TheMommyBlog

I was sitting here trying to think of a clever introduction to this topic and kept giggling about the exchange that went on to arrange this mention. Well, as usual, I gotta go with what brings the funny.

So. Shannon Davis wrote to say she enjoyed the blog and appreciated finding someone with a similar life to hers. She asked about sponsorships, etc., because she recently launched a new business that she think our readers might be interested in.

Beyondmotherhood.com is an online job board that connects employers with the “untapped"workforce, stay at home mothers. There are thousands of educated and experienced moms nationwide looking for flexible opportunities.... and Beyondmotherhood.com wants to connect them with employers.”

Hey, sounds excellent to me! I need some of that!

She continued, “My funds are a little low (or should I say nonexistent) at this point …but once the site gets going I can purchase some ads from you. Sorry for the scattered response…my son is busy spraying the kitchen down with water as I type…got to love it!”

I responded, “Okay, that’s twice I nearly spit cranberry juice on the keyboard. Once when I read “nonexistent” because we are the poor leading the poor… and then again about your son. Last night, I went out to water the trees in pots, and noticed that the curly hose with the sprayer wasn’t attached to the main hose, so I screwed it on. As soon as I turned on the water, the curly hose exploded into a fountain, swinging and thrashing from the pressure of the water shooting out of two very clean cuts in the hose. Hmm. No one had any idea how the hose was cut, but they all agreed that I sure did get wet.”

And the capper: “Hilarious! Sounds like my life…as I sit here covered in tomato sauce! The glamour of being a mom!”

So, considering the immediate and obvious intersection of shared business objectives and the connectedness of our visions, I encourage you to visit Beyondmotherhood.com, and hope to benefit myself from their services. See? Told you I only promote things I would use myself!

Come on, girls, we need each other, and if anyone is going to understand that you’ve got a lot to contribute even though you’re chasing after little ones, it’s other moms with a lot to contribute who are chasing after little ones. Please check it out and help flesh out both the employment offers and candidate pool!

Or last night. But it needed cleaning up first. You should have seen the kids.

“Guys, check it out: my toenail just came off!”

“Cool!”

“Whoa!”

“I’m so sorry, mama, want me to kiss it?”

“I have no idea what happened but it was suddenly like a clamshell over here, waving at me. So I took it off.”

‘But your toe still has a nail.”

“It looks that way, doesn’t it? But that’s blood. See, my nail had red polish. So it really didn’t change things much, did it?”

Dylan wanted to know, “Can I keep it?”

Today is my first day of my new job as Marketing Manager at Renkoo.com!

You can tell I was nervous because this morning I put toothpaste on my fingertip instead of on my toothbrush, put my watch on upside down, and wore the one pair of heels that could not rub against the huge divot I put in my big toe moving a bed yesterday, but forgot about the blisters they leave on my pinky toes.

On the upside, they have t-shirts with fricking sharks with fricking laser beams attached to their heads.

You may want to go away now, but if you’re up for bad, bad editing, I was inspired by the “Total Momsense” video and made one of my own. Sloppily. You’re welcome.

Hey there, sorry I’ve been scarce lately, but I’ve been busy at my day job! We’re very excited about the press release sent out this morning...

TrustedOpinion.com Launches with Uniquely Personal Recommendations for Movies

Consumers now have a way to get reliable, trusted recommendations from their circle of friends, thanks to the launch of TrustedOpinion.com which opened for free access to the public today.

(PRWEB) March 22, 2007—Until today, every rating and recommendation website has suffered from the same problem: The recommendations come from strangers. Consumers are often fooled by seemingly unbiased opinions when the reality is that many online reviews are commercially biased. And even with “honest” online reviews, consumers have no way of knowing how much they have in common with the reviewer. Fortunately, consumers now have a way to get reliable, trusted recommendations from their circle of friends, thanks to the launch of TrustedOpinion.com which opened for free access to the public today.

TrustedOpinion.com delivers better, trusted reviews and recommendations by weighing your circle of friends’ opinions higher than those of a stranger. As each person’s network of friends on the site expands, the recommendations become more targeted and relevant. With this public launch, TrustedOpinion.com offers recommendations on thousands of movies as well as television DVD collections. Over the coming months, TrustedOpinion.com will expand by offering trusted recommendations for restaurants, clubs, and more.

read more...

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I have been crazy busy working on the launch for Trusted Opinion (my day job, for those keeping track at home).

Until now, it’s been invitation-only, but just in time for Valentine’s Day, we’ve decided to open it up to the whole world. Well, not the whole world. That would crash our servers. But it’s very exciting! You don’t have to ask me for invitations anymore! It’s all yours!

*roar of the crowd*

For those of you new to the game, here’s a blurb and a piece of my latest newsletter (yes, it’s a dream come true: I get PAID to write!):

Building on our list of slick new features, we’re proud to offer even more that will make giving and getting recommendations easy and fun!

In the last newsletter, we introduced our Ratings Radar, new Subcategories, and great ways to give recommendations. Well, your Trusted Opinion experience is about to get even better.

New Member Home Page
Yes, you now have yet another home on the Interwebnet! Make the place your own: choose avatars, upload as many photos as you like, adjust your personal profile settings so that everyone can see your general profile, but only your first circle of friends can see the whole you, the real you, the you they want to take to the movies. You can also track all sorts of things on our Home page, including a nifty snapshot of your ratings!

Running with the Big Dogs
You can stay on the porch if you like, but the big dogs are running loose at Trusted Opinion! Now you can see who has written the most reviews, was first to review the most movies, who is most expert, and which movies are most commented. Get the scoop on the flicks before you hand over your cash for tickets. Then, use the theater map to get the location, and you’re off and running! Don’t forget that you can also click through to Fandango.com right from our site to purchase tickets before you even hit the theater. Don’t wait in line. Just ride in the car with your shiny new ticket, still warm from the printer.

My company is doing some fun user testing on our latest release, and we need a few more people to come test the system, shoot the shit, have a bag of chips, and collect forty bucks. Must be local to Bay Area!

Use Yelp and/or Digg a lot? Earn money for 45 min feedback session (Palo Alto)

TrustedOpinion.com is looking for expert opinions about our site from people who are top “Yelpers” and “Diggers”. If you are an expert reviewer on Yelp or contribute daily to the buzz on Digg and want to earn some extra cash, please send a link to Yelp or Digg profile page to . People who get selected will get paid to participate in a 45 minute feedback meeting in Palo Alto where you’ll get to be one of the first people ever to use our new site. The people who provide the most valuable feedback will be chosen to be official TrustedOpinion.com advisors. Advisors will get their name mentioned on our website, get free access to the site for life, and be invited to participate in further TrustedOpinion.com advisor events! We’re looking for people immediately, so please respond asap. Must be 18 or over.

Please reply to ! I will not be doing the scheduling, though I will be there for most of the sessions.

Available slots are…
Tuesday Jan 16:
12 PM
1 PM
3 PM
4 PM

Wednesday Jan 17:
3 PM
4 PM

Thursday Jan 18:
12 PM
1 PM
2 PM
3 PM
4 PM

I’m going through our beta site for work, and need a few friends to test it out and build the community with me. (Must have an interest in movies and be willing to rate them and invite others to participate).

This is an entirely new way of keeping shared reviews between friends. When the next release comes out (very soon) it will be even more dynamic and interactive and will have many more categories. If you’re interested, drop me a line and I’ll send you an invite!

Nota bene: If I don’t respond with an invite, it’s probably because I don’t know you at all. Please accept my apologies with the understanding that the idea is to invite people you know so that the ratings you see have a known quality. But if you do get one, please invite others—but just others you know!

P.S. if you emailed me before 1:57 p.m. PST, try again. I had a TYPO in the address!

I’m home, poopsies. And pooped, poopsies. Poopsies.

Despite having travelled six thousand miles and touched ground in three cities, my six degrees of separation have been following me around like a puppy on a leash. At the conference, I connected with Steve Rubel of MicroPersuasion. Some of you may read him already and also may remember that I blogged his session last year in San Diego at the same conference. He was there to do the session again, and it was fascinating to see the progression in the understanding of and knowledge about blogs and newsfeeds in just one year. (Is there any such thing as “just one year” in the Interwebnet?) While we chatted we discovered that we knew some of the same people—he was on his way to meet with the company I have just partnered with, and he also knew the head of another podcasting startup who happens to be my ex’s current boss. I tell ya, small marble we live on.

Also, I ran into a woman I’m supposed to meet with later this month in Chicago, and when I mentioned going back to my reunion last weekend, she said that her second child was about to graduate from that very same high school. She lives a few blocks from my brother and knew the restaurant where I served banquets in a dirndl way back when. Jiminy.

In other, much bigger news, Logan is eight today!

I ran over to his dad’s before seven this morning so I could be the first to kiss him awake and wish him a happy birthday. Daphne greeted me with, “I was just dreaming about you.” And Dylan crawled into my lap and made himself very small and snug. God, I missed them.

After the Great Showing Off of Art Projects and Objects Acquired in My Absence Ceremony, Daphne pinned her Mother’s Day gift on my jammies and they all scrambled to dress because it’s Logan’s birthday and Logan gets to choose every meal and he chose DONUTS. At the DONUT STORE. Heh. I’d love to see them in about an hour, face-down on their desks.

Since I’d promised from the airport that I’d make his favorite cookies for his class, I stopped at the store (yes, in my jammies and fuzzy slippers) to get eggs so I could drop the treats off at precisely 10:30. Logan’s having lunch at his teacher’s house (the kids can bank earned tickets to spend on privileges, and he banked his for this occasion), and he has already calculated that he will turn eight exactly two minutes after the halfway point of the lunch hour. My little guy. Good thing I remembered the time of day he was born.

Okay, I’m off to work (six inches to my left), and since I have several new and exciting projects to work on I will be scarce this week. Today’s the last day for play, and it shall end gloriously with a sushi dinner with mom, dad, three kids, Grandpa, Phil, and my ex’s roommate followed by Baskin-Robbin’s ice cream cake at my house.

I can’t wait.

P.S. They just came over with a glazed donut for me. So that’s why Logan was asking which was my favorite!

I’m off tonight, campers, so don’t anyone get between me and a cab to the airport at 3. Go for the door handle and you’ll pull back a stump.

The guy in the room next door must have slept in the gutter because it was verry quiet last night. I slept like one who sleeps with the fishes.

Gotta go on stage…

Right now, there’s someone cursing and fuming down in room service. Not that I can hear him, but I can imagine.

It’s past four-thirty a.m., but the people in the next room are up! Boy! Are they up! I don’t remember when exactly I first emerged from Sleepyland, but I think I could pick her voice out in a crowd. His was low and muffled, at least until Room Service showed up.

KNOCK KNOCK

“Room service!”

[lots of talking, but not conversational, and certainly not to the guy in the hall]

KNOCK KNOCK

“Room service!”

“Not now, please!” His voice is suddenly clear and professional, “Just leave it in the hall.” And then, in less polite tones, “Leave it in the hall!

I giggled. I could just see the guy’s face out there, with his tray of chicken strips and nachos.* He wants to bring this tray in. He doesn’t want to leave it in the hall. He at least wants the guy to come to the door and sign the check, but the occupant is clearly in Yo No Comprendo The Englese territory.

You see, in this hotel, they don’t add gratuity to the check. They leave that to the guest. It’s not a popular policy, from what I’ve gathered. So he left.

I’m pretty sure somebody else got tipped, though. They showered, ate, and talked (loudly) about the state of the local economy, and the relative returns in different market sectors. Sweet holy bagels. I’m dying in here.

Oh, no. Not again.

I cannot believe this. I want to sleep so badly. Unfortunately I have MOM EARS and hear EVERYTHING.

Haaaaaaaaa, he wants to call a cab or something for her, but he can’t figure out the dialing. “You know what? I pay for the room, the parking, everything, but with what they charge to make a call I’d just as soon take you to a pay phone.”

Niiice.

She finally reaches someone and has a loud conversation in Vietnamese. But it’s not her ride. She’s still taking a cab. They finally settle up. “First things first: you get your ass home. Ain’t no department stores open at five-thirty on a Sunday morning.” There was more mumbling, and then, “Now, I have your number. Tomorrow, I’ll take you anywhere you want, baby. Anywhere.”

Can you take her to the Hilton down the street?

*sob*

God, I hope I don’t run into him at the elevators.

*muzak*

*CORRECTION: It was clam chowder, turkey wraps, and BBQ potato chips. I nearly tripped over the cart outside my room.

People: I just returned to the convention center to open shop and there is a POLKA BAND, with ACCORDIANS and HUGE AMPS, not ten feet from my delicate ears.

It’ll be okay. It’s only for three days.

Uggghhh. How can I feel hungover? I didn’t even go out last night. (And I had only a glass of wine with room service for those of you keeping score at home.) I hate traveling across time zones, unless there’s Turkish coffee involved.

One thing is fun, though: you’re entitled to make ridiculous statements like, “What time did I go to sleep? TWO A.M. (local time). What time did I get up? FOUR A.M. (my time).” Heh. You get to be such a martyr, if a retarded one.

I’m off to hunt for coffee and then get out the paper napkin the booth display diagram was sketched on and pick up my union guy. What? it could be fun. I had it pinned to my wall at six different angles last night and I think I’ve got it now.

Unless that was Dylan’s Picasso.

Satisfied that I had withstood all I could for the day, I turned off my computer at 6 p.m. and prepared to leave the office. As I stood and walked around my desk, I brushed against my file cabinet and… SNAP! My knee broke the key off in the lock. My lock. The lock that secures the drawer containing the foundation’s entire supply of check stock. Jesus wept.

After scrounging around on the floor a moment, I found the shiny, silver head of the poor little key, issued to me just a week ago upon my arrival in my new office. Gah. I cannot believe that I need a set of needle-nosed pliers to get to my checks. Also? I cannot believe that all that stands between an intruder and all my checks is a pair of needle-nosed pliers.

Um, by the way and for the record? There is an armed guard and a highly sophisticated security system standing between any intruders and our precious resources. Not to mention a fearless, if overworked and exhausted, Grants Manager. Grrrrrr. Rowf!

Well, you might be wondering what prompted that little sapfest and that quote. It’s from a painted metal box I keep on my desk, and it was one of the three or four things I brought over to my new office yesterday. This will be office space number five for me, and by far the nicest.

When I knew the move was a go, I put my shrine of family photos in a crate and hand-picked a couple to come over with me along with my Wordsworth box and Tiffany clock. As I sat here arranging things, I thought about all the time I have been here, and the things I hope to be remembered for.

I now have a special opportunity to pay attention to that sort of legacy here at work, as I have been moved to an office on executive row (also affectionately know as Poobah Row or Stress Row, whichever). It’s temporary, for six months or maybe a year, but in the meantime I have a view with trees outside my window, twenty-foot ceilings, and two walls that are all glass from the top of the door up. I have coveted one of these babies for eleven years. In fact, I spent the first four years in a cube just down the hall, and used to gaze at the airy glass and riveted beams and wonder if I’d even get to sit under them.

Ahhhhhhhhh. This shit is good.

The downside is that I have to stop swearing like a sailor and walking around barefoot or in lounge pants, and my boss is two doors down. My very inquisitive boss. So no IM, no reading blogs, and definitely no web cam. I know, I know. I have already gone through two boxes of Kleenex in mourning.

But so far the welcome has been warm, and my neighbors have put out the red carpet. There are two dozen doughnuts in the kitchen, and I was presented with a plain brown bag containing my “cold mug” and a box of chocolates (Whitman Sampler! Get it? Ahhh, nevermind). Later this morning, I’ll run down and bury the mug in the ice bin with all the others so that it’s ready for the next after-hours margarita clinic…

So if you don’t see me round the blogs except for the odd wee hour, you’ll know why. But I will feel quite comforted by my photos, my Wordsworth, and my trees.

I feel like the runty kid who gets assigned into left field to pick flowers today, and don’t really mind.

I came into work, which surprised my boss and my co-workers. I’ve been gone long enough for people to stop expecting me to show up, and will not finish my travels until the 23rd, so no one really expected to see me until then. This is actually a gift, because I am horrendously hung over for the second time in a week and could use the peace and anonymity. Toward that end, I am seriously considering spending my birthday lunch hour curled up on my little red sofa with a pillow over my head.

But before I go, and just to give you a flavor of the surreal and incomprehensible nature of my day thus far, I offer my dear readers a transcript of my Monday morning meeting: