Shortly after starting the blog, my husband closed his business and our household income immediately dried up.  We went from a husband working and stay at home mom family to an unemployed family to a 2 parent working from home family.  Our lives faced many challenges, primarily financially.  Throughout these changes and challenges I continued to blog.  It forced me to focus on the positive and to continue to learn new skills.  It was a productive outlet for me.

At the end of 2008 and the first 6 weeks of 2009, our financial challenges reached the bottom. We had filed bankruptcy, which was finalized and we lost everything that was worth anything financially, including our house and home of 11 years.  We moved into a rental house.  Lee and I began cleaning houses and repairing computers to make ends meet and earn money to pay for the basic utilities and roof over our head.  At that time I began to blog about about what we were going through financially.  So many others are facing a difficult time due to the recession and I wanted to show that you can keep the what matters most:  faith in God, love of family.  All the other things are truly the icing on the cake of life.  They are truly things.  Things that can be lost or broken, sold or given away.

At the end of 2008, I also got involved in 2 new groups online called Smart Girl Politics and Top Conservatives on Twitter. They were ways I could combine my geeky love of technology with my passion for politics.  I wound up being on the board of Smart Girl Politics and met some incredible conservative online women.  Politics are a HUGE part of my life but one that I have stayed away from for the most part on this blog.

So, in February of 2009, I began a blog series called Surviving Financial Disaster, which I planned to launch in conjunction with 5 Minutes for Mom Blog Party.  Also, in February, 2009, we moved from our home of 11 years to a rental house.  Then, Rick Santelli who is on CNBC had the rant that changed the world and truly changed my life.  He complained about the government bailouts.  Finally, in 2009, the Tea Party Movement was born and I co-hosted the Atlanta Tea Party on February 27, 2009 at the Georgia State Capitol in the pouring rain.

I did my best to be a good mom and wife, unpack, keep up with my blog, earn money through cleaning houses and repairing computers, and plan the next Atlanta Tea Party, which was on April 15, 2009.  I’m not sure that I did very many of those things as I would have liked to do.  I did keep the kids’ life normal and their teacher said they did not change at all during the time we moved, so the most important job was done well.  My husband knows I volunteer for everything, understands and shares my passion for politics so we had not problems.  The Atlanta Tea Party went well. It was the largest gathering at the State Capitol that the State Capitol Police had ever seen. Sean Hannity broadcast his show live from the event.  A moment was turning into a movement.

Unpacking, nesting, blogging, and rebuilding our financial lives, those things I did not do so well.  I do not regret what I did but I do accept that I did not live up to my goals in those areas.  My life was becoming more public and less private and I stopped blogging to keep some of my life private.  Plus, I was literally up 20 – 22 hours a day and simply did not have the will to sacrifice anything else to blog.  The house felt temporary so packing and settling in did not rank high on the list of priorities.  My husband began taking on most of the work so I could focus on building the Tea Party Movement.

A handful of those involved in the Tea Parties founded Tea Party Patriots and were National Coordinators. The hours have not let up and the work to build an organization and support structure around the movement that already had over 1.2 million people was and still is tremendous.  Other things have changed as well:  I’ve been on television, emceed a crowd of 1.7 million in DC, become an event planner, given public speeches on a regular basis, attended countless protests and became a protester, and traveled the country promoting fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government, and free markets.  It is a labor of love: love of country, love of liberty, and love of future generations.

I do not blog as much as I did a year and half ago but I have met the most incredible people who share a passion for politics.  People who love America, our liberty, and our Constitution as much as Lee and I do.  I am not a stay at home mom anymore but I am a mom, which at one point seemed an impossibility in our lives due to infertility. I do not read as many tech blogs as I once did but I am working with others to apply current technology to Tea Party Patriots.

So, while we do not live in the same house or have the same lifestyle as when this blog started, I still have the most important aspects of my life in place:  God, my incredibly loving and patient husband, our twins who are a blessing in our lives every single day.  We live in the greatest country with the liberty to truly make your life what you want it to be.

This Thursday, April 15th, 2010 I will speak at the Tax Day Rally in Atlanta at the Capitol building.  This Atlanta Tea Party is hosted by the Atlanta Tea Party Patriots.

If you’re into this sort of thing and you’re in the area, please come join us.

Well, it may be possible for you to improve your computing experience without forking over the cash for a whole new computer. There’s a good chance your computer has expansion slots that will allow you to add more memory (RAM). Adding more memory will allow you to open larger files, deal with more files simultaneously, and run more advanced software. And memory is very inexpensive right now. So it’s a good time to buy.

I recommend visiting the website http://crucial.com/. This site has a handy tool that will scan your machine and tell you how much memory can be added to your motherboard. It will also give you several options and the ability to order it online. But you can also buy your memory at most office supply stores.

If you’re comfortable opening up your computer and plugging in a new chip, take a look at this video for a basic walk-through of how to add memory to a computer.

I hope you found this post helpful. Check out today’s Works for Me Wednesday for other money saving tips from fellow bloggers.

I began reading it immediately in the car while my husband drove us to dinner. I even sneaked in a few pages at the dinner table while my kids were focused on their pasta and my husband on his baked chicken. They love me and understand my need to read, so they let it slide.

For those of you not familiar with this series of books, they center around a Louisiana girl named Sookie Stackhouse. She lives in present day America with a twist. Vampires exist and, thanks to a synthetic blood that they can drink without killing people, they have gone public in an effort to join mainstream society. Some of them are good, some of them are bad, and there are a lot of other supernatural creatures lurking out there as well. Sookie, of course, is right in the middle of all of them, and it turns out she has some supernatural secrets of her own.

HBO turned the books into a series called True Blood, which is one of the brand names of the synthetic blood, like Coke is to cola.

The series is a little weird, but highly addictive. I recommend ordering all 9 books right away so that you can immediately move from one book into the next without waiting!

The links that you see below are to buy the set of books 1 through 7, then book #8, then the first season DVD from HBO. Happy reading!

Welcome to Jen’s Genuine Life! Let’s Par-tay!!

5 Minutes for Mom is hosting their annual Ultimate Blog Party and I’m so glad you stopped by my blog for a piece of the party action. If you were partying in my house, I’d offer you some of my famous Hot Crab Dip and my All-Time Favorite BBQ Chicken.  Check out the recipes and pretend I did just that.

While you are here, let me tell you a little about myself and my blog.  I live in Georgia, which is known as the Peach State, with my husband and our twins who will be 6 in a week and a half.   Not that anyone around our house is counting, mind you!  We recently moved, have not unpacked completely, and still have lots of boxes in our garage to sort through.  If you were sitting in my house right now, you would see that we have no pictures on the wall but you would probably smell tonight’s dinner in the oven.  We are having Chicken in Cream Sauce, which is an easy to prepare dish that makes the house smell like home.

Here are a few photos of us to give you a sample of our life in pictures.

In the past year, our twins have really grown up. They started kindergarten and have each lost their first tooth.  BTW, our twins are boy-girl which means they are not identical.  Sometimes they say the funniest things, they are very good at make believe, are often too logical, occasionally get sick, and are always sweet and endearing.

In addition to blogging, I enjoy microblogging, and other social networks.  Twitter is by far my favorite new media platform.  (Heard of Twitter but don’t know how to use it?   Check out my Twitter for Dummies post.) I’m JenuineJen on Twitter.  I also enjoy reconnecting with old friends and making lots of new friends with common interests on Facebook as JennyBeth Martin.  I can occasionally be found on LinkedIn, although I only login there about 1 time a week.

My husband and I have been severely affected by the recession and the current economic crisis in America.  Just this week I have rolled out a new blog series called Surviving the Lien Years: Rebuilding after Financial Crisis and Bankruptcy in a Recession.  While the title of the series is heavy and not very party-ish, maybe you will take the time to check it out.  This series is really challenging me as a blogger because I am putting so much more of myself and my life on my blog than I ever have before.  I’d love to hear your comments about the series.

Now that you know a little bit about my blog, you can get more information about the blog and me if from First Time Visitors page.  Here is what you can look forward to in the next week on my blog:

1. Continuation of the Surviving the Lien Years Series
2. Menu Plan Monday
3. 13 Cool Things About the 2010 Taurus Dinner I Attended
4. An Invitation for Georgians to Attend Atlanta’s Tax Day Tea Party
5. A Springtime Word Search for Kids
6. Linky Love Sunday and a Roundup of my Favorite Blogs from the Ultimate Blog Party

This is my second time participating in the Ultimate Blog Party.  Last year I enjoyed the UBP so much that I had to participate again.  While I loved the increased traffic (who doesn’t?), my favorite part was meeting so many other bloggers and checking out so many other cool blogs.  I cannot wait to do that this year.  So, please leave a comment and let me know you stopped by. I will be sure to stop by your blog as well!  Remember to leave your Twitter Id too. If you really like what you see, sign up to have Jen’s Genuine Life delivered right to your inbox.