I Am Not a Brand

This is one of those posts I really shouldn't publish because it will make me some enemies. Fortunately(?), there are already plenty of people who don't like me, so they can all commiserate together. I'll even introduce them to one another.

It won't be the first time I've done that.

I'm publishing it despite the fact that it will get me in trouble with some people because I've reached the point where I'm 100% clear on what I want. The whole thing has been very muddy in my head recently, so it's a relief to find myself absolutely certain.

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I found myself sitting in a room listening to an incredibly smart and successful woman provide tips on how I could more effectively "build my brand."

All I could think was "I am not a brand. I am a person."

I looked around the room, desperate to make eye contact with someone who appeared to be thinking the same thing.

I didn't find anyone. I was fully immersed in a group of people who are very actively trying to "build their brand."

There is nothing wrong with that, by the way. Nothing at all. It's just . . . not me.

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"With as much traffic as you get, you could be making a lot more money if you did things a little differently." A wise person once uttered that very true statement.

I knew he was right. I've known all along that there are ways that I could be making money from this site which I blatantly ignore. For example, every single day I delete about 200 emails asking me to post about this product or link to that service or talk about this great new thing.

Often, there is an offer of money to do it. I delete the emails anyway.

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I'm not sure how many people know this, but unemployment compensation is most definitely not a replacement for the income you get when you're employed. In my case, unemployment is roughly 1/3 of what I was making before my position was eliminated.

The little bit of money I make from this site has been an enormous help these past few months while I've been looking for a new job. ENORMOUS. It isn't anywhere near enough to make things painless, but it has been enough to occasionally buy groceries. $100 here and there has done so much to lessen the blow.

It's very tempting to reply to an email offering you a few bucks in exchange for a post when money is tight. Yet, I haven't done it. I couldn't.

But every time I hit that "delete" button, my head hurt a little bit.

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There are a bunch of criteria that I have always used when deciding whether or not to work with an ad network or run a sponsored post or work with a brand. For example, some of you may have been around when I broke up with Google AdWords. An ad for baby caskets had shown up in my sidebar and HOMEY DON'T PLAY THAT. I didn't just block that ad, I deleted my AdWords account, thereby forfeiting the money I had already made for the entire quarter.

I didn't regret the decision one bit. Nor did I regret it when I broke up with another ad network for displaying autoplay videos in my sidebar. I find autoplay videos to be one of the worst diseases the internet has. I'm sure many of you hate them as much as I do. I don't care how much they pay, they don't belong here.

And then there are sponsored posts. I have a ton of things I consider when I evaluate them. I have to know that I can be honest with my thoughts. I have to feel like the post fits in with my overall goals for this site. I have to feel 100% OK partnering with that brand. I actually enjoy sponsored posts, but they need to be genuine. And sparse.

If I have mentioned a product or brand here, you can be absolutely certain that I genuinely like the company behind it and believe in what they are doing. Every review that has appeared in this space has been completely honest. Carefully worded, perhaps, but definitely honest.

It has been really tempting to loosen my standards while money has been tight. I haven't done it, but there has been lots of turmoil in my head over that stance.

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"I bet I can get them to pay me to write about that," she whispered across the table.

As she was saying that, I was thinking, "I wonder if there's a way that could help Liz." Liz is a friend from a zillion years ago who is currently smiling through a very rough situation.

It was in that instant that I knew. I knew without any doubt whatsoever that I am doing things the right way for me.

I may not be a brand and I may not be monetizing this site as well as I could be, but I feel right about the legacy I'm creating. Together we've made Christmas better for hundreds of kids. Together we've helped save a life. Together we've changed lives. Together we have made the world a better place.

I am not a brand. I am a person. I'm an incredibly fortunate person who happens to have readers who are willing to help me leverage this site to do something much more valuable than cashing a few checks.

Thank you.

Leave a Message After the Tone

I'm currently in Atlanta as I was invited by Coca-Cola to attend a mom blogger conference at their headquarters. (I know what you're wondering and the answer is a shrug and an "I dunno.") I need to put more miles and thought between the experience and myself before I say much of anything about it. For now, I'll just say that Coca-Cola is paying for my travel expenses but has about as much control over what I write here as anybody else does, which is to say none. I'll also say that if you ever have a chance to listen to a handful of Coca-Cola's female Vice Presidents talk about work/life balance, DO IT. Twice.

Anyway, this is the first time I've been out of town in ... a while. I have a history of traveling constantly for work, but reigned that in when Alexis was born. I've traveled a bit since her birth, but certainly not often.

It's really no big deal for me to leave town. Mr. Husband is more than capable of handling the little monster all by himself. In some ways, he's better equipped for it than I am. Alexis and I are so very similar that we often butt heads, so he's able to be the level head with a different perspective at times.

That's my fancy way of saying she's nicer to him.

My schedule was crazy today so I ended up not being able to call and check on my peeps until nearly 9:00. Since Alexis is nicer to the husband than she is to me, she was fast asleep by then. It's worth fighting me over bedtime despite the fact that I have never once caved on the bedtime issue. For him? She goes to bed in a snap.

Grumble grumble.

A sleeping kid is a kid who doesn't talk, so it has now been over a day since I last heard her squeaky little Minnie Mouse voice. On a normal day Alexis crams in enough words to fill a week, so that's a lot of not hearing her words.

Remind me that I missed hearing her voice tomorrow when I'm about to start complaining about her using up all of the words in the whole wide world again, OK?

 

Curing the Hoarder with a Little Chris Farley

I like to give other people grief about their hoarding abilities, but I'm pretty sure it's entirely my fault that all of Alexis' clothes are still in our house.

And I do mean *ALL* of her clothes ... every last thing she has ever worn in her entire life.

Before we moved to the giant house with too many bathrooms just shy of three years ago, our itty bitty townhouse posed many storage challenges. At the top of that challenge list was Alexis' closet. It was literally one foot wide. LITERALLY. As in, I went to IKEA and bought her closet and it was only one foot wide. She had four drawers and a tiny little hanging bar, which means I had storage space for exactly the clothes that fit her at the time and nothing more.

I was AMAZING at keeping her closet under control. I was also AMAZING at putting all of the clothes that she had outgrown into storage tubs and sticking them where they wouldn't be seen. And then we moved and I was AMAZING at ignoring those storage tubs ... and allowing them to multiply.

Yeah. So. I probably should have gone through it all a long time ago and sold what was worth selling, gave away what needed to be given away, and blah, blah, blah. I didn't. I just hid it out of sight.

Until this past week when I made up my mind to sort through it all and consign it at the Just Between Friends Consignment Event. And by "all" I mean I made it through about half of size 3 and size 4 stuff and then gave up. That alone put me up over 150 items and took me two full days to sort, wash, de-wrinkle, hang, and tag, so I decided that was PLENTY.

At this very moment, if you walk into our dining room, you'll feel like you walked into a really weird Gap Outlet. I, uh, apparently shop at Baby Gap a lot because there are piles and piles of Baby Gap jeans and sundresses and t-shirts. I didn't have the guts to count just how many pair of Gap jeans the kid has outgrown because I'd have to punch myself in the face when I passed ten.

I'd be punching myself a whole bunch of times.

The good news is that I only came across a few things that I had some sort of emotional attachment to. I tucked a few dresses back into storage, but was very happy to get rid of 99.9% of the clothes.

Alexis, on the other hand, WAS NOT HAPPY. She walked in on my epic purging activities and promptly started picking things up.

"I love this shirt!" she declared.

"This dress is sooo cute!" she said.

"I remember this!" she cried.

With each declaration of adoration, the kid followed up by saying, "Can I keep it, please?"

She wanted to keep all of the clothes. ALL OF THEM.

I let her try a few things on, in no small part because my favorite part of Tommy Boy is when Chris Farley dances around in the little coat. It was fun having her reenact that scene multiple times without knowing that she was doing it.

Each time she would reach the point where she would be forced to admit that the dress (it was always the dresses that she dared try on) didn't fit, she would crinkle up her face, give me a very respectable I Hate You glare, and begrudgingly place the item back in the "sell" pile. "I guess you can sell it, momma, but I get to keep the money" she would say.

You guys. YOU GUYS. The Hoarder Gene runs strong in that kid, but I think maybe I found the cure. It smells just like money!

Anybody have a hoarder they need me to cure? My rates are extremely reasonable.