My email is back to trying to kill me again. If you have something that’s urgent, please send it to naomi DOT dunford AT rogers DOT com or call me at 519-204-1398.

Otherwise, we’re redirecting the @ittybiz.com over to gmail over the weekend so if it’s not urgent you can safely email the normal address on Monday and I’ll get it just dandy.

Payments go through my personal email, so for those of you who have sent payments in the last couple days, thank you, and I got them.

Thank you for your patience, and for those of you who are so inclined there’s plenty of space in the comments to say “I told you so”.

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By Naomi Dunford - May 16, 2008 in Personal - 5 Comments
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I’m in email retrieval hell right now since GoDaddy is trying to kill me. If you’ve sent email and haven’t heard back, you don’t have to resend — they seem to be all there, but in a totally random order and there are millions of them. I will get back to you as soon as humanly possible, but now I’m going to bed and collapsing.

Do you think I can still do internet marketing without actually using a computer?

By Naomi Dunford - May 6, 2008 in Personal - 6 Comments
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Hi everyone, Jamie from IttyBiz here. It’s about 5 am here on Tuesday morning, Jack is as asleep as he’ll ever be and Naomi is sleeping blissfully unaware that I have hijacked her little home business blog for this one post. Believe me, when she realizes it I’m sure there will be more than a few computer passwords changed around our house.

Before I get started with the real reason I called you all here, let me take care of a few administrative things that may help minimize the amount of damage I sustain when Naomi finds out about this. First - please read her post Home Business Mistakes: What Would You Do Differently?. By doing so you will ensure I will not have to hear about how I knocked her most recent post off the front page of her blog. Secondly, please do not let her know about this on Twitter. We all know how often she is on Twitter and I need the time to come up with a good alibi proving that this could not possibly be me writing this right now. Thanks for your support.

So, without any further ado, let’s get to it. The title of this piece is “Why I like My Wife”, and it will be about exactly that. Oh, and for the record I am stone cold sober right now. Not that that should be surprising or anything.

She doesn’t let me get away with any crap.

Out of all my friends and family, Naomi knows me the best. She knows me better than I know myself. This is awesome because whenever I am in a quandary she can tell me exactly what I should do. Not in a bad, domineering way, but in a “If you don’t do x you will be really pissed off with yourself”, and she is always right. Always. It’s kinda scary.

She lets me try anything.

When I had a job I really didn’t like, she was the first one to tell me to leave. Even though it was her turn to stop working and stay at home, she surprised me at work on my lunch hour one day and said to me “Guess what? I got a job. Now you can go quit yours.” I did, that afternoon. We hadn’t even really spoken about me quitting, she just knew how much I didn’t like going to work in the morning. When I wanted to try out going back to school, she was behind me all the way. When school didn’t work out, she didn’t blame me or complain about the wasted tuition money. She simply told me that school wasn’t working, it was worth a try but it was time to move on to other and better things.

She is patient.

For the last 7 months or so I have been at home and watching over Jack. She has seen me struggle at times trying to take care of our son but never once has she tried to tell me the “right” way to do it (unless of course I asked her to). She has always let me find my own way to do things and my relationship thus far with our son has been awesome because of it.

There are a lot more reasons but I am not the writer Naomi is and I won’t bother you nice people any longer. Thanks for letting me get this off my chest. Oh, BTW- if you happen to be in the London Ontario area anytime after Tues, April 8th be sure to stop by and visit me at Victoria Hospital, which is where I’ll be once Naomi has read this. She does not like surprises.

Thanks again!
Jamie

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By Jamie Dunford - Apr 8, 2008 in Personal - 28 Comments
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Once again, I’m late for the party. (This is why I don’t throw parties. Not only am I antisocial, but I’d be late for my own.) I need a home business PA who can alert me to these things before they happen. Not that I’ll tell them what they’re supposed to alert me to. They just have to, like, know.

Word on the street is was that Gary Vaynerchuk made April 3rd “Good People Day” on the Intertoobs. We were supposed to select the good people people in our lives and talk their shit up. When did I hear about this? 12:15 a.m. on April 4th. Whatever, it’s still April 3rd in California. I heard about this because Sonia Simone, definitively one of my favorite people, made me one of hers. (Do you have a Google alert on your name yet? Yeah, get on that or you won’t hear about cool stuff like this.)

OK, here are my 5 + 2. Is it supposed to be 5? I don’t know, I didn’t watch the video because I’m already late enough, thankyouverymuch. Sonia did 5 so I’m doing 5 plus more because I couldn’t stop there and let’s face it, it’s not like I had time to edit this, did I?

1. James Chartrand. I love James. I know the truth behind him. He’s not an ass, he just plays one on his blog. The dude can come on here — or any other unsuspecting comment section — and totally unleash, yet he works from home so he can spend time with his kids and he knits. How can you be a single guy in your thirties who knits and doesn’t live with his mother and not be insanely nice? (Yes, I have it on good authority that he does not live with his mother, and no, I did not read that on Wikipedia.)

2. Brett Legree. Where do I start with this dude? He’s a Canadian nuclear engineer with two blogs, a set of triplets, an additional daughter, and he cites playing “road” with his kids as his primary recreational activity. (“Road”, for those of you who don’t know, is where you lay on the floor — with spouse or without — and have your children roll toy cars over you with little to no regard about where the cars are going or how hard they’re vrooming. Best played in groups of two or more.)

3. Darren Rowse. When I was pregnant with The Loudest Business Partner, I was put on bedrest. Instead of eating candy all day — that would have involved eating, which was totally unacceptable — I read ProBlogger. Like, all of ProBlogger. Including comments. In the very scary days when I didn’t know how on God’s earth we were going to survive with another mouth to feed, Darren Rowse gave me hope and for that I will always be grateful.

4. Seth Godin. Everybody and their mama links to Seth Godin, and the cool kids — and sometimes the kids who aren’t cool at all — call him by his first name. I will take this opportunity to jump on the bandwagon and say that Seth Godin’s books changed my life. I got into marketing because of Seth Godin and now my family hangs out and feeds each other Cheerios out of sippy cup lids at noon on a Wednesday because I can make money doing what I love from my house. There is, quite simply, nothing cooler than that, and I have him to thank.

5. Maman. My mother is the only person other than Jamie who truly and completely didn’t give a shit what I did with my life, as long as I was happy. She was never a member of my rah-rah-you-can-do-it team because I honestly don’t think it ever crossed her mind that I would need it. She just knew I would be successful and that was the end of it. In her mind, my success and happiness were foregone conclusions and could we get to talking about something more interesting like beige walking sandals, please?

In response to my phone calls — the ones that came in the middle of the night for her in England — weeping that I would never succeed, she put on her Sensible Mother voice and said, ‘But honey, of course you’re going to succeed. You couldn’t fail if you wanted to.’ Sometimes that’s just what you need.

6. My husband. You know when you say “I love you” to someone so much that you worry it might lose meaning? And then you kind of wish there was something you could say when you mean it even more than you usually do? This is the unenviable situation in which I find myself with Jamie. After we decided to get married, it kind of pissed me off that I couldn’t decide to get married again. I was mad that I couldn’t turn to him and say, “Will you marry me?” because the response I would get would be a questioning look at my wedding ring and a “Do you think maybe you’ve had too much to drink, honey?”

Those of you who have been paying attention will know that there have been parts of the last year that have been a total fucking train wreck. He has been here for the “whoopsy daisy, looks like you have a mental illness” moments and the “shit, apparently you’re not pregnant anymore” moments and the “how the hell am I supposed to run a business like this?” moments and handled them with aplomb and grace and strength.

This blog, this business, those kids, and this person whose words you so kindly read are all here because of Jamie. I seriously wish I could duplicate him and sell him on eBay. I would make a goddamn fortune.

BONUS: Sonia. Duh. Sonia is the person whose blog I read when I think marketing is full of liars and bullshit. It’s a funny industry, marketing. Awesome for 90% of the time, and the other 10% you feel dirty like a Thai prison toilet. Sonia’s blog is the place to go for the Thai prison toilet moments. (Stay tuned for the next stupid search terms article. I’m sure that’ll get some doozies.)

So, even though it might be late, if you feel like doing this yourself, it could be cool. If not, you can just read about the cool people in my life and be jealous. Whatever.

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***

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By Naomi Dunford - Apr 4, 2008 in Personal - 13 Comments
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Don’t start getting used to two posts in one day. This is very special.

Not something I’d normally broadcast, but there’s no other way to say thanks. Remember Lisa? The funny, pretty one I don’t remember why I’m friends with anymore? Yeah, so she sends me another email today:

“You have a HUGE blog fan who has kindly prepaid a gift certificate for some tea for you today!!

I will match this so you now have $50 - choose away, sipping girl.”

To all those people who say the internet is a cold and impersonal and inauthentic, I say screw you. I know better.

Whoever you are, thank you. I am now crying like a big, fat loser.

(Obviously also thank you to Lisa, but she was probably just sucking up to me because one day I’ll be almost as famous as her.)

To all of my home business readers — every day, you delight me.

Your comments and your hate mail and your fan mail and your Tweets and your blog posts make this whole work-from-home lunacy the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done. (Parenthood is great and all, but I don’t have to toilet train any of you. Or pay for your college. Wait. Did I just publicly commit to paying for my kids’ college? Damn.)

I am very, very grateful for all of you.

Photo credit: Perago89

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By Naomi Dunford - Mar 28, 2008 in Personal - 17 Comments
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I’d like to give you a few updates, the first of which is a little story about my friend Lisa Wynn. That’s her over there on the left. We met via the Intertoobs when we were both sponsors for the Problogger birthday giveaway. She is generally awesome, and the prettiest and funniest person I have ever known. (Having said that, I’m not absolutely certain about why we’re still friends.)

Lisa makes custom tea (flavors include the “My mother-in-law is coming” blend, the “Pass my fat pants” blend, and the “My boss sucks” blend), and she runs a PR business, and she’s a VP of PR for somewhere large and impressive, and she’s the single mother of three teenagers. Oh, and she runs another home business called Hell on Heelz, which is a place for cool chicks in business women to hang out and bitch and learn. Basically, she makes normal women want to shoot themselves.

Anyway, there’s a point to all of this sucking up. Unfortunately, I lost the baby in a late miscarriage. The powers that be suggest it had something to do with running a fever for approximately 700 days straight. I had to go in for surgery last week, and it generally sucked.

The outpouring of support I received from those in the know has been phenomenal, and I’ve been very grateful. There came a time, though, when I didn’t know what to say in response to all of the supernice things people were saying, and I was starting to feel like a bitch because I was just responding by rote. Lisa, who is probably psychic in addition to everything else, ascertained that I was okay, and then sent me this email:

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry! When can you drink again? More importantly, when can you have sex again?”

Sometimes, that’s exactly what you need to hear. In answer to your questions, Lisa, now, and next Wednesday, respectively.

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In other news, Chris Cagle, my web designer and honorary member of the IttyBiz family, has added to his family. Little — or not so little, depending on your point of view — Alexander Cagle is the newest addition to the clan. Best wishes to him, his 18-month-old daughter Elise, and most importantly his wife Krista. She managed to give birth to a nine pound baby, God bless her. We have no time for nine pound babies in this house, so I’m glad somebody does. Congratulations, Cagle family! If you need a website done, check him out. Babies ain’t cheap, y’all.

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Clay Collins of soon-to-be The Growing Life fame has been kicking some serious ass lately, and the newest addition to his repertoire is a guest post on writing and research on my blog crush’s newest baby, Write To Done. You’ll notice that I have not written a guest post for the aforementioned blog crush, but I suppose I haven’t asked either. Rock on Clay — please, go check it out if you’re the writing or blogging type.

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Lastly, the comments on Friday’s post about swearing have been pretty awesome. I’ve been hiding out at my in-laws house, drinking wine and eating free turkey that I didn’t have to cook. (Everybody knows that the best kind of turkey is the free and cooked by someone else kind.) I would have loved to respond to each comment individually but a four-day-weekend put the stops to that. Therefore, if you’re interested, head on over and check out the comments that are in many cases, better than the post.

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By Naomi Dunford - Mar 25, 2008 in Personal - 35 Comments
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Still puking my fool guts out. In the meantime, please check out Tanya’s art. This woman is disgracefully talented and is clearly out of her damn mind for charging $20 a pop for these babies on Etsy.

Click here, be blown away. (No, she’s not a client and she hasn’t given me any free stuff.)

Back to puking. Ugh.

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By Naomi Dunford - Mar 4, 2008 in Personal - 4 Comments
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Hey people,

A caring family member called to tell me that I was a bitch for not responding to her email, and it would seem that she is getting caught in spam. Heading over to my trusty spam folder, I see the rest of you are too. If I haven’t gotten back to you, sorry dudes. If it makes you feel any better, you’re in good company. It looks like I didn’t respond to Darren Rowse either.

I’m slogging my way through it now. In the meantime, happy Monday.

By Naomi Dunford - Feb 25, 2008 in Personal - 15 Comments
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Well, I’ve told my mother-in-law so now I can tell y’all without looking like a bitch…

I’m pregnant.

This means that daytime TV is completely disallowed in my home because talk shows make me weep uncontrollably and I am not cute when I cry. Some women look like these delicate wet kittens when they cry. I look like a fat, drowning rat. No Oprah or Ellen for almost a year. I can’t even imagine what this will do to my home business productivity. Take that, Dave “Mr. Productivity Pants” Navarro. I got an extra six hours in my day just by getting knocked up.

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By Naomi Dunford - Feb 6, 2008 in Personal - 48 Comments
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WAH(web)Mommy tagged me with a 7 Weird Things About You meme thing. If you’ve been paying attention you’ll know I’m not exactly in the mood to work, so I figured I’d do this instead.

1. I did not read Sark for five years because she has a book called Eat Mangoes Naked and I find mangoes offensive. (For those of you who are wondering what I have against mangoes, it’s that they’re hairy. Yes, coconuts are also hairy but they aren’t hairy on the part you eat.)

2. My best friend when I was growing up was a notebook. Well, not a notebook, a specific page in a notebook. I drew a computer on it in crayon and I consulted it by pushing random buttons before I did anything. I thought this made me like Penny from Inspector Gadget. This went on for approximately four years.

3. When I was about nine, my cousin and I were listening to New Kids on the Block together on a walkman, each of us with one half of the headphones. When I heard the word “sexy” in the lyrics I screamed at my father to stop the car (which he did, in the middle of downtown Dublin) because we had to go to the police station and have the band arrested for vulgarity.

4. My real dream is to write Harlequin romance novels, ideally Christian ones.

5. I never finished high school but I am considering going back to school for seven or more years because it would be cool to be called Dr.

6. There was a time when I was very broke and unemployable. (I’m still unemployable, but not so broke.) I realized that the only two ways I could make any money quickly enough — Michael was two and would eat a person out of house and home — were stripping and waitressing. I had no experience in either, but as I am only an A cup, I was entirely unqualified for the former. I set on a quest to get a job as a waitress.

I figured that the only way I could legitimately have a lifetime of experience in waitressing but no references or resume was to be from another country. Having spent three years in England as a child, I figured that was as good a place as any. I watched three episodes of Coronation Street back-to-back, duct-taped my tits together — yes, I totally had Michael hold the duct tape — put on a low-cut top and set out for a job.

I had a job by that evening and faked being English for nearly six months. The jig was up when we got a new beer on tap. Bass is a British ale, and has been since 1777. I would know that if I’d been working in British pubs for six years. I offered a pint of it to my boss when the new kegs were installed. Bass, by the way, is pronounced to rhyme with ass. Not face. I probably should have known that, too. I was actually escorted off the premises in my little kilt. My now-husband will tell this story to anybody who cares to listen, duct-taped tits and all.

7. I hate surprises of almost every variety. Nobody has every thrown me a surprise party because they know I would actually leave.

Some bonus features: I don’t know how to drive. I was the youngest person to ever win the National High School Science Fair — I was 12 — and I did it in Computer Science. Often in summer, I sleep with frozen peas on my feet. Sometimes I refreeze them, sometimes I just buy more. My father thinks this is a sign of kidney failure. Oh yeah. And I have a home business. You might have heard of it.

I don’t really know how to tag people because I don’t get memes. But if you have weirdness, you’re welcome to share it in the comments.

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By Naomi Dunford - Feb 1, 2008 in Personal - 29 Comments
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