Monday, Monday, MONDAY

Damn, y'all are some promotion happy people. Smart too. If I had oodles of cash, and my own private jet to haul out with me to San Francisco 1,000 chocolate sippy cups full of imprinted m&m's, well, I sure as hell would. Of course, if I had oodles of money I wouldn't have to work so hard to promote myself so that I can earn a living. Heh.

After carefully considering all ideas, I have decided to go ahead and get some free business cards and also create some cool temporary tattoos. I thought long and hard about the condoms idea--and if my blog was still called "and I wasted all that birth control" I'd probably find a way to make it happen. But it isn't, so I'm not going to do that. Too bad, though. That would have been fun.

I also loved the idea of using the image of the girl I have tattooed on my back for the temporary tattoo (click here for the full primer on my ink), but sadly there are some copyright issues there (it's one thing to have an artist's work tattooed on you, and quite another to steal it for promotional reasons). Instead, I'm thinking I'll use a modified image of Rosie The Riveter since that image is now public domain (although I prefer the Norman Rockwell image, it doesn't translate as well to a tattoo).

I also ordered two different business cards--one for the blog, including my subtitle (see above) and a different one that focuses on my professional writing. Because I used the free service I wasn't able to use my masthead for the cards, but they are cool nonetheless (I chose this for the professional card, and this for the blog cards).

I really liked the idea of a postcard too, and I may do that in the future but I don't think it's right for BlogHer. Every picture I've seen of the conference shows everyone on their laptops during their downtime, so I don't think handing out something printed to read is the best plan. But I still might use it in other situations.

Thank you all so much!

I am also happy to report that I am able to blog this from my basement office, a place I haven't seen in several weeks--not since Tori's morning care program closed for the summer (turns out? my cat has been using the rug as a litter pan. smelly). Luckily we have found a most amazing babysitter to come spend a few hours a week with Tori so that Charlie and I can both get work done and not have to do so much at night after Tori goes to sleep. She's a music teacher for the Philadelphia School District and was worried about being BORED while off this summer, so she's working for us for absolute peanuts (she even offered to do light housekeeping too but I just could not let her do that--it would be cruel and unusual punishment).

We expected to hire a local teenager. We did interview one, and she told us when we called her back that she was NOT interested in working for us. I could hear in her voice she thought we were weird. Plus, I don't think she like the idea that we would be on site while she played with Tori.

We ran our ad on Craig's List (which if you don't already know about is a super cool site). I was SHOCKED at the number of adults--true education professionals--that answered our ad. Most of them were willing to work for $10 an hour OR LESS. Crazy times, these.

All morning I've sat down here listening to Tori play with drums, tambourines, and maracas. It's nice to hear her having such a good time, but I find myself itching to go on up there and join them. This working from home thing isn't so easy. Sigh.

But I got three articles finished AND wrote this blog entry, so I'll just count my blessings. Heh. And so ends a fairly dull entry on a Monday. Eh, they can't all be awesome.

Comments

[Sheila]

1.

I like the business card idea, and it will be funny to see the "foul-mouthed rantings" phrase on a card with pretty flowers. :)

Is Tori okay with the babysitter when she knows you're just downstairs? When I was in college I babysat for several stay-at-home moms, but they all had to leave the house or else the kids just wanted to be with them. Once when one mom desperately needed to get work done in the house, we created a whole charade of her leaving, then the toddler and I closeted ourselves in the bedroom while the mom snuck back in to her room and shut the door. After that we could go out to the rest of the apartment. Kind of funny - it would be great if you don't have to go through all that with Tori!

[Sarah]

2.

It sounds like things are looking up!

[jenn]

3.

I'm revelling in dull at the moment - both kids off to Farm Camp for the day...don't knock dull!

I think the temp. tattoo will be awesome, very unique and so indicative of YOU. People won't forget it.

Is it selfish that I'm DYING for you to get to BlogHer so I can hear what it's like??

[Carla Hinkle]

4.

Love the temporary tattoo idea.

Congratulations on the childcare help. It really will save your sanity, I am convinced.

[Tina]

5.

I work from home and feel your pain. It is great to have the help, (and lord knows working is a need, not a want around here) but man, I wish I could just go out and play with the girls all day!!! :)

[Sarah]

6.

Yay! So glad the babysitter worked out well!

[Dramalish]

7.

Yay! Roise the Riveter is AWESOME! *We can do it!*

Can't wait to see you at Blogher. I'll be working as a volunteer audio recorder. Hooray!

:D

-D.

[Jennis]

8.

Aw, yay! I am glad you found a grown-up person to help with Tori! I was hoping & praying it would all work out. :)

[Amy]

9.

As someone who loves what she does and likes to keep busy I can totally relate to your Torisitter. Better to be doing something you enjoy and making little than doing nothing and being bored.

[Andrew]

10.

Um, hate to break it to you, but you *are* weird. And that's why we like you.

With weird people, you know where you stand. It's the so-called "normal" people you have to be worried about.

If you weren't weird, you wouldn't have found Charles, the person you were meant to be with, because he's weird, too.

But I suspect you already knew this.

[Chickenpig]

11.

I don't know much about clever things to hand out, but I can say that I nice business card or post card that had something clever relating to your blog would be nice to receive. And a temporary tattoo is really cool, especially for those of us who don't have the balls to get a real one :) The only thing I would add is that since your blog title is "Uppercase Woman" something having to do with the an upper case 'W', like the Superman logo, only with a 'W' might be clever. I would put that sucker on my chest :)

[JuliaKB]

12.

You know, I like this entry. Because you sound so relaxed, like you are actually breathing. (And I realize you are breathing the stink of cat pee, but that is all details, no?)

I missed a lot-- am now catching up on blogs over the last two weeks, but I am happy to find you in a better place now.

[Alex]

13.

OK, I had nothing clever to contribute to the promotion ideas comments and didn't read through all of them, but if everyone there is on her laptop, maybe create a separate (linked, obviously) webpage that showcases, well, whatever you want to showcase of your work, and put the URL on there (or be sure to leave something front-and-center on your blog that you want the Bloghers to read and to have the blog URL on your cards...I assume you will? Just saying, the promotion ideas are great but you can get a lot more stuff on a webpage than a card or an, um, tattoo, well, at least the typical temporary tattoo.

[Epiphany Alone]

14.

Instead, I'm thinking I'll use a modified image of Rosie The Riveter since that image is now public domain

This may be a weird question. Is she going to be fat? I like the idea of an updated, bigger Rosie...