For someone who likes to be organized, efficient and “on the ball”….wow, I have a huge confession. It’s one that I hope won’t make you take me less seriously, since I always talk about how to save time, save money and do things easier. You’d think that would apply to all aspects of my life, including when I’m away from home and my home business.

But here’s the thing: I don’t have an iPhone. I don’t have a smartphone of any kind. I don’t have a smart-anything when I’m away from my laptop.

I’m a mobile organization hypocrite.

Things I Can’t Do…Without an iPhone:

1. I can’t keep track of anything, other than a phone call when I’m away from home. No cool calendar, no to-do lists, no shopping lists. Unless they’re on paper or in my head, they don’t exist when I’m not at home.

2. I can’t do price comparisons in the store. This KILLS me. To think that I could stand in a store and take a snap of a barcode to make sure I’m getting a good deal…and I CAN’T?! Ugh, it’s like a dagger in the heart for this savvy shopper.

3. I can’t keep my kiddo occupied away from home, unless I tote along some books and toys. I hear all about these great iPhone apps for kids and I can’t use a single one. I can’t use the downtime in the doctor’s office to run through colors or letters and I certainly can’t hand a non-existent iPhone to my kiddo to mess with when I need to have conversation. I’m literally green with envy every time I see someone do that.

4. I can’t access email, Twitter, Facebook or check in on projects. To get any work done, I have to be at home. If I’m away from home, so is a little part of my attention wondering what’s piling up for me when I get back.

You might wonder, “well, then just get one for crying out loud!” Hmm….I know. I intellectually understand all of the benefits and I really want one. But I have two issues that this frugal mama can’t get past: the cost of the service for two of them (hey, my husband would want one too!) and the fact that I’m a total commitment-phobe about cell phones and plans. I’m convinced that the day after I commit to anything, something better will come out. That’s why my husband and I do the whole pre-paid cellphone thing right now. We aren’t locked in to anything. It’s a wonder we two ever got together and managed to navigate the whole MARRIED thing, the way we think about cell phone committments!

But I know it’s only a matter of time. There will be a tipping point. The day we’re out shopping for something expensive and kicking our own butts that we didn’t have a smartphone to check prices in the store. Or the day that I’m stuck away from home unexpectedly without any access to my business and a crisis erupts. Or, the day that my kiddo decides that TODAY is the day he’s going to raise heck in a public place where I can’t leave for some reason. Yep, that’ll be the day I snap and buy two of these magical devices….and the day after, will be the day they come out with something even cooler. Oh well…..

 I’m participating in a contest at Best Kids Apps, a blog about iPhone apps for kids, for a chance to win an iPad.

In another life, I was quite the marketing critic. As a teenager, even, I would mark up with a thick red pen the direct mail advertisements my family received in the mail and send them back to the advertiser with my notes and corrections.

Yeah, I was THAT girl.

Branding, especially, has always been a particularly interesting subject to me. How a company chooses to represent itself and position itself in the marketplace has always fascinated me. My poor husband and family have to listen to me rant and rave all the time about how Company A really dropped the ball on that campaign or how Company B let a golden branding opportunity slip through its fingers.

These rants are usually met with a glazed over look, or a slight snore….

But this Southwest Airlines -vs- Kevin Smith war has me intrigued. While I obviously side with @THATKevinSmith on this particular issue (disgruntled consumers, unite!) I find @Southwestair ‘s response baffling and fascinating all at the same time.

So, I share with you my official response to Southwest Airlines as I posted on their apparent, “justification and mea culpa” post on their website. It’s buried there among the high-fives for Southwest from people who can’t seem to accept that not everyone is a size 4 and the former customers who have sworn off Southwest for good. It’s in there, somewhere.

But I can’t let a good rant go bad….so, here ya go!

As a business owner and armchair critic of big business’ branding…wow, did you guys drop the ball on this one! Instead of becoming, “The Airline That Kicked Kevin Smith Off a Plane” you could have worked this entire thing to Southwest’s advantage by becoming the airline that caters to Customers of Size.

Shortsighted pride escalated this entire situation. Kevin Smith has over 1.6 MILLION followers on Twitter. His demographic of follower and movie audience is THE EXACT AUDIENCE a brand like Southwest wants in its pocket. Can you imagine if you had harnessed this power and turned this customer service debacle into an opportunity for Southwest?

What you SHOULD have done, was apologize profusely, issue an IMMEDIATE statement that Southwest has decided to aleviate the discomfort and embarassment that certain larger customers may experience on OTHER AIRLINES by implementing a strategy to incorporate two specific seats per aircraft that are 20% wider to accomodate Customers of Size.

THEN, you should have hammered home that plan with a witty ad campaign, won over Kevin Smith as an ambassador for your brand and then you could have possibly have even had a Kevin Smith cameo in your ads. Those ads would have been viral, no doubt, giving you hundreds of thousands of dollars of free advertising. Not to mention the goodwill and a loyal customer base among a fast-growing demographic of customers who are larger than the current seats.

In short, pride and Big Business Buffoonery let you miss a golden opportunity to capture yet ANOTHER loyal customer base that you can add to your “discount flyer base”. You could have blown the other airlines out of the water with this one. Instead, you turned a bad situation worse and missed an amazing and one-time branding opportunity.

Hope all the corporate red-tape and short-sighted customer service was worth it….

Imagine my surprise when my news reader featured yet another junk study that took eight years (and goodness knows how much money) to come to the determination that,

“Secret to marital bliss: Don’t have kids”

Sigh….ok, let’s examine this more closely. The “study” concluded after eight years of study (I could have told them this in eight MINUTES) that after the birth of a couple’s first child, satisfaction with the marriage declines.

Duh.

News flash, researchers….satisfaction with most EVERYTHING declines after the birth of a first child. How many moms, in particular, are dissatisfied with their amount of sleep? How about the toll birth took on their bodies? How about being dissatisfied with the amount of money earned as compared to the amount which needs to be spent on baby supplies? And let’s not forget the dissatisfaction with having to change one’s lifestyle with regard to taking a shower in peace, going to the grocery store in peace, or basically doing ANYTHING in peace.

So yes, researchers…having a baby causes dissatisfaction in several areas of one’s life but the takeaway from this discussion in my opinion,  and these so-called studies is that the reason there is a level of dissatisfaction can be summed up in six simple words:

“It’s Not All About You Anymore”

If more parents would realize that their temporary level of satisfaction is just that…temporary….and that their lives will become richer with each passing day of having children, they would be able to shrug off these feelings of dissatisfaction (not entirely, I’m no Pollyanna) and enjoy the wonderful gift that kids really are. Instead, researchers feel the need to “study” these things as though a study is going to change anyone’s perception of having children or provide any alternative solutions.

Having children changes your life. No kidding. But to suggest that new parents will experience a freefall of happiness in their lives just from having a baby….please. Instead, I would suggest that our generation realize that having children is supposed to be a somewhat more selfless act than some of us are treating it.  Buck up. Grow up. Stop whining.

Now, go play with your kids.

I’ve read numerous stories in the past weeks about people who were living the good life….fancy cars, expensive homes, and dream vacations…only to find themselves homeless, jobless and penniless as a result of this economy.

How does that happen? How does someone go from a million-dollar home and a nice car to no home, divorce and looking for a job…any job?

Here’s a tip for anyone currently doing well financially: you don’t have to spend all of your money all of the time!

Maybe it’s a function of not having the fancy cars and expensive home, but my philosophy is that as good as things are at any given time, they can always get worse. Sounds negative doesn’t it? Well, I also subscribe to the premise that things can always improve, but one doesn’t normally need to prepare for that. If good fortune comes, it comes willingly and often surprisingly. But, unfortunately, a downturn in good fortune presents itself the same way.

It’s tempting to think that if you are doing well financially that you can splurge on the car, the house or the vacation. After all, those are the spoils of often hard work and sacrifice and who doesn’t like to reward themselves? But if I’m reading these news stories correctly, there are former executives who have been out of work as little as six months and finding themselves close to living on the street.

Bad luck can happen to anyone….ANYONE. In the past year, we have been very blessed but also surprised at what can befall a family in a short period of time. Cancer, reduced work hours, and a crashing stock market…all have affected our family.

What has made the difference in how we were able to handle all of those things is that we never had all our eggs in the proverbial basket of conspicuous consumption. Sure, we don’t have iPhones or an SUV, but we have two great cars that get good gas mileage and cell phones that cost us combined for an entire year only $160.00. Not a flashy lifestyle, to be sure but we feel safer that way. Does that mean that we will never have a nice cellphone or larger car? Of course not, and I’m not saying that if you do have those things that you are irresponsible. I just mean that we will have those things in due time and when the expenses are warranted. We don’t need everything now and we don’t need everything new. That’s our new mantra and it’s working for us.

So if you are doing well now, consider that tomorrow everything could change. Save some money, change some of your spending habits and plan for the future now. Because the future is as close as the end of this sentence.

“Monkey Work”

Def: Work that is easy to do, requires very little preparation to get started, is somewhat repetitive, and breaks up the day to get you motivated to do more challenging work later.

I believe having a certain amount of available “monkey work” to do is vital for breaking a cycle of lack of motivation. There are days when I simply can’t get started on ANYTHING. It’s like my brain needs to ease into the idea of working on more challenging projects. So I have instituted a process that I affectionately call, “monkey work” that helps me break through those moments when I can’t even bear to open my browser and it helps me warm up and get ready for bigger things later.

What do I consider to be “monkey work”? Anything that is easy and repetitive. This is relative of course, and is determined by what you think to be easy, but for me these tasks include:

1. Sorting through email, deleting spam, setting up spam filters, and sorting mail that didn’t get properly sorted for some reason.

2. Setting up affiliate redirects. I join approximately 10-15 affiliate programs a week and I setup redirects in the form of sub-domains and I set up backup affiliate redirects in the form of 301 redirects. Eyes glazing over yet? I know, it sounds boring, but they are easy to do and need to be done anyway so I reserve them for “monkey work” time.

3. Checking stats on all of my sites and optimizing a page or two. Needs a few more brain cells than #1 or #2 but feels “monkey-ish” to me.

4. Offline “monkey work” that helps me get psyched to do cleaning or organizing includes: cleaning out one drawer, making the bed (and doing it REALLY well with nice corners and all), clearing off kitchen counters and scrubbing them down, shining the kitchen sink, and other little things like that.

So if you find yourself unable to even get started on work or cleaning or organizing, make a mental list of tasks that you actually like and are easy and start there. “Monkey Work” just might be what you need to jumpstart your day.

As many of you know, the Toys for Tots organization which is administered by the United States Marine Corp is drastically low on toys and funds this year. If an immediate influx of donations of toys and money is not received in the next couple of days, more children than ever will find nothing under their Christmas trees this year.

A CHALLENGE FOR MOM BLOGGERS!

I’m challenging all of my fellow “Mom Bloggers” to post at least one blog post between the dates of December 20th – December 22nd that highlights the Toys for Tots organization and gives readers information on how they can donate.

I’m extending the challenge to Mom Bloggers in particular, but if you have a blog of any kind and with any audience, this effort needs to be publicized!

I’m also asking my Twitter friends to submit at least one Tweet this weekend and on Monday that includes the Toys for Tots URL (http://www.toysfortots.org).

A donation of even just $5 can buy a toy for a young child, so no donation is too small! Any effort we can make as bloggers will help needy children this holiday season. Think of the kids who have likely already had a tough year losing a home in the foreclosure crisis…wouldn’t it be wonderful to be able to have at least one gift for them?

While most locations are still accepting toy donations, a cash donation given online goes directly into the pipeline so that volunteers can purchase toys for the neediest children in areas where they are needed most. It also gives volunteers the ability to provide gift cards for teens and purchase toys they are specifically low on (baby toys and teen gifts).

Donations can be made online at: http://www.toysfortots.org  

So here’s how to participate in the challenge:

1. Steal parts of this post if you like…all I ask is that you reword it a bit and not copy and paste the whole thing.

2. Visit the resource links below for more information to flesh out your own posts or provide additional information not in this post.

3. Post! And be sure to email your readers about it!

4. Ask visitors to Digg your post, and use other social bookmarking services!

5. Hop on Twitter and tweet your post! Ask others to retweet it (use RT in your tweet) and then be sure to follow up with a couple of additional tweets over the next couple of days.

6. Important! Come back here and post what you did! Include an URL! This is how we will keep track of how far this spreads! If you tell someone to join the challenge, give them the link to this post so they can report too!

RESOURCE LINKS

Call to Action Brochure (PDF): Explains the history and mission of Toys for Tots
http://toysfortots.org/documents/actionbrochure.pdf

The official Toys for Tots site: http://www.toysfortots.org

The Official Toys for Tots Logo: Right-Click and select, “Save Picture As”
http://toysfortots.org/promotional_media/official_logo.asp

Promotional Posters: Might make some nice alternative graphics for your posts
http://toysfortots.org/promotional_media/promotional_posters/default.asp

YouTube Promotional Videos: Embed on Facebook, your site, in posts etc…or just email links to readers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eg9Wbe18QYg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzzfMsLez4I
(there are more videos there as well, do a YouTube search for “Toys for Tots”

Article from the Chicago Sun Times: “It’s the only gift they get: Donations Hit Hard by Economic Crisis…”
http://www.suntimes.com/holiday/1337626,CST-NWS-toys18.article

In a perfect world, every woman would have a healthy pregnancy, a glorious pain-free birth, a wonderful breastfeeding experience and would feel completely happy and bonded with their child all the days of their life.

But most moms have trouble in one or more of these areas at least once. When we do, we’d really love it if moms who aren’t having an issue could simply nod and offer a smile or a shoulder to cry on.

Instead, the Mom-fia (which I just made up, I think) of moms who know everything, and impose their beliefs on people (usually without being asked their opinion in the first place) step up to twist the knife a bit.

Maybe this is not the most extreme example of this (I could point you to some though that I’ve seen online) but it has shades of it.

“How DARE Motrin imply that there are moms out there who are in pain as the result of babywearing. WE don’t know ANYYOONNNE like that! All moms should love carrying their babies. We don’t make any concessions for moms with physical disabilities, injuries or other reasons why babywearing is painful. How DARE a company like Motrin, who makes a PAIN RELIEVER, imply that there is such foolish need in the Mom community for their product.”

And in the meantime, the mom with the hunched over back and splitting headache who is jonesing for a Motrin is feeling like crap because apparently moms aren’t SUPPOSED to feel this way. God forbid a marketing message aimed at a mom in pain actually reach said mom and help her out.

No, moms (for whom the message isn’t even intended…moms NOT in pain) intercept the message and make it seem blasphemous that any company would dare critique any aspect of mommyhood.

Breathe, Jen….ok, I get a little upset sometimes.

My point is this….clearly, Motrin is not saying babywearing is bad. They’re just acknowledging that it can hurt your back. Why is that so damning? Why is that so blasphemous?

Is the babywearing movement on such tenuous ground that even a mere Motrin ad could cause it to come tumbling down into ruins? If so, y’all have some bigger issues to deal with.

As a former attempted-babywearer let me just say this in all honesty: It’s great for some moms but it sucked for me. I had enough pain beforehand, but even more after. Motrin? I was reaching for my prescription painkillers from my c-section as one of my Twitter friends and I spoke of.

But if it works for you….that’s awesome! You’re so lucky! Just don’t rub it in our faces that you are k?

That’s it for me…night all!