A Date with a Dinosaur

The months I’ve spent working on this blog have confirmed my suspicions — I’m a blogging dinosaur — an aged voice amongst a much savvier and more evolved technological species. But I feel like I still have some stories to tell so I’m not ready for extinction just yet!

Hi everyone.  It’s me again.  Taking time out of your very busy day to distract you with my musings.  I’m so grateful you’ve landed here so I want to run a little something by you.  What if I were trying to make a real go of this blogging thing?  Sure, it’s a hobby now, a satisfying catharsis for my ideas about travel and motherhood and the professoriate.  But would you be okay if we made this official?  For example, would you subscribe to this blog for email updates or follow me on Instagram or Facebook?  Would you take our relationship one step further and pin my stuff to your Pinterest boards?  

I would be grateful if you would because I’d like to see where this could go. It’s really simple: just click those little icons over to the right of this text, and viola, we’re hooked up! (Also @beingbonmot if you’re more into searching.)  If you’re here because we’re already going steady, thank you – our relationship is very important to me.  (None of that Hannah Brown “This is why you don’t date two guys!” Bachelorette nonsense for me.)

In May, I promised to pledge $1 for every like, follow, etc. I received that month (my birthday month, no coincidence) to Bonton Farms in Dallas (see the original post here).  I did increase my social media presence and subscriptions, but I fell short of my goal of 250.  I’m so grateful for my friends, new and old.  I always encourage my students to acknowledge shortcomings, especially in my fundraising class, so I want to be honest about the results of my efforts. I have learned so much from this experience already, and I genuinely want to connect my work here with causes I believe in.  (More on this follow up very soon…) 

My ultimate motivation is to grow in my connection with you, the reader, who should be doing something much more important than perusing this post.  And thank you for that.  I’d like this relatively tiny ripple of a site to begin to make waves big enough to surf on.  I don’t have Ashton Kutcher/Kim Kardashian delusions here, but I wouldn’t be offended by a little more traffic.  I’m simply putting it out there to see if there’s something to this whole ‘vision casting’ thing.

Listen, I don’t plan to quit my day job.  That’s why I’m working on growth over the summer before I’m back in the classroom and in the thick of the motherhood juggle.  As such, you might see more of me and Being Bon Mot for a little while. Thankfully this fossil has figured out how to schedule blog posts into the future, so look out!

I hope you like this work so far.  And I hope you’ll take the time to comment and share and invite your real-life friends to follow Being Bon Mot.  Sometimes I feel like I’m a bit all over the place with content.  It’s reflective of the multiple identities I’m unapologetic for – mother, professor, wife, explorer, cynic, nerd – you get the picture.  I’d love your feedback on the posts you read and ideas about what you’d like to see more of.

Those who know me know I am content with my small life here in Texas.  I am happily married.  I have two healthy, vibrant kids.  And I happen to like my job (95% of the time – grading papers really sucks).  But I’m also a woman in my early 40’s trying to steer clear of a midlife crisis.  I have a voice and perspective that’s a little different than most bloggers out there. So I’m trying to represent myself and my experiences because I think there is as much of a need for people to exhibit real life as there is for representing lifestyle.  

I have been known to refer to myself as a blogging dinosaur.  And I am. Less than 20% of all bloggers are between the ages of 36 and 50.  I’m clearly in the minority.  My hope is that, once dusted off a bit, these old bones will reveal a meaningful construct for women, moms, nonprofit observers, and bon mot consorts.  In other words, I have Tyrannosaurus Rex-sized ambitions and plan to stretch these tiny arms as far as I can.  

I am sincerely grateful for your interest in the blog.  If you like what you read, I hope you’ll follow and subscribe to keep up with the latest prehistoric news!  Meanwhile I’ll keep the travel tips, mom hacks, and nonprofit sector observations coming until the big meteor hits**.

Photos courtesy of rawpixel.com from Pexels.
Nerd Alert!

** The leading theory explaining the extinction of all non-avian dinosaurs is known as the Alvarez Hypothesis. It postulates that a giant meteor hit the Earth about 66 million years ago, perilously altering the atmospheric climate and wiping out the population of terrestrial reptiles. You can read more about it here.

“Here I am. Yes, it’s me.”

Warning: You might learn something from reading this blog. 

I’m not making any promises, but I just can’t resist geeking-out about most things. I tend to simultaneously observe and learn from experiences, and the lessons from those observations are what you’ll find here.  Consider this an exercise in learning from someone else’s mistakes.  Plus, there’s a pretty good chance that you and I have a lot in common.  Or maybe we just have one thing in common and you’ve visited this blog on a very specific mission.  In any case, welcome to Being Bon Mot!

Being Bon Mot (name explained here…) is a blog about nearly every aspect of the things I love in life, but it centers on my parenting follies, my love of traveling with my family, and my life as a college professor.  Being Bon Mot is an outlet for observations about the world around us. It’s more real life than life style.  Mostly this blog will serve as an affirmation for that insatiable voice inside your head that searches for a greater understanding of mid-life adulting challenges and triumphs, solved one mommy hack at a time. It’s a quest for the silver lining in all things.

Who am I?

My name is Alicia Schortgen, and you can blame me for Being Bon Mot.  I’m a 40-something mom who lives in Dallas, Texas with two kids, a great husband, a too-often messy house, and a full-time job.  Actually, if you account for time and effort, being a mom is my full-time job. Being a college professor is my side hustle.  Don’t worry – I’m well aware that I’m a blogging dinosaur.  I also know how much time people like me spend searching for a representative voice in a sea of relative online youth.  We Pinterest and Google and Facebook like teenagers even though we know better than to rely on social media for validation.

Interestingly enough, I do spend a lot of time around teenagers, but I’ve tried my best to stop acting like them.  I teach nonprofit studies at Southern Methodist University, and I love that I get to introduce my students to ideas about charity that sometimes challenge their conventional notions of doing good in the community.  So Being Bon Mot is also about my expertise in all things nonprofit – from vetting charitable organizations, to finding a place to volunteer, to rocking your time serving on the PTA.  I explore the perils of college life with the benefit of hindsight and write about the real lessons we can all learn from time spent on campus.

I love to travel – by land and sea and air!  You’ll see lots of posts about Disney travel and trips to Colorado because I’m mouse and mountain obsessed.  I’ve planned no less than a hundred million Disney trips for friends for fun (bring me a latte and I’ll wake up early to snag FastPasses with you!), and those efforts served as one of the catalysts for starting this blog.  I’ll go most anywhere anytime I can, and I live to experience new places through the eyes of my children.  I’ve been known to drive cross-country for several weeks over summer break making frequent stops along the way; suffice it to say that I’m not afraid of road trips.

Mostly, I am a foil of myself.  In other words, I constantly suffer from an identity crisis.  I am both the protagonist and antagonist in the story of my life.  I listen to NPR and love hip hop music. I read The Economist and People magazine weekly.  I watch the Real Housewives and Sunday morning political shows with the same enthusiasm.  I’m a college professor who appreciates a great pair of shoes.  And I try to bring all of these perspectives into what I share here in a quasi-Shakespearian attempt to present the world as I see it.

Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence.
-Abigail Adams

Why Bon Mot?

What’s in a name?

Welcome to Being Bon Mot! I’m very excited to begin this web logging journey, and I’m so grateful that you’ve taken the time to visit.  Regardless of how you came upon this blog, you’re probably wondering about the genesis of the bon mot (pronounced “bahn mo”) part of Being Bon Mot. In this post, we’ll explore my blog naming journey and seek to justify its relative obscurity.

I’m so glad you asked!

Before dipping my toe into this icy lifestyle blogging water, I did a lot of research. A lot of research – I even read some real, tactile, non-digital books.  I scoured Pinterest and other blog sites for tips, tricks, and pitfalls (I’ve listed some of my favorites at the end of this post.). All of these sites were unanimous on one thing – your blog name matters.  Sure, lots of other things matter almost as much, but your identity is forever.  “Don’t be too specific,” they say.  “Don’t be too obscure,” they warned.  “Your URL is key,” they insisted.  So how did I end up at Being Bon Mot?

Truth be told, most all of the good blog and web addresses are taken (or at least the most obvious ones I dreamed up).  It is 2018 after all.  I’m not the proverbial canary in the blogging coal mine here.  Many have flown fearlessly into these dark and treacherous conditions before me and swiped all of the clever monikers in their tiny beaks. They’re certainly well-deserved after helping pave the way for the likes of me.  While the blog-naming voyage was much less suffocating, the challenge did seem perilous at times – conjure a brand, business, and blog name fit to survive uncertain conditions.

Pardon my French – Arriving at the Nom De Guerre

Bon Mot is clearly a French term.  Quite literally it translates to “right or good word.”  But let’s get one thing clear right now – I don’t speak French. Not even a little bit.  I can’t even ask where the bathroom is in Paris or how to get to the train station in Lyon.  The longest French phrase I know comes from “Lady Marmalade” and shouldn’t be uttered in mixed company.  And I’m not a Francophile.  Don’t get me wrong, I have absolutely nothing against French people, French speakers, or France writ large, but my enthusiasm for all things French is passive at best.

So, what about Being Bon Mot?  Why start this journey in the taxonomy of relative obscurity?  The answer lies somewhere between my idiosyncratic interests and intellectual pursuits.  So, what do Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, Bill Bryson, and the Cheshire Cat have in common?  They’re all bon mot.  As a matter of fact, most of my favorite historical figures, authors, and even on-screen characters are often described as being bon mot.  My near-fangirl interest in Ben Franklin first exposed me to the term as he’s quintesentially bon mot.  And while I wouldn’t dare compare my work ethic to that of Hamilton, my turn of phrase to Bill Bryson, or my cleverness to the Cheshire Cat, that’s what I aspire to. That’s what this blog seeks to accomplish – to explore clever observations about my adventures (nay mis-adventures) in travel, parenting, teaching, volunteering, and life in general.  Being Bon Mot is meeting our most amazing experiences and unexpected challenges with an intelligent retort and witty riposte. Or as Mr. Franklin quipped more aptly: “Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.”

I hope you’ll find what you’re looking for here, and if you don’t, please email me or comment with questions and post ideas.

A Few of My Favorite Blogs on Blogging

Mostlymorgan.com

Heytherechelsie.com

Classycareergirl.com

Chicfetti.com