Squidoo's Rocket Moms

Session 3 of Squidoo’s Rocket Moms ended yesterday and, as far as I know, everybody managed to do the eight lenses to graduate and earn their Rocket Moms graduation badge.

The session lasted for eight weeks and the requirement for graduation was to make eight lenses that fitted the weekly assignment. The assignment was only disclosed on Sunday of each week so that gave us seven days to complete it. Of course, Squidoo is a part time activity for most people and things happen in their lives which sometimes mean they don’t have the time to finish a lens in a week but a member can still graduate as long as she has completed eight lenses by the end of the session.

I found most of the assignments challenging because they took me out of my comfort zone.  The very first assignment, to write about a favourite toy, nearly made me give up immediately. I couldn’t imagine writing about a toy. It took me several days to come up with an idea and the lens, Meccano – One of my Favourite Toys. I really did love playing with my brother’s Meccano set but it was a long time ago so I found it difficult to write.  I must have done OK, though, because it was given a Purple Star.

Crazy Quilts with a Difference

Another assignment that took me a while to decide upon a topic was Your Favourite Decade. The good news was it didn’t have to be a decade we had lived through so I did the 1940s concentrating on Make Do and Mend. That got a Purple Star too as did Crazy Quilts with a Difference in response to the Arts and Crafts assignment.

The funny thing is that these were all the assignments I found most difficult and least wanted to write. Perhaps the fact that I had to work harder on them is what made the difference. I also spent more time thinking about them before I wrote anything at all.

The Rocket Moms experience has been totally positive in spite of my occasional panics each time a new assignment was put in the RM forum. The tutorials put in the forum each week have been enormously helpful too by introducing me to ideas and ways of working I’d never come across before.

I would heartily recommend Rocket Moms to anybody who qualifies – the basic requirements are that you are a Mom (or Mum if you’re English like me) and you’re a member of Squidoo. If you want to learn more about building lenses (web pages) in a supportive environment with a great community, I’d suggest you check it out.