Baby boomers, meet Tina Boomerina. She started a blog for women over 50 (baby boomers) and describes how she started her blog, what she loves most about blogging as a full-time job, and how she stays motivated to keep writing.

“My passion is Boomerinas.com,” says Tina (aka Christina Gregoire). “My website is for baby boomer women who are still trying to figure out what they want to do with their lives…and trying to figure out how to survive getting older without losing it completely.”

Blogging for Baby Boomers – Tina Boomerina

In Q & A interview, Tina describes why she started blogging and what it’s like to write for women over 50 (and yes – she gets bored sometimes! No matter how passionate we are about something, we sometimes struggle with it).

What is your passion? Blogging. My passion is connecting with other women my age through the written word, so… I guess my passion is writing… even though I don’t consider myself a writer. I never wanted to be a writer, because my father was a manic-depressive-the-world-is-all-roses-or-the-world-is-all-manure kind of guy. So, who would want to follow in his footsteps? My dad wrote for television, then he wrote and burned a manuscript for a novel (the only existing copy), then… I’m not sure what he did next… but his talent did not bring him fame and fortune. So, I decided to take my artistic temperament and make myself into a painter rather than a writer. I sold some paintings, but I didn’t have the talent or the connections to go very far, so I finally decided to end that hobby.

Then, when I lost my “real” job about five years ago, I decided to try writing for a website that was advertising for authors. There was, however, one minor obstacle… I knew absolutely nada about writing online content. My grammar was half “American”, half Canadian, and half made up on the fly. So, I spent many moons experimenting with a zillion new things in a crazy attempt to discover how to write articles that Google would find and that people would read… and, I must admit that it was a steep learning curve. Anyway, as soon as I developed an audience, blogging… or writing… or talking to my imaginary, online friends… my baby boomer blog became my true passion.

So, I started my own website and it was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made in my life. I finally got to be my own boss and no one could tell me what to write or how to say what I wanted to say or tell me when it was time to work or when it was time to watch a disk of Downton Abbey. And, this may sound weird, but one of the things I love about my baby boomer blog is putting my story… my own history… “out there” into the public arena. Hey, when you’re writing about your own life, you’re subjecting yourself to possible ridicule… but I love doing it.

Why would anyone be comfortable making fun of their own history? Well… I come from an immigrant family that hated women because male children were the only offspring worthy of respect. It’s a lot of fun to write about all the crazy things that have happened in my life… intertwining little snipes into my nostalgia articles and my stories about baby boomer pop culture and whatever else I feel like writing about.

I love having my own baby boomer blog. My mother and my brother can tell me I’m stupid all they want, but they don’t even know how to turn on a computer. And, they could never figure out how to get thousands of readers to a website. I’m sure I’ll never be famous because I started writing right before I turned 60… but I can always think of Grandma Moses and use her as my muse.

Do you ever get bored with blogging? Yes, of course I get bored with it – even though it’s my passion! I get bored with blogging about fashion for women over 50… and fashion is one of my favorite subjects because I get to make fun of the horrid jeans and swimsuits and dresses that manufacturers and fashion designers try to market to “mature” women. C’mon… the swimdresses I see online look like the miniskirts we used to wear in the 60s. The jeans that are made for baby boomer women are either too tight in the tummy (for me and other apple-shaped chicks) or they’re too loose in the tummy (for pear-shaped and hourglass-shaped chicks). Can’t we come to a consensus and make different types of clothing for different types of bodies?

However, blogging about fashion for older women is interesting because I’m always attempting to walk a fine line. On the one hand, baby boomers are bratty and they’re used to manufacturers offering them whatever they want – from Beatle Boots to Beemers to bathtubs with doors. And, now, if I may speak on behalf of baby boomer women, “the powers that be” are trying to sell us plastic purses, pitiful clothing, and preposterous CD rates. So, along with all these ridiculous changes that I’ve seen in the past 10 years, I’m trying to convince adult women not to wear clothing that should be hanging in a trendy, 15-year-old’s closet or in a senile, 90-year-old’s dusty old wardrobe. But, I’m also hoping that women in my age bracket will continue to do their best to look hip and current.

Have you made mistakes with your blog? Sure. I’m in trouble all the time. I was born into a family that hates girls and I was the firstborn… so I was supposed to be the son of God or something… but I was born without a package. Well, maybe you want to know if I’ve ever gotten into trouble when I’ve experimented with fashion. And, the answer is a definite, “Yes.”

But, I’m very picky about what I write in my baby boomer blog. Whenever I write an article about fashion, I want it to be honest and unbiased; however, I refuse to say anything bad about various websites or clothing brands… even though I could. And, I don’t want to tell women to do what I do or to wear what I wear because it may look stupid on them. Hey, I’m not a fashion designer or a fashion consultant. I’m just a chick who experiments with clothing everyday because most normal clothes look like crap on me. And, female readers ask me questions like, “What should I take on a cruise to Europe?” Well, I don’t want some woman to be in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean with the wrong clothes and be all pissed off at me… because I’m not a “real” travel expert. And, I don’t want some bride to lose her wedding dress on the way to her destination wedding because I forgot to tell her something important… because I’m not a wedding consultant. I can only do my best, so I try to research the main points for every article.

What are some misconceptions about baby boomer bloggers? I feel that there’s a misconception about writers in general. Writers don’t know everything about any subject. Writers just pay attention to life and to conversations that they overhear while running around doing errands. Writers are just people who are trying to fit all the puzzle pieces together to create a coherent whole. So, If you want to know how to start a blog, you’re probably an expert in something…and that something is probably the thing you most want to write about.

Tina Boomerina (aka Christina Gregoire)

Bio: Tina Boomerina (AKA Christina Gregoire) is a former soccer mom and artist. Her current goals are to make enough money to buy some groovy, boho hats and to win the lottery so she can take her friends shopping for all the cool clothing and accessories she writes about in her articles.

To learn more about blogging, read What is a Good Blog? 10 Tips From the Best Bloggers.