I Think I Want A Kia Soul
(Note: I didn’t even get a free keychain at the auto show. I was not compensated for this post. If, however, Kia wants to give me a Kia Soul to drive around and blog about it, or even give me one considering the low, low sticker price…I’d be all over it…hey, I’m all about disclosure!)
When we were at the auto show, the only car I saw (under 80k) that stood out from the crowd and made me think it just might be my next car was the Kia Soul.
It only has two rows, but that back row is a bench, which makes three carseats MUCH easier to fit, and it has three LATCH system hooks so it’s made to handle three carseats.
Plus it has this spring green paint color with GLITTER under it. Swear. Glitter. I mean, talk about having me at, “hello.”
New? The car goes for 14k – 19k. Not bad, right?
I have to figure out what the resale value is or how much it depreciates off the lot. We may be looking for a second car soon and this one is looking really promising. Even in chicagoland winters, I’m telling you, the Kia Soul looks like a sweet car. I’m looking forward to giving it a test drive.
Do they let you put carseats in during the test drive?
I sure hope so.
Frustrated and Unable to Work Out
Working out is something I don’t just do, it’s something I look forward to and enjoy.
Yeah, it’s a recent addition to my life (I took time off during and after pregnancy) but I’ve never been against getting a little movement into my day. I’ve been doing the Your Shape workouts on the Wii but I really want to start figuring out the whole eating and nutrition thing.
Which is kind of my kryptonite.
Oh, but first the whole unable to work out thing. The baby is asleep and if I go in the bedroom to get socks so I can put on my gym shoes she’ll wake up. If she wakes up I can’t work out. So yeah.
I might be able to do some yoga, but I can’t figure out how to get a yoga workout on the Wii instead of just picking ONE position to try out and that’s it. But I haven’t spent a lot of time trying to figure that out since I got the Your Shape with the camera – I really have been loving it.
But now that I’m writing it down I realize that the only way I’ll figure it out is to get it done and figure it out. So I’m off to find it online!
I’m officially not talking about nutrition. No matter how much I want to. Because seriously, I wish I could know what I’m eating is healthy…but I can’t. I’m pretty sure my chicken hasn’t been genetically modified, but ultimately, all chicken has been because of breeding for the “best” – it gets to the point where if I think about it too much, no food is safe.
I just do the best I can making things from scratch as much as possible or (like with the Aldi par-baked breads) they come from Holland so I know they can’t be irradiated like the food here in America. Finally, bread that doesn’t creep me out. (Yes, bread is one of the things I need to learn how to bake myself but I’m just not there yet.)
I highly recommend the greens and beans recipe from the Neelys. It really rocks and I’m thinking about turning it into a soup. Great way to get any kind of green into your diet and SO easy and fast to make.
Transparency is Dead and Mommyblogging is a Cruel Joke
Ok, now that we’ve got the shocking title out of the way I’m here to tell you that it’s not shocking at all.
Between authenticity and transparency your head can swim wondering what you should and should not even post on a blog much less what you should be reading. The line was crossed, for me, when a business blogger on a relatively big business blog started talking about some seriously personal stuff. Stuff that made me cringe. (I have very strong resistance to cringe-factor stuff, too, so when I cringe…you said something seriously personal that you probably should have kept between you and your therapist.)
Which is kind of my point.
The Internet is not your therapist. It is Big Brother – compiling information about you and judging you. The only problem is it’s not government you had to be afraid of all this time, tapping your calls and following you around in black vans…it’s your peers. People play on FourSquare thinking “how fun!” not thinking that this makes being stalked a hell of a lot easier.
People upload pictures of their kids to Facebook thinking “how fun!” and not thinking that this might have ramifications down the road. I mean, maybe it won’t…but what if it does? Everyone will be mad at the owner of Facebook and not even question if they made a bad choice.
Because we are now taught to TRUST people we don’t KNOW.
I’m sort of a free-range mom. Sort of. I’m fine talking to strangers and fine with my kids talking to strangers. Because strangers are just people. But trusting a company…as if it were a person…is something that borders on insanity.
So many people in the generation before ours trusted their company to keep them on until they retired and to take care of their retirement funds. Many did, some did not.
Now we have moms blogging about their kids. Some use real names, some use fake names, but my guess is that 99% use enough personal information that if you really, really wanted to know, you could figure out who they really are.
So people post stories about their kids’ special needs or temper tantrums or beauty without thinking of what this is going to be twenty years from now.
But the more of the “middle of the bell curve” people that get on the Internet, the more prevalent idiocy will be. People who assume they are talking to the strangers on the Internet but are really letting their neighbors know about their marital problems. Talking about special needs kids and not realizing the kid’s teacher is reading and taking notes.
Transparent, authentic mommyblogs are a disaster waiting to happen.
Transparency in general? It’s mostly a fad. One that many will pay dearly for once it has passed and everyone realizes that it’s not safe or smart to air your dirty laundry all over the web. I really think someday we’ll call it the “Free Love” era of the Internet. Where everyone acted high and threw off their clothes and did some really questionable stuff they kind of wish they could take back.
Or just having to explain why they felt it was worth it to sell out their kids’ childhoods for $50/month in blogging money.
Me? You know who I am, but I’m not anywhere close to 100% transparent. You don’t know me, really. You know how I feel and who I am when I write, but who I am day-to-day is something only my husband knows. Something even my friends don’t really know, because I’m a little different with everybody. It’s not deceitful, it’s just that when your friend is a ruby, your will shine a little more red when you’re around them. If your friend is an emerald, you will be a little more green.
Maybe it’s not human nature and I’m just a bit of a chameleon – it’s entirely possible.
But my wish for all of you is that you have not written anything online that will come back to haunt you or your children ten, fifteen, twenty years from now.
Me? I have a private blog that’s password protected for that stuff. It’s on my computer. I’d journal, but I can’t write more than two paragraphs without a hand cramp – such is the way of a girl that’s been using the internet since she was 13 (I turn 35 this year, do the math if you’re so inclined.) Typing is my way just as sure as writing was my mother’s way and my grandmother’s way.
But you have to know what to air in public and what to keep to yourself. Because, unless you get a book deal from airing your dirty laundry online, you’re just another blogger sharing too much and giving too much away without getting anything in return. (and I don’t mean money)
I need to do a rebrand so I can talk more about business issues and finance issues and stuff and have people not be surprised by writing about those things.
I need a new theme. A new start. A new plan.
Because this plan isn’t working that well at all.
That being said, Mint.com is unveiling something new on Monday and I’m stoked. Hopefully I’ll have a new design and a new plan by then. And new categories. Finance – Mommyblogging – Business … so everyone that visits can get the blog they really want when they come here.
Popinjay: Bold (a concept photography challenge)
This week’s challenge was Bold
That’s chocolate pudding on a waffle. I can’t think of a breakfast choice more bold. It’s also the last time I’m letting the kids pick what they want for breakfast.
Trust me, if I get a chance to leave the house this week I can promise you that FREE will be way more….outdoorsy…
A Woman Walks Into A Funeral…
Ok, I originally thought that sounded like the beginning to a bad joke. You know, like, “A man walks into a bar” or something similar.
But it’s not.
I think the strangest thing about last night’s funeral is that I felt like I somehow stumbled into the wrong one. Seriously. They were describing this person. The “open mic” portion of the eulogy saw person after person after person (about 10 in all) go up and espouse on the virtues and kindness and loving nature of this person. The word that kept coming up was “sweet” or “sweetheart.”
The closest I could come was that most of these people knew him after I did.
Well, no, that’s not entirely true.
There were a group that knew him way before I did too.
Only one guy within an eight year period of me knowing him.
…and I had no idea who they were talking about.
I shook the cobwebs of my brain loose to sift through everything I knew about him looking, searching for those kind adjectives. Trying to find one instance of this person I kept hearing about. All the memory archives came up blank.
So…I was at a stranger’s funeral. A sweet, kind, loving stranger who wrote letters and notes and sent clippings to, it seemed, hundreds of people while calmly and patiently collecting his collectibles and enjoying his hobbies. A sweet, simple, down-to-earth man. One that would be sorely missed by so many.
Then…a glimmer…one of the speakers mentioned his mother – in her 80’s at the time – raking the leaves in front of the house they shared. “A-ha!” I said to myself. “Here it is, then. One sentence in a whole funeral that refers to the man I came to mourn.”
The one that made me believe that inside of that closed baby-blue casket was the man I remembered.
Well, that and the whole Chaucer middle-english thing. That was a dead giveaway.
No pun intended.
Popinjay: Guilty (a concept photography post)
Thanks to Sheena at Sophistishe.com I found out about the fun Popinjay photography challenge.
It’s a concept photo that embodies a word. This weeks word? Guilty.
The reason I love this photo is because your first instinct for why this embodies the word guilty is probably wrong. Sure it’s a mixed drink and the middle of the day. Drinking could be the way to go with the guilty vibe.
But it’s not.
I feel like a horrible person for using plastic cups. Because the amount of pollution caused by recycling plastic is disgusting. I know this, but I still love drinking out of plastic cups. It might be fond memories of frat parties in college…it might be that I can throw them away and not stuff my dishwasher with one more thing…I don’t know.
But when people come over I hide my plastic cups (unless it’s a birthday party because those are universally exempt from having to be entirely green) until they go, so they don’t judge me for my love of the disposable cup.
Especially the red ones. With the grip texture. they’re like a siren song from the Walmart aisle you’re never supposed to go down…calling to me…promising both mixed drink delights and easy clean-up.
The very definition of guilt, I would say.
Is Lending Club More Risky Than the Stock Market?
I’m a little worried about investing in anything, period right now because the first time I did…when I finally took the plunge…I cashed out the stock after making a 100% return. I put it into another stock that I know within the next year or so will do the same thing.
Because, in my opinion, we’re going into a place where it’s going to be difficult to pick losers in the market. Simply because homes will be built again, the world will turn and no matter how poor any of us are, the sun will come up tomorrow.
I need to do an interview with a stock expert, I think. I hear pundits and read blogs about finances and the stock market and I just don’t understand. Unless you go into futures or weird crap like commodities, you can’t lose more than you put in – there aren’t any S&P500 thugs that come to your house with brass knuckles because you bought stock in a company that went out of business.
Hmmm…I wonder if there are any stock experts that talk to mommybloggers. Even though I don’t know if I’m a mommyblogger in anything but name only since my focuses are mostly on business growth, debt elimination, and investing. That’s not very mommyblog of me, is it? Except I am a mom that happens to blog.
But back to Lending Club…
One of my favorite charities is ModestNeeds.org – it’s a place that gives microloans to people that have (you guessed it) modest needs. A guy who needs his alternator fixed or he can’t drive to work – that sort of thing.
Lending Club works on kind of the same premise, except you don’t have to be totally philanthropic about it. Because you get a return on your investment of 9%-16%-ish … unless you don’t get paid back at all, in which case you lost your money.
Kind of like if a business goes out of business that you bought stock in.
So I’m not sure which way to go on this one. Any stock experts out there willing to help out a marketer-mom with a knack for picking decent stocks?
I Only Have A Minute or Two
Before going back to trying to balance the kids and an absolute buttload of work that I have to do today.
My baby has been so fussy since she got her vaccination, and I feel bad for her. I’m not anti-vax … I’m pro-delayed-vax. I schedule only the necessary vaxes and then space them out so we never get more than one shot at a time and also make sure that all the vaxes she does get are made with dead viruses.
Makes you hungry just thinking about dead viruses, right?
On the bright side, my doctor is 100% on board with my strategy. Too bad the medical assistant is not, and always forgets who we are for the first five minutes of the visit – the five minutes where she judges us for not vaccinating according to schedule. I just reminded her yesterday that I sent her a Christmas card. To her HOME. That she gave me the address to. Then she was really nice again.
Funny how someone can trust you enough to give you their home address and forget you two months down the road.
Of course, the ability to make people trust you that much repeatedly is how you build a business in a recession. The check always gets handed over to the bidder with the highest trust level, because business owners want to make sure they’re going to get work done for that money.
Sometimes I think it would be easier to sell office furniture, office supplies, life insurance, or any other product rather than services – because then there is something the buyer can hold in their hands and say, “This is mine. I purchased this. With my money.” Instead of the hours that go into creating and launching campaigns.
On the bright side I’m not the one doing the work, I’m just the secretary. Just. LOL
Part of me really wants to make up a fake name like LouBelle Johnson for when I answer the phone. I won’t really do it, because that’s sleazy and untrustworthy…but couldn’t you just see me answering the phone with a southern drawl, “Good Morning and thank you for calling Marketing Curve, this is LouBelle Johnson…how may I help you today?”
I would spend the better part of every work day laughing myself into a stupor. Then I’d spend the other half scouting for leads the way I do now.
Because, yeah, there are leads involved. This is a real company y’all. There are plans for an office space in the future.
The funny thing is we’ve been working at this business for about four years now. (Started sometime in ‘05) and just recently did the opportunities start to seemingly fall in our laps. The people were receptive to the ideas and concepts, and meetings are happening. It all feels so easy this time that we’re prepared to take full advantage of what seems like the best. timing. ever. for doing a business push.
Or, at least, it seems that way.
Okay, I’ve used up my morning break and if my boss catches me blogging instead of working I might get written up. LMAO But I do have about 15 hours of work to squeeze into the next 8 hours or so.
Hope everyone is having a fabulous hump day!
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Yep – I’m a Joiner!
