Guilty Pleasures

I felt my face flush with embarrassment the moment I saw the name in the From: field. I didn't even need to read the subject line to know what he was asking about:

Subject: Personalized Tote Bag - SoCal Mom

Like thousands of other bloggers, I get pitched all the time from companies to feature their products.

Most of the time, it's in the form of a press release for some product, travel destination, book or service that might spark a short blurb in a magazine -- but is just unusable for a personal blog like this one. I rarely respond to those.

My favorite pitches are the ones that invite me to an event, where I can experience something that would be fun to write about. (i.e., movie premieres, Disneyland rides, product tastings). When I receive one of these, I tend to RSVP pretty quickly.

Somewhere in the middle are the offers to send me a product for review and/or giveaway. I've learned to be selective about the ones I choose to respond to. I don't accept products I won't use myself (no baby products, preschool toys, or Botox treatments for me). When I do agree to accept a product for review, I fully expect that I will make the time to write the review.

I'm sorry to say that despite trying to be selective, I keep biting off more than I can chew.

There are the books that I thought would make great blog fodder, but ended up being only half-read (which I guess qualifies as a review of sorts - if they had been great books, I would have been unable to put them down).

There was the wonderful chemical-free sunscreen that both my daughter and I loved so much that I ended up ordering more products (even though they cost a bit more than the stuff I used to get at Costco). But I never got around to writing the positive review they deserved.

And then, there was the personalized beach tote I accepted from Simply-Bags.com.

Thanks to all the promotional blogging events I've attended the last few years, I already own a number of nice tote bags, so I didn't actually need another one. But I liked the classic blue stripes... and I loved the idea of owning one bag that advertised MY name instead of someone else's product.

And once I received the bag, I liked it because it's HUGE. It can hold everything I need for a trip to the beach with my daughter: that's TWO swimsuits, TWO beach towels, TWO sets of flip-flops... books, ipods, sunscreen, etc.

I carried it back in early June when visiting a friend who happens to live on the beach in Malibu. She loved the bag for the same reason I did, and I promised to send her the link to purchase it.

But I never got around to writing about it. I was fixated on our trip to the UK. I was thinking of honing my burgeoning video skills there, and thought the SoCal Mom beach bag might make a nice logo for the titles.

But I never got around to shooting much video in England. My family isn't very patient about waiting for me to get the sound, the lighting and the shot just right. It was easier just to shoot stills.

Besides - the bag is so BIG. I couldn't fit it in my luggage. I left it at home.

I figured there would be plenty more beach days when we got back to Los Angeles.

But this has been an unusually chilly summer. It's also been a short summer. Megan had about five weeks from the end of our vacation until the start of school on Monday. 

So I was feeling very sheepish indeed the other day when the proprietor of Simply-Bags.com sent me this very short email:

If you can't do a post on the bag we sent you would you add our badge to your sidebar?

Yeah. It's the very least I can do.

DISCLOSURE: I received no monetary compensation for this post. I did receive a free tube of sunscreen and a free personalized tote bag. I liked them both very much.

Comments

[Linda Schwartz]

That is a cute bag. I think you should sell SoCal Mom bags.