Fall Soup

Summer Lessons from a Busy Mompreneur

Let me tell you, I am completely and utterly exhausted. School has started and though is has been less than a week, it feels like it has been three months. I made some mistakes in my back to school prep and in my summer itinerary. You don't have to make the same mistakes, especially those of you who still have some time left before school starts. Here is what I learned and what I intend to improve upon.

Shop Leisurely

Firstly, do not wait until tax free weekend to do all your shopping; this is just my advice. You can do what you will, but for me it was not a nice experience. Everyone and I do mean everyone was out. The lines, the heat, and the jostling crowds all resulted in an unpleasant experience. There are sales throughout the year. Pay attention and stock up on items. End of season sales also provide opportunities for huge discounts. To wait just until tax free weekend was just too much for me.

Have Some Lazy Summer Days

Secondly, back to school would have been better if my summer was more relaxing. I traveled. I entertained. I had various home improvement projects. I worked, etc. etc. Buddha says "Do nothing, life is too precious to waste." While I am a practicing Christian, I can appreciate this philosophy. More lazy days of summer would have been good for my soul. It helps one to rejuvenate and focus on what is really important: family, friends, spirituality, health and wellness.

Pursue my Interests

Thirdly, read, sleep and play more. Yes these three. I know they seem unrelated but in fact they feed on each other. Rather than engaging in organized activities and events, I would strive to pursue my interests. Read in areas related to my passion; learn a new indoor game that my family and I can play together. Catch up on some rest. Studies abound regarding the positive social, emotional, educational, and health benefits of these activities.

Summer is fleeting; I feel extra tired at the start of this school year because I did it all wrong. Next summer, Gods spares, I will shop leisurely, relax, read, sleep and play more. For those of you who are still enjoying the last remnants of summer rays, let me know what simple strategies you are implementing to make it enjoyable and peaceful so that the start of the school year is full of excitement and vigor for you and your family.

3 Simple Ways to Get Things Done and to Stop Complaining

I have come to a point in my life where complaining is no longer a viable or valid option. It gets me no where. It just frustrates me even more and imbues negative feelings in my spirit. Instead, I have replaced the desire to complain with Being...Giving...Sharing. By Recalling theses three words each and every time I feel the need to complain, I get a lot more done.

Be

For me, to be is simply to be in the now. When we are in the now we do not dwell on the fears of the future nor the regrets of the past. Instead we learn to appreciate where we are, what we have and what we are doing. I am constantly reminded by my kids to pay them some attention. This Memorial Day we spent the day together. First we took a nice long walk in the morning. The outside air was so crisp and we were able to talk about life in general. Then we shopped and took advantage of the Memorial Day Sales. After that we went to Brewsters and the Movies. It was just wonderful spending the day with them. There was total bliss because I focused completely on my girls.

Give

In addition to just being in the now giving of your time or talents helps one avoid the act of complaining. The old saying "a rolling stone gathers no moss" applies here. Giving is an act of doing, so who has time to complain when one is busy giving to others. You will feel so much better about life and about yourself.

Share

If you have enough for you, you may just have enough to share. My cousin once told my kids sharing is caring. How can you share with others and still complain about the situation you are in? Trust me, you won't have time for that.

Ultimately, being, doing, and sharing puts me in a state of mind where complaining is improbable.

I have created a simple habit of when I feel like complaining focusing instead in the present moment and making changes to improve the situation and if I can't then doing what little I can to share my time and talents with someone who is in need.

We all can do this. What do you do to avoid the complaining modus operandi? Let us know by commenting below. Be blessed. Life is Good:)

Happy Mother's Day Mompreneurs

Happy Happy Happy Mother's Day Mompreneurs! It is your day to rest, relax and bask in the pleasure of being a Mom. Leave the work alone. It can wait another day. You are so deserving of all the love and attention you are getting today.

Here are 5 things I am grateful for this Mother's Day as a Mompreneur.

1. Wonderful, loving, God fearing kids.
2. A supportive, hardworking, magnificent husband.
3. The opportunity to pursue something I am passionate about in good health and peace of mind.
4. The opportunity to share my Mompreneur love with all of you.
5. The Love of God, family, and friends.

What about you? What are you grateful for this Mother's Day? No pressure, nor need to share, just bask in your gratitude as you celebrate this day with your loved ones.

Life is Good :)

Failure: It is a Good Thing

Hey, we all have failed. When test time comes, I am famous for telling my kids tests are a win-win. If you do well, you have gotten an opportunity to show off what you know and if you do poorly, you have an opportunity to discover what you did not know, so that you can improve. It's all good.

Failure and success are like Yin and Yang, two sides of the same coin with the whole being change. Without change, life as we know it comes to an end. When we embrace our failures and learn from them and at the same time continue to celebrate our successes, our life continues on its proper trajectory.

At times, if we don't learn from failures we keep repeating the same mistakes. A mistake in and of itself is not necessarily tragic. Life becomes tragic however when we keep making the same mistakes; when we make the same old nonsensical choices and then cry over the fact that things aren't the way we want them to be.

Embrace mistakes. It is ok to make them. It is not, however, ok to keep repeating them. Instead, learn from them and make better choices; we all should learn from mistakes whether in business or in our personal lives. If we do this, then no matter how dire things may seem at present, we have grown because of the mistake we have made.

Think of a tree that must be pruned in order to sprout new leaves and become an even bigger source of beauty, nourishment, shade or whatever the case may be. We are like that tree and at times our mistakes are part of the pruning process.

Embrace them. Learn from them. Do not repeat them. Life is Good.

GoodBudget: A Recommended App for Mompreneurs

I found this cool app for budgeting that I highly recommend. I encourage you to do your due diligence. Though I have used several budgeting apps/software programs such as MSN Money (no longer available) Quicken, Mint, Excel, etc, I really like this one simply because it is easy to use, particularly if you also adhere to the Dave Ramsey Envelope System.

GoodBudget provides a way to budget and organize ones finances based on the envelope system. I first heard about this system 3 or 4 years ago when I attended Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University at a local Church. Ramsey says that the system is based on the old fashioned envelope system that our grandmother's used. You place budgeted cash amounts in envelopes, each with its own category and you only spend what you have available and no more. After trying this system, I found that I would lose receipts and would inevitably go back to spending on my debit and credit cards in order for me to have a valid paper trail. I also found that though I didn't spend above my total budgeted amount for the month, I would at times spend above the amount budgeted per category.

But then, GoodBudget came to my rescue. This app integrates the benefits of the envelope system with the necessity of maintaining order with minimal effort. One can sync accounts in order to know how much money is on hand in all active accounts. One can also know the amount of money in each envelope at any given time, just as if cash was being used, except it is an App on ones smart phone. Also, one can easily transfer money between envelopes. Though this is usually a no no for Dave Ramsey enthusiasts; but it is practical for me. Sometimes I may overspend in groceries but find that I haven't used much of my dining out budget. So, I just transfer from one to the other.

GoodBudget has been an awesome blessing for me. I have been able to stay within my overall budget amount monthly and I have been able to save.

If you try GoodBudget, let me know what you think. If you have a budgeting app that you are happy with, share it below. We are all in this together and if yours is super beneficial, then it may work for someone else better than the one I have recommended herein.

All in all, it goes without saying that budgeting works. It doesn't matter how much money you have on hand, which app you use or whether or not you decide to just use plain old paper and pencil. Budgeting will get you well on the way of winning your own financial race.

5 Ways to Display Self Love: Advice for Busy Mompreneurs

We are all so busy with life, work, family, business, charities and the list goes on, that we forget about ourselves. I am so guilty of this, which is why I now call the lack of self love the biggest travesty of modern life. When I look at my planner, everyone's needs are met except my own and I find myself saying, I am soooo tired. But why? I know now it is simply because I have forgotten that I need my cup to overflow so that I can have something to give to others. I have forgotten the importance of self love.

Dinner Salad for April 1st, 2015

Making dinner and I just finished this salad for my family. I think it is so pretty and colorful. 

Baby Spring Mix

Carrots

Red onions 

Cucumbers

Simple. Beautiful. Healthy.

My Disorganized Day: 5 Things I have learned

Today was one of those days where I lacked focus. There was no to do list and I randomly went from one task to the next. I was doing a lot but not feeling as though I was getting anything done. I had several unanticipated calls  and it seems like eons before I hung up the phone. I went into my email account for one thing and ended up spending time responding to e-requests rather than doing what I had gone in there to do. As things popped into my mind, I went off on whatever tangent came my way.  It happens to the best of us. Here is what I learned.

1. Begin each day with a list; it is perhaps most ideal if the list was written the night before. 
2. Not only should you have a list but the list should be time based with the most important activities or task scheduled first.
3. Schedule email time and if you have to go into your email to send something in particular or to retrieve files, then focus on that objective and then get out. I have decided to schedule my emails for midday and late afternoon. By so doing, I would have completed my daily objectives first thing in the morning before following up with other peoples agenda. When I check late afternoons, it will help me to create objectives for the next day and respond to the emails that came in during the day.
4. Let all unknown and unscheduled phone calls go to voice mail. If I am expecting a call at a particular time, I will answer but if someone random calls who I am not familiar with, then voice mail will pick up.  By so doing, I won't be caught off guard as I can listen to what they want and respond based on my own agenda.
5. Schedule creative, content generating time. Many tasks are administrative in nature and do not help you to earn money. So it is important that you schedule uninterrupted time for the most important money making, content generating tasks.

We all have those off days. Today was one for me. I will re-group, re-focus and try again tomorrow. But for today, I have learned some valuable lessons. 

A Mompreneur's Friday Night Casual Dining

Friday is a special day for our family. We breathe a sigh of relief from the activities of the week: school, work, homework, music lessons, and other extra curricular activities. Also, on Fridays we look forward to simple, junk type foods. But as a Mom, I don't want to always serve pizza ordered in from the local pizzeria. I don't know exactly what the quality is of the ingredients that they use. So sometimes we will make our own junk food. And guess what? Just because these Friday night meals are simple and fast they are an added blessing for busy Mompreneurs.

Last evening we did just that. I made homemade nachos. They were

The Power of Habits: Reflections from a Mompreneur

The Power of Habits

Just yesterday, I finished reading The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. It is an awesome read with real world examples in various fields about how habits and goals, habits and outcomes, habits and ones life, align.

As a mompreneur I thought what bad habits do I have that I need to change in order to improve my personal or business life. The first thing I thought about is the fact that I am a yeller. Bad quality, I know.  I don't yell all the time but if the kids don't listen my voice does go up several decibals. This is a quality I have never liked in myself and one that I would like to change.

I am Happiest When: Thoughts from a Mompreneur

Ok, I was on the phone with a payroll agent discussing an issue affecting my company. The agent said, "I can't believe it is the 26th of January already...January just flew by." Of course I agreed with her. But when I got off the phone, I reflected and asked myself, is the whole year going to fly by as well? What am I doing now to accomplish my goals for 2015?

With this question in mind, I also asked myself, what am I happiest doing? To better answer the question I changed it into a statement and tried to fill in the blank.

I am happiest when.......__________________.

What first came to mind are the things that make me unhappy, such as:

• bookkeeping


• yard work


• any type of handyman related work


• etc. etc.

Instead, I love crafting, reading, cooking, and ancestral research.

But as I thought some more, I realized I needed to figure out how my passions can help me make enough money to continue to make an awesome living and become financially free.

I discovered that when it comes to work.....I AM HAPPIEST WHEN I AM SHARING INFORMATION.

Plain and simple, I love to teach. I love to help others learn and grow and create better lives for themselves. No, I don't want to be a teacher in the traditional sense, but I can use this love to inspire others via coaching, mentoring, training.

This understanding helped me to focus my business more. I felt so free, literally. It felt like a weight was lifted from my shoulders. Whatever I am doing in business, just find ways to share with others.

Largely this is why I like blogging because I love to share information.

Focusing on your passion rather than just focusing on profits makes room in your life for even more success, that is success on a higher level.

As mompreneurs, let us share, grow and learn together by filling in the blank in the comment area below:

I AM HAPPIEST WHEN......._____________.

Mompreneur Goals for 2015

As a mompreneur, I have been known to take care of everything and everyone around me, literally, while at the same time, ignoring my own personal needs and wants. I have lived by the mantra that love is sacrifice and if I love my kids and hubby I would do whatever needs to be done and not worry about its impact.

In my entrepreneurial life, I tend to take care of my employees, sometimes ignoring my own needs. Between 2008-2010 when our business was struggling, I literally paid 100% of my employees' insurance premiums from our personal savings. It left us broke.  Thank God we bounced back. But there again, I placed other peoples needs first. For 2015, times are changing and my mantra is ME FIRST!

The following goals are my own personally, but anyone, particularly mompreneurs, can benefit from my self analysis.

Social Goals

With ME FIRST as my mantra, my primary social goal is to get out more. Sometimes 6 months would go by and I haven't even gone to a movie because I am so busy. What kind of life is that? For this New Year I intend to go out more with family and friends. In addition, I intend to stay in touch, particularly with my aunts who are getting up there in age. Finally, I intend to exert more effort to be a kinder person.  No, I am not by nature a mean person. However, I can be a bit short with people...my entrepreneurial tendencies has me so accustomed to expecting efficiency and effectiveness in business life, that socially, I tend to address people in a manner as though I am expecting them to hurry up all the time.  For instance, at times, I hang up the phone without saying good bye. Awful, I know. So in a nutshell, my social goals are:

• Get out more,


• Stay in touch with family and friends,


• Be kinder.

Home Goals

I am by nature a home body. I love being home and I love taking care of my home and my family. Despite this, there are somethings that I need to improve in this area. These things may not seem to fit the Me First ideology but because I love home so much, they do, in my case.

One home area that must improve this year is communication. Though this may seem like a social goal, it is in my home category because I am speaking specifically about communication with those special people in my home, my husband and kids. I yell too much. So this is the first thing I need to quit doing.

Also I need to protect my family's personal time. Sometimes with the telephone and electronics like computers, smart phones, i Pads, etc. a family can communicate with people outside of the home more than they do with those within. Hence, it is my goal that we have no call time zones.

In addition there are two other home areas that come to mind. One of which is my kids educational pursuits. As a mompreneur, work has no end. Hence I sometimes neglect what the kids are doing academically. This must change. Just like I plan in every other area, I need to make sure that I continue to plan for them in this area.

Another area is bedtime. Our family needs to be more vigilant in maintaining our bedtimes. This last year we were all sleep deprived.

2015 Home goals are:

• Improved Communication, specifically no yelling,


• Improved family time, specifically implementing no call time zones,


• Focus on Kids educational pursuits.

Health Goals

As I consider the importance of sleep to our family, health goals come to mind. Every single year I tell myself that I am going to loose these last 15 pounds. Well  instead of focusing specifically on the weight, I will instead institute new health habits and let the weight take care of itself. My new habits for this year are:

• No eating after 6 pm,


• Green Juice Smoothies at least 5 times per week,


• Drink at least 8 glasses of water per day,


• Bedtime by 9 pm 5 times per week,


• Eat a salad at least 5 times per week,


• Toning, walking, and strength training exercises at least 5 times per week,


• Be in the now, focus on the present moment.

Work Goals

While I tend to slack off on my health goals, (I know this is unfortunate) I tend to be a stickler with my work goals. There isn't much that I have to do differently this year. If I had to be specific, I would say that I need to create more structured schedules that are broken down by quarter, month, weeks and then by day. The most important of these is my Daily To Dos. I will create Daily To Dos for each and every aspect of my work life. By doing so, I would instead be focusing on the habits that would generate success. This has been and will continue to be my strategy.

• Create quarterly goals,


• Create monthly goals,


• Create weekly goals,


• Create daily to dos.

Personal Goals

As a very spiritual person, the area of my life that impacts all others is my spirituality and thus spirituality is my number one personal goal. I intend to be a better steward of God's resources by making sure my energy and efforts are not squandered.

Also, I intend to be a good steward of my time. It is so easy to waste time with superficial stuff. Relaxing isn't wasting time. Instead, I define wasting time as doing anything that you are not fully committed to doing, whether economically, spiritually, socially, etc. So if you are watching TV with your kids and playing scrabble at the same time, this is time well spent; it is not wasteful. But if you are doing a favor for someone begrudgingly, then that time may have been wasted. It all depends.

Also, I intend to spend some quality time pursuing some of my favorite hobbies. I love to do crafting such as crocheting; I love to read and I also love ancestral research. Activities such as these fill my cup, metaphorically speaking.

The following personal goals, as alluded to, are critical to maintaining a genuine sense of happiness in my life:

• Read 100 books in 2015


• Improve my crocheting technique by making a specific type of garment


• Add at least 100 people to my family tree


• Write out my to dos the night before so that I can structure my days better


• Focus on stewardship in all ares of my life.

I am not going to hope and pray that my goals are accomplished. Instead I am going to DO. Achieving goals is not a mysterious phenomena. It is a day by day, second by second, pursuit. My habits become me and they will thus ensure my success.

What are your habits for 2015? We still have several more days in January. Share your thoughts below; you can still grow and learn with us in 2015 and beyond. We look forward to you subscribing to this blog and sharing with us.

Green Juice Smoothie

We just love green juice smoothies first thing in the morning.

They are healthy and jam packed with loads of nutrients.

This morning goodness was made with the following.

2 Bananas
1 Apple
Spinach
Kale
Cinnamon
Vanilla Essence
Yogurt
1/2 of Avocado
Almond Milk

There is no special recipe to make green juice smoothie, just add whatever you like and blend.

It is delicious, scrumptious, and because I know it is good for me, I feel awesome!

What are your healthy snacks?

MLK Day 2015

True peace is not merely the absence of tension, it is the presence of justice.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

It is early MLK a Day 2015 and I am listening to the quiet of the morning. My kids are still sleeping; hubby did not have a day off, so he is at work. As I think about my day and it's meaning, I am always in awe of the sacrifices that Martin Luther King, Jr. (MLK)
and his contemporaries made so that I can have the life and lifestyle I presently enjoy.

Does perfection exist? No. Instead we live in an imperfect world. Every day is a day for us to make decisions that will not only serve ourselves but will keep
MLK's dream alive in our hearts, minds, and most importantly, in our actions.

So today, we will attend events commemorating MLK's life and legacy. I think it is important that kids are reminded that what they currently enjoy is as a result of the sacrifice of others.

Enjoy your day off, if you have one. Let me know how you spent it.

Happy MLK Day 2015