Mom 4 Biz

Working in your PJ’s can be exhilarating. But seriously, don’t you want some real grownup time?

Listening to my friends chatter over their office hours at a recent Social Networking event, I realized that I loved my home office and I’d really (yes, REALLY) work from there 24/7 if I could convince strangers to do business with me, without a meeting. But, my business required some face to face contact.

I’m not a recluse or a hermit, but I love working from my home. It’s cozy and comfortable.

Getting OUT.

Occasionally, like at least one day a week, schedule yourself at a local coffee shop, breakfast bar, or other quiet “working” site where you can link up with new folks. This can be for a morning, an afternoon, or even an evening – if your clientele can handle evening hours. Your objective is to schedule client meeting time during these hours and make yourself available to the buying public for identifiable “connection” time.

Social media not withstanding, your business most likely requires some Social Networking. Schedule an event at least once a month where you get away from the office and celebrate your success with other business owners, or self-supporting marketers.

It really is a numbers game and your numbers will have to match up, or you won’t get the $dollar$ you require to support your business. Meeting people brings in numbers.

Scheduling Benefits.

Keep a well documented, coded and scheduled calendar close at hand. Don’t loose it. Don’t leave it anywhere. Keep it close to you. And, keep those scheduled events on your Internet Scheduling Device as well, so you can replace that calendar, should the need arise.

Block out work time. This is important. Block out the number of hours you require each week, to keep your budget happy. These are billable hours and MUST be filled. Keep your calendar scheduled out a minimum of 3 weeks in advance, 5 weeks is better.

Google Calendar is awesome for this – just schedule your events and happenings on Google Calendar, under different calendar headings and you’ll be surprised how well it works. Don’t pause, do it now.

Schedule your Billable Hours on a separate calendar, listing in GREEN (for MONEY) and incorporate it into your daily calendar, so your schedule is already there. Then FILL those hours.

Schedule Down Time.

This is as important as any other part of your schedule. Schedule in some down time so you’re not always working. If you never take time away from your “job” you don’t really appreciate why you’re working.

Write in some downtime and take time for fun. Make having fun a priority at least one day a week.

How many times have you wished you could be at home when your child arrived home from School?

Many years ago, as a young mom, I visited with Ruth Evans, an Amway Distributor who worked from her home office and she said, “One of the biggest benefits of my Amway distributorship is that chair you’re sitting in. No matter how many hours I have to spend working, I can sit right here and visit with my children who come sit right there, when they get home from school.”

The interview went on from there, but I quoted her when she said that, and I never forgot it. I knew I wanted to work from home while my children were young. I went one step further and home schooled my children, because I wanted to spend more time with them.

If I was on the road, working, I took them with me. We visited museums, historic sites, learned to read road maps and found our way to many educational events simply because they were with me when I found them. My work, writing about home schooling, took place in their presence. To this day, there’s a chair near my desk where my children can sit and discover the trivialities or the details of life, in my presence. Often, one of them, or a grandchild fills that chair.

When their father left us ten years ago, there was no question that we’d be okay, even though our home as many described it was broken. The hours I spent working included my children, often sparked by educational resources they chose to encounter, my work revolved around the children and their needs. At one point, a lawyer stated, “You can’t take educational activities as a deduction!” My accountant said differently, “If you’re using those activities as a resource for income and claiming the income you make from them, the cost of the resource is deductible.”

A Travel Journalist spends his time traveling to distant cities, far off lands, and living on an expense account that is deducted from someone’s income tax as a business expense. His income is considered taxable. Mine was no different.

I chose to spend time with my children and find ways to earn money taking them with me. As a consultant for other home schoolers, my children arrived and left with me, often sharing in the discussion or participating by visiting with other children. My pay was income. My costs were deductible.

As a single Mom, I knew the cost of leaving my children in the care of others. It meant I didn’t get to spend time with them, and they didn’t get to spend time with me. The importance of finding our resources within the family became profound as the children reached college ages. They needed to know where their resources could be found.

In a broken home, children rarely understand that their parents can still be a resource. In our home, my children knew that not only was I a resource, but they also had each other. They often reached out to each other and took the offered hand for encouragement or help. When they couldn’t find one of us, they reached out to close family friends, or to new friends they’d made in college.

They understood they weren’t alone, they had resources. The power of that understanding came home clearly when a friend of my daughter’s attempted suicide in college. My daughter called home. “Mom, I think she took too many pills, what do I do.”

“Call 9-1-1 and follow directions, then call me back.” I paced the floor and waited the long minutes until she called back.

“Emergency team is on their way, someone else is on the phone with them. They said to keep her walking. Mom, how?”

I whispered a prayer and said, “Loop her arm over your shoulder and make her walk beside you. Up and down the hall. Walk.” I kept praying.

She walked. We kept talking. We talked until the ambulance team arrived and my daughter got in the ambulance with her friend and rode to the hospital. She was not alone. She knew where to find her resources. More importantly, she HAD resources.

Our home may have been broken, but my daughter knew she had resources. She knew that there was a chair by Mom’s desk, waiting for her to fill it up and tell me about her day. Working at home allowed me to mend the brokenness of our home in ways I might not have been able to do, had I worked away from home.

Find a way. Find resources such as my accountant, to help you work from home to mend your broken home. There are ways… You just have to look for them and know you have resources.

“Yeah, I dare you to wear RED.”

The conversation had been over for a while, but I sat there wondering if I should listen, take the dare and risk the outcome. I wasn’t sure there would be an outcome, but I thought… maybe? Okay. I was truly hoping for an outcome.

The occasion was our ten year class reunion and I knew the majority of the guys were single. So, what’s the outcome?

I loved the guys I grew up with, and capturing the heart of one of them sounded like a winning combination. I was wearing RED, but I was determined to wear it the right way.

The first evening of our class reunion meant a formal sit down dinner in a dark restaurant, so I chose a strapless black pencil dress with a light wrap, understated diamond jewelry, and black heels (for dancing). My hair went up into a loosely woven wrap at the crown and I wore basic make up, except for my lips. RED lips.

As a single mom, I knew what I wanted and it had nothing to do with the night after our reunion, but everything to do with our fiftieth reunion. High school was ten years in the past, but I knew my prey would be in attendance and he was untethered.

Like me, Devon had married during college, had a daughter and the marriage ended. We had a history, and we had a future. I took one last look in the mirror and knew this was my night. With Nikki safely stowed away at my mom’s, I exited the house into my newly leased Porche.

My arrival, just ten minutes before the party started, would cause a stir. I knew that. I just wondered if Devon would notice.

He did.

I should have known Becky would park him outside the door until I arrived, visiting with Tom and sipping a glass of wine. Devon faced the walkway, where I’d have to walk after the valet parked my Porche. He saw me two steps past the door of my car. His eyes nearly fell out of his head. I took each step, purposely, toward him. My mind focused on the catch, capturing his attention and driving the color RED home.

Becky stood slightly behind him watching, a smirky grin on her face. She lipped, “You wore RED.”

Matt red lipstick in a cinnamon shade that bore no resemblance to subtle. My intent was clear. I wondered if I could wear red with my black swimsuit the next day at the pool. Would anyone notice my motherly stretchmarks if my lips were sullen cinnamon?

Devon smiled at me. I smiled back. The night was young…

If you’re a single mom, wondering how to capture the interest of a special guy, I highly recommend giving yourself a good spoiling spa day, a facial and a new red lipstick. Just click the link – and wear RED.

Are you busy blogging a marathon of writings too good not to be read by the many folks who chase down interesting blog material? Me too. I can’t tell you how important life is, and how much of life would be missed if we didn’t blog the happenings of the day on our super-serious and mischievous blog posts.

Working in the average job, you probably have no time to keep the usual kind of journal, but what about a simple blog, that might actually provide you with additional income from some mysterious source? Bloggers make an average of $20.00 a week. Not much in the average run of part time jobs, and it may not be anything of interest at all to you – but, did you know that the average home owner who lost their home this past recession could have kept their home, had they increased their income by just $100 a month? So true…

Blogging does require a bit of a time commitment. You should blog at least once a week, something of value. The rest of your blog posts could be automated inserts that are posted semi-automatically.

Who doesn’t have a whole slew of “quotes” that should be posted “somewhere”?

Recipes? The ability to store your family recipe book online and have access to it by many family members is awesome. What about sharing those cooking tips Gramma gave you way back yonder? Posting those on your blog would keep foodies checking back for weeks, and the ads will stay fresh as long as you keep posting. Don’t stop.

For those who do post daily about some important chaff from the world of writing, political garbage or news may wonder why you’d want to post insignificant chatter – until they take a moment to read what you write. Then, they’ll know. You’re writing from the heart.

Some of the most exciting bloggers write badly. Oh well! Nothing new on that front. There are newspapers that win writer awards with spelling errors, grammar mistakes and story dysfunction. Your blog must be BETTER than that.

Give your reader something of value at least once a week and keep up the good work! Blogging Marathons are fun and the race is on. Let’s start blogging…

By the time you get done, you just may need a sports massage.

After the baby’s born, you get to work off the baby bump. Every new mom understands her own limitations and the constraints created by having a baby in tow. At Baby Bootcamp working off the baby bump takes on a whole new meaning.

Whether you choose the common, easy up of P90X on your own time, or the more social Mommy Bootcamp, the objective is the same – get back into great shape and sexy again. Exercise is the only way to get into shape. You can’t get into that sexy pair of size 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, or whatever until you pull out the old exercise routine and work it out.

So what does it all include?

Push ups, pull ups, running in place, calisthenics, squats, lunges and running from one end to the other of the gym, including weights and rump wiggles, arm jiggles and rowboats, the motion doesn’t stop for almost two hours. Mommy Bootcamp gets you moving, moves you to lose the weight, build the muscle and cut the aging damage pregnancy created.

But what about the baby?

In some cases, the gym offers babysitting for infants, but more often, you’ll need to find your own option. Gramma Bootcamp for Babies? In some cases, it’s the only plan that works. You gather up the kiddos and drop them off to Gramma for a Saturday morning, while you do Mommy Bootcamp, and let Gramma entertain the babies.

Bring along some videos, a few books, some stuffed toys and a few spinners, sizzlers and fun toys and drop the kids off to Gramma for a few hours of Gramma Bootcamp. Your kids will come back well loved, cared for and ready to go home with a happy Mommy.

What if Gramma isn’t there? Find a friend who wants to split the duty. You care for kids one Saturday and she cares for them the next. That’s an easy way to trade off daycare and get some Mommy Bootcamp time too.

Interviewing Tatia Verhoeff within days of when her baby arrived, she looked forward to an uneventful few months at home alone with the baby while her husband kept track of customer service. She was still a stay at  home mom.

Little did she realize her mommy skills would bring about a change in her own career. Designing the first Sophist-a-Wrap(TM) to carry an infant had been a simple dream, nothing spectacular, but nothing short of a Miracle in the eyes of a new mom.

“It’s so difficult to get things done when you’re the only parent. I wasn’t complaining, just admitting that I really missed having my husband there to hold the baby and give me time to get “stuff” done,” T shares during an interview where she displayed her new Mommy Instincts Invention – Sophist-a-Wrap – the hands free carrier she created with her Mom a long-time seamstress and designer. “Sophist-a-Wrap was an inspired project that gave me freedom from the need to have a second person available to help with chores and outings. I suddenly had a way to carry groceries and the baby at the same time, without the strain of trying to figure out how not to drop the baby.”

“Even with my mom and brothers around, I still wanted to have some independence, and I knew with my husband working, I wouldn’t have mom and brothers around forever.”

The design includes a time tested fastening device that allows a mom to adjust the wrap with one hand, while her other hand supports the baby. Putting the baby in and out of the wrap is easily accomplished alone, even the first time.

“I’d seen a similar wrap known as the Mobi-Wrap when a friend wore one to carry her baby into church Sunday morning and then nursed him. I couldn’t wait to find my own fabric and design one for my baby. I wasn’t convinced I liked the tied on method used in the Mobi-Wrap, and asked friends and family for a different solution, one that wouldn’t cost a lot of extra money,” Tatia shares. “The clips and buckles most suggested were just uncomfortable, I couldn’t imagine using them, and didn’t even try some of them. But when we found the fastening device used on our Sophist-a-Wrap, there was no question, this was the solution I’d been looking for.”

The first customer of Tatia’s ingenious wraps carries her son to meetings where she often greets clients, associates and network guests, she loved her Sophist-a-Wrap and even helped to name the infant carrier. “Everyone thought I was wearing a sophisticated new wrap shirt and just had my son tucked inside. When I explained that it was actually a baby carrier invented by a new mom, all the moms in the room wanted one of their own. It was exciting being a new model for this sophisticated wrap carrier that my son absolutely adored being snuggled into.”

Women who seek solutions for their own needs often design toys, carriers and toys for new moms, newborns, or even toddlers, finding their new inventions to be exciting enough to satisfy other moms. Tatia’s Sophist-a-Wrap is nothing short of genius! While similar wraps exist on the market, this stylish designer twist offers a sophisticated solution to the problem of carrying a baby. Many new moms attempt to design their own baby carrier wraps, but fall short of success when their wraps are made of the wrong kinds of fabric or without enough detail to complete their purpose.

Tatia is excited about marketing the Sophist-a-wrap on her website Mommy Instincts.

While some copywriters drivel words across a paper, there are those who literally create a symphony of magic. It doesn’t always take highly skilled writers to generate viable copy for a weblog or even a data mining research artist to generate content worthy of reading, recommending and reading again. Sometimes, many times over…

The past few months, I’ve noticed more and more the value of just simply writing from the heart. When a good friend asked me about blogging as her “mission” I wasn’t sure what to expect, but she’s cute, she’s funny, she’s sassy, and she’s married to the man of her dreams… so, chances were really good that her blog would be not only fun to read but a blast to promote. I love promoting worthy blogs, so I added her to my list of blogs to follow.

I have definitely NOT been disappointed. The Philosophies of Strawberry Shortcake sometimes reveals a tender heart, waiting to be rescued, but more often exposes an adventurous young woman with the heart of an angel and the spirit of a Christian in love with her Savior.

When writers put a pen to paper and trail letters and words across the page to tell their story, the gist of the content generally comes from the heart. Burning embers of their passions become the ignition of a flame for the passions of others. Those embers don’t die… They glow and smolder until the right moment, and just in the nick of time the explosion of heat erupts into a passion licking flame.

The difference between a writer of heart stopping passion and writers of marketing copy is simply the focus of their passions. Quality marketing copy reaches into your soul and captures the depths of your heart, absorbing your needs and desires into the powerful words of the marketing maven. Either way, there’s going to be some heart stopping, emotional attraction from the reader to the writer, and there’s going to be a life change.

If you’re King Toadly and you’re looking for a Princess, consider the fact that the Almighty Content is King, and you need a writer to generate revitalizing copy, look no further than a Copy Jargon Princess, who can capture your heart at the sound of a keyboard tapping away into the late hours. There’s a solution in the mix. Every King needs a Princess to KISS him and reveal the magic.

Moms, wives and women with heart generate incredible copy. Here are a few other sites you might be interested in reading: Pages of Parenthood, Mommy Instincts, and Copy Blogger to find more interesting articles and ideas for making your copy drive traffic and build informational content.

If you’ve ever been a single mom with kids who need medical care and no health insurance… you’ve probably been convinced some one should provide health care. But not the government. After several years of single parenting, I was faced with a broken arm. My son fell head over toenails off his bike and busted his collar bone.

We drove to the local clinic where he was seen by the only pediatrician in town, and their billing requires an application for Public Health Care if your insurance is non-existent or inadequate. Ours was inadequate. We applied and managed to qualify. As if that weren’t embarrassing enough – our low income was extremely low that month – the fact that we qualified was then announced in the waiting room to the entire population of the county, when the administrator called us back to get our Public Health Cards from the desk.

The health care ended up being the least offensive issue at the time. My son’s collar bone was badly broken and needed more care than the clinic was willing to give him. After the usual care process, he was xrayed again. The collar bone was still not connected and the healing process was incomplete. The Doctor told me to take him home, still in the sling and wait a week. I did. They did another xray and showed it to me — of a non-broken, perfectly well collar bone.

Excuse me? Do they think I’m stupid?

I asked the Doctor about the difference in the healing process and he said, “You must have not been capable of reading the xray.”

Okay, so I’m using the Public Option and  you think I’m STUPID? Think again.

We left the hospital/clinic, without the sling, and I took my son to another facility. Another xray indicated the bone had healed improperly, but was indeed healed. The Doctor at the second facility discussed the process of healing and explained that rebreaking it to heal the bone straight wasn’t necessary, nor was it a reliable option. I paid for this xray myself, along with a Doctor visit, because my son’s health was important to me.

As for the clinic and Public Health, neither is a good option.

Even as a single mom, health is important and I managed to pay for care when needed. That’s a point that should be referenced when people talk about the public system.

When “What Not to Wear” becomes the only television show you watch on television, it’s time to take a stroll through a local mall or contact the Personal Clothing Valet Duo to see what you can do about your after-the-fact wardrobe. It doesn’t really matter what the “fact” was… Any fact will do, but when it’s gone and your wardrobe needs repairing, what do you do?

Some Mom’s write an article and pray for income from their writing efforts – it does work – sometimes.

Others take the credit card and charge it to the max at a local dress shop. My daughters and I both like to head for the local mall and Victoria’s Secret. There’s nothing like sexy, well fitting underwear to make a girl feel special.

Next stop – Lerners – for a wardrobe of pretty sweaters, skirts and slacks to wear during the rest of winter.

Brenna‘s Mary Kay Make Over Party will follow with a whole selection of new make up, hair styling and fun trying on clothes with friends. Can this party be beat? No way, and all the girls feel particularly special with a new wardrobe and a fresh, easy make up routine.

I remember those early days of being pregnant as furthering the emotional reliance of needing romance. I so desperately wanted to feel loved during those early days. When my, now ex-husband would shove me away or cut me down by telling me I wasn’t attractive to him, I felt sad and disillusioned by the process, but I still wanted romance. In fact, I still felt that being pregnant was romantic.

Then came the days when I began to feel “big and ugly” even though others told me how lovely I was, because my body didn’t fit into the pretty clothing in my closet any more. I was fine being pregnant even then, but I wanted someone to tell me I looked amazing. The baby growing inside was enough for me, but I really needed to hear that I was still attractive.

Then along came the bruising last days of pregnancy and I wasn’t feeling romantic anymore, I didn’t feel as if I was doing anything important, I just felt the abuse of my intestines and internal organs. The suffering was definitely overpowering the romantic feelings of creating a miracle. I was ready to be done with being pregnant… But, being pregnant wasn’t exactly done with me.

Those were my issues, way back when I was pregnant with my  youngest son. Now, watching my daughters endure the rigors of pregnancy, I’ve noticed similar feelings among their days. Good and bad days happen and both trivialize the consummate awareness of giving birth to the next generation.

As Jr. and/or Mini-me push  toward their goal of arrival, bruising ribs, shredding skin tone, and frustrating new mommies to tears frequently, I’m fully aware of the delicate balance between romance and “NO ROMANCE HERE.”