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Yep – I’m a Joiner!
Leap Year / Would you call your Doctor every day
Disliking Leap year, no DSL, would you call your doctor every day?
Mobile post sent by jennydecki using Utterz.
Build-a-Bear? F-That!
Disclaimer: I’m no frugal living coach and never will be. I’ll happily leave Kristine McKinley, (CFP & CPA no less) to rock out and own the title of Frugal Living Expert!
I’m just a mom that had my three year old come in and tell me yesterday:
“Mommy”
“Yes?”
“I want build a bear”
“What?”
“Leap year special is free T-Shirt”
“Free T-shirt?”
“Please can we build bears and have T-Shirts?”
First off, I was almost sucked in with “build bears and have T-shirts” – the way she said it made me think unicorns and cotton candy would be next. The sound of hope and promise in her voice was just beautiful to hear.
But, I’m a mom, with two kids, that have about 100 stuffed animals. I said no.
Five minutes later my two year old comes running into the office with her sister hot on her heels and the baby looks at me and yells at the top of her lungs:
“Diego toy! Diego Toy! Play!”
My three year old pipes up and explains in this really fast, excited voice “We can have Deigo toys *right here* mommy, they’re not just in the TV they can be here and we can get them!”
That is the moment I decided we’re getting rid of cable television.
Yes, I know that bunny years won’t work much longer. I don’t care.
As it is, when my kids get riled I try and picture what the pioneers who came across the prairies of Illinois in their covered wagons. (Assuming it was all Laura Ingalls style, of course.) They didn’t have television, they didn’t have all these crappy stuffed animals and the hundreds of toys that my daughters do. What they did was work, as far as I can tell, and play in the expansive acres-big yard.
What the heck did people do with kids back in the day?
Okay…I’m going off on a million different roads and losing my point, which is:
I am not okay with my children becoming consumers. Not at 2 and 3. They will see more than enough advertising in a lifetime, I don’t need to be shoving it down their throats in the middle of an episode of Arthur (even PBS pushes Chick-Fil-A and McDonalds donchaknow!)
So we’re getting rid of cable.
I think we may end up purchasing a few DVDs and subscribing to Netflix. I’ll start looking online for sites that offer children’s programming.
The $80/mo we save from ditching cable can allow us to save that money and buy one of the kids a laptop for Christmas. I mean, if that’s not incentive I don’t know what is.
Actually…we could buy both the kids laptops. Maybe those XO Buy one Give one laptops so not only will my kids get one, but some poor underprivelidged kid in Peru or Nairobi can have one as well.
So yeah, getting rid of cable will allow me to buy FOUR laptops, support a children’s charity, and feel a hell of a lot better about what my kids are doing during the hours I’m not directly interacting with them.
Yes this will mean a transition, and I know it will mean I have to spend more time with my children so they don’t bounce off the walls (literally…they’re jumpers, my friends.) But what’s a few hours taking care of the kids? I mean, that is what I signed up for when I had them isn’t it? Just because there isn’t a written contract, doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be taking more responsibility for my small army of carefully trained Jens™.
Technorati Tags: frugal-living, cable-tv, no-television, better-parenting
photo credit: miss_rogue
Arrogant Windbag…or Genius?
Continuing in our retro-video theme, I was watching a video on the Anti-Advertising Agency website today that was excerpted from a TEDspeaks conference from 2004.
This is relevant for today because this mindset is ever present. I sometimes wonder if it is necessary to balance out the super capitalists.
James Howard Kunstler talks about cities that bring “despair” to people just by living in them, because they’re dreary and dark. He talks about the “ugliness of our everyday environments in America is entropy made visible” and “We can’t overestimate the amount of despair we are generating with places like this.”
“We have to do better if we’re going to continue the project of civilization in america”
Then, to demonstrate his point he shows a picture on this big huge electronic screen (sponsored by…whom I wonder…LOL)
“By the way” he says, “This doesn’t help”
“Nobody’s having a better day down here because of that”
You know what, I just want to let everyone on earth know…I think it does help.
Growing up, we had two water towers in my town. They both had smiley faces and one had a bow tie. I grew up knowing that Mr. and Mrs. Water Tower were watching over me. Not in some messed-up 1984 “how many fingers am I holding up” kind of way, either.
Others in my town felt that way too, and it is one of the strongest memories anyone from my town has if they grew up there.
So, I get that this wannabe once-dirty-hippie wants to tell me that an automobile slum creates despair and angst and all kinds of other bad non-hippie things, but you know what – so do the utopia seeking normalcy-bashing anti-corporate know-it-alls that converged in Montery, California to attend this circlejerk of academia.
More degrees than sense – more ideas than hard work.
What kind of utopia can that possibly create? One where we’re all farmers? I can’t imagine James Howard Kunstler milking a cow and pulling a plow. I mean, he’d have to pull the plow himself, right? He’s probably an animal activist! He can’t let the poor horse with feelings pull it!
How can you grow your own crops if you need machinery at all? You can’t because those big nasty oil conglomerates have a hand in your tractor. Or your lawn mower. Unless you use an electric lawnmower, but the electricity company uses oil, and creates pollution.
It’s so easy to be high and mighty when you’re sitting in a conference room full of people who think like you, and ignore the rules that are already in place and rail against the system for change, when the change you want is pretty much impossible.
Change is not impossible, just not this overhyped scrabble-20-point-word-fest of everyone talking about how bad industry is. Well…industry may not be all that great, but where did your pants come from? Because unless you’re birthing the sheep that you grow and sheer and weave and sew into your very own pair of pants, you’re contributing to the problem, not the solution.
“Technosis externality clusterf**k.” He says that phrase. Out loud. No one laughs at him or stands up, points, and says “NO!” I have to ask myself…why not? Are we all so conditioned to accepting four syllable words as truth that this phrase was actually taken in and laughed at as if it were an amazing punchline? I was baffled.
On the bright side if you watch to the end he says something really deep about how to refer to oneself, “Stop referring to yourself as consumers. A consumer is different than a citizen.” That’s a really good point. He even talks about being a good neighbor.
Sadly, this is the shortest part of the whole presentation.
Maybe he doesn’t want to go back to farming and utopia. He just wants to go back to the neighborhoods and traditional Main Street that existed right after WWII.
Wouldn’t that be a parking nightmare. Unless we’re all supposed to walk. Or take bikes. I don’t know. Ultimately it was many big words, and few words with real meaning. A lot of explanation without ever telling me what the question was he is answering.
If you have a few minutes, watch the video and let me know what you think. Is it deep? Is it poignant? Is it crap? I just don’t know…
Technorati Tags: tedspeaks-2004, urban-utopia, suburban-sprawl, confusion, academia, happy-face-water-towers
It’s not spam, it’s high volume email delivery
This is a video from March of 2004, that I found on the ShoeMoney site, but since I haven’t seen it in the last (almost) four years maybe you haven’t either!
Normally I don’t find spam hilarious, but hey, The Daily Show can make almost anything sound side-splittingly funny, I guess.
[beyondmom]FVfIKsummxo[/beyondmom]
So, thank you Jon Stewart – and thank you unsung writers that actually tried to make the Oscars funny this year. I salute you both.
Technorati Tags: spam, high-volume-email, CPA-Empires, Scott-Richter, daily-show, jon-stewart
photo credit: mil8 | Subscribe via RSS
Queen Latifa hooks up with Jenny Craig
Oh Queen Latifah, why did you sell out?
I mean, Kirstie Alley and her absolutely insane Jenny Craig campaign on the web, television, and radio is hard to beat. Not for quality, but for sheer WTF value. I never noticed Kirsty looking a whole lot different after a year’s worth of commercials. I just noticed her wearing more black clothing in more flattering cuts. That last commercial with the dance ensemble was completely confusing. They never gave you a clear shot of her body during that one.
Then they took half a minute and dragged Lifetime’s favorite show pony, Valerie Bertinelli (Still most famous for her role – that I don’t remember – on One Day at a Time) out of the stable for a tearful prance in front of the camera. She was a Jenny Craig spokeswoman back in the day prior to Kirstie, but I guess she was the transition girl in between Kirstie and Queen Latifah.
Her last commercial freaked me out, “This new year i won’t be thinking about my weight *sniff* *sob*”
If I had Valerie’s career, my weight wouldn’t be what I was thinking about either. I’d be thinking about working past those beaten wife roles and trying to score some Sally Field “Not without my daughter” power-mom action. (Hey, it’s the lesser of two evils in my book.)
But Queen Latifah…I just sat and watched the commercial….stunned.
She’s talking about health and wellness like she’s a freaking nutritionist. Why am I going to listen to the woman who has been the strength behind healthy, overweight women suddenly crumble (a la Valerie Burtinelli in a Lifetime movie, no less) and try to sell me some crappy packaged frozen food to get the fat off of my butt.
You can view the video here – I’m not a rocket scientist with the embedding of non YouTube videos on my site. (No, I don’t want to upload it to YouTube…just click the link!)
“I heard a number that made me pay attention” – my guess the actual number she heard was how much Jenny Craig pays a big girl to talk about wanting to lose weight.
I think the best part (that I couldn’t figure out how to work into the blog post) was that her last job was selling the Pizza Hut brand, wasn’t it? I mean, who goes from the Pizza Hut spokesperson to the Jenny Craig spokesperson? It just doesn’t seem right, does it?
Technorati Tags: queen-latifah, jenny-craig, pizza-hut, selling-out, valerie-burtonelli, kirstie-alley, fat-actresses, big-paychecks
photo credit: pfala
Pingg, your invitation has arrived.
Thank you TechCrunch! As I patiently wait for my final manuscript to come back from the editor, I’ve been researching how to send out the round of e-invitations that should start the buzz-generator of party-goodness that is going to occur at a fabulous launch party in Chicago.
Of course, without the manuscript I have no idea when the party will be, so goodness only knows how this is all going to work out. You’ll never hear me say I’m an event planner! However, in the meantime I still need to have everything ready to go so I don’t bite my fingernails to the quick. (Oh, and to save time and be prepared once I do get the manuscript back.)
At first, I assumed I’d be using an Evite invitation. Sure, more often than not they end up in spam filters, but I figure that’s okay because I know most of the people on my list and can tell them to check the spam for my invite. It is true Evite’s invitations are canned-looking and difficult to customize well. Oh, and of course the piece de resistance – the part where you can’t get the details of where you’re going without clicking on your email and visiting the Evite website.
I don’t know about you but I’m just not that into going to the Evite website for every event I’m asked to attend. I want to open my email and see where I’m supposed to go. (This is usually done five minutes after I was supposed to leave, when I realize I forgot to print out directions for how to get to the event.) Needless to say, going to the evite website to get details takes about thirty more seconds than I want it to – then add to that adding the info into Mapquest, and it’s a hassle.
Of course the hassle might be worth it if the invitations were stunning. I’m always willing to compromise.
But with Pingg, I don’t have to compromise!
Beautiful designs (and you can upload your own, too!) All that lovely party invitation goodness packed right into the beautiful email that goes right into your email inbox. Pretty *and* functional, who’da guessed it was possible, right?
For an additional charge they will even send SMS invites and printed invites for really not-bad prices. Of course, I’m planning on designing my own invites and sending those out myself. But I could see that being a big selling point for someone who doesn’t want to design a postcard (or address them…even I’m dreading that portion of the program…)
So now I just have to make sure my book cover really looks phenomenal, because it’s going to be the main image for the party invitation.
Yes, I’m into the branding thing, how did you guess? If you’re not on the list yet, sign up over there in the upper left-hand corner. I’m not spammy, I’m actually quite fun…and you’ll get a discount code when the book Non-Toxic Networking is released!
Technorati Tags: pingg, online-invitations, evite, pretty-and-functional, personal-branding, non-toxic-networking, launch-party
Spring into a successful business with a marketing internship! (Spring…get it?)
I will be accepting applications through March 1st.
This is a non-paid opportunity to learn more about marketing a product online and offline.
You will learn how to assist in setting up an online marketing campaign for my new book, Non-Toxic Networking. The skills you’ll learn doing this will help you promote products or services of your own in the future. You will also be able to provide online marketing services to clients if you so desire at the end of this internship.
Skills to be learned include:
- WordPress Blog Customization
- Possible online community creation (not sure 100% if I’m doing this!)
- Press Release writing and distribution and how an online press release differs from a traditional press release.
- Appropriate Link Building
- Article Marketing
- Social Networking
- Copywriting
- Shopping Cart
- Affiliate Setup and maintenance
- Project management
The Spring Intern position requires an investment of about 20 hours per week (learning and working) for three months and can turn into a long-term paid position. The time of day you do the majority of your work is not important but you must have at least five hours a week available in the morning or afternoon during the business week.
Prerequisite Skills:
- High level of comfort with the Internet
- Basic HTML
- Writing Ability
- Fantastic attitude
- Good phone voice and ability to make a few phone calls here and there.
- Good communication skills. No getting scared and avoiding me if you miss a deadline or feel you may have made a mistake.
You will sign a non-disclosure agreement.
You must own a fast, reliable computer and have a high speed internet connection.
You will be provided with all necessary learning materials and mentoring and any software required.
To Apply:
Send resume (or links, or something) showing your skills & experience to: jennydecki@beyondmom.com
Include a Cover Letter in your email that tells me why you’d like to be an intern as well as any other experience that you have that would make you a good candidate. Be open about your long term goals as they relate to marketing online or offline.
Please review the Marketing Curve | Beyond Mom | and Non-Toxic Networking websites before applying.
Technorati Tags: internship, looking-for-an-intern, marketing-internship, non-toxic-networking, book-launch
The New Networking (sort of)
This morning I ran across this blog post at wakeuplater on networking. So I settled in to listen to someone else’s definition and opinion about my favorite subject. (I try very hard to always read other people’s opinions about my passion with an open mind. Very, very hard. It doesn’t always work out that way.) The post is called 5 mindsets to reshape your networking. It’s a good post, you should read it, enjoy it, and comment on it. (Just a suggestion…*grin*)
The mindset of my generation (18-34) is a cynical one — a mindset that desires authenticity and is skeptical of randomly nice people (after all, how many times has a “nice person” turned out to be selling insurance, CUTCO knives, or a spot in their MLM downline?).
I don’t know about you, but if you’re talking to genuinely nice people it shouldn’t matter if they’re in an MLM, because a genuinely nice person doesn’t mind hearing “No.” Also, most of the people who do the more interesting *cough*MLM*cough* jobs in this universe of ours tend to have a “numbers” attitude and they aren’t being genuinely nice.
Not being genuinely nice runs rampant at networking events…it can be scary.
What I think we’ve all seen is the person with the smile a tad too big, the eyes a bit too wide and engaging…that comes across as someone being a caricature of a very friendly person. With just a dash of psycho-potential-serial-killer thrown in for good measure. But why be cynical about them? I mean, if you have a business, are a freelancer, or even if you’re just trying to get a new job…you’re selling something too.
I have to say I’m a little disappointed there was no mention of a tip like “Stop being a judgmental ass, we’re all selling something. Now that we have that out of the way we can just be human.” I’d rather be at a networking meeting full of knife salesmen and insurance people and MLM folks that are really trying to hustle and really care about getting their next customer than some aloof person standing along looking over the crowd like they are peons to be dealt with rather than people to engage with.
That being said, this means you. If you go to a networking event and judge the cliques and play “point out the table of bankers” in your head instead of making a contact or walking up to someone and saying “hello” – you should just go home and work on what it is that makes you so insecure. Because the more insecure you are, the worse your networking skills are.
In my opinion there the most important mindset for networking is: Don’t be self-centered. (Very similar to Samuel’s advice at wakeuplater about zero-sum networking.) This includes the shy people who are afraid others won’t like them, that’s totally self-centered. It also includes the people who think that there are cliques and they can’t break into them. Thinking about you and not thinking about making the experience good for yourself and the other attendees…I mean….if you didn’t go there to have a good time, why did you go? You certainly knew better than to think you were going to walk in the door and everyone was going to shower you with rose petals and job offers. I hope.
Don’t see other people as utilities — see them (and treat them) as friends.
This is great advice, but a double-edged sword. Before you go out and treat everyone like they’re your friend, make sure you have your personal boundaries firmly in place. Social skills are not a common trait and you can’t rely on the person you’re having a conversation with to know that you don’t want to be asked about your mother, your dogs, or your cousin Rubin. They don’t know what your boundaries are, so you can’t treat them like you treat your best buddy from college. Even if they seem cool, don’t tell that one joke that makes people look at you shocked, not for a long time.
Business friendships start fast and have a short curve from initiation to intimacy (if done right) but they stop at a level before “real friend” status and plateau. You need to decide based on the factors you have available if you want to turn your business friend into a “real” friend, and if so how will that affect the business friendship.
My favorite line from the wakeuplater post:
Just relax, hold a normal conversation, and do what fits.
Once you have managed the ability to relax and hold a normal conversation at a networking event you are a pro!
Your initial goal should be to have just one relaxed, normal conversation one time at one event. Just once. Then once you have that you can hold on to that success to make it a little easier the next time, and a little easier the time after that…until you find that’s the only way you’re networking.
Your bank account will thank you, your social life will thank you. Your life will thank you for taking the time to become a more effective networker.
Technorati Tags: networking, wakeuplater, mindset, goals
