Chatting with the Pioneer Woman



It's no secret I am always striving to be a better person. Both personally and professionally. Someone I have long admired is Ree Drummond, who seems to balance many demands of her life exceedingly well. Her blog and website is in short, amazing. According to Federated Media her website has 22 million page views monthly.
For those of you who may not know Ree her bio on her blog reads:
"I'm the wife of a rugged cowboy. I'm the mother of four spirited children. I have horse poop on my porch. I'm Ree Drummond, also known as The Pioneer Woman. You can read more about my adventures, my cooking, and my photography on my crazy website”
She very kindly agreed to be interviewed on my blog and I am delighted to welcome her here today.

Given everything you juggle, including homeschooling 4 gorgeous kids, photographing MM in his chaps, as well as your recipes and blogging itself, can you please, please tell us how you manage your time?

This is a multi-faceted answer. First, I think our life in the country (and our life as a homeschooling family) actually helps me maintain a certain momentum at home. Sometimes days go by without my getting in the car and going anywhere, and that leaves a lot more time at home for the things I want and need to do.

Second, since my husband's a rancher and doesn't leave "for the office" all day, we're together---off and on---pretty much 24 hours a day. He helps me in innumerable ways, taking the kids to soccer practice, taking them to work with him, picking up things on his way back through town, etc. I couldn't do what I do without him.

Another factor---one I'm always eager to point out---is that I'm not much of a "Type A" personality. I don't follow a set schedule, and I don't come unglued if I don't get everything done on any given day. And in fact, I never get everything done. On the contrary, I usually go to bed with no fewer than twenty significant loose ends I've left untied. But I'm so ready for bed, I don't let it bother me!

Let’s talk about your cookbook. You’ve likened writing it to the process of childbirth. Tell us a bit about the steps that went into putting it together.

 The cookbook really came about as a result of a chance phone meeting with an editor at William Morrow. We had a mutual friend who introduced us, and we intended just to have a brief conversation about a possible cookbook idea, then stay in touch after that. Instead, we hit it off right away and very quickly struck a deal (with no agent involved!) to do a cookbook together. She understood from the get-go what I was trying to do (a fun, slice-of-life cookbook) and what I was not trying to do (be a serious culinary personality) and she really let me put together the cookbook I had in mind.

Writing the cookbook while also trying to maintain my cooking website was very difficult, as I had a hard time keeping things exclusive---"saving recipes" in other words---for the cookbook. I would make something for the cookbook, then save it for a couple of weeks...then, invariably, I couldn't stand not sharing it and I'd put it online. In addition, I had a bit of a learning curve with the publishing world in general---there are more space limitations, cost considerations, and other things that you have to fight in order for it not to affect your content and voice. But that's true with any published author, I'm sure.

Aside from that, it was such a fun experience and I was proud of my cookbook. And now that I have that experience under my belt, the process of doing my second cookbook has been very smooth and enjoyable. It's not all so new this time.

Clearly you have a phenomenal readership. Do you have a particular reader (real or imagined) in mind when you write?

I've said this time and time again, but I really do feel like I'm still writing to a close, intimate group of people. I don't necessarily have one reader in mind---more of an amalgam. I feel a relationship with the people who read my site. I always have.  

Is there a downside to having such a large readership?

I think if you're on the internet at all---whether your site is large or small---most of the internet-related downsides are the same. But again, since I feel such a kinship with my readership, I don't really feel like I have a large audience. That's the honest-to-goodness truth!

Do you have any other social media open when you write, or is your focus completely on your blog or recipe section, depending on your focus at the time?

No, I always have forty thousand tabs open at once! I'll work on a long cooking post while occasionally answering an email. Then I'll get up and do a school subject with the kids. Then I'll remember the unfinished cooking post and go work on that, but before I start, I'll tweet about something weird the kids did while we were homeschooling. Then I'll remember the email I forgot to answer earlier, then I'll post on Home & Garden about a pair of earrings. Then I'll get up and chase a cow out of my yard. Then I'll write a Facebook status that I just chased a cow out of my yard. Sometime around midnight, I'll remember to finish my cooking post.  

You wrote a list “Ten Important Things you’ve learned about blogging.” Blogging is really taking off here in Australia. What advice would you give to us here about blogging, based on your experience?

I think that list still reflects the advice I'd give new (or even seasoned) bloggers. Blogging is a muscle, and you need to exercise it regularly in order to become stronger. Blogging is a precious flower, and you need to water it frequently in order for it to live.

(I'll stop with the metaphors now!) 

Thank you so much Ree for your time. 

· authors, interview, Pioneer Woman

Interview with Bob Lemke, Vintage Card Editor at Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards

For nearly 30 years, the name Bob Lemke was synonymous with the unbelievably comprehensive Krause publication The Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards, the bible of card collectors across the country. These days, he's the editor of the Vintage Card section of the Standard Catalog, creates his own custom cards, and blogs about card variations at Bob Lemke's Blog. Bob stepped aside for a few minutes this week to answer a few questions.


BBC Blog: You've been identified with the publication of the annual Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards for many years. How did you get involved with the publication in the first place?

BL: In 1979 I had been employed by Krause Publications for five years, working in the firm’s numismatic division. As I returned to active card collecting in the mid-1970s I recognized that the card hobby was at a state that the coin collecting hobby had been in 20-30 years earlier.

BBC Blog: What are the origins of the Catalog?

BL: A basic hobby publishing tenet that KP’s founder, Chet Krause, had developed since the early 1950s is that to grow and prosper, a collecting hobby needs four basic types of publication: 1) A “trader” paper, published monthly or more frequently, that can connect buyers and sellers (this was in the days before the internet), 2) A glossy national newsstand magazine that can be used to attract the general public, 3) A comprehensive reference/pricing catalog that will allow even the beginning collector to be in the same ballpark as the advanced collector and dealer in terms of basic knowledge of what is available and what it’s worth, and, 4) A periodical price guide to allow for keeping collectors and dealers current in fast-changing markets.

After unsuccessfully trying to buy one or more of the existing hobby trader publications, in the Spring of 1980 we published the premiere issue of Baseball Cards magazine, the first national newsstand magazine for the hobby and instantly the largest circulation publication (125,000) ever in that field.

An integral part of BBC was a price guide section for 1948-date Topps and Bowman cards. That became the basis for the data base that produced the first Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards in 1983. As editor, then publisher of the sports division at KP, I was responsible for developing the line of products that eventually numbered something like seven papers and magazines and more than a dozen books. By the late 1980s we had a full-time editor for the catalog, and I took over than position in the mid-1990s when I semi-retired from my corporate responsibilities.

In May, 2006, I left Krause Publications and the catalog. I returned to the book on a part-time basis in the summer of 2009.


BBC Blog: It's obvious that an enormous amount of work goes into maintaining it each year. Do you work with a set group of people? What is the dynamic like?

BL: The catalog has an in-house staff responsible for maintaining the database and the presentation of the modern (1981+) sections of the book. My bailiwick is maintaining the database and presentation of the vintage major league and minor league sections. I don’t maintain an official cadre of outside contributors, but work with dozens of specialist collectors and dealers year-round who keep me apprised of new discoveries, market (price) movement and popularity trends.

BBC Blog: How do you handle "new" discoveries?

BL: The inclusion of new discoveries is made easier in this day and age by the instant communications offered by the Internet and the ease of providing “evidence” in the form of scans. Even though it is a shadow of itself, eBay for many years offered a huge 24/7 international card show where new things were discovered and up-to-the-minute real-world market values were readily available.


BBC Blog: A great number of vintage Spanish sets are included in the Catalog (Toteleros, Topps Venezuelan, etc.), but very few vintage Japanese sets. Was this done on purpose?

BL: Yes. The principal reason that so many vintage Caribbean and South American card issues have been included in the past is that those professional winter leagues typically included former and future major leaguers, and Negro Leagues players who didn’t appear on career-contemporary “American” cards. Because these players populate the checklists of such sets, they are more popular with collectors in the U.S. than Japanese cards.


BBC Blog: In addition to your own work on the vintage side of the Catalog, you blog about variations and have created a wonderful gallery of your own custom cards. Can you tell me about why you started to blog? And about why you create custom cards?

BL: I started the blog when I signed back on with the catalog so that I would have a venue to communicate with collectors and dealers for the purpose of gathering information to update the book. It also provides me with an outlet for feature writing about baseball and baseball cards.


Bob's newest custom card, a T202 Triple Folder Honus Wagner/Max Carey.

The custom cards have been, for the past six or more years, my principal hobby. I no longer actively collect sports cards other than to provide materials I need to make my “cards that never were.” The availability of user-friendly computer graphics programs allows me to lose myself for hours or even entire weekends in creating baseball and football cards in the styles of the classic cards of the early 20th Century.

· Bob Lemke, interview, SCD, Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards

Mini Interview with Cleveland.com Up Now

Here's a mini interview I did with Cleveland.com.

· Cleveland, interview

The Future of Music Looks Bleak

Every so often I'll break out my guitar(s), write a song or two, and maybe even feel compelled to record something. At times I'm asked by others why it is that I don't pursue music as a career. Well aside from the obvious crap-shoot that music can be, it's a question I return to myself as I do enjoy music and musical creation more than most activities in this world. The simple answer to

· file-sharing, interview, Kalodner, mp3, music industry, performing, songwriting, stealing

Toysrevil interview


As Clogwork is an ideal place for some shameless self-promotion, exhibitionism and self-glorification I thought to mention this interview. :)

· interview, marty mole, metin seven, seamour sheep, sevensheaven, toys

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