My brave battle against workday boredom, a review of some tasty crackers and a $100 giveaway!

This is a compensated review by BlogHer and Ritz.

Feed Me!

As a freelance writer/content marketer, I work from home and make my own schedule. The positives of this are pretty much what you’d expect: lots of flexibility, I can pick and choose assignments and a wardrobe consisting of mostly witty tee shirts I stole from my teenager and running shorts (for the elastic waistband; I don’t run unless somebody is chasing me. Conserve energy, that’s my motto).

The downside? I’m always at home and I’m always at work. Structure, I lack structure. Back when I was working an office job, I thought the sameness of the days would surely suffocate me and one day they’d find me dead in the elevator and everybody would crowd around to see the poor lady that was bored to death and then they’d all go back to their cubes and talk some more about the show with that guy in it that they saw the other night and recipes for cake involving diet soda.

But at least I had a routine back then.

Now that I no longer have coworkers and a routine, my days have taken on an amorphous quality. Instead of a precise beginning, middle and end, I find that I’m in this sort of consistent state of always working, only in a less than methodical, mostly blobby sort of fashion. I just plop out work here and there with no rhyme or reason. Somehow everything manages to get done but I miss that feeling of being able to power off the computer and leave and not come back until tomorrow.

Even though I only work in short little bursts of work scattered throughout the day and night, I still manage to get bored. You can only blast RUN DMC and dance around your office so many times before it becomes a little stale. I find that some vague, extremely diluted Protestant/Asian work ethic prevents me from settling down into any activity that requires a large block of time during those hours when I should be working, so I can’t get into reading a book or watching a movie. Which is a shame, because if I added up all those non-working minutes and applied them to my to-read list, it would be in the negative numbers. I would have to call up my favorite writers and say “Hey! Write faster!”

But reading for pleasure is completely not working so I don’t tend to do that so as to keep up the charade that any minute now I’m going to be productive. Same with leaving the house. I could do it, but it would shatter the illusion that at any second I’m going to bang out 1000 perfectly crafted sentences and for once get ahead of my deadlines.

I need my illusions.

So instead, I email. It’s like working, in that I’m doing it at the computer on my desk but it’s not boring like work in that mostly it involves cockamamie schemes, random outbursts and links to Alphaville videos. I like to think I’ve perfected the art of being a random workday emailer – you can’t just sit there and email the same person/people over and over. You might disturb them at their own work and more importantly it might give them the impression that you are not, in fact, a mover and shaker. The key is to write just enough to be entertaining and strike up a conversation, not enough to make people wonder why on earth you have enough time to write a thesis on “Perfect Strangers” on a Wednesday morning.

This is why networking is so important. Yesterday, while working on a 2500 word lead magnet, I emailed 23 different people 38 pieces of random information and 6 sitcom theme song videos. This would not have been possible had I not put myself out there and spent many a productive hour on Twitter and Facebook nurturing those connections. Sure, I could turn off all distractions and work straight through but where’s the fun in that? Without regular human contact I’m not sure that I could work at home. After about a day you’d find me huddled in the corner, obsessively grooming a small patch of hair on my arm like a crazed lab monkey.

Oddly enough, the one thing I don’t find time to do is eat. You’d think with the kitchen being right around the corner, I’d be stuffing my face all day long but instead I put it off and put it off until I realize that I’m shaking from the low blood sugar and then absolutely nothing looks good. Being proactive about eating is so on my self-improvement agenda. I don’t even know how productive I might be if I didn’t lose a good hour or two a day to being so over-hungry and cranky that I can’t even figure out how to fix the problem.

And with that segue we come to the review

Ritz Crackerfuls Classic Cheddar Flavor

I received boxes of the Classic Cheddar and Cheddar Cheese and Bacon Crackerfuls to try out. While I found both varieties tasty, I preferred the classic cheddar. The cracker part on both was really delicious, think Ritz crackers with more of a whole grain flavor, which makes sense because they are made with 6 grams of whole grain.

The filling in both is made with real cheese and has a rich, sharp/tangy flavor that goes nicely with the crackers. The bacon variety had a very strong bacon flavor that might have been a bit too much bacon for me but I think that some people might find it just right.

I was surprised how filling each cracker was. It’s by no means a meal replacement, but it’s enough to keep you going for an hour or two until you can get a proper meal. The whole grain is satisfying and does give a feeling like you’ve eaten unlike some snacks that taste good but don’t make much of a dent in your hunger.

Each box contains 6 individually wrapped Crackerfuls, each with a protective cardboard sleeve. As a rule, I’m not crazy about individually packaged products, but weighed against the convenience of being able to throw these in my bag so I won’t have to take the time/spend the money to get a snack while I’m running errands I could see buying these as an “outside the house” food. When I worked in an office, a box of these in my desk would have been a lifesaver.

You can find out more information including nutrition information on the official Ritz Crackerfuls site. And if you’d like to try Ritz Crackerfuls, you can save $1.00 on Ritz Crackerfuls filled crackers. Click here for your coupon.

But wait! There’s More! You have 16 chances to win $100!

Ritz Crackerfuls is giving away 16 $100 gift cards! Be sure to visit all the BlogHer.com special offers page to find all of the other bloggers that are participating so that you can increase your chances of winning. The sweepstakes runs from July 9 – July 31, 2010.

To enter here, leave me a comment to let me know how you make sure that you remember to get some healthy snacks and meals in during your work day. I’m looking forward to getting some awesome tips and ending the low blood sugar madness. You could also tell me about your favorite German pop music. It won’t increase your chances of winning but it might get you on my VIP contacts list.

Winners will be chosen by a random draw. Be sure to leave an email address that you check regularly so we can contact you if you win. Link to the official rules