Gaining exposure

It's kind of ironic to me that back when I was working, I was in journalism, which I was always very careful to explain to people was completly seperate from advertising. But now that I'm at home, my extra income comes from writing ads, which is kind of what I said I was "too good for" when I was working. Ha ha ha. I guess that just goes to show you that you should never say never. After all, even when I worked at the newspaper, I was totally dependent on advertising. I mean, that's where my paycheck came from, right?

Ads are responsible for sponsoring a lot of things that we use every day that are "free" to us, like large portions of the internet. And since people buy stuff online all the time, it works out good for each Advertising Agency as well, because they want to get their names out there, gain some exposure and make some new business. Somtimes I click on various ads I see at the side of people's Web sites, especially if it is something I'm interested in, because you never know when you're going to find a good deal that you wouldn't have even thought to look for. :-)

Are we done yet?

My wrists hurt because my mouse at work is broken and I have to move the whole mouse around to navigate my screens rather than just my finger on the roller ball. It's mega frustrating and I'm so glad that Stephen is good at fixing me because I've seriously been into physical therapy for less pain than this in the past. Sadly, I'm not done with all my work yet and can't go home until my pages are read and I make my corrections. Sigh.

I spent a ridiculously long time both yesterday and today fixing all my previous sponsored posts in hopes of regaining my google rank. Yes, they finally found me too. But thankfully, I learned a trick to recover it at the exact same time that it crashed.

I found out about the trick from several sources, but they all heard it from the same source, a source that would have reason to benefit from us doing it, whether or not it really made a diference. But my new friend Barbara is the one who first confirmed that it DOES work, even though it took several hours, it's worth doing if you want your PR back.

The trick is ...

oh, and she has another site, Shades Of Melancholia here on blogspot. I am so glad to hear from her that it works to do this, because I don't think I would have bothered otherwise.

Deal or no deal

Stephen had this brilliant idea that we should shop around for a good deal on a laptop this morning since we were already in civilization for Thanksgiving. He wanted to get up early and shop with the crazy people! Dude — there many reasons why that is not a good idea. Here are a few of them.

1. My mom would have to be in charge of watching sleeping Ben, and they'd be on opposite ends of her ginormous house with no monitor. So realistically, one of them would have to wake up and move. Neither of them would really be thrilled about this.

2. I am working tonight until 1:30 a.m. Getting up at 4 and staying up until 1 equals death.

3. I am really hoping to either get a laptop for Christmas, or at least use the money we get to buy one in January. I do not want to buy it on credit unless its a really good deal.


So as a compromise, we decided to go window shopping for laptops with my mom and Ben at about 10 a.m. We figured most of the sales last until noon or 1 p.m. Well, we didn't find anything under $600 and I know I can get one online for $500 easily, and maybe even $450. That's the lowest advertised price that I've seen. Anyway, we gave up and went home. I had to work at 3 p.m. so we wanted to leave my mom's house by 12:30, just in case we hit traffic. (And we did! Everything was fine until the last 10 minuts of the trip, which ended up taking about 45 minutes!!!!) So we arrived in town exactly at 3 p.m., and they just dropped me off here. About 20 minutes later, Stephen called me ranting and raving about something.

Apparently, our local Staples had laptops on sale for $350 until 10 a.m. Here! Not in Kent.

He was mucho frustrated :-(

Achieve it

You know that cheesy old addage, "Anything you can conceive and believe, you can achieve"? That kind of inspriational message is usually found on posters in the guidance counselor's office at a high school. And even when I was IN high school, and like the cheeriest, giggliest girl you could ever imagine meeting, those posters made me want to barf. There was one of a bird trying to eat a frog and the frog was already in the bird's mouth but he used his froggy hands to squeeze the bird's neck closed and the text read, "Never, ever give up" or something like that. It's kind of a nice idea, but even then I knew that there are some things that you should just give up on.

Take me for example. A realistic dream was to be a journalist. Everyone told me that I was good at writing, I seemed to enjoy it, and I really loved layout. But if my dream was to be a singer, a la Carrie Underwood? There are not enough voice lessons in the world to fix the fact that my tone is bad and when I think I'm matching what I hear, I'm actually painfully flat. (I can hear this quite clearly when listening to myself played back on a tape. Just not while I'm actually singing for some unknown reason.)

So the dream I entertained as a child of being a rock star was out. Just plain out. No amount of dreaming and believing was going to make it happen.

Well, what about my current dream? To be at home with my kid(s) and maybe someday train to help and support other nursing women? With our family's finances? How will we get by without my steady income?

For awhile, it felt like that dream was too far on the rock star side of things. I struggled to earn a few extra $$$ here and there. I was thrilled to make $5 every few days. And now? With hard work, perserverance and some dumb luck, I really feel like I am starting to turn my life around. We had problems and I said, I will not let these problems stop me from following my dreams. I found a solution and I worked at it, HARD, for a very long time. And now everything looks so rosy I'm starting to wonder what else I could accomplish if I set my mind to it. I am very stubborn, you know :-)

Late for my life

I came in to finsh up a few things at the office really quickly and got majorly distracted. It's a good kind of distracted, but seriously, I've been here for way too long and I'm sure my son is crying for me because it's getting pretty late. Have I mentioned how hard it is to balance work and home life so that I don't feel like I'm failing everyone around me? Everytime I try to get a special jump on one, the other suffers.

I am tired of trying to do it all, be it all, to everyone all of the time. Here's a special treat for those of you who read this blog instead of just my lj. Stephen applied for a full-time job this week. That was why we dragged the computer out, to get his resume information off of it. It's a massage job at a medical practice. It has benefits. I am practically drooling over this prospect. I don't know how we would make it work, but I am ready to make it work.

Wish him luck!

I am taking the afternoon OFF!

I'm burning up my overtime, which is sad, because if you're going to work 9 and a half hours on a Saturday, it might be nice to get paid for it. But at the same time, if I put 11 hours or more of OT on my timecard, work would flip, and I did miss out on spending that Saturday with my family. So instead of two weekend days off, I got Sunday and Tuesday afternoon and Thursday afternoon. Sometime having the afternoon off is better anyway, because it feels like you're playing hooky. My husband suggested to me that if I went in early (ensuring I'd be done soon enough to take the afternoon off) I could take a nap with Ben. But then I decided to get coffee this morning (mmm ... pumkin spice! and I don't even have to feel bad financialy because I got a ton of Starbucks giftcards for my birthday) so now I'm not really that tired. Plus, I went to bed early too. It's really really nice to not be tired. So I will be enjoying the afternoon with my family. It's hard to be poor, but its also a balance. No one has to be poor if they're willing to sell their souls and become workaholics, but then what's the point of the money, you know? You have to have the time to enjoy yourself and raise your kid too.

:-)

Flip that profile

I was stuck for an idea for quite some time, but then my husband suggested that I do my next profile on these house-flippers that we met at an open house the other day. He is obsessed with real estate and anything to do with buying, selling, improving or renting houses. Basically, if it involves making money, he wants to do it.

To be honest, the whole idea kinda scares the crap out of me because I’d hate to be left in the lurch if he dropped the ball on fixing it or finding renters or whatever, and suddenly we’re saddled with two mortgages instead of extra income. But one of the reasons that I’m excited to do this profile is because I want to talk to real people who’ve suceeded at this business in our little town and see what their experience has been. Plus, house flipping is incredibly trendy right now, so I bet a ton of people will read the profile. And maybe we can even make some new friends when I’m through with the business part of the deal. They were really nice.

An uh-oh

I wrote this woman after seeing this article linked in the breastfeeding community on lj.

I said:

"Dear Jeannie Babb Taylor,

I loved every last word of your article on breastfeeding. I write a column called "Mama Talk" for the newspaper I work at in Aberdeen, Wash., and occasionally mention that my 22-month-old is still nursing. No one has specifically said that they have a problem with my writing about it, but I know I get funny looks sometimes. And outside of the office, coworkers occasionally say things like, "Oh, that's right, you're still nursing ..."

I am so glad that someone educated and respectable has spoken up on this vital topic. Your column was filled with more than just the grim statistics, but witty observations about why it is that this problem persists even though, especially as a society, we all should know better. Thank you so very much for becoming a voice for all of us underground "boob nazis." (Maybe someday, that horribly offensive term will be replaced with something that mainstream America can embrace.) Your article was an inspiration and I plan to spread it as far as I can reach."

What I meant was linking it all over the intrawebz, but I didn't realize that I had accidentally written her from my work email. (I clicked on of those "contact the author" buttons and that's where it took me. It was late at night and I wasn't paying much attention. Opps.)

Well, she wrote back,

Suzanne, thank you so much for the encouraging email. Congratulations on nursing your little guy for 22 months. That’s wonderful! My children have nursed anywhere from 14 months to 4 years. Did you know some women have begun calling it “full-term breastfeeding” instead of “extended breastfeeding” -- to get away from the idea that they are extending (dragging out) the breastfeeding relationship. I really hope that we will see breastfeeding normalized, as you say. It should be bottlefeeding that is exceptional, not breastfeeding. I’ve heard worse terms of address than “boob nazis” – How about “nipple nazis?” Personally, I prefer lactivist!

Anyway, thanks for writing! It’s always exciting to hear from other columnists.

Oh, I see that you are also an editor for the paper. If you’d like to use the article as a “guest columnist” submission, I’d be honored to send you the Word file.

Sincerely,

Jeannie Babb Taylor
www.OntheOtherHandColumn.blogspot.com

Yipes! Do I tell her I meant to contact her as a fellow blogger and not as a fellow journalist? Do I actually bring up the idea of running the column with my bosses? (They're all guys!) or do I tell her we're not interested. We are! I am , anyway. I guess I could just not reply, but that seems lame too. Man, I so did not mean to mix blogging and work like this!

Round and round

I typed up something for my husband while I was at work today so that he'd be able to work tomorrow. (It's the disclaimer form you sign saying yes, i know a massage therapist isn't a medical doctor, etc.) I emailed it to myself so that I could print it out at the library. I just don't just the work printers not to accidentally print a copy of it two hours after I've left the building. Anyway, now I'm at the library but can't get it open because apparently the library computers won't let you open attachments, only save them to a disk. That's right, a disK not a disC. Who the hell has disks anymore?

So I tried to call Stephen to tell him what the problem is but he doesn't have his phone. Oh well. He and Ben can play in the kids section while I make a few quick $$$ and then hopefully he won't be too mad that I will have to stop by work at some point before 12:30 p.m. tomorrow to print this thing out for him. Hopefully. :-)

Finally Thursday

Sadly, I am working tomorrow night, instead of driving to Kent to hang out with family like I'd prefer. Extra sadly, this means I will get home at 1:30 a.m., get to bed at 3 a.m. and then have to get up at 8 a.m. to spend two hours in the car with a toddler who just loves car trips. I can feel my enthusiasm building by the second. We have so much crap that we need to remember to bring too! $60 worth of stuff to return to Target, games and tools borrowed from my in-laws, outfits for all three of us that are nice enough to go to dinner at my grandma's in, and a bunch of baby stuff for Amy, which I've yet to sort through and decide what I should give her and what I should keep for our future second child.

Who wants to bet I spent this whole evening lying around reading or hanging out with my husband instead of cleaning and/or packing? Anyone?

I am Balance

My boss talked to me about branching out and said he appreciated that my last profile (on the pilot kid) wasn't about babies or families or moms. I said, "I try to do every other ..." and he interuptted me. "The newsman in me says you're overdoing it. That your your personal beliefs need to be kept in check for you to remain professional. But then I stopped and thought ... aren't we all parents? Aren't half of us moms? The newMAN in me, I think needs to shut up some, because moms are definitely an underserved part of our readership. You have brought a voice to our paper that it was sorely missing before. So I hate for you to start to second guess yourself since I've said something. But I decided you'd probably rather have the feedback than not. I really liked your pilot kid profile, I felt like I had a real sense of who he was after reading it. ... (goes on to nitpick a few things in it, and is right about two of three of them) ... I sit there, dumbfounded.

Complemented? You bet. But also confuzzled. Not counted Mama Talk, which is duh, supossed to be about babies, I've done like six profiles in the year that I've been here. Only two were about babies.

first one: LLL leader
second one: musician, guy who won Grays Harbor Idol
third one: Jewish dude who saves oceans and made up stories so he could feel important
fourth one: blind guy with guide dog
fifth one: midwife
sixth one: pilot kid.


Seriously, you think I'm overdoing babies/families/motherhood? huh? there was a profile about a woman who invented a baby safety product (the baby bath gate) that wasn't even BY me, but everyone thought it was, just because it had to do with babies. Is it that hard to read the byline? Apparently, yes.

Guilt, the ultimate motivator

My boss just asked me if I could work night instead of morning on Friday the 21st. There really wasn't anyone else to do it, so I said OK, but I am sad about it. We're going to my grandma's house on Saturday for Yom Kippur and I really wanted to drive to town after work on Friday and have Saturday during the day to hang out. Working Friday night (during football season, yipes!) until 1:30 a.m. and then turning around and getting up on Saturday morning to drive to Kent and then going to a very, very late dinner at the least child-proof place on the planet is not my idea of fun.

Sometimes, its really nice to live near family. Other times, I wish we didn't have to go to this stuff. I guess my sense of duty wins again. I really do like some of my family. And I'm getting better at not letting the other ones give me ulcers. Deep breath. It's only one night. It's the worst night of the year, and I've managed to avoid going for the last EIGHT years. I can suck it up just this once. Right?

Find out what it means to me

I absolutely hate it when I'm in a professional situation, like on the phone with someone at work, and they call me "dear" or "honey." From elderly gentlemen, I can be somewhat forgiving, as that sort of thing was the polite thing to do in their day. I don't fault them for not knowing that things have changed since then. But when its a younger guy, in his early 30s? Where the hell did he grow up thinking its OK to call a woman you only have a professional relationship with that you haven't even met "dear?" I mean, its 2007! How about a little respect? It makes me angry to no end.

Some of the other young women who work here have trouble with this too, and they all just don't say anything and then bitch about it when they get off the phone. I hate that. I don't want to be fake like that. If somebody bothers me, I like to say something about it. But is it even worth it with someone that you only talk to for like five minutes once or twice a month? And how would you even go about saying something anyway? "Excuse me, but I'm not your 'honey' "? Nope, that's not going to work.

Whatever. I'm sure this is why no one does anything about it. Nobody ever died from being called "hon" a few times.

Riding a wave of luck

I came in last night (again!) to try and get some of my mountains of work done, knowing that I am leaving for the weekend and everything is due before I go. After working for a little bit, I realize one of my stories doesn't have a photo with it. I find out that apparently, the reporter didn't arrange for one to be taken or ask the guy for a historical one to submit, because "I didn't know I was supposed to." Great. All of the other reporters did it, but you didn't know? Aren't you the SENIOR reporter who's been working here longer than anyone else? And you didn't know you were supposed to arrange your own photos for the special section story you were working on? Because in the past, the photos magically took themselves? No, the reporters are ALWAYS responsible for arranging them, unless told otherwise. Which would be why everyone else just knew to do it.

Thankfully, this appears to be my week for lucky breaks, as with just three phone calls, I've managed to track down a photo we can use. AND the guy's going to bring it in, so I don't have to go gallivanting around town on the day that all my stuff is due.

Also, my husband is having his surgery today on my lunch break. Good thing I have a whole bunch of extra time on my hands today in case his appointment runs long ... oh, wait.

ha ha ha. its my very own wait joke. ask me sometime if you would like to hear the history of wait jokes. I'd say more now, but, as I said, I'm lacking of the time :-)

Stumped

I just spent the last 10 minutes in the bathroom with my head between my knees unable to move. Three people came and went while I was in there. Don't ask me what was/is wrong, because I don't know. I just seriously could not make myself get up. I wasn't feeling sick, persay, just like not moving. I wanted to go home. Maybe for the day. Maybe forever. I don't know. I tried to tell myself that its not my job that's making me unhappy. Only I can make me unhappy. And if I don't control the internal, it won't matter what I do with the external. I'll just find something else to be unhappy about.

The thing was, I wasn't sitting there in the bathroom saying, "I'm so unhappy, I can't do this." I just actually couldn't do it. It's hard to explain. And then, in the same I-have-no-idea-what's-going-on here-style, I just got up and came back to my desk. I don't remember deciding to do so, or finally "winning" the internal struggle I was having. I was just better. And that's not to say that I'm suddenly like, "I love my job, please oh please give me more work," but whatever it was, it passed.

overheard in the breakroom at work

"... there was this girl who was trying to lose weight so she started drinking slim fast, except it wasn't working, so we started calling her slim-slow. 'Hi Slim Slow, have you had your slim-slow yet today?' and eventually she gave up and went back to drinking whatever she wanted ..."


OMG! I can't decide if that's mean and funny or just funny. Women sure can be bitchy to each other, that's for sure.