I have to apologize – this blog post is a little different from my usual informative, motivational post…

A few weeks ago, my personal trainer approached me about fitnesscheerleader.com.  His opinion was that overall it’s great, but there’s one problem – I’m not generating any revenue for the amount of time I obviously put into it.  Now at first I was like, who cares?  I don’t really want to make money – I just want to motivate people and see them do well.  Which is a fine and admirable goal, right?  

But of course his comments nagged at me for a few weeks – he suggested I sell a product.  I thought long and hard about this, and brainstormed what I could possibly sell.  A motivational eBook?  A pre-natal fitness eBook?  Sorry – I couldn’t see myself spending money on those, so why would anyone else? I don’t want to charge people to visit my site – that’s a quick turn-off in my opinion. (Though I could use eBooks as a way to get people to sign up for my newsletter….).  Then I got to thinking about my power walks…..

You see, now that running has become tougher for this preggo mama I’ve begun doing a walk around the park on my lunch hours with hand weights.  But I don’t just carry the weights – I do an upper body strength routine while I carry the weights.  I need to keep my arms in shape for carrying my baby  I also alternate some fast and slow walking – adding intervals for additional fat burning.  It’s a fantastic workout and keeps my walks fun.  So I thought – maybe people would be interested in downloading a walk and tone mp3?  You know, an mp3 that you could download (for a small fee) from my site that will guide you through a great walking workout (set to some fabulous music of course)!  So I’ve begun the process of recording such an mp3, and building a sales section and affiliate section for my site.  As an added bonus, I will throw in a free eBook with every mp3 purchased

My product idea is great right? But now I need some help actually marketing my mp3 – oh isn’t marketing always the fun part?

And this is where you come in…

Below is a sign up form to be notified of when my walk and tone mp3 product is launched. If you sign-up, I’ll send you the download info for a free trial of it (once I’ve finished recording it) so that you can do a review of it on your site – if you like it, perhaps you’ll do a giveaway? I’ll even provide a coupon code for your readers. And because I’m a blogger and I hate doing stuff for free without getting anything in return, I will set up anyone who does a review as an affiliate so that you’ll earn 25% of any sales you generate! Pretty sweet, eh?

So what are you waiting for? Sign up below so we can BOTH start earning some money!

Thanks everyone for your support on this project

All the best,
Janice

Mom On The Run - My life is a marathon, not a track meet...

iPod Folders

A few weeks ago I spent about 2 hours upgrading the operating system on my iPod Touch to iOS4. Afterwards the only difference I found was that I now had a new email box called “All Inboxes” that put all of the emails from all of my email accounts into one stream – AWESOME! But hardly worth the two hours I spent upgrading, not to mention that suddenly all of my apps were rearranged.
This morning, 5 year old Sierra was playing with my iPod and comes running to me, “Look mommy! I can put my games into folders!”. While I knew folders was a feature of the iPhone 4, I had tried to get my iPod to do it with no luck. While I’m pretty impressed with her, now I’m worried – what other tech things is she going to figure her way around?

BTW – If you’re trying to figure out how to do that with your iPhone or iPod all you need to do is hold your finger on an app icon until it starts “wiggling” then drag it on top of another app icon. The two apps will then be placed in a folder that you can rename.

Mom On The Run - My life is a marathon, not a track meet...

Annoying Happy Meal Toys

I’ve finally come to a solution – a much cheapter solution too!

I now buy a 10 pack McNuggets meal, upsize the fries and bring our own juice or milk (my kids always spill the ones McDonald’s provides). We no longer get, or fight over the toy. Now the girls and I share the meal, and if everyone ate their 3 nuggets and fries we can get a dessert. Woot! Problem solved!

Mom On The Run - My life is a marathon, not a track meet...

Oh and then there’s the “suggestions”… So-and-so has become a fan of < > and has suggested you become a fan too… So-and-so has added the application < > and has suggested you add it too… Yo folks – if you have enough free time on your hands to be adding these ridiculous applications, games etc… then you definitely have enough free time on your hands to vet out your friend lists and decide who to invite!

With regards to Farmville wall posts etc… Can I ask why? Why do you play these games? Why do you even want to advertise to your entire friend lists that you waste your time playing these games? You do know that potential employers (and current employers) review Facebook right? Do you know that they also see that you waste your time, whether personal free time or not, on Facebook playing these games?

Oh don’t get me wrong – I’m not against Facebook – it’s a very useful tool and has really helped me to stay in touch with you. I really like that even if you change your email address, phone number or move etc.. I can still contact you through there and you’ll notice that I prefer to send you a personal message on there or to live chat. Though wall-to-wall posts IMO are far too public and I really don’t need my employer or co-workers knowing that you and I are planning on getting shit-faced together ok? So please use some discretion. That said, I love seeing pics of you and your kids as they grow up, so please don’t stop posting them J .

Friends, when using Facebook take a moment to consider how you’re portraying yourself and what you really want to get out of it, ok?

Thanks!

Love,
Janice

Mom On The Run - My life is a marathon, not a track meet...

9:10 am – Man I’m hungry! I wonder if my manager would mind if I took my lunch break now?
10:44 am – Am I the only mother with a pair of her two year old’s clean underwear and spare pants in her purse?
12:04 pm – Crap! It’s lunch time and I ate all of my food three hours ago L
1:37 pm – Is it possible to sleep sitting up staring at a computer screen? How do I prevent my screen saver from coming on?
2:14 pm – I wonder when Microsoft will change the save icon from the floppy disk? Isn’t the floppy disk image rather old? I bet my 5 year old daughter has no freaking clue what that is a picture of! I wonder what they’ll replace it with? A picture of a hard drive? A USB key? Hmmmmm….
3:30 pm – Damn! I’m REALLY hungry – why couldn’t it be someone’s birthday today? I could REALLY use some cake….
4:30 pm – Yay! Time to go home! Woot!

Mom On The Run - My life is a marathon, not a track meet...

Did you watch it? Did you see Daris run the marathon in 4:02 and beat my first (and still my best) marathon time of 4:06? Wasn’t he awesome? He worked hard for that 4:02 finish and I wouldn’t be surprised to read in a year or two from now that he’s qualified for the Boston marathon. Man I love him! It seems I now have 3 Reality show boyfriends:

Boston Rob

Bob Guiney

Daris

I wonder….. What are Bob and Jillian’s personal best marathon times are? I bet Daris kicked their asses!

Mom On The Run - My life is a marathon, not a track meet...

Anyways – this post isn’t really about how old I’m getting – its about the show.  If you’re a parent, you’ll be able to relate to it.  It’s about the Braverman Family – all 3 generations:

Its really got something for every parent. One of the youngest family members (Max) has Asperger’s and In my uneducated opinion, they show does a great job of illustrating the challenges of raising a special needs child.

And the best news of all?  I’ll have to stay up on Tuesday nights for the next year because it Parenthood has been renewed for a second season – WOOT!

Mom On The Run - My life is a marathon, not a track meet...

It’s actually very important to take time for yourself every day.  In fact studies have shown that people who find balance between their work and their life sleep better, eat better and enjoy life more.  They have less stress – and having less stress means they live LONGER! 

This past weekend I found some time for my balance.   I took the kids to the park, spent some one-on-one time with my oldest daughter Sierra and I hung out with my BFF (sidekickgirl) at Donnie Wahlberg’s I GOT IT release party.  Here are some pics from the party:

My BFF and I	Donnie Wahlberg	Joey McIntyre (surprise guest)

It’s really important to your well being to take time to do stuff for yourself – so this week I encourage you to do something extra-special for yourself. 

Mom On The Run - My life is a marathon, not a track meet...

Q: Should I cut down on meat and eat more fruits and vegetables?
A: You must grasp logistical efficiencies.  What does a cow eat? Hay and corn. And what are these? Vegetables. So a steak is nothing more than an efficient mechanism of delivering vegetables to your system. Need grain?   Eat chicken.    Beef is also a good source of field grass (green leafy vegetable).    And a pork chop can give you 100% of your recommended daily allowance of vegetable products.

Q:  Should I reduce my alcohol intake?
A:  No, not at all.  Wine is made from fruit.   Brandy is distilled wine that means they take the water out of the fruity bit so you get even more of the goodness that way.   Beer is also made out of grain.  Bottoms    up!

Q: How can I calculate my body/fat ratio?
A: Well, if you have a body and you have fat, your ratio is one to one.  If you have two bodies, your ratio is two to one, etc.

Q: What are some of the advantages of participating in a regular exercise program?
A:  Can’t think of a single one, sorry.   My philosophy is: No Pain…Good!

Q:   Aren’t fried foods bad for you?
A:   YOU’RE NOT LISTENING!!! …..   Foods are fried these days in vegetable oil.  In fact, they’re permeated in it.  How could getting more vegetables be bad for you?

Q:   Will sit-ups help prevent me from getting a little soft around the middle?
A:   Definitely not!   When you exercise a muscle, it gets bigger. You should only be doing sit-ups if you want a bigger stomach.

Q:   Is chocolate bad for me?
A:  Are you crazy?   HELLO    Cocoa beans! Another vegetable!!!   It’s the best feel-good food around!

Q:  Is swimming good for your figure?
A:   If swimming is good for your figure, explain whales to me.

Q:  Is getting in-shape important for my lifestyle?
A:   Hey!  ‘Round’ is a shape!

Well,   I hope this has cleared up any misconceptions you may have had about food and diets.  Happy Friday folks!

Mom On The Run - My life is a marathon, not a track meet...

Well now you can calculate how much over-spending is costing your wallet with this website: http://www.feedthepig.org

Me?  I’m cheap… Cheap, cheap, cheap.  The birds sing songs about me!

• I MAKE my coffee every morning with my Tassimo – mmmmm I LOVE my Tassimo! (Dear Tassimo please give me a machine to giveaway to one of my dear readers so one of them can enjoy it too!)
• I bring toast to work and eat it at my desk (occasionally I bring jam with me to put on it)
• I contribute $5/week to the “Coffee Group” to drink copious amounts of coffee throughout the morning from the work coffee maker
• I bring a Lean Cuisine and a diet coke for lunch
• In the afternoon I drink tap water from a reusable water bottle.

But I’m not completely perfect… I do buy one lunch/week (usually Friday) and often get take-out ALL weekend long!  According to Feed The Pig this costs me $400 per month (probably more).  Ouch!

I love Feed The Pig!  I love the money saving tips that you can have sent to your email, cell phone, facebook, igoogle etc! Check it out and find out how much does it cost you to feed the pig?

Mom On The Run - My life is a marathon, not a track meet...