Krista Conway

One of my competitors recently bashed me (yet again… what’s new?) and stated that she knew my business was failing because I opened another website. She then commented and said I was a fraud because my t-shirt company is just “one of her many businesses.” You can always tell those who are limited in skill and knowledge by how hard ...

Templeton Thompson once said that she “needs 10,000 angels and a horse that can fly.” I can tell you the last day I spent riding a horse. The actual DATE. Most likely because on the way home from the ride I learned my great-grandma had passed away, but the year is embarrassing for a person who loves riding and has ...

Our Summer line-up is just going up on our LinemenRock.com website and I must say, it’s looking good! We’ve added a flowy open back tee featuring our linewife and lineman’s lady designs from our favorite supplier, Bella. Bella products are soft and made with amazing products so the end result is a super soft, super flowy and super comfortable, yet ...

Last year we had $5 bucks to sticker your trucks for Memorial Day weekend. This year, we’re doing it a little different. NOT only can you sticker your truck for  $5 during Memorial Day weekend (May 25th, 26th and 27th), now through Monday May 27th you can also enter  our Memorial Day Giveaway for a chance to win a $250 ...

I rarely get to travel as a social media guru/geek simply because, well, there’s no need. Everything I do as a social media manager, I can do from my office. But, now and then, it’s important to actually BE there. Once a year I travel to Los Angeles for the Pregnancy Awareness Month event. I almost always have the good ...

Let’s face it. Anyone who has ever hired a freelance social media manager has most likely interviewed or even hired one who just didn’t get it. Since 2008 I have worked as a SMM for clients all over the world and have had the, um, pleasure of working with many SMMs who didn’t get it and many who did. (Might ...

Since 2011 I have been communicating on behalf of an especially amazing company called Pregnancy Awareness Month. Through Tweets and Facebook posts, guest blog posts and Twitter parties I have come to love this community of people who work so diligently to bring so much to pregnancy, birth, education, nutrition and more. I have come to love this community and ...

The Columbus Zoo was hopping on the day Ian’s class had their field trip. The animals were enjoying the afternoon sun after a light rain created animal-pleasing humidity. As you can see in the photos .. all of the animals were out to play and were totally cheesing it up.

I have been  a freelancer for almost 10 years. Having said that, I am happily building a line of shirts for those of you freelancers who are proud of what you do and want to show it off. Introducing my first shirt for freelancers… American Freelancer.

My new Proud Lineman’s Mom shirt now up on Linemen Rock. A special thank you to my designer for helping with this one!!

It seems as though my shy little 7 year old is bound and determined to go down a path I didn’t expect for him. After the 2nd round of WEXCR races, Ethan is now ranked 1st in his little class and 3rd overall against kids that are as much as three years older than him. Despite not knowing those facts, ...

Seven. Ethan has found his “style.” Photo taken with an iPhone 5 and edited with Instagram. @KristaConway

I am still trying to fall in love with Shopify. You can read my blog post about all of that here. Part of trying to fall in love involves using the apps as much as I can. Although, I have to admit that I also complained about the fees associated with the apps that are required in order to gain ...

We started with WordPress… When I opened my t-shirt company in January of 2012 I originally attempted to use WordPress with an ecommerce plugin. I attempted it because I have used WordPress for years and am extremely comfortable with it. I felt that the tools it offered would do what I needed it to do. Just 12 or so orders ...

This was our first year making shirts for St. Patrick’s Day for Linemen Rock and I have to admit, it was a lot of fun…. and I didn’t expect the response we received. This year our shirts featured a four leaf clover with a lineman and our Irish Linewife and Lineman’s Lady shirts featured a pole with a lineman and ...

Well, this is the cat. The cat that has been shoved in a bag with duct tape around it’s mouth for nearly three months as we worked to get our logo created, trademark filed and state paperwork done. The cat’s name: Teeaholic. For the last year we have been beyond blessed by our company, Linemen Rock, a venture that would have never ...

All through grade school and high school my friend Niki and I talked about what we would do when we got out of school. I moved out of town the moment I could and lost track of most of my hometown friends, but have reconnected with so many of them via Facebook. Niki is one of them. When we reconnected ...

In an age when we DVR past commercials, most brands understand that a Super Bowl commercial spot will be watched by millions. It’s their chance to be clever, capture attention, gain brand recognition, get people talking and boost post-holiday sales. Why? The Super Bowl has become nearly as much (if not more) about the ads than about the game itself. ...

The path to where I am today fell together so methodically that it’s almost hard to look back without thinking there was divine intervention. I mean, I was going to be a 19 year old bride. I was moving away from home. I had worked three years at Elder Beerman, 6 months at a horse barn and 6 months at ...

First things first. I am not photogenic. Nope, nope. Have you ever seen a movie star on the red carpet and noticed how they almost always turn their head a certain way? They are doing that to create an angle that the camera will love, therefore increasing their photogenic-ocity (that’s a word now because I said so) and producing amazing ...

I have been following a “mom blogger” out of curiosity for quite some time. I couldn’t figure out why her blog, Twitter and Facebook pages were seemingly so popular. Then, she opened a secondary blog which launched and then soared to a <150k Alexa almost instantly. Impossible, right? I guess not. So, looking at the numbers, her lack of what ...

I keep trying to catch an amazingly brilliant red cardinal, but as soon as I open the window, he hides. This little doll isn’t afraid and happily lets me snap her photo from just 5 feet away. I figured she deserved some attention since she was so willing to strike a pose.

I took some time to think about 2012 and all of the events that happened in those short 12 months. While I sat and thought about all that had happened, good, bad and ugly, I laughed at myself… one key lesson I learned in 2012 was to let things go and here I was thinking it all through again. The ...

We woke up to about 6 inches of snow this morning. It seems like it’s been years since we had this much snow in December. I can’t wait to get out and snap some shots of the local scenery, for now, around my house will have to do.

I have spent most of the morning talking to other linewives about line work. No, we aren’t linemen, but some of us are married to linemen who talk about their work. Since 1997 I have listened to stories, first it was the stories my father-in-law would tell about working in Kentucky during a blizzard or greasing door handles and then ...

Have you ever made a New Years Resolution only to break it before February? Surely not, right? Even if you are the worlds most-likely-not-to-break-a-resolution queen (or king), chances are you are thinking about something to resolute-to-do right this moment. For me, it’s chocolate. I totally need to eat more of it. Once I eat enough chocolate to satisfy me, I ...

I have accepted the fact that I miss photography. In fact, I miss it like you would miss a lost dog or a friend you haven’t seen for a while. I miss it so bad, it literally hurts. This time last year I was determined to continue to dabble in photography while expanding my marketing business and then … I ...

If you own a computer, you most likely own some version of Photoshop. If you’re like me, I have photoshop on every computer, along with a host of actions that quickly edit photos to make them look a specific way. If you aren’t sure how to install actions, or don’t want to drop the money for them, you can quickly ...

Are you scrambling for that last-minute gift? This year buy a gift that supports a line family. Each of the featured products in this years guide are sold by a lineman’s wife. Hurry while supplies last. First on our list, Amanda’s aprons. I have one of her apron’s in my kitchen and one in my shop. Read up on the ...

Is your lineman’s company having a holiday party and you don’t know what to wear? We want you to be confident when you walk through those doors. Here are four outfits to choose from depending on the feel of the party. Are you going casual? Choose from one of these two outfits. Source: repinly.machsrichtig.com via Chelsea on Pinterest   Source: ...

Are you working on a logo or website and aren’t sure what colors you should use? Have you ever wondered why certain types of companies almost always have similar colored logos? It’s all about impression … and the psychology of color. Check out this infograph from Painters of Louisville. When you look at the feelings provoked through various colors, you ...

Thanksgiving has always been a big deal in our family. Until a couple of years ago my small family gathered for a huge meal at one of our family members homes. For the last two years we have had family meals at our home with my husband, our three sons and my mom. We maintain our tradition of preparing the ...

Dear People Magazine, I loved your recent article about heroes emerging after Sandy turned superstorm hit the East coast. I completely agree with your article and understand that there will always be a time when heroes emerge due to these unforeseen events. But I wanted to point out another hero that People and seemingly every other news organization (not to ...

So this is totally cool. I stumbled onto the Rebel Mouse today when I was stalking Gary Vaynerchuk. He announced a website update and I immediately noticed that someone suggested it looked “just like Rebel Mouse” .. so naturally I had to check it out for myself. Knowing that Gary is running on WordPress (okay, maybe this is an educated ...

The Harder You Work, The Luckier You Get This pin is really an affirmation to myself that the work I have done this year didn’t just happen. It took a lot of work and long hours to get where we are today. AND today, we hit a major milestone. A milestone that confirms so many ideas. This has been an ...

After Hurricane Sandy turned Superstorm pummeled the East coast last week, Athena now follows the storm with a nor’easter that is bringing high winds, rain and snow fall to the area. The outages have started to increase as some areas experience 45 mph winds and others up to 12 inches of snow. Hundreds of thousands of people who have been ...

I will keep this answer short and sweet…. YES! According to Wikipedia’s Industrial Revolution article… “The Industrial Revolution marks a major turning point in human history; almost every aspect of daily life was influenced in some way. Most notably, average income and population began to exhibit unprecedented sustained growth.” Freelancing and using the internet to work from home will undoubtedly ...

How do you pick just a few photos to print when your kiddos are so use to playing along that a good dozen or two turn out printable? Maybe it’s just the mom in me going “Awe!!” but I really love these photos. They capture so much personality of who my kiddos really are ranging from the handsome little men ...

Linemen Rock has introduced their 2012 Hurricane Sandy lineman storm shirt. With the words Frankenstorm across the front of the shirt, the design features a storm brewing behind a bridge, the bridge turns into lines and there is a lineman silhouette beside a strange face or skull that appears out of the clouds. The term Frankenstorm was coined because of ...

After Hurricane, turned Superstorm Sandy hit the East earlier this week, it left between 6 and 7 million people without power, many without homes and the East coast forever changed. The recent update of total outages looks somewhere around 2.5 million. Linemen from as far away as California were flown in to help restore power to the millions of residents ...

I have been told I am “all over the place” with my business. The people that have told me that know nothing about me. I actually laugh a little and wait for the smile I am feeling on the inside to appear, well, on the outside. The reason I smile is because no one ever told me I had to ...

  Did you know that you can censor your businesses Facebook page? Oh yes. You can. It’s important in a world where kids and adults collide. Where spammers have no issue with posting “I make $4,o00 a month from home.” ads and where people with, shall we say, a limited vocabulary, use words that may not be positive for your ...

The short answer is YES. Yes, Y.E.S., YES, Yes! It’s not enough to have a profile on a freelancing job board. Not. Enough. People might find you there but what if you want to spread your details across a few job boards? Are you going to spend the time it takes to continually update your profile, upload new items into ...

Some of you reading this may already know that I own a little website called Linemen Rock. It’s a lineman t-shirt website I started building last fall and launched in January. Basically, long story short, I started it because I was burnt out on marketing, had spent 5 years operating a linewife support group and didn’t see anything available for ...

According to TechCrunch, Ebay has started beta testing a new Elance rival in the UK called Secret Guru. Add Secret Guru to the ever growing list of Ebay properties the likes of Paypal, the former Kijiji, StubHub (all aquired by Ebay after they were created) and others and it’s just another step in the popular services direction. Elance, the site I ...

When it comes to kiddos, fall and photography, you can’t pass up a pumpkin patch. This is a reblogged session of Joseph & Isabelle. These kiddos weren’t sure if they wanted to participate but it didn’t take the pumpkins long to butter them up and get them smiling. Here are just a few of the shots from the pumpkin patch ...

Just like most wedding photographers, I like to know a little about the seniors in front of my camera. As you can see here, we started out in a place that was green and pretty and ended up at an industrial park. It was all part of capturing who this kid was. His name is Michael, btw. ; ) Anywho. ...

I often hear women talking about how they “wish” they could use their skills, interest or hobbies to have a work-from-home job. Most women I know desire to be home with their kiddos, BUT so many more also want to have something that is theirs … a job, a career, an income. In this world most of us have been ...

When I started managing social media accounts in 2008 I could see it growing to what it is today (trust me, this is only the beginning). I tackled it like a traditional marketing campaign back then, using many of the rules of engagement with social media as I did with print, billboard and radio. Today there are so many statistics ...

We stumbled into Chalk The Block at Easton Town Center today. Two small blocks were dedicated to the challenge, in which a winner would be chosen. Several children had taken some chalk to add their sidewalk chalk ideas in between the designs. Many of the artists had their names and websites listed on cards beside their designs. Finally, I must ...

Raising kiddos in an iPhone world means most of our memories are on a mobile device. This weekend I decided to start carrying my Canon 60D to my kiddos games so I could get some shots that would be hi-res keepsakes. I can’t zoom in half way across a field with my iphone and get these kinds of photos, afterall. ...

I have spent to much time lately with my camera in my camera bag. I have been itching to pull her out and capture moments that are far to important or formal for an iPhone. Yesterday as the boys were working on homework, writing their names and coloring the words of Jasmine Star started to swirl around in my head. ...

    Thousands of trucks and linemen have been pouring into Florida this week while anticipating Tropical Storm Isaac to make landfall there. While the current outage numbers for Florida Power and Light are around 15,000, Tropical Storm Isaac is now expected to become a Category 1, possibly a Category 2 Hurricane and make landfall in the Gulf while the ...

I love when I get to play with my camera and create memories and keepsakes. This session was done last year and this baby is now several months old, but as I reblog all of my photography sessions, I have to admit that this one is one of my favorites simply because I love baby bumps.

    If you are looking for a timeline profile to show off your linewife pride or if you are a lineman’s mom, lineman’s girlfriend, etc., you can download these timeline photos to upload to your Facebook page. Just right click on the image and save it to your computer and then upload to your timeline banner. To choose the ...

No matter why your Facebook profile needs to become a page, the steps to get it done are rather simple. Step One: Download Your Data, News Feed Loss & Other Bitter Details When you convert your profile to a page you will lose data on your personal account that is not supported. You will not be able to browse your ...

Finally, they get it.  

Not to long ago I was at Easton Towne Center, a upper-scale shopping center in Columbus, Ohio, when a kid in his early twenties drove by in a brand newLamborghini. Some teens on the sidewalk started cackling at him and throwing their hands up while yelling things like “Take your daddies car back home.” and “Must be nice to have ...

  The simple answer is yes, but we can’t stop with a simple answer, now can we? If you haven’t seen what’s been happening with India’s power grid failure over the last few weeks, you can’t help but look at the aging power grid here in the United States. While our grid has been a huge topic for discussion since ...

Trash The Dress has quickly become one of my favorite styles of photography, mostly because you can be daring and creative all at the same time. I had the pleasure of photographing these two girls a year ago and everytime I look at these shots I remember wading through waist deep water to get to the location of most of ...

Last week I held a little contest on my Lineman Rock facebook page. What unfolded was simply amazing. I watched as a good dozen or so people posted photos of various things. Some of the most amazing were Instagram photos that had been slightly edited, but there were a few that caught my attention and left me wondering if it ...

I had the opportunity to go to Urban Farmhouse sans kids, so I grabbed my camera expecting to be enchanted. I was. This interior is amazing. It’s so clean and fresh and vintage and relaxing that I expected two trees and a fabulous hammock in the back of the store. What you see here is just a slice of Urban ...

Here we go again. I am starting to feel like the weather girl. Another round of storms are predicted and yet another “Derecho” … a storm that is only suppose to happen once in a hundred years has mysteriously hit twice and now threatens a third time. According to Weather.com this next round is expected to bring a wide swath ...

When I was 18 and dating my lineman I never realized what it would mean for my life and our family. No one told me that there would be storms that would take him away from me for months at a time. No one said I would be a nearly-single mom. The first time he was gone for any period ...

  This fall we’re expecting earthy tones with a splash of vintage, tribal and animal prints to take center stage. Our favorite fashion resource, www.Polyvore.com is already starting to show signs of what is to come this fall as stores begin to bring in fall styles. As seen in the photo here, boots, scarves and accessories will be the must-haves ...

This time last  year I was working crazy hours for a solid dozen clients. I had nearly 30 girls on my virtual team and together we were pumping out an unbelievable amount of marketing material for clients across the world. I had also seen that the work and the hours had caused me to begin to dislike my passion. I ...

In any given year a lineman can spend more than half of his time sleeping (or working through the night) away from home. That means that those of us at home are left to wonder and worry. Sleepless nights are common in the powerline industry – both for the linemen and their significant others. The following are a few tips ...

  Just a few days ago we were talking about the drought conditions in Ohio. We checked the radar on Tuesday and it told us there was a 30% chance of rain on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. By Wednesday night it was showing a sun and cactus for Friday and Saturday with no rain and a 30% chance of rain ...

  Fresh strawberries are oh so yummy when they are picked fresh from the field. Most of the time we plop them in a bowl of sugar and spread them over a store bought shortcake, but that isn’t how we do it over here. No way. This receipe will make it easy for you to take a great strawberry shortcake ...

Powerline Wives have been using old insulators for candle holders and cross arms for clothes lines for decades, but many artists and vintage shops have started to create and sell crafty pieces from the material our husbands toss in the dumpster every day. Check out some of the crafty and creative uses for our husbands every day work tools below. ...

Just to get this out of the way… my answer to this is: 100% YES. Absolutely. Without question. Get started right now! When you are a stay at home mom, you give things up so you can be with your kids. We all understand that when we decide to stay home. We rely on our husbands income and health insurance ...

Whether your lineman is a contractor that travels to where the work is or a company man pulling over 1,000 hours a year in overtime, being a wife and mom in the line world can leave you feeling like you are … well, single. For most of us being a practically-single linewife was challenging enough. Sitting at home during month-long out-of-state ...

If you’re like most of us with kiddos, Summer vacation is all about pools, vacations and trips to the park, but when you’re married to a lineman summers can become a web of unpredictability. I can’t recall how many times we have been ready to leave for the zoo or the ocean or the park, only for him to get ...

In 2004 Florida was hit by three hurricanes …. and then a fourth. After the third hurricane hit, my husband, father-in-law and truck loads of friends headed to Florida to help with the debris, power and home damage. I put in my two week notice at work, a corporate marketing job that I loved, and headed south. Two weeks after ...

For the first 5 years of our marriage it was just the two of us. He was a contractor and was fortunate to show up in the same city (although they did move locations) that was around an hour away from home. He was home every night except for when storms would hit. I jokingly printed out a US map ...

When people think about potential complications of having their power out, most of the time they’re thinking about being cold. Having been trapped in a house with no heat in the middle of December, with two kids and a newborn baby to boot, I can sympathize. However, when the electricity goes out in the summer and there’s nothing powering your ...

You can talk about power lines in the road. You can talk about power lines in your house. You can talk about power lines on your car. Regardless of where they happen to be, if they’re not up in the air where they belong you’ve got a problem. A big one. One that not only needs to be addressed as ...

School is important; it helps us learn the things we need to be successful in life. It teaches us valuable skills that we can take with us later. After high school, many people go on to college or trade school. Here they gain the information necessary to pursue their chosen career path. There are a wide variety of options available ...

You may have talked to someone who said that he was a lineman. If you’re like a lot of people, you probably thought he meant he was a football player. Chances are good that you were actually talking to someone who is a power lineman. What is a lineman? Have you ever seen a bucket truck with the electric company’s ...

Did you learn to drive, cook or tie your shoes by yourself? Would they let a “Surgeon” perform brain surgery if he said he was self-taught? Probably not. So maybe freelancing or working from home isn’t as simple as tying your shoes or as complex as brain surgery, but it still falls somewhere in between and in my opinion, that ...

According to 20 Something Finance in an article they published last year, the top 10 occupations hit by layoffs were mostly construction trades and factory jobs. The government has seen this over and over again and has a system in place to retrain them and find them jobs fairly quickly. But, the group not mentioned on the list 20 Something Finance ...

The number of jobs created by the social media phenomenon is growing every day. The first time interviewed for a social media job was in 2006! Every major corporation has at least one (and often a team) social media managers monitoring, planning and preparing their social media campaigns every day. Actually, it goes back to the days of MySpace. Yes, ...

We’ve all experienced the moment when we realize we let our guard down, but it’s to late. Whether it’s the seat belt you weren’t wearing when you were in a car accident or the alarm that wasn’t set when someone broke into your house, we, as humans, get tired of taking precautions. Our brains tell us “it will never happen ...

Tip #2 Never Jump Into Anything … Know what you’re up against. Know what you’ll need to invest. Make a decision. Then … JUMP. You’ve probably heard the expression “don’t jump into it” … and a work at home business is one of those things that require sticky feet. SO many people jump into selling another companies product or into ...

Finding Apprentice Lineman Positions in this economy can be difficult for those that are fresh out of high school or training programs. Seemingly there is a large community willing to help apprentices find work. Many companies value apprentices and frequently scout line schools for fresh apprentices that are excelling or showing a certain level of skills. Many of the most ...

In the world of online press releases, there are two ways to get your news out – free PR sites and news wire sites that actually have credibility and publish to the actual news wire. FREE PRESS RELEASE WEBSITES Free press release sites are used for organizations, companies and individuals that do not want to spend money or are looking ...

This is the first in a series of blog posts about how to work from home successfully. Watch the blog for additions to this series. This series was developed with the idea that little bits of information can become large sources of great ideas and inspiration. My book (not yet published as of this post) is also written in the ...

I have always believed that in order to be successful at any work at home business, you have to LOVE ALL of what you are doing. I have seen SO many people buy into cosmetics and candle businesses over the years that hated selling. It’s easy to see that you are doing make-up or doing candles and miss that you ...

The powerline industry has welcomed www.LinemenRock.com as the newest resource for unique, funny and meaningful lineman apparel with staggering sales in the first 6 weeks after officially opening. Linemen Rock, which is owned and operated by a lineman’s wife, was created with the goal of supporting the line industry with a fresh perspective and new products. Linemen Rock was the ...

When storms come through town. When there’s a foul wind blowing. When the unexpected goes wrong. You wind up with a power line down in the middle of the road, or in the middle of your yard. The question is, what do you do about it. Rule #1: Always Assume That There’s Electricity Running Through It Even if every house ...

Bottles and baby formula aren’t usually the first thing on your list of concerns when the power goes out. In fact, until you’re holding a fussy baby in one arm and an empty bottle in the other, it’s probably not even a blip on your radar. When Hurricane Katrina came rolling through town, I was living down south. The power ...

Everyone jokes about the good old days. The days when we didn’t have electricity. When the family would sit around the fireplace in the evening popping popcorn and telling ghost stories. I don’t know about you, but that’s not usually what it looks like when the power goes out at my house. I can say what I want about not ...

For the last year I have had the great pleasure of working with Pregnancy Awareness Month and their co-founder Alisa Donner both as their social media manager and as an advisor. When I learned of Pregnancy Awareness Month I immediately went to their website to learn more about it. I was three children into being a mom and knew that ...

Horror stories and cautionary tales of what to do when the power goes out are almost as legendary as what happens on Elm Street. That doesn’t mean that most of us listen. Or that we do what we need to do to make sure we’re prepared for a power outage. When those lights go out in a storm, that’s a ...

According to various sources, nearly 30,000 remain without power going into Wednesday night after the winter snow storm that dumped several feet of snow in northern Michigan. Thousands more wait for linemen to rebuild lines in the midwest after last weeks out break of tornadoes leveled entire areas and left thousands more without power. Those who have seen the devastation ...

Watching footage of the storms that hit the country in the last two days is nothing short of heart breaking. There are entire cities gone at this point. We have heard more than one lineman say that they haven’t seen damage like this since Hurricane Katrina. Thousands of linemen have headed to the areas affected. AS OF THIS POST 43 ...

A massive storm system moving across the United States is spawning tornados once again. As of this post, two confirmed touchdowns have been reported with many threats still posted on various news websites. Many linemen have been placed on standby and are ready to roll out to various areas getting the worst of the system. Alerts for high winds for ...

Thousands of linemen are headed to the midwest to restore power after a powerful storm system touched down nearly a dozen tornadoes and took nearly 20,000 customers out. As of this morning Ameren had just over 2,000 out, LG&E nearly 2300, Appalachian Power just over 3,000, Empire 2,330 and a few others with several hundred out across the midwest.   ...

Nothing quite propels a family to make preparations for coping with an emergency like spending a few hours in a house with a rambunctious child – or two – and no electricity. Once experienced, this kind of situation is usually met with the thought that it will never happen again. It only takes a few moments to gather games, books ...

We’ve all been there.  There’s a thunderstorm, an ice storm, maybe a blizzard.  It isn’t as if it popped up out of nowhere.  The weatherman probably warned us about it, and we saw the sky change outside our window.   We might have had a fleeting thought of preparation, like ‘where are the flashlights?’ But no matter how much warning we ...