Delivering Financial Advice for the Family Assets

Whenever we meet with our financial advisor, I feel like I've just taken a crash course in Econ 201 again.

Ok, this is the point where I feel like I have to apologize for having a financial advisor. No, I don't have millions, only a desire to stop working before I'm 70. Of course, husband fully intends to croak in the show ring at the Ohio State Fair some day.

Back to economics...

So our financial advisor is explaining to us the benefit of our new strategy, called active management where we have our small investments managed like a big fund, with experts moving our money around from stocks to gold, to under his mattress, to back into small cap stocks, to Bernie Madoff (luckily we didn't get to that step).

We are having this in-depth financial discussion at our dining room table, which is very convenient except for the fact that our small children also have access to the dining room.

Our three-year-old daughter races in and skids to a stop. She is wearing a marker-stained OSU cheerleader outfit. She stares at the financial advisor, a very nice man who wears a tie, and finally says are you the pizza man?

We shoo her out and proceed to discuss the status of my 401K rollover, and how many millions of today's dollars we'll need to save just to keep ourselves affording Depends, Pepsi two-liters and State Fair passes.

Our four-year-old son marches in and stage whispers to my husband Ryan says that's the pizza man. Disbelieving his father, he says loudly to me, Is that the pizza man?

By now our financial advisor is ready to have us sign some forms and discuss our contribution to Roth IRAs (or something), when our son returns. Naked from the waist down.

He streaks through the dining room, forgets his pants and then streaks back through to get them.

After we had given our financial advisor a detailed peek at the family assets and accused him of working in food service, we sent him on his way.

A few years ago we would have been mortified by this whole experience. But as veteran parents, we simply tossed our son a pair of undies and finished our pizza.

100th Post

Whew! This is the 100th post to this blog. How did that happen?

There's no use repeating my year in review post, so I'll just share a few scenarios that illustrate the double life I lead.

Once, I freaked out my east-coast-transplant Vice President, because I told him to hold on for a second (we were both in our cars on the phone) while I navigated around a cow in the road. He didn't even think to ask the first question everyone around here would have: whose cow was it?

I took my husband to a casual corporate event to which spouses were invited. Later, I was told by several people in the most complimentary way, he doesn't LOOK like a farmer.

Last summer, I did a job interview (by phone) from the swine barn at the Iowa State Fairgrounds.

Two summers ago I cashed in my frequent flyer miles, earned by going to meetings in NYC and conferences in Chicago, for a round trip ticket to Des Moines (A tip: not too many blackout dates for DAY to DSM).

I held a contest among my communications co-workers to name our new boar. The winning entry - Magnum PIg

This year for Christmas I bought my husband something useful for his career. A Blackberry? Oh, no, a microscope for checking the viability of pig s&men. He will do this on our washer.

So stick around for the next 100 posts. You never know what's going to happen next around here.

P.S. If you know ANYONE with at least one clicking finger who lives in Wyoming, Vermont or Rhode Island, please have them stop by. I must feed my addiction to Google Analytics.

PR Idea of the Week

I was traveling northbound on Gettysburg Ave. (before the intersection of James H. McGee) in an economically depressed part of Dayton this week when I saw a billboard. Could it be? The Dayton Patented campaign? I paused in the turn lane to snap a few photos


The story about Devon Berry is a good one. Local guy sees the world but decides Dayton is where he wants to raise his family. That's all well and good.

But it seems like this would be phase two of the campaign. What about a campaign just to socialize the rubber stamp logo? They are really trying to do a lot with the four seconds they get until you speed past this billboard.

This is really the first I've seen or heard from the campaign since there was an article in the Dayton Daily News and some blog chatter back in August. Maybe, since I'm already committed to living and working in greater Dayton, I'm not seeing the campaign because I'm not the target.

Everyone's a critic when it comes to branding, so I'm trying to be supportive. I will say that the City of Dayton is missing a few opportunities on this one. First, they could be using people like me and other local bloggers to spread the word. We would do it for free! A cool badge for my blog would be nice, noting that I'm also a Dayton Original.

And how about that t-shirt order page? You have to GO to the public affairs office (between the hours of 8:01 and 4:59, I bet) to buy one? Are you kidding me? I'll buy one online, especially if you throw in two more for me to give away on my site.

Dink-dink, dink-dink (that's the sound of me tapping on the monitor). Are you there Dayton public affairs office? It's us, the people of Dayton. We are originals. We want the city and therefore the region to be cool. Let us help you.

Thanks for Reading in 2008

Happy New Year! Thanks for reading this blog.

Thanks to those of you who openly read the blog and bring it up in conversation with my husband who then says I didn't know that. And thanks to those who are closet readers and try to pretend they don't even know I have this blog--I know who you are (can you say Google Analytics) and I am very tempted to out you by posting embarrassing photos of your spouse [just kidding, I think].

And a special thanks to my friend M who started last year at this time urging me to start a blog, so she alone didn't have to hear about how I thought my son felt like an octopus when he was being born.

What a year it has been. We had a a presidential election, a hurricane, an earthquake, and a blizzard and this blog was there to cover it all.

I tried to offer content you couldn't get on other blogs, so I enrolled all of you in remedial agricultural education, including pigs 101 and field trips to the World Pork Expo and the county fair. In covering agriculture I tried to give you special access to exclusive information like the secret code of pig farmers. I worked to broaden your horizons and teach important terminology. I toggled between grossing you out and sharing cute photos of pigs.

I put a lot of myself out there for you, including sharing my compassionate side and my best motherhood wisdom in addition to my thoughts on married life. And sometimes I very gently joked about my husband. Like the time he fought crime.

Oh, and just to keep this blog really from finding a niche, I made "interesting commentary" on PR and marketing issues.

The best compliment I ever had on the blog was from my friend MP who said after reading on her lunch hour I almost shot Diet Coke out my nose. Here's to more ruined nasal passages in 2009!

A Real Farm Wife

Farm wives are a special breed of women. And while I'm much closer to being one than the VAST majority of females in this nation, I'm not really sure I'm a genuine farm wife.

I have known a few REAL farm wives in my time. I'll compare myself to what I think of when I say "farm wife."

Household Vet
Farm Wife: Has conducted bloody operations on pigs/calves/lambs/chickens with needle and thread in her own kitchen.
Me: Are you kidding me? It's all I can do to allow husband to store his pig medication in the refrigerator in bottles--I make him use the veggie drawer.

Heavy Equipment
Farm Wife: Drives the tractor with hay baler, cause that's the girl job. Jumps off at noon to prepare fried chicken and potatoes for all the farm hands.
Me: I mowed the lawn once and reduced a six foot pine tree to toothpicks. Afterward, I decided to Shake and Bake some boneless breasts. Does that count?

Pooper Scooper
Farm Wife: Covers her hair with a kerchief, grabs a pitchfork and gets to work.
Me: I did fill MANY a manure spreader during my 4-H years, including the morning after my Prom (no, this wasn't even punishment, just the way my Dad did things) I have since retired my pitchfork.

Living off the Land
Farm Wife: Tends an enormous garden full of vegetables, which she cans and freezes to enjoy year-round. Raises chickens for eggs and has a freezer full of hamburger from the last steer she had processed.
Me: I like to eat a few tomatoes from the in-laws' garden but I hate chickens. I know most farm wives would shudder, but I buy all of my meat at the grocery.

In fairness, I am comparing myself to farm wives from a different generation who made wife and mother their career. I guess in this day and age of two-income families, a farmer is happy to be married to a woman with a 401K and occasional business trips to satisfy her need to travel further than than the end of the lane.

I think my husband appreciates all my attempts to help out on the farm. Like all the times I have looked out the window and said, "The cows are out. Who should I call?" Or the time I drove the truck and trailer during a long trip so he could nap--luckily he woke up just in time to help me cross four lanes of traffic and make our exit. I know husband will always remember fondly the time I filled out the paperwork for a litter of pigs and used his pet name for one of the boars--that we sold and had announced at multiple shows and sales afterward.

Maybe those weren't the best examples after all, but I know that I do try to be a good farm wife. What other kind of woman would still be around months after uttering this real, actual sentence to her spouse: Why does our lettuce smell like pig s&men?

Christmas Wrap-up

We had a nice Christmas. Santa was good to the kids, and the kids were satisfied that Santa and the reindeer were pleased with their snacks.


Easily, Morgan's favorite gift was the make-up set that Santa left her. We know that because she jumped up and down when she opened it and screeched MAKE-UP, MAKE-UP, MAKE-UP!

The boys, predictably, got tractors and farm sets, plus Carhart jackets for working outside.

Husband didn't get any farm toys but he did get a TV--that we have already managed to break. Me, I got Longaberger dishes, slippers, and a case of the heebie-jeebies that had me spending the next two days after Christmas in bed.

We're still in that post-holiday awkwardness, where we try to absorb new clothes, toys and other gifts into the household. Some things are still under the tree, right where we opened them. While other things, like little plastic pieces of toy fencing, have already made their way into every nook and cranny of the house--even the bathroom.

Christmas might be over but I have another big holiday to celebrate yet this month. Let me also give a shout-out to a fuzzy-headed nephew who, 20 years from now, is going to have the BEST time on New Years Eve.

'Twas the Night to Talk PR

I think it's a prerequisite to a career in journalism or communications that you attempt a parody of The Night Before Christmas, at least once. Fortunately for all you readers, this is not my year. BUT I am happy to share the link to a slightly bawdy PR version penned by Greg Brooks, a pal of the Bad Pitch Blog.

My favorite line:
Releases were sent to BizWire with great care
In hope that a journalist might be aware

Since Santa has already granted my most important professional wish this season, I have already started on my professional New Years resolution. (I'm not doing too well on my personal resolution yet. Those cafeteria paninis are too tempting!)

Anyway, this year I resolve to contact the media weekly with a quick, not-to-deep pitch. By not-too-deep, I mean something that doesn't require weeks of planning, discussion, strategizing and approval by top management (this used to be everything in previous roles I've had). For example, I pitched local TV this morning on the importance of using the holidays to gather your family medical history--and got our high-risk breast cancer page mentioned on air and linked on the station's Web site, and you can bet I'm going to measure Web traffic.

Obviously, I'll still work on strategic projects that require lots of planning, but I have to think that some of these quick hits will be just as beneficial.

So consider me born-again in my pursuit of media relations and measurement, just like Baby New Year. And speaking of Baby New Year, my hospital is going to win this year--if I have to grab some forceps at 12:01 myself.

Merry Christmas to all,
And to all, a good night.