Friday, September 26, 2008

finally friday

Long week. SO glad it's the weekend. I came home from work, worked out, cleaned some, and worked on my Heart Link roster. We're at 19 people attending this month, which is awesome. I'm very pleased and I hope that everyone has a great time and makes some awesome connections. This weekend I need to make up the folders and name tags, and create the flyer for the October event.

Tomorrow is our fifth football game of the season. We're 3-1 right now - the kids are looking great. Tomorrow there will be a professional photographer out there getting action shots of the players. Not sure if he'll be getting the cheerleaders, too, or not. I'm very excited about that, because he got some awesome shots last season. One of these days maybe I'll even get around to scrapbooking them! lol.

The debate is on right now, but I'm not really paying that much attention to it. You know what I find so interesting, it seems like no matter which candidate you're for, you can find some website somewhere that makes them look awesome and makes the other guy look bad. It's very odd, because doesn't that by default have to mean that half of those things are untrue? Why can't we all just be presented with actual facts, and make intelligent decisions that way, based on fact and what is best for our own personal situation?

Sunday, September 21, 2008

every toy known to man


My son had his 7th birthday yesterday. We now own, I believe, everything there IS to own that might at all interest a 7 year old boy. He still has a bunch of gift cards to the video game store to use, too. The big hits today (in addition to the DS games, which are always a fave) have been Spike the remote control dinosaur, and the very large remote control Jeep. Both of these scare the crap out of Rico, which I guess is just a side benefit. ;)

Sunday, September 14, 2008

shopaholic

Friday at lunch I went out and bought a new family room set. I told this to my girls at our Live Laugh Love Club meeting this morning and they said that was crazy, to go out at lunch and just on a whim buy a whole new room of furniture. lol. But in my defense, dh and I had been kicking around the idea of getting new stuff, so it wasn't TOTALLY out of the blue. Anyway, I'm super excited! It's a couch, loveseat and two recliners, all dark brown leather. SO cushy and comfortable. Right now we have a big micro-fiber sectional, but a couple of the bolts that hold the sectional together underneath have broken, so we're constantly having to push the pieces back together (like when the kids or one of our giant dogs launch themselves at the couch and send it sliding across the wood floor - lol). So it'll be very cool to have a new one. Tuesday I've got a company coming to haul away the old one for donation, along with a futon up in the loft (and then we'll move our current recliner loveseat up to the loft, cause it's still in good condition) and a giant TV that's been sitting in the garage ever since we replaced it with a flat screen in the family room. Then Wednesday my new stuff comes!! Woohoo! I can't wait. Here's a pic of the sofa from their website:

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Heart Link

I just began planning my first Heart Link Networking event. For those that aren't familiar with The Heart Link Network, it's a national networking organization for women. I am so very excited to be the first Tampa Area Coordinator. I think when women get together they can accomplish anything, and I think this organization is going to serve as fantastic proof of that. Not only will we be networking with one another...caring, sharing and help one another grow our businesses, but we will also be supporting a very worthy cause in the process. Each month I will be featuring a different non-profit group that will be the recipient of the raffles that will take place during the meeting. This month I am thrilled to be featuring Florida Boxer Rescue. Anything that helps doggies is right up my alley. :)

Saturday, September 6, 2008

What would I do with $300,000.00

Over on another blog that I was reading, http://theglamorouswahm.com/, she posed the question "What would you do with $300,000.00". I don't think that's a very hard one for me to answer, actually. We follow the Dave Ramsey plan for finances, so we'd pretty much follow his baby steps with any extra money we got. We are almost out of debt, except for our house, so the first $5000 would be used toward our misc. debt. Then we'd put $50,000 in an emergency fund to save for a rainy day. The next $208,000 would go to paying off our house completely. That would leave me with $37,000. Of that, I'd take $15,000 and do some things around the house (rescreen the lanai, do the upstairs floors) and the remainder I would put in a retirement account and let it grow. =)

Friday, September 5, 2008

The mind of a 5 year old

My beautiful little girl Nicole and I were driving in the car the other day and she asked me “mommy, how come God made daddies big and mommies little?” And I said “I don’t know.” Which is my cop-out answer to a lot of these types of questions, honestly. And she said “I wish daddy was really, really small.” And I asked “Why would you wish that?” Her answer – “So we could put him in a little jar and say ‘ha ha, that’s my daddy in the tiny jar.”

Yep, she’s all mine. :)

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Not the target market

So for awhile now I've been receiving this magazine in the mail called Tampa Bay Illustrated. I don't typically read it, as I don't much have time to sit around reading magazines (seriously, I have the best of intentions but just recently had a wake up call and purged some old ones from 2006 that I hadn't quite had time for yet. Ugh.) But I happened to flip through this one, and it struck me very quickly that I am not the target audience for this particular magazine. I started to grasp that from the myraid of plastic surgery ads, and the real estate listings solely comprised of homes over $10,000,000.00 drove the point home. Honestly I don't have a clue how I got on their mailing list. At first I assumed that it must be a free publication, but in looking up their website to post it here, I see that an annual subscription costs $24.95 per year. I can only wonder how many other "regular" people like myself are receving this mag monthly. I imagine that the prices the advertisers pay is steep enough to cover the costs of sending this thing all over Tampa Bay.

Monday, September 1, 2008

Kid's Artwork Ideas

For those of us with little kids in school, what to do with all the masterpieces that they bring home can quickly become a challenge. This month, my Once Upon a Family newsletter had some awesome ideas on re-purposing that artwork, so I thought I would share them with those of you that don't receive my newsletter. To see the full newsletter and the other awesome back to school tips in it, go here.

Things to do with your child's artwork:

1. Postage Stamps: Can you believe you can turn your child's artwork into real postage stamps? Check out PhotoStamps or PictureItPostage to see how easy it is!

2. Greeting Cards, Calendars, Postcards, T-shirts, etc: You can turn the masterpiece into an actual greeting card! You can do almost anything now digitally! Cafepress.com offers a wide variety of products that can show off the artwork, and family and friends can purchase what they like for themselves! If you have a Mac, use iPhoto to create cards, calendars, postcards and more. Online photo albums will also have these features.

3. Online Photo Album: Create a special website to display all the kid's artwork for everyone to enjoy. Before you think you can't possibly do that, there are easy ways to have an online photo album without knowing all the technical stuff.

4. Turn the artwork into a business: If your child is producing a ton of amazing art, you may want to consider creating a business by turning the art into products others can enjoy. Again, with CafePress.com you can set up your own store. The possibilities are endless--journals, mugs, t-shirts, cards, magnets, stickers, bags, and so much more!

5. Stationery: Who wouldn't love to get a fun piece of mail? In fact, you and your child can create different stationary sets for family and friends so they too can share the artwork with others. Your child can also use their artwork for thank you's, invitations, journal entries, or a simple hello.

6. A Year of Art: Choose 12 pieces of art and turn it into a calendar for your family to enjoy or for other relatives who want a piece of your child in their home. You can do this several ways: buy a calendar and paste the artwork over the picture page, scan the photos into the computer and order a calendar with the artwork online, or make it completely by scratch!

7. Snap Shot in Time: Take a picture of your child with the art piece and place it in a scrapbook, memory box, or online album. Can you think of a better way to capture the age of your child and their masterpiece? This suggestion works especially well with larger than life projects that take up way too much space or would require crazy storage solutions.

8. Artwork Portfolio: Contact me about purchasing our Artwork Portfolio on special this month for $30. Regularly priced at $45.