Working at Home on the Internet » Work at Home Mom

When To Say NO!

Brooke Long — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 11:26:38 +0000

My life consists of way too many things. The problem is that I said yes. It’s not like things were just shoved on me – someone asked and yes was the answer.

Blue and Gold ceremony for cub scouts that I need to plan
Secretary of the PTO
The school dance (that I am hoping I just have to help with)
Girl Scouts
Reading Volunteer
Art Volunteer
Humane Society volunteer

And there are also things that are important to me:

Bible Study
Prayer Group
Working out
(This is sad – that’s all I have time for myself. I used to have so many other things that I used to do.)

And let’s not forget about work! That is something that used to be just for me – I wish it was again. If I stopped saying yes I would have more time for it – something that I really love.

Bu what suffers the most is my family. My kids and my husband. Thank goodness a few of things I will be able to remove from the list at the end of this month. AND I vow not to replace them with something else. I want my time back.

I want to say NO!!

Brooke has been a part of the WAHI family since March 2009 writing articles for the WAHM Wisdom section. She has had her own business since 1997, – Cataluña – web sites redesigned from scratch. Her newest business venture is Cataluña Designs – unique beaded hair accessories and jewelry- has been around since January 2010 and has been a great adventure.
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Are You Using Pinterest?

Brooke Long — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 11:06:01 +0000

It was a few months ago that I was introduced to Pinterest. Have you heard of it? It’s a new social media that let’s you “pin” pictures of the things that you like. You can share them with other pinners, you can follow certain pinners and categorize your pins. I have actually found that is just as useful as it is fun! Yeah you get to see outfits, craft ideas, food and many other things. But I am also seeing really creative ideas that I have not thought of, get new craft ideas and FABULOUS recipes!

After about a week I started realizing that this could be good for business. We ended up pinning a few of our items but never went any further than that. After doing some research I realized that there is so much more that we can do to promote our hair accessories. You can very easily tweet things and put them on Facebook – which is great! That is what we are doing now and that is really working. After all that research that I mentioned earlier, I found things that we still have not tried. I am listing two articles below that I feel really tell the story of how to use it for business. So check those out and check out Pinterest! (A few of our things… hair-bling)

http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2012/01/20/10-tips-to-get-the-most-out-of-pinterest-for-your-business/

http://thesocialrobot.com/2011/10/using-pinterest-for-business-marketing/

Brooke has been a part of the WAHI family since March 2009 writing articles for the WAHM Wisdom section. She has had her own business since 1997, – Cataluña – web sites redesigned from scratch. Her newest business venture is Cataluña Designs – unique beaded hair accessories and jewelry- has been around since January 2010 and has been a great adventure.
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God OR Karma?

Brooke Long — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 11:35:39 +0000

I am going a little spiritual for this post – but it is a question that I have been having for quite sometime. I guess that’s a big question that everybody has. Is it God or is it karma that affects your life? Whether things are good or bad everyone seems to feel that there is a reason. What the reason is remains an unanswered question for many.

Things are going well for me today. I feel upbeat and positive and the more good/kindness I share the better my day gets:

I paid for somebody that was behind me in the Caribou drive thru.
As I was grocery shopping I just kept smiling and saying hi to people.

These were small things that I did – and because of them, good things (that could have been made into BIG things) happened to me:

It was cold out and windy and I got a parking spot in the front!
As I was driving by the gas station I just happened to look down and noticed that I was really low!
I was getting in the car with my hot coffee in my hand and I spilled my coffee! It was just a little bit but the spill COMPLETELY missed me!

So my question is: God OR karma?

I believe in God – yes. But does that mean he’s looking down on my life saying “Oh – she’s being nice so I am gonna make sure she gets that front parking spot!” I just feel there are so many other more important things that God has to do and whether or not coffee spills on me is not a concern to him. I know that He is always with me and is looking out for me – but does that mean He just waives his magic wand and says “bless her today”?

OR is this karma? What comes around goes around. I was being kind so good things happened.

I’ve been doing a lot of soul searching lately and I feel that I have come closer to my God, but I still feel there are a lot of things for me that are unanswered. I don’t know what the questions are, but I do know that it’s a matter of believing and faith.

Faith (in anything) is what really matters. It’s faith that you need to have in people. Faith that you need to have in yourself.

Brooke has been a part of the WAHI family since March 2009 writing articles for the WAHM Wisdom section. She has had her own business since 1997, – Cataluña – web sites redesigned from scratch. Her newest business venture is Cataluña Designs – unique beaded hair accessories and jewelry- has been around since January 2010 and has been a great adventure.
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Can You Juggle?

Brooke Long — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 11:24:51 +0000

juggling

We are watching the Bronco game – to see if they will advance to the conference championship (so far they are not looking good). During the timeouts my husband starts playing with his juggling balls that he received for Christmas. Our 6 year old daughter wants him to juggle. So far he is doing ooookay. He has his high score of 4 juggles in a row. Years ago he could juggle more, but now he is out of practice.

When you are juggling you have to get the rhythm down. The way that it feels when you throw a ball into the air, catch it with the other hand , and throw another ball before you make that catch. It takes time, patience and of course – practice. Lots and lots of practice. And only the great jugglers seem to be able to add another ball – or another item.

But we are all supposed to be experts aren’t we?

If we were just talking about our family – we could do that – easily with just three family members. But of course there are many others to consider.
Some of us only have two kids. Juggling just those two isn’t too bad at all is it? But what about those people with three or more children? And don’t forget about their lives and schedules. When you consider all of that even one child is quite a challenge.
What about work? That is VERY difficult to juggle with all of the tasks that you need to handle on a daily basis. And don’t think you are off the hook if you do not have a job. Just looking can be very daunting and something else you have to juggle.
AND don’t forget about your spouse, volunteering, friends and things you want!

Ahhhh – my head is already spinning.

Basically I just want to say to give yourself a break. Juggling is a difficult task and when we are all dealing with so many different kinds of things we cannot expect to be experts. Ever. We just do the best we can every day.

Brooke has been a part of the WAHI family since March 2009 writing articles for the WAHM Wisdom section. She has had her own business since 1997, – Cataluña – web sites redesigned from scratch. Her newest business venture is Cataluña Designs – unique beaded hair accessories and jewelry- has been around since January 2010 and has been a great adventure.
.

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Dragon Dictation

Brooke Long — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 10:54:38 +0000

Okay – I am tapping at my phone to see what the Dragon App is all about. The Dragon App is a translator – it translates your spoken word into text. This way I can be in the car or cleaning, cooking etc. and get all of my ideas down. I am not sure it will work for me – but it’s free so I cannot complain! It was recommended to me by quite a few people it so I might as well give it a try.

TEST
[so I'm not sure if this could be anything that I know is that and whenever eight and one of the writer to some degree I don't want to fight anything like that but I just going to be able to write and do that Las Vegas company]

Do you habve any idea what that means? I am not sure at all and I said it. Well, I said something that is close to it! I have to say that this first “capture” did not do so well. Lets see what further testing gets me.

First, I realized that I talked for a few minutes and it captured about 30 seconds worth. It took me quite a few tests to realize that it stopped recording while I was still rambling. So a lot of what I said was missed. (it was all BRILLIANT just so you know!) I really want to be able to ramble when I am in the car – but it just won’t let you do that. Apparantly I have to have my thoughts in order before I begin speaking.

Second, I realized that the reason the software stops working is NOT because the phone is going into sleep mode. I tested this by rambling for a while, and the recording stopped way before the phone went to sleep.

Third, I thought it was stopping because I was pausing for a few seconds between paragraphs. After a test I realized that it wasn’t.

I’m going to have to read about this later because I don’t know why it is stopping. It does not say that you can’t have a long message – and a 30 second message is not long enough for me to be rambling. So I’ll just have to do some more research to see if I can figure this out.

LATER THAT DAY

I did a little more research and I tested this while I was at home in the silence – not in the car. It actually kind of works this time. But the words that I am saying are not what is transcribed. I need to enunciate every word and I need to speak very slowly for it to be able to work well. The problem is I think waaayy too fast.

So all in all I think Dragon is a great app for writing short emails, texts and tweets. But it might not be the best for…well…writing pieces like this!

Anyone else have better luck?

Brooke has been a part of the WAHI family since March 2009 writing articles for the WAHM Wisdom section. She has had her own business since 1997, – Cataluña – web sites redesigned from scratch. Her newest business venture is Cataluña Designs – unique beaded hair accessories and jewelry- has been around since January 2010 and has been a great adventure.
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