd also like to go on record as saying it took THREE years to send that cat packing. That's more than 1,000 days of sticky cat hair, clumped kitty litter and butt-hole licking, my dear, so don't make him out to be too wonderful in that context. My turn. I have the pleasure of introducing Holly, an amazing woman who juggles life on a hog farm with her husband and three children with her life in corporate America as a social media expert. You can read of her adventures on her aptly named blog Bringing Home the Bacon. The best way to describe Holly is to say she's like a Ho-Ho. On the outside she has this smooth chocolate exterior that seems so serious. Peel that waxy coating though and you'll find some hilariously twisted shit -- some of it dense and dark, some of it white and fluffy, all of it good.

Holly: Thanks for that kind and also delicious introduction. Now, on to our reader question. Note: In today's performance, the part of Reader Question will be played by Made Up Question.

Reader Question: What kind of bloggers are you? Mommy bloggers? Food bloggers? Coupon bloggers? Also, how did you come up with this column and what kind of questions do you want readers to submit?

Megan: I chuckled when I read this was the first question. Holly, do you remember the first time we met? We were both corporate communications new hires at a large corporation. During our first conversation, you asked me, "So, what's your area of expertise?" I thought: "Damn. She's serious. Expertise? What the hell is she talking about? Aside from sleeping and bitchin', I have no expertise. I can do a lot of stuff and I love the variety -- a Jill of All Trades, if you will -- but expert? HA!"

Here we are again; and, I have the same answer. I'm a Jill of All Blogs (a JAB?). I love to tell stories. You'll find stuff about my two boys; being a SAHM; and my life before marriage and children. I love juicy nuggets, so I'll share interesting or useful tidbits I stumble on. I love goofy ideas. Once, every day for an entire month, I posted a photo and story about what the boys stashed in the compartment of their ride-on toy car. My eldest has a dairy allergy (thus the blog title), so I have The Soy Pages section that focuses on dairy-free recipes, products, policies and encounters. I love to take pictures and edit videos and I love to make people laugh. I'm a whore for a hearty laugh. So, I guess to answer the question, "What kind of a blogger am I?" I'm A Blogger Who Loves. Some say too much. Pain be damned. I do it for the readers.

Holly -- she's always thinkin' -- she came up with the idea for the column, so I'll defer to the Column Expert (couldn't resist) to answer the last two questions for us, as well as talk about her blog.

Holly: Megan is never "off." I would guess even her grocery list is a good read. Her private e-mails to me are just as crisp and full of wit (with a pinch of sarcasm) as her blog posts. Our personal exchanges are so funny that I started thinking that we should share the good writing that comes from the give and take of our relationship. I had seen this two-person column format before with an advice column and thought it would be fun content for our two blogs.

As far as my own blog... well, some people find it by Googling "bacon cough," "year old pee," and "how to bring a skunk back to life." Um, I really AM happy to be a resource for that insane person who is trying to resuscitate a skunk. Anyway, while I have dabbled in Mommy Blogging, consume plenty of food and always love a coupon, my blog actually straddles the sometimes equally stinky worlds of agriculture and corporate life.. My blog is not really for farmers, which works out well since 98 percent of the people in this nation don't know a blue butt from a popper.


Wanna join us? We are looking for questions to answer. If you need advice, we'll dish some out but we also can just lend our views to the issues of the day, so feel free to just ask us. As Megan so eloquently put it: we are not experts in anything but we do a lot of stuff and love the variety. Participate in the comments anonymously or with your name and a link to your own blog.