Throughout this year, several bloggers will engage in a conversation here and on their blogs — asking questions of each other and responding. Others are absolutely welcome to join the conversation, as well. Learn more about the ladies of Blogversation 2012.

We kicked off this online salon a few weeks back, so the Blogversationists are still getting to know each other and introducing themselves here.

To get a flavor for what each blogger does when she’s really hitting her mark, today’s question is “What is one of your favorite blog posts and why?”

I loved this post I wrote for our 10-year wedding anniversary: 10 marriage lessons learned in 10 years of marriage (and the second half of that post, which I broke up into five “I dos” and five “I don’ts”).

It was an excellent opportunity for me to reflect on what I’d learned in my first decade as a wife, and to celebrate that we still like and love each other. Though it hasn’t all been sunshine and unicorns, I’m grateful we’ve had and continue to have a good partnership. Writing about lessons learned helped me appreciate how far we’ve come as a team.

Once I shared the post, it was fun to see the comments on my blog and on Facebook — friends sharing their own lessons or thanking me for sharing. A few said things like John and I are role models for a good marriage, and I was honored to think that might be true.

As a bonus, the second half of that post features romantic advice one of the Blogversationists, Maria Stuart, gave me when I was in my early 20s. She helped me understand that romance isn’t the big showoffy display once in a while but how your partner treats you every day. That powerful distinction has stayed with me. Thanks, Maria.

What is one of your favorite blog posts and why?

Throughout this year, several bloggers will engage in a conversation here and on their blogs — asking questions of each other and responding. Others are absolutely welcome to join the conversation, as well. Learn more about the ladies of Blogversation 2012.

I did not grow up in a musical family. My parents didn’t sing or play an instrument, and didn’t worry that I should to build out my college application or be a well-rounded cultured child. It just wasn’t on their radar.

But I was fascinated by music pretty much as far back as I can remember. My mom was friends with a couple whose band played at a bowling alley in Saginaw, Mich. where my mom was a bartender. There’s a photo of me at I think 4 years old grinning like crazy when they sang me Happy Birthday. I didn’t care if it was Madison Square Garden or Timber Town bowling alley, these people made music and I was in awe.

One of my mom’s friends played piano and I watched in fascination. My first elementary school crush was a boy who played piano.

Yet I never learned to play an instrument. When we had the option to sign up for band in middle school, I thought you had to already know how to play. If I’d known the good taxpayers of Saginaw would pay for me to learn to play music, I’d have done it in an instant. Instead, I took choir. And hated it. I was a terrible singer, and a shy singer because of it, and spent the year jealously listening to the girls with the lovely soprano voices. Maybe someone could have told me it was OK I was an alto?

My college boyfriend bought me perhaps the most appropriate gift anyone’s ever given me: a small Yamaha keyboard. He wanted to encourage me to finally learn to play.

I dragged the keyboard with me through maybe a dozen moves before I finally began weekly lessons almost two years ago.

Here’s a funny video of me torturing “When the Saints Go Marching In” a year ago:

Lauren, one of the Blogversation members, wrote a post this fall, You’re Not Too Old to Switch Careers. Or Play The Harp. that hit me hard. When practice is going badly, I lament not having taken middle school band, or grouse that my parents really should have gotten me piano lessons, or anything else to make my progress farther along than it is. Lauren wrote:

We didn’t start an instrument, our careers, a language at some magical age, 10? 17? 20? and our brain went into lockdown and whatever talents we managed to eck out by sheer luck and childhood fancy, are the ones that we are destined with forever. If we haven’t learned music, mastered a language, become a writer, we never will.

Thus the people who sigh, “I wish had learned the piano when I was young. It would be such a great talent to have.”

And the others that pine, “If only they had offered Spanish in school when I was ten. I would be bilingual.”

And me who shouts, “Shut up and starting practicing!” Because piano playing and language speaking might be easier at younger ages, but they can come greatly at any age if you decide to sit down, practice, and persist.

A recent NPR story said something similar — a psychologist who learned guitar  to study musical learning wrote a book called “Guitar Zero: The New Musician and the Science of Learning.” NPR’s interview with Gary Marcus says:

“… although it’s definitely easier to learn some things when you’re a kid, it’s not the case that you just absolutely lose the ability later in life. There’s more of a gradual decline, but it is still possible.”

…

he maintains there is hope for nonmusical adults who would like to pick up an instrument — as long as they’re willing to swallow their pride and practice hard.

“A lot of people just do what they’re good at. They don’t focus on what they’re bad at,” Marcus says. “In my case, I really had to focus on the rhythm. If I had just done what I was good at, I would still sound terrible. Now I don’t quite sound terrible, and that’s because I focused so much on that. So don’t expect overnight success; try to enjoy each incremental bit of progress that you make.”

I still sometimes struggle to read sheet music, I don’t remember what notes are in which chords and my timing needs work. But I persist, because that 4-year-old me wanted it so desperately and I’m not willing to give up yet.

What’s one thing you’re really passionate about even though you’re not very good at it?

Tara Parker-Pope wrote about not what makes a marriage last but what makes it meaningful, including the ways your partner makes your life better:

Dr. Aron and Gary W. Lewandowski Jr., a professor at Monmouth University in New Jersey, have studied how individuals use a relationship to accumulate knowledge and experiences, a process called “self-expansion.” Research shows that the more self-expansion people experience from their partner, the more committed and satisfied they are in the relationship.

To measure this, Dr. Lewandowski developed a series of questions for couples: How much has being with your partner resulted in your learning new things? How much has knowing your partner made you a better person? (Take the full quiz measuring self-expansion.)

“If you’re seeking self-growth and obtain it from your partner, then that puts your partner in a pretty important position,” he explains. “And being able to help your partner’s self-expansion would be pretty pleasing to yourself.”

Read the full article here.

This notion of self expansion being correlated to relationship satisfaction makes so much sense to me. A good mate should help you be a better version of yourself,  including experiencing things you might not otherwise.

Maintaining a healthy marriage takes work, and we want some payoff for that effort. Having a partner who makes your life richer than it would be if you’re alone seems like the return on the investment of your effort.

What do you think makes marriage meaningful?

Throughout this year, several bloggers will engage in a conversation here and on their blogs — asking questions of each other and responding. Others are absolutely welcome to join the conversation, as well. Learn more about the ladies of Blogversation 2012.

I had such a wild 2011, a year of such intense personal and professional transformation, that it’s hard to point to a single lesson.

If I’m to choose one, though, I’d go with this: There are only two motives in life, fear and love. Don’t let fear be my guide.

Around this time last year, I learned my position was being eliminated. This was a good job at a company I’d moved us to New York for, and I faced unemployment in the middle of a recession.

My money anxiety lurks just below the surface on a normal day, and possible unemployment turned it into something like panic and depression. What if I couldn’t find another job? What we couldn’t make a go of it in New York?

Then I took a deep breath, with much help from my husband, John. He pointed out we had money in savings for a rainy day, and if this was it, we’d be fine. I could figure out what was next without fear of us missing a rent payment. I had a good education, a good resume, a good network. If I had to find a new job, I had reason to hope for the best.

Once I cleared the fear a little, I could see clearly enough to throw my Hail Mary pass — I proposed that instead of laying me off, my company create a new part-time position for me. I laid out the financials of how I’d work to grow revenue enough to more than cover the cost of my salary.

To their great credit, the bosses listened with an open mind. They said yes, and even agreed to a provision that I mostly work from home.

I was elated. This arrangement gave me the security of a steady paycheck at a job I love with the time to start doing consulting work.

We celebrated Easter in New Orleans this year, including drinking a bloody Mary on Bourbon Street in our dapper duds.

Then it got better. If I could work from home in Brooklyn, why not New Orleans? John and I spent two months in New Orleans in the spring and another month in the fall, long enough to really sink in to the place and feel what it’s like to live in a special, unique place.

I’m not sure any of this would have happened if I’d kept my full-time job. I’m too responsible, too practical, to walk away from steady work, but when it wasn’t going to be there anyway, what did I have to lose by trying something radically different?

How do I take that into 2012? By examining my life for places where I’m clinging to the shore and to ask, as John often does, what’s the worst that could happen? Very few risks that appeal to me are fatal so why not try a few? Some might flop, but some might work, and I’ll never know if I don’t try.

Here are some posts I wrote previously about taking the leap into semi-entrepreneurship:

• Reflecting on forks in the road, on being conservative or taking a leap
• Feel the fear and do it anyway
• Are you willing to be really, really lucky?

What’s one thing you learned in 2011 or one experience you had in  2011 that you’re happy to carry with you into 2012? Why was it significant to you?

Throughout this year, several bloggers will engage in a conversation here and on their blogs — asking questions of each other and responding. Others are absolutely welcome to join the conversation, as well. Learn more about the ladies of Blogversation 2012.

I’m a journalist by training so I feel like I’m always gathering stories ideas, whether I want to or not.

When a friend posts something on Facebook or I read something in an email newsletter or a magazine, it can all prompt ideas for blog posts.

What I’m not as good at is keeping hold of those ideas until I act on them. Since I’m blogging part time as a hobby, it’s not like I’m typically going to drop everything and write a post when I get inspired. So I try a variety of tricks, including:

• Saving interesting web reading via Instapaper
• Emailing myself if an article or website has an “email this” function, and putting “for my blog” in the subject line
• Tearing out articles and stuffing them in a “to blog” folder

I also love doing interviews with people about their personal experiences of life transformation and living life intentionally. I get those ideas by talking to friends about their experiences, and through old-fashioned journalism, approaching people whose stories interest me. I have a wish list of some people I’d like to interview, and last year I sent a whole batch of hand written notes asking for interviews. None panned out, but I’m still hopeful.

How do you get your ideas for blog posts? What do you do when you’re stuck or just out of ideas?

For example:

• Do you really need to drink eight glasses of water a day?
• Is eight hours of sleep best for you?
• Should all couples be monogamous?
• Are you really drinking that glass of red wine for your health?

It’s with that appreciation for against-the-grain opinions that I was attracted to a Penelope Trunk post headlined Bad Career Advice: Do what you love.

Trunk writes:

Often, the thing we should do for our career is something we would only do if we were getting a reward. If you tell yourself that your job has to be something you’d do even if you didn’t get paid, you’ll be looking for a long time. Maybe forever. So why set that standard? The reward for doing a job is contributing to something larger than you are, participating in society, and being valued in the form of money.

The pressure we feel to find a perfect career is insane. And, given that people are trying to find it before they are thirty, in order to avoid both a quarterlife crisis and a biological-clock crisis, the pressure is enough to push people over the edge. Which is why one of the highest risk times for depression in life is in one’s early twenties when people realize how totally impossible it is to simply “do what you love.”

I recently blogged about a new documentary on Joseph Campbell, who advocated that we follow our bliss. And I believe it’s so important to making life meaningful that we find the things that bring us joy and make them a priority in our lives.

But I think Trunk’s argument is worth contemplating — maybe we drive ourselves crazy by trying to make a living at the thing we love, when it could be enough to do that thing for free.

I love to cook. However, I know enough people in the restaurant business to know doing it professionally is a high-stress gig that would likely turn me off to cooking. So I love doing it just for fun, and that’s enough.

Meanwhile, I get paid to put together marketing plans, design surveys and set pricing plans, among other things. Would I do any of those if I wasn’t getting paid? No, but that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy them. I’m happy with my career path.

Trunk further writes:

if you are overwhelmed with the task of “doing what you love” you should recognize that you are totally normal, and maybe you should just forget it. Just do something that caters to your strengths. Do anything.

What do you think — about doing what you love, or about water, sleep, wine or monogamy?

I like using the calendar as a prompt in my life. I’m a big fan of birthdays, and I think they can be a good opportunity — along with the new year — to assess where you’ve just been and where you want to go in the next year.

Obviously. Look at this list of past posts I’ve done about resolutions and goals:

• Are you making a new year’s resolution?
• Setting my goals for 2011 as a comprehensive view of my life
• Reflecting on my 2010 goals
• Making resolutions you can keep
• What makes resolutions achievable?
• Let’s call them goals instead of resolutions
• Focusing on one change at a time for two months each
• HBR: Developing rituals can help achieve your goals
• Be careful what you wish for: setting goals you’re sure you want
• How do you achieve what you want?
• Christine Kane: How to Create Anything (Even When You’re Scared, Inexperienced and Don’t Believe in Yourself)

My husband did this painting for me in 2010 as an artistic version of a vision board for my life. It hangs in our bedroom so I see it every night, and it reminds me of my life goals.

But it’s so easy to make a disposable New Year’s resolution and forget it almost before the champagne hangover has worn off. Maybe that’s because we set them too big — I’m going to get my novel published and make the New York Times bestseller list — or because we set them too vague — I’m going to get in shape and get healthy. Or maybe we just never meant them at all so we never put any intention behind it?

A while back I read some good advice from a favorite blog, Zen Habits: pick just one habit you’d like to start or quit and work on that change exclusively for two months. Then you can add another.

This spring, I decided I was going to practice piano every day. It’s not always easy, either because I’m busy or unmotivated, but I just made a commitment to make a habit. Once I had momentum on it, it seemed easier. Now John is used to me disappearing for a while after dinner, and will ask if we’re out at night, “Should we get home so you can practice?”

I haven’t set any new resolutions/goals/changes for 2012, though. Maybe because I’m still absorbing the lessons of tremendous transformation in 2011? Definitely have room for improvement — I just need to make my plan and stick with it.

Do you make New Year’s resolutions? Why or why not? Any 2012 aspirations you’d like to share?

Throughout this year, several bloggers will engage in a conversation here and on their blogs — asking questions of each other and responding. Learn more about the ladies of Blogversation 2012.

I first started blogging in 2006 with a limited goal: We were going to spend a month subletting a New York City apartment, giving us a chance to test drive being New Yorkers. I wanted to share our experiences with friends without clogging up their email inboxes with numerous photo attachments, allowing those who were interested to read and those who weren’t to skip it.

From that, I launched on Blogger: http://bigapplebound.blogspot.com/

Then about three years ago, I got bored with a me-centric blog. We’d been in New York full time a few years and the theme of what we were doing in NYC had run its course.

Meanwhile, I began to get the itch to explore bigger topics — specifically, wondering how I could make the most of my life to make it richer, more meaningful, happier. I’ve generally aimed for a big goal in the future, something to work toward, and having finished my MBA and gotten a media job in NYC, I’d accomplished my last missions, leaving me asking what was next.

Having this blog encouraged me to keep a lookout for articles and blog posts about happiness and living life well. It gave me a reason to reach out to people who inspire me, to interview them for their experiences and insights. And it was a good opportunity to write several times a week, something I’ve missed since moving out of a newsroom.

I blogged selfishly, looking for greater meaning in my life, but I also blogged about living life intentionally in the hope that my midlife crisis quest could provide inspiration to others.

Just last week I got an email from an old friend that I thought I’d lost touch with. Apparently I didn’t know what had become of her, but she was reading my blog while she went through a major transformation that included a career change and moving back to her hometown.

I cried big tears of joy as I read her email, which said in part:

“Thank you for the inspiration and hope that you gave me. Although you didn’t know it, as I simply read your blog day after day anonymously, you have played a major role in helping me turn my life around. … Hope this finds you well, and I hope that it adequately conveys what your blog and its message has done for me. You are having a genuine impact on people’s lives, Colleen. “

I could never have hoped to do something so beautiful, to inspire someone when they need it most — but I can’t think of a better reason in the world to blog.

How did you become a blogger? Why do you blog?

Even more so, I’ve loved the chance to engage in conversations about those topics and people.

Ages ago, when I was a young newspaper reporter, writing was mostly a one-way process. Occasionally I’d write a story and someone would call to yell at me, or more happily, someone would send a thank you note. But mostly I felt distant from my readers in those pre-Internet days. Perhaps my favorite thing about blogging is the opportunity to see which posts people are reading and to get immediate feedback.

To encourage a richer dialogue and get more voices into the mix, I’m launching a project called Blogversation 2012. I’ve invited some of my favorite bloggers to join a running conversation about creativity, passion, goals, values, happiness, relationships, career and food and drink.

It’s like an online salon of smart thinking.

It’s like a virtual coffee klatch.

Every week, we’ll post two questions here on my blog.  Participating bloggers will all respond, either here or on their own blogs.

Others are of course welcome to jump into the conversation by commenting and doing blog posts of their own. With this impressive, interesting group assembled, I think you’d be hard pressed not to want to join in the action.

In their own words, the Blogversation 2012 participants are:

Kim Ann Curtin

Kim Ann Curtin, founder & CEO of The Wall Street Coach, is the resilient and insanely resourceful executive coach and adviser to today’s progressive executives and entrepreneurs. A Conscious Capitalist and professional fixer who works with leaders to stop limiting behaviors, design inventive solutions and empower them and their high-performing teams to achieve results beyond their wildest dreams.

Kim is a connector within corporate industry and has worked with some of the more interesting and successful CEOs over the past 12 years. She instructs others on how to create wealth and meaning in their lives. A facilitator of Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey model and NonViolent Communication. Kim is currently writing a book on Conscious Financiers.

If she had to do it all over again, Kim would talk less and surf more.

Find Kim’s blog online at  www.TheWallStreetCoach.com

*****

Lauren McCabe

Lauren McCabe is a writer who has also worked as a radio DJ, surf instructor, public relations consultant, SAT teacher, marketing director, and now, a social media strategist. She lives in New Orleans, a city driven by deep relationships, and she helps businesses build those relationships online, driving more sales, reaching new customers, and building their online reputation.

Lauren received her BA in English & Creative Writing from Columbia University and uses her major every single day of her life: from composing tweets that help businesses grow, to analyzing business plans. Study what you love, not what everyone says is practical, because loving what you do IS practical. When she’s not tweeting, Facebooking, and blogging, she’s writing about travel, work, and love, the three most important things. In her spare time, Lauren plays the harp, surfs in strange places (NYC & New Orleans), and works on her novel about mermaids.

Her blog is at http://mermaidchronicles.wordpress.com/

*****

Maria Stuart and her son, Will

Maria Stuart is an award-winning journalist whose longtime newspaper position was “eliminated” for budget reasons in early 2009. After realizing her job loss was actually a liberation in disguise, she quickly became a popular blogger and Internet entrepreneur. She founded the community website LivingstonTalk.com, which has grown tremendously; in 2011, over 50,000 unique visitors read nearly 250,000 pages on the site. While delicately balancing the demands of her digital universe, her freelance writing and website building, her novel-in-progress and her home life, Stuart wonders how she ever found time for a “real” job.

She lives in Howell, Mich., with her husband, their nearly teenage son, and Ted, the hyper labradoodle who keeps her from sitting at the computer too long during the day.

You can check out her website at http://mariastuart.com.

*****

Amy Throndsen

Amy Throndsen, a Wisconsin-native wound her way around the western United States and East Asia as a “professional volunteer” with AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps and Peace Corps (China) and is now back in Wisconsin working for her family’s international
agricultural business, primarily responsible for heading the marketing and international sales efforts for Dual-Chamber Cow Waterbeds.

She has been a guest blogger for agriculture-focused and life-coaching blogs, and spent 2011 blogging about her 1-year journey to 1,000 running miles. Currently without a dedicated blog, she is excited about being a contributing member of the Blogversation 2012 with Colleen and company.

*****

Eleanor Traubman

Eleanor Traubman is the editor-in-chief of Creative Times, a blog designed to celebrate and inspire the artists of New York and beyond.

She leads Creative Conversations, a goal-setting group for women artists and entrepreneurs, and is also the arts writer for The Bank Street College of Education Alumni Blog.

Her mission? To bring people together through the arts, creativity, and humor.

Eleanor’s work has been featured in The New York Times, Time Out New York, The Brooklyn Paper, Family Circle, and Fitness, and she was listed as one of the Park Slope 100.

*****

Lesley Ware

Lesley Ware is a New York-based fashion personality and teaching artist. Originally from Michigan’s West Coast, she loves all things unique and full of glitter. Her current creative interests include photography, sewing, and publishing.

Lesley has written for the DIY Business Association, Girl Scouts of the USA, Jones and CLAM magazines and the Women of Color Writers’ Workshop. Lesley’s photos can be seen on sites including The YBF.com, We Love Colors, and Essence Magazine. Lesley is also the featured model for TranquiliT, an eco-friendly fashion line.

When she’s not being creative you’ll find her spending time with her husband, stepson, and cat, Nina Bean. She blogs and posts pretty pictures at www.thecreativecookie.net.

*****

Jennifer Worick

Jennifer Worick has written or co-authored more than 25 books, including the New York TimesBestseller, The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Dating & Sex. She has written on everything under the sun for national magazines, and currently writes a books column for today.com. In addition to finding her on bookshelves and newsstands, you can also check her out online at her blogs, word. and Things I Want to Punch in the Face.

Along with fellow author and publishing professional Kerry Colburn, she delivers publishing talks and workshops to help burgeoning authors get published. You can also catch Jennifer in university auditoriums and lecture halls, where she delivers side-splitting slide-show presentations.

According to my WordPress stats, these were my 10 most-visited posts in 2011:

• Why the ending of Bridesmaids bugged me
• Ari Weinzweig, lapsed anarchist, shares the business philosophies of food mecca Zingerman’s
• Silencing your inner critic
• Clint Maedgen, musical chameleon, straddles the line between tradition and rock ‘n’ roll
• About the author — Colleen Newvine Tebeau
• 40 Things I Have Learned at 40, by Lisa Gauchey
• Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg eats only the meat he kills
• Setting my goals for 2011 as a comprehensive view of my life
• Larry Kirshbaum on the transition from publishing bigwig to literary entrepreneur
• Robert Fogarty reinvents himself by helping transform New Orleans
• The Holstee manifesto: This is your life
• 10 marriage lessons learned in 10 years of marriage

Being on the list doesn’t mean I wrote the item in 2011 (my bio, for example, goes back to the launch of this blog), just that they were frequently read last year.

I look forward to a new year of creating posts you might check out and enjoy.