In case it was too subtle for you to tell, Zulkey.com has paid advertisers now, which is great, because it's nice to be paid a little bit now after many years of giving my precious words away for free. And as you've seen from my Foodie posts, sometimes I get the chance to do sponsored posts, which means I get paid extra money to write about something that the ad network suggests.


The Foodie posts are an easy fit, because I like to cook and curate lists of things and goof around on social media. While I collect an extra bit of cash (enough for a nice pair of shoes but not for a whole week of daycare), I still feel like myself, like it's something I would ostensibly write about for free so it's not that strange. I have another upcoming promotion that I couldn't say no to because it involves a Nutella truck, which, come on. It's a mobile Nutella-dispensing device. Of course I'll take that gig.

But others aren't quite right for me. Some involve actually creating stuff on behalf of the sponsor, like recipes and craft projects, but between my dayjob and my home life and everything in between, I don't have the time or bandwidth just to make things out of thin air (not to mention canola oil or craft pens.) And again, that's not me. I'm a recipe follower, not a recipe inventer, and I definitely am not one of those crafty ladies.

Some promotions I turn down due to a general sense of weirdness. I was offered the chance to write about some of my favorite McDonald's memories for the blog, which I would be required to post along with some photos of myself having a good time at the restaurant. I passed on that one too.

The stupid thing is, though, I pretty much love McDonald's. I don't eat there all the time, but whenever I do, I think, "Oh yeah, this is why this place is so popular!" And I actually do have some favorite McDonald's memories, like some french fries I shared with a boy at the McDonald's on a quasi-date one afternoon my freshman year of high school, the first McDonald's breakfast I ever ate (at the Santa Maria Novella train station in Florence, because I'm fancy), how on election day 2012 (which was also my last day of maternity leave) I took Paul in his stroller to my neighborhood McDonald's for breakfast after I stopped at the polls, and how the other week I generously treated four friends to a delicious dessert there for $5. I have no shame about writing about all of this for free, I guess because those are real stories. I love it. I AM loving it!

But for some reason doing it as a sponsored post felt strange. It's OK if I tell you on my own time that I personally have really enjoyed many an occasion at McDonald's, but I feel selfconscious getting paid to imply that you also ought to be out there creating good memories at Mickey D's.

And so instead, like an idiot, I'm just giving McDonald's free advertising (which I am pretty sure they do not need). Anyway, unlike my feelings for McDonald's, my feelings regarding sponsored posts are a little more complex. I am pretty sure I don't have the type of readership that would judge me harshly and chase after me with pitchforks if I sold out, but I've read enough blogs from sites that monitor the selling-out process closely to be a little bit paranoid about it.

Who am I kidding, though: me telling you a few stories about McDonald's is a far cry from some situation where I try and encourage you all to submit to me YOUR McDonald's stories in a contest where I give away a free Happy Meal or something. So, I'm pretty sure I just need to get over it and take money at any chance I can where I can just talk about food instead of creating three separate craft projects with puffy pens or hosting a children's party centered around a particular snack item. I'll leave that to the experts while I just take a moment and eat a .99 soft-serve.