The Elusive Search

I have a friend, she's a sorority sister, and she is the mother of a son who is about a year older then my daughter. He was recently diagnosed with a slight form of autism. His mom and I have been friends since college and while we don't talk often, we keep up with each other and pick up wherever we left off last. To say my friend is organized is an understatement. Do I have drive, stamina, determination, organization skills? She's on a whole other level with it all. She spent a few years as a teacher, then became a principal before becoming an entrepreneur and running her own store - successfully. We had lots in common over the years and it seems even more as time went on, which is why she and I managed to stay in touch. Those skills of hers are what guided her as a parent and got her son to a level of behavior that overcame the symptoms of that autism they never even knew he had back when. When he was diagnosed he was already more advanced than others in his situation would have been. She is worthy of being admired, but don't try to be like her. You growing sense of inadequacy will just send you to therapy.

Then there is the brother of a friend of mine, a co-worker. He came by the office recently with his mom because they were bringing my friend's baby in for a visit. I hadn't seen him in a while. He's a musician, but that's not his day job. He's got a pretty busy day job in the telesales industry, I do believe it is. Works many hours and then still has gigs to play, traveling to do. I mean the music is no hobby. He really does his thing. But it's a business too. He was telling me about the struggles of doing both and asked how my business is. We commiserated over our love for the business, but the difficulty of giving them our time and he seemed so happy to talk to someone who understood. He plays with his musical father but he's basically the one doing the business end of the music. "People tell me to find a partner. That's not so easy!"

I guess you've guessed what they have in common. My girlfriend has gone back to doing a little teaching with her store in tow and she wondered, how the heck does anyone do this superwoman thing? My friend's brother is nothing like us in terms of responsibilities of family but he too wondered how the heck do you balance it all?

Ah the eternal question. And it was good to see such different people asking the same one. I always knew I was not alone, but right now it was really good to hear. Right now I am probably getting back a little of my long-gone drive - well, it wasn't gone. It just took one of those really long breaks it takes. But I felt a little, just a tad, kicking in last night after I got back from my son's boy scout parent meeting, which took 2 hours, after which I had to go pick up a prescription that costs me double what it did last month because my husband's state-provided insurance skyrocketed. I came home needing to email a few scout people a few questions since we are still new to this group. I came home to notes from my kids' school about upcoming field trips, book clubs that will help the teacher get books for her class, fundraisers and hey! We have 6th graders now! Let's all join the 6th Grade Committee! Well I had already just told the scout people that maybe, if they tell me where to go and what to do, I can do a monthly meeting that no one else was able to easily do and represent the group. Asking a lot, even once a month, but the group is just so darn active and doing so much for the boys I do feel the need to help however I can. After all, I want Son to stay in there through high school and get this on his future college and job applications. It can only help him.

After emailing my willingness to do those monthly meetings, I then seriously considered that 6th Grade Committee. I mean I haven't joined anything like that in all the years he's been at that school. Sure I go to PTA meetings but I know very well that everyone pitching in makes it easier on everyone too. I also know, after years of volunteering at my church before I had kids, that once you open that door, it will not be flooded with others looking to helping and you will join that sad 20% of people who do 80% of the work and that will never change no matter how optimistic you are. So I pondered it last night and filled in the slip and went to sleep on the idea of making any sort of additional commitments to something. I mean my job is getting more time from me than ever right now because there is just so much to do and the same number of people to do it all. My business hasn't had me doing any marketing for months because the Groupons kept up really, really, SUPER busy. For the first time we felt what our ideal business situation would feel like and it was draining, but good.

And my kids' schedules? A monthly calendar on the fridge just isn't enough anymore. Thank God a free yearly calendar book came in the mail for the rest of this year and all of next year because we have to write this stuff down! Girl Scouts and soccer for her. Boy Scouts and basketball for him. Swimming for both of them. It blew my no-more-than-two-activities-at-a-time out the water for the meanwhile because they were all things they wanted to do and could only do at certain times, a few for only 6 or 8 weeks. But they happened to all get going about the same time. So the weekends are a little nuts and my business? It's going to stay in the game but here I am back to wondering how to balance it all and deciding that maybe the trick is to be a little more transparent so our customers understand who we are. So far sharing we are moms with full-time jobs has HELPED us! But now I feel led to take on a scout committee role and maybe a 6th grade committee role, which means I have to at least be open to something a little more involved in my daughter's activities should that arise, and I still need to get the marketing of my business back to normal?

Am I crazy? Sigh. No. I am a working parent.

What's Next?

Had one of those days when I couldn't concentrate because my business kept tapping my shoulder and whispering sweet nothings in my ear, telling me of all the wonderful things we're going to do together. And I believe it because although it's been a long road, things have been slowly progressing and I have every reason to believe it's all worth it.

I looked at my email and it's still insane, but not AS insane as it has been. Did you watch my video about killing the noise? Or at least turning it down? Still, as I listened to the recording of a teleseminar I had missed, I thought to myself how much I really want to work with the woman I was listening to. Her name is Christina Morassi and she is one cool chick. I have been following her since early last year and I just love her energy. She's a photographer and I really would love to see what she could capture from me and I will. One day I will work with her and I know it's going to be fun. But for now, I'm thinking it would be cool and I'm thinking how she is one of a few people who sends emails and I happily read them. And then I'm thinking, I need to pare down some more.

See, something is coming. I don't know what precisely but it's related to my business and I'm hearing the same things from everyone and just becoming way more visual. Bizzy Girl has been stirring in the juices of change herself, finally hearing me when I told her recently that what she wants our business to do for her life is just as important as what she wants our business to do for others. "Where there is no vision, the people perish," I reminded her and one week later she heard me. Really heard me. She's got it and I'm gonna jump on it. "Excellent! Let's have a vision meeting and finally get this thing down on paper. Let's dream big!" So we're going to. And another week later I am clearing out more electronic and mental stuff because I can feel it. Something is coming.

It feels good. I made a quick list of the people I know I want in my emailbox and I'm unsubscribing from even more emails and newsletters. Tomorrow we talk vision. I think I have an empty book downstairs. I've been wanting to create a vision book and I had thoughts in my head about how to do that but screw that. I'm just gonna do what I do best - write and take it as it comes.

Something is coming. I'm so curious and excited to know what's next.

Why Has It Been 3 Months Since My Last Post?

Well, ok. I just counted. It has been FOUR months and 7 days. Holy cannoli! But why? Why have I abandoned my blog baby?! Why?

• because my real baby turned 7 in October and had her first sleepover and I took them bowling too, but it was just 2 friends (thankfully), although 3 little girls in one little car can feel like a gaggle of giggly geese.
  
• because my baby nephew turned 2 this past Sunday.
• because my baby business is really more like a teen-ager and it is having some serious growing pains.
• because my big girl job is a monster right now and I have NEVER EVER EVAH been as busy as I am right now there. As I always say, it's a good thing I love it!
• because I went to the rheumatologist on Sept 20 and finally decided to look at the number on the scale (why weight us, doc?) and finally hated it enough to get back on the health wagon.
• because I started paying attention to the things that always work for me to lose weight - no programs, no major effort, just drinking all my water, hitting my treadmill, cutting the soda by way more than 70%, increasing the fruits and veggies - all stuff that makes weight loss really slow but a slow pound down is better than another size up.
• because after I got back on the health wagon, I started feeling odd, like I was hungry but I knew I wasn't and when I told my doctor I suspected an ulcer, she said, "Let's test for that and gallstones." and found out I had gallstones.
• because the doc told me to see a surgeon who has said that he doesn't think what I am feeling is gallstones, especially since the Nexium prescription is helping (and even now I am no longer needing it daily. Maybe every other day?) and so while I should take out the whole gallbladder, unless and until it attacks me (whaa?) I can do it whenever I'm ready - and oh by the way, the thinner the better and oh by the way, how do I not know now that the gallstones weren't there for a really long time already and there is no need to be laproscopically doing anything to me and mine?
  
• because another friend is expecting a baby early January and I think it will be late December and I hope he's on my birthday, so I am designing invites for her shower and I hope my artist is done soon.
• because I'll be 40 in exactly a month (yesterday) and I'm wondering if I'll have any epiphanies. Don't feel any coming but I suuuuuure am speaking my mind more and more and more - and it's not all PMS, either. There is someone I want to tell about herself right now and it's taking every fiber of my being not to do it, but to let the current, correct course happen instead. But if she even cracks the door, I'm taking it off its hinges.
  
• because my brother is getting married next July.
  
• because I don't have my VA for my business anymore because it's just too much - for now - but we do have plans for a VA who will do a specific project and when the business is fully taking care of itself (almost there!), we can go crawling back to that phenom of a VA who is just too smart to walk away from and in the meanwhile I REALLY need to get my business social networking back on track.
• because I have a whole new business blog the phenom VA started for me that I have yet to learn how to operate over on Wordpress but it will be so awesome when I get it going.
• because we had one co-worker leave us to be closer to her mom in D.C. and we had to hire another one assistant and get her going.
• because I'm watching my kids every Saturday morning learning how to swim and neither of them are willing to jump in so they both feel bad and cry about it, but all Mr. T and I can do is tell them they have the power. When they are ready, they'll jump. (I hope they jump. I don't want them to hate the water like I do.)
• because my son is in his last year of Cub Scouts - mondo work! - and he WILL cross over to Boy Scout, but will he stay? Who know.
• because my daughter is now a happy little Brownie doing happy little Brownie things and I tried to avoid that, but darn it! Here I go all over again! Her meetings are after school, so THAT Mr. T has to help with.
• because I decided to start my allergy shots up again after my skin was more of a pain than usual this summer and this time I'll have visual evidence of whether or not the shots help and if next summer is more of the same, I stop again.
  
• because my full-time job has become my full-time AND part-time job. Oh wait. I kinda said that already.

because I was lazy. But maybe I'm back on track.

Help! I Need Somebody!

If I've learned nothing over the past few months, I have learned that I absolutely can't get to the next level alone. But it's not just about having help, it's about having quality help. And the kind of help I truly value is the help of someone who knows how to do things I don't, someone who works like me and/or someone willing to do whatever they can without complaint. I've found I need that in my business. I've found I need it at work. I've even decided it's time to embrace the fact that I need it at home. To have that help is to free my mind to do what I do, whatever that may be depending on where I am.

And so I now have my virtual assistant whom I pay. She knows more than I do about a variety of things AND she works and thinks like me AND she's willing to do whatever it take. Who can't appreciate that? And I also have my virtual assistant who has been with me since day one - literally - my mother. She has done so much of what we have needed to lay a foundation for Village Works. We are on our way to making her glad she was there.

At work we have a really good set of interns who prove that you can find quality people still in college, even high school. It has brought a glimmer of hope that I can get out from under an ever-growing mound of work that is a mix of keeping track of yesterday, keeping up with today and planning for tomorrow. To-do lists are resurfacing because of this glimmer and I'm determined to make the most of this good fortune.

At home it's time to give up the things I hate. There are many things that don't bother me. I can do laundry any old day. My hatred of washing dishes when I was young has turned into a greater disdain for sinks overrun with them. But the refrigerator and the stove? I don't know what it will cost me, but I am giving them up.

In one of the many teleseminars I have listened to, one expert said you have to stop saying, "I can't afford it" and start saying, "What do I need to do to make this investment?" And so I ask and I move forward.

The result? The business has been busy every month and I'm about to dive in deeper with the business coach who leads the inspiring group I am a part of. I expect to see that next level I always knew was there.

At work, I can feel the control coming back stronger than ever as I give up some of the minors in order to make the majors. After all, one of my strengths there is being the person who knows the history of things and the where and why, in addition to managing projects in a way that makes it easy for the person behind me to do what they need to. I like being that person and I want to strengthen that as much as possible.

At home? Well, I still have to find someone to do what I need and then I'll be able to say for sure. But I imagine it'll be a sweet feeling to click away on my computer knowing that my family at least has a clean stove and fridge to use. I don't need much more than that. After all, that's what kids are for and it's for them that I'm doing this in the first place.

Ah! Things are lightening and brightening making it easier to go far. Stay with me. We'll get there.

Car for the Course

A month. It's been a whole month! Too sad. So now what am I up to? Oh the usual. The business has been busy, as have we. We have had jobs every month so far, thus my delinquency over here on my personal blog. I have finally taken on a virtual assistant to help do the things I can do but that take a lot of time to do so I can focus on other things, like the membership program we recently implemented. That was actually a lot of fun to put together because we were thinking about what we can do for our current customers, as well as new people who come along. And now we have someone we don't know in a state nowhere near us wanting to sell our puzzles.

It's been good.

And now I am looking for a new(er) car because mine needs to take a long break, or go to someone else who is willing to put the money into it that I no longer am. This is what I have now:


She's been good to me for 10 years. I love love love her. She can handle anything and I can't tell you how many times strangers have offered to buy her (I'm talking people following me into parking lots here, folks), but it's time to part ways. Trouble is I have never had a car payment before so I am not looking forward to that part of things. I need to keep this as easy as possible while I continue working on aspects of the business to help make things easier down the road for all of us. Plus I still have credit card debt that I want to kill. So I'll probably go smaller and do this:


It's a Nissan Versa and that may even be the color I get since the ones I found were either gray or white and I really don't want to do white if I don't have to. I've seen some lovely 2007s and 2008s that won't make me feel robbed. I think this one can keep up with me the way my Honda does now. Hopefully I'll make the purchase this month so I can put this whole car thing behind me because I'm just not into this right now. However, the reason I think I may do this (other than the fact that the car is cute enough for my taste and I had a good test drive yesterday), is because I told myself that if I get rid of the credit cards the way I want, then in 2 or 3 years I'll upgrade to a luxury SUV of some sort. Preferably an orange one. Now that I think of it, this is a fantastic incentive. I think it's time to fixate on a car to help keep the goal in mind - more business growth and no more credit card debt that can't be paid off in one month.

Yeah. That just made me a happy girl.

We Are Here! We Are Here!

I have not been here in two weeks and two days (yowza!), because I have been here

and here

and here.

And networking here

and here

and here.

And visiting her

and her

and her.

And writing and learning and doing and working and reading and talking and planning and seeking and finding and generally, growing my business. Two jobs in the hopper, one job on the table, virtual assistants to interview (don't ask me where the money is coming from. I just know we need help), guest bloggers to find, our first real art puzzle underway (can't wait to see it). So. much. fun.

But I am here, oh yes I am. Here to tell you that I am still keeping on and so can you if you are pressing toward your special mark. I've been really buried in the computer and I'm sure my kids would like me to untie that particular cord, but I can't! Not yet! I am working on things being set up so that I can more easily do that in the future, but that's the challenge - I am setting things up in a way we should have set them up years before. But who knew? Who wanted to pay? I didn't and honestly, I still don't, but it's a true investment in my freedom in more ways than one. And you know what? There are a TON of really smart, capable people who get our vision. You can't keep it to yourself, you know? Other people CAN carry the torch if you pass it to them. And so we shall. We'll still lead the way. It is our baby, after all. But we're more than happy these days to let others help us carry the load.

If you hang out at the Village Works Blog from time to time (and please do visit. I'm working like crazy over there!), you'll meet some of those people in the form of guest bloggers or people I get quotes from for posts or people I feature. All supportive of our vision and we theirs.

I'd say more but who needs to? Instead I need to go remake my list of things I do and start getting my Virtual Assistant needs better sorted so I can respond to the plethora of people who are responding to my call for help. Just the thought of working with some of them makes me so happy.

Next time, I'll see if I have anything going on in the rest of my life to talk about!

Deep Breaths

You know that feeling you get in your stomach when you're excited? Like you can't quite catch your breath?

I am so exhausted right now and I need to sleep. It's 1:30 in the afternoon and I did sleep last night from 1 in the morning until almost 9 a.m. when I heard my own voice at the tail end of my answering machine message. Daughter was still knocked out beside me. Son was at a sleepover. Mr. T was working. It's a beautiful Saturday but all I want to do is sleep.

Since I was up, I checked email and Twitter followers. I am still trying to get that Twitter email under control and I am almost there. I saw I had another great comment on an article I wrote. Made me happy. I thought about all the work I needed to do to get the business blog moved back where it was - here, Blogger, a better place for it right now. I was ok with the work. I thought about all the stuff I had learned to improve our Facebook fan page and it's a lot but I'm ok with the work. I thought about the next article I needed to write - and the one after that. And the one after that. I saw all the subscriptions I had to my blog feeds just since YESTERDAY when I redid everything and added the ability to email for a subscription - both here and to the business blog. I'll link it here later.) So you guys ARE out there, huh? Nice. Again it was hard to catch my breath - in a good way.

Fact is, to do what you love to do means simply doing it because you love it. I went to a new Twitter follower's profile and he had tweeted to the marketers he knew, "#Marketing people! Can someone go to this site and tell me why not a single person has requested this #free book?" I took a look. It actually looked interesting, but I won't check it out until later because, as I said, I am sleepy right now. But he made me think more about doing what you love. I don't know what his gameplan is, but it looks like he's going to give away a book. That's no small thing. But if you love something, you set it free, right? And if it's your talent, it will come back to you more than two fold.

I think I see it in the distance. I have to take a nap before it gets here. Oh, and fix tacos. They are waiting for me right now to fix tacos. Then I'll take a nap. Then I'll be ready.

Ahh, The Genius is All Around

It's been awhile, right? Well, a week. It's like it's been a month. There is this woman in one of my networking groups, Savor the Success, and her name is Christina Morassi. Christina sent a message out to the group about a project she is doing for the next month called 30 Days of Genius. I am a very introspective sort and I also love figuring people out, so this is right up my alley. I went to her site and learned that the agenda was to call people into themselves; get them to figure out or acknowledge the thing that spoke to them and that made them shine and then move toward living in that for good. Precisely the plan, Christina.

Christina came at an interesting time when stars were aligning and sown seeds were blossoming. It's like she came to provide the commentary for all I am seeing in my life at the moment and to help me recognize them for what they were - me living in my genius, as she says.

The business has been at the forefront of my mind. Last time, I told you about the coaching group I joined with a woman I wanted to work with anyway, so when this opportunity came along, I jumped. I thrive when I am accountable to people so it's been great reading what other people are doing and getting even more inspired; sharing what I'm doing and getting great responses. One of the members asked me to write about the benefits of jigsaw puzzles for the brains of seniors who suffer or could suffer dementia. It was a thrill to do it. Because of the group, I finally figured out what to write for another online friend who asked me to write something for her networking group in exchange for an ad. Sure thing, I said. But then I couldn't figure out what to write. Now it's all ready to go in my head. Pen to paper. Or key to screen. This one is about how my partner and I do this thing called business. Boy do I have some words on that - now that I know what I'll say. I have one more writing opportunity to take advantage of that will put us in a new magazine out of Atlanta. I haven't figured out that focus yet but I suspect releasing this story already in me will be the key to finding that focus.

It's been a busy time. Last Friday we secured a relationship with a manufacturer that makes our puzzle production process as smooth as silk. They can't do EVERYTHING we may ever need but they can do the stuff that costs the most money and that is what matters. Now let me tell you about the power of words, my friends.

Late last night, Bizzy Girl and I were discussing yesterday's most recent event - finding out that we are $1,500 away from breaking even for the first time. Talk about celebrating! You know she was excited because we were on the phone after 10 p.m. I am the night owl. She is not. As we talked, we gushed at how we had ALWAYS said, without really thinking (and that is the mistake here because we are Christians and we know that life and death are in the power of the tongue), that oh how we wished we could make our puzzles a very specific way. I can't tell you that part. Gotta have SOME trade secrets you know. But it was specific. We wished we had someone who could do it in a certain way, pretty much in a certain place. Now, forgive my vagueness here but the key is that we wanted something specific. As we talked about the limitations of our new-found process, something made me think.

"Hey, Bizzy Girl. Remember when we said a million years ago how we wished we could do this a certain way? Well, his limitations are making me think. Weren't those the very same limitations of the process we had in mind?" No, it wasn't exactly said that way, but you get the picture.

So we Googled. And lo and behold, we found the connection we were thinking. This was the very same process we had aspired to years back. ALLLL the way back to when we first started researching how to do what we wanted to do and even since then. And not only the process but it was even down to the type of people, my friends. It was like they had walked out of our vision and we didn't even recognize it at first.

The power of the tongue was reinforced yet again. Bizzy Girl said she did think about some other connections to our past discussions and it motivated her to tell her daughter they need to do a vision board. This is a major thing for her to say because Bizzy Girl appreciates the creative but she'll tell you in a heartbeat that she's not the creative one, I am. She would be the one to look at someone's vision board and say, "Ohh nice!" But she wouldn't think to do one for herself. The power of these past few days has her thinking differently, and that's a good thing for a creative business like ours.

The genius is all around, as Christina recently discussed. She wanted us to note the genius in others around us. And I thought a moment today about former co-workers. One left to start a business as a life coach. I just saw her on The Today Show two days ago. One left to focus on her writing, have a baby and be there for her moviemaking hubby, whose movie was the hit at Sundance this year and he's got another script sold and on its way. One is leaving now to go help his wife with her small business. They will be on Martha Stewart in about 2 weeks talking about their chicken business. The commonality is they all walked away before the stuff really blew up. That's not to say these things weren't in the works while they were here. In two of these cases, spouses had the ball rolling already but them leaving here really helped things to take off. Now, that's a risk I'm not quite willing to take and I already told God that yes, I will take risks but this one will require a bridge so I don't freak my family out while doing my thing. Life and success are in the power of the tongue. I'm not worried about getting it the way I need it to be.

The genius is truly all around rubbing off on me. I wonder what will happen next.

Back to the Drawing Board

This may be hard to see and that's fine. The details of the picture don't matter. It's the big picture that counts. This is the beginning of revamping our business plan and I'm excited by it because it finally reflects ME. How did I get here?

1 - I asked my new business coach, Sandy Martini, about her timeline for the program I am participating in with her called Get It Done Right the First Time. "But this isn't your first time, Monica. You're already started!" I know, I know, but it's never too late to get it done right. Anyway, she told me and I thanked her, telling her that I need to see the big picture before I could get mired in details. She thanked me for telling her my preference for receiving information.

DING!

2 - I am preparing some thoughts for a meeting I have with Bizzy Girl and Design Guru next Friday as we start to create systems for soliciting new business from our target market. My telling Sandy about my big picture preference and thinking about the systems made me think of our business plan, which I never loved because - believe it or not - it was too wordy. Me - a runner-up in the Mrs. Loquacious Contest (I've met people worse than me) and it was too many words. "I am creative," I remember. "How do I learn best?" Seeing then jumping in and doing. (I'll read the instructions later.) "Of course! I need a visual business plan!"

3 - That led me here to a man named Andrew Smith. And I really appreciated the simplicity of what he was saying and his visual examples.

4- I then went to the site a guy who was talking about circular business plans and I got dizzy right away. I already had circles in my head. Didn't need more. So I ended up here on the site of a woman named Julie Stuart who draws these AMAZING visual business plans. You can even see her portfolio on her site. Good stuff. Still not quite right for me, though I did sign up for her newsletter. She was on the right track at least. She asked the right questions about my ideas spiriling out of control.

5 - I need a mix of the spotaneity you see with Julie and the clarity you see with Andrew, but a little linear thoughts too because I need things to be visually organized. Julie stuff is great but I can't look at her plans and see the direction like I could in Andrew's example.

Thus the picture you see at top.

I stood in my living room racking my brain, wishing I had a chalkboard or white board or a way to write on my walls that came off easily. I needed to write the vision, not type. Not yet. I thought about that chalkboard and imagined making something to use on my refrigerator so I could stand and write. Then Mr. T's not-yet-discarded-40"-inch-TV-box winked at me. I remembered I had brought home a dry erase calendar that my boss couldn't use and I thought I could. I had paper and markers. I would make something to help me purge. And I would perch it on my ironing board because the next best place was downstairs on the table in my office and it's cold down there in the winter when you're just wearing a long shirt!

Now, on my makeshift white board (card board?), I could write and still take the paper with me later. I could see the mess dumped on paper in every possible category. I could ask the questions and write whatever answers I had and then leave it there while I continued to think of things to add. Then, when I think I've purged it all, I could start working on whatever details I had for each section of the brain dump. Only then could I see maybe typing some stuff up, but not yet. I've got to finish getting the stuff out of my head. I need to sleep on it, come up with more stuff if there is any and then call Bizzy Girl to see what she can add to it. By the weekend, I should be able to start getting details down.

This is good. It helps to know how I think and learn. We may just get organized yet.

Full Speed Ahead

Kerri and her hubby, Chris, are at Sundance right now and a few minutes ago she let us all know his movie was just bought by Lionsgate. Check out the clips at her site. I may or may not have told you they are expecting their first child in May. I'd say it's full speed ahead for them, wouldn't you? I couldn't be more thrilled.

The ladies and I met for about 3 1/2 hours on Saturday night and it was most productive. I know I need other people involved in order to get things done sometimes but this really proves it. We all have our times when we don't feeeeel like doing things, but as long as one of us is motivated or we all at least meet together, we can get through those times.

I am trying oh so hard to get my bedroom closet done, something I've wanted since we moved here. My kids need it too and it wouldn't hurt to figure out a system for the leftover that falls to my office and hey, the garage too so it never gets nuts. But one closet at a time. My heart leaps at the thought of a place for everything and everything in its place. I can't get a consultation fast enough.

Isn't this pretty? I'll take before shots of mine and I'll let you know how things progress.

Back to Juggling

Didn't take much to get me back in the groove. After clearing out the emails, I saw I still had control and few people were waiting on me impatiently to get back to them. So it's back to business and oh the business we have to get worked out - the planning still needs to be done; the newsletter still hasn't gone out for the month because I am trying to get something worked out first that will allow us to offer our customers something different; there are jobs going on (yay!) but the numbers still aren't there the way we need (boo!); there are 2 magazine articles on the horizon that will give us free press; and overall there is the whole thing with having small but manageable growth because all three of us (I include Graphic Guru since she's integral to what we're doing) have jobs with a ton of responsibility and, thankfully, employers who like what we do enough to keep us around.

So the juggle goes on. But watching me juggle isn't nearly as fun as you'd think it is. Instead, how about I send you to Kerri's site (it is HER husband after all) so you can see clips of the movie I was telling you about before when I was talking about her husband having sold a movie script last year. And of course since then he sold another one because someone finally woke up and realized he's brilliant. So is his wife, if you get a chance to peruse her blog.

I'll let you enjoy that and go see if I can go get something worked out for my customers right quick. Sure to see you later!

Cave Dwelling

I watched a movie this weekend called "The Answer Man" with Jeff Daniels and Lauren Graham.


Semi-quick note about this: I have been finding bliss with my Netflix membership, which I just got in November. Not because of the ease of movies coming and going. I don't really care about that because I was cool with stopping at Redbox at a million and one different locations on the way home. I started Netflix only to get caught up on "Lost" so I can watch the final season next month and know what the heck is going on. I wanted the cheapest membership possible - about $5 per month - which is one movie at a time, twice a month (I believe it's how it works). We're movie people so that's really confining but I still didn't want to spend much. I went up to the next level - about $9 per month - which is one movie at a time but I get unlimited movies. When you choose this option, you also get the chance to get Instant Movies on your computer and you can have one queue of those and one queue of movies that come to your home. (No, not all movies are instant ones.) My husband wanted PlayStation3 for Christmas but he got it 2 weeks later for his birthday instead. I had toyed with canceling Netflix when I realized how slow it was going to be to get the "Lost" DVDs to watch and also because they don't get the newest movies as fast as Redbox. But along came PS3, which lets me get Netflix instant movies there too. And now it's worth my money. I have movies coming to the house and I can add a ton of movies to my Instant queue, see all those choices on my TV and watch as much as I care to in one sitting. And they stay until I remove them. So, if you were wondering if Netflix was worth it, now you know how it can be.

Back to the real blog post.

In the movie, there was a scene where someone asked Daniels' reclusive character, Arlen Faber, about doing what you really want to do in life. His response, "You are always doing what you want to do. The trick is to realize that." I paraphrase big time. See the movie to get the exact quote. It's a good one. I think I saved it. I may just watch it again before I let it go. Faber had some interesting points about children too that I believe I won't be forgetting anytime soon.

This was not an ah-ha moment for me. I knew this. The trick is remember what I know and stick to that. The greater trick is to either own it and make my life easier or keep letting it guilt me until I change something. In this case, it's my tendency to go into my cave. This is what I do. Men do it too, except I am still open to the people who are in my house. They aren't always that way. What I am closed to is just about all other forms of communication and I suppose it's just a necessity to recharge my batteries.

Thus my lack of blogging for the past few weeks. But not just blogging. I barely Tweeted, Facebooked, checked any email for weeks. After the holidays, it was back to work I went, so first I got my work email back under control. Then just focused on work and going home. By the second week after the holidays, I got my personal email back under control and kept on top of the work stuff. And then just focused on work, personal email and going home. (Work has been monumentally crazy since I don't know when and it just got worse. This is why I must love what I do.) I tweeted again after the New Year, here and there but not checking the site right away. Today was the first day I looked at Village Works email again (bad business, Monica) and the first time I spoke up on Facebook. As you can see, it's also the first time I came back to Blogger. It's a slow transition but darn it, I'm ok with that.

What I'm not OK with is not being quick to respond to business emails. But I also admit I don't want to be THAT accessible. So my challenge is to think long and hard about the tools that let me see the emails (I really, really, really don't want a PDA) and maybe devise some more ways to handle some of the repetitive stuff. Folders only work so much because you still have to go in the folders and deal with the mail that got sorted there. I still dream of my ideal - a version of me who can handle the repetitive stuff and only send the pressing stuff my way. The read-at-my-leisure emails can go into a folder for me to look at, well, at my leisure.

So here I am, I suppose fully out of my cave since I am working my way through VWE emails now and planning to call the troops to make the plan for the rest of the year. But it makes me think. How much of my life do I want my business to overrun? It's possible to have a full-time business and have a life but you have to know what you want and don't want. You have to know how to compromise. You have to just do it and be OK with doing it. This all also makes me think more about the direction we need to move in in order to get where we want this business to go.

I'll be talking to Bizzy Girl about it because we tend to be on one accord about these things. In the meanwhile, a Happy Belated New Year to you all. I'll be back as soon as I finish clearing email.

Coming to the Finish/Starting Line

It's feels good to finish things. I've got two pressing unfinished projects in my life that I know I will complete eventually. For now, I've allowed myself to be consumed by Village Works and that's OK because there have been lots of things to start and complete there too. It's been funny, though, because out of the three completely sets of jobs we have pressing right now, 2 of them are not complete because of outside forces - one printer screwed up and now we're waiting on the fix so our customers will get their greeting cards before they start singing Auld Lang Syne. The other is one last person waiting to receive their custom puzzle, which seems to be AWOL. Thankfully, we never do just one of anything and a replacement was easy to send off yet again. Still, this particular job was already held up by - you guessed it - issues with the printer, a different one from the one just mentioned above.

Bizzy Girl and I started this year saying it was a do-or-die year. We knew what we wanted to do and simply needed to get ourselves there. We knew what we wanted to earn but it wasn't really about the money just yet. It was about creating the space to have the success we know we can have. She and I teamed up with Graphic Guru and together we planned out the year, month by month, sale by sale, greeting card by greeting card. Even though Graphic Guru had her own budding business, we wanted to work together to help each other - she helped us develop a new line of greeting cards and we took her wherever we went vending and the like. We also needed new greeting card jigsaw puzzles. But first our focus this year would be the website.

It was a do-or-die year, a year of life-altering changes. And now, 23 days away from a new year and 1 project away from wrapping up this season, Bizzy Girl and I took a quick moment to realize it was a very good year.

• Lots more consistency with our newsletter and special offers.
• Bizzy Girl's summer program that took her away for months is now no more (but this was also one of our best clients so it's a mixed blessing).
• We did our first big 2-day expo and met all sorts of great people.
• THE WEBSITE IS REVAMPED AND READY FOR ACTION!
• Graphic Guru finished the business workshop that Bizzy Girl and I completed some years back and now she's ready to step forward.
• Graphic Guru also had to lay to rest a marriage that never quite got off the ground and by 2010, she will be literally in a new space ready to breathe again.
• I don't know yet how many custom jobs we had this year but more than ever before.
• Did I mention, THE WEBSITE IS REVAMPED AND READY FOR ACTION! This means in 2010, a whole new focus on marketing.

It's all good. Great, even. When we thought about it, we realized we were truly nonstop there from September until now. I've barely written about anything else because I am inhaling and exhaling Village Works. And there is still so much more on our list of things to do. Since we're not yet profitable, you'd think this was really a year to give up. But how can we? We learned we were capable of so much more than we knew or wanted to admit.

Growing a business when you have a family and full-time job is not easy. at. all. If you a super-disciplined person who can stay on course no matter what, you might have some of what you need to get to your goal. But it won't be easy for you either. Sacrifice is a part of this and something or someone gets shortchanged in this process. It may be us not being our healthiest or doing the little things here and there that make us feel good. It may be our kids who, in my case, stay up late a little too much waiting for me to come home to check homework and do all the before-bed rituals because daddy just doesn't do the homework thing. It may be our homes, like Bizzy Girl who has been organizing her office bit by bit for more months (years?) than I care to recall, or mine that still looks like we just moved in a month ago (well, just downstairs which is what everyone sees first). It may be our relationships, which Bizzy Girl isn't really seeking as long as her daughter is young and I can't complain about given how well things flow for Mr. T and me but do we see each other long? Well, his schedule is as much to blame as mine. It could be our jobs but Bizzy Girl and I have been blessed with jobs that we pour ourselves into and when we need to pull back, we have some room to do so. Still, how long can one do that before it's time to figure out a real schedule to balance the job with the business until the business can take over?

Sacrifice is what makes the process take so long for us. We simply aren't willing to take the all big steps we need to at the moment people tell us we need to, at least not all at once. A few late nights for my kids are just golden opportunities to goof off but I won't keep them on the back burner. Sometimes they have to wait. Sometimes the business has to wait. Sometimes I need time to convince Bizzy Girl to just pick up her fears and let's go! Sometimes she has to tell me to slow down. Sometimes the money goes to VWE. Sometimes it goes to our own needs. It's a bus probably riding its brakes a bit too much but we're all going to get their, families, futures, ourselves intact.

I was afraid we might have to make this our last year. Bizzy Girl and I, as different as we are in how we handle things, came out in the same place once again - you ain't seen nothing yet.

It's All About the Business

I didn't do it. I didn't even try. Well, I WANTED to try so I signed up. But NaNo was a NoGo this year. I didn't write word one. It was all about the VWE website and let me tell you, it was truly all consuming. Calling the company during the day when I could to ask a question here. Logging on to the online support at night to ask a question there. I now have a favorite support person, I have contacted them so much. Her name is Hazel (I really think they are using pseudonyms) and she is on at 6:30 in the morning. Hazel is one smart cookie and the only one I would truly believe if she said there was no way to do something I wanted to do. Everyone else - just about - has proven to me that if they say it's not possible and if I even suspect it might be, then I am right, they are wrong and all I have to do is keep studying the problem. I can think of a least 2 times when someone said I couldn't do something, then as they continued looking for the answer or verifying it with someone else, I figured out the way around it. Yeah. I'm pretty proud of that. If you could see all the button and links and fill-in-the-blanks I had to deal with, you'd be proud of me too and doing the happy dance with like we were Pigpen's long lost cousins. This website project proved one thing for sure - that I am primarily a big picture person. I need to know the details AFTER I know the overall goal. But inside the working of a website template, all you see are details. It's a puzzle with no boxtop to guide you.

Thank God I love puzzles.

You see, our website is powered by StoresOnline. I won't bore you with the details of how we came to work with them but I can tell you this, we do not regret signing up not one little bit. We LOVE it. Now, that being said, it is a TON of work to get your website up with them because after all, unless you pay them to do it (and you can if you have a small fortune), you are the web designer and developer. So you better bring your imagination, your time and your patience or you better not come at all. I didn't watch TV for about 2 weeks during the most intense part of this thing, except to watch Nip/Tuck. Had to keep up with my show. But otherwise, my DVR overfloweth.

The things we can do with this site are more than what you see online right now. Have you seen it? www.vwepuzzles.com. Yeah, baby. I'm plugging away because that site represents about 2 months, late nights, early morning, lunchtime phone calls and loads of juggling my job and my website work to keep it all going because the site had to be done the day before Thanksgiving.

There were way more pictures to find and resize than anticipated. Lots of copy to rewrite because suddenly it just wasn't good enough. Lots of people to solicit for testimonials, which we should have gotten when we first did the jobs for them. (Those are slowly trickling in as we talk to people one on one.)

There was inventory to figure out and math - yes, math - as we worked on the pricing and payment methods. If you can see it, read it, click on it, my hand was in it some kind of way in order for it to be there. Sometimes, there was frustration and hours just doing one seemingly little thing. Sometimes I hummed along checking off one thing after another as the site started to take shape.

Part of the reason I am particularly thrilled with this site is because this was truly sweat equity. The price we paid to have this service was the sweetest ever. And it's far from done on that front because the homepage is not the homepage that will eventually lead you into the site. What I have there now is my own doing because I refused to let my deadline sweep by, but there is a graphic designer working on a special homepage that will allow us to have something a little less busy and a little more visually interesting for people to see. She is a very busy designer, however, with the added skill of teaching and she has been very much in the world of teaching so that my homepage has had to take a backpage until she is free again.

But that's OK. I'm still happy.

And now we have the work of maintaining the site and growing it from there. As we do that, there are more custom jobs we are working on and as we do that, we are finally prioritizing our creation process. Things simply are not as streamlined as I'd like them to be and it's time to get the wrinkles ironed out. I want to say what I mean and mean what I say and drop the stupid added explanations of why we can't do things the way people would like us to. That means Bizzy Girl having some meetings on her free Mondays. That means me better organizing our customer information as new people take us on and others become repeats. That means us taking more risks and even finding out about one risk that's not risky at all. If we get a shot at doing that one, I will happily blog about it and share it with the world.

This year, Bizzy Girl and I said this was a do or die year. Something changed in us and we have been more driven than ever. I suppose we simply aren't going to let things die because it took so much of our life to create it in the first place. And it feels good. The business is picking up and the dream of doing this full-time (aloing with my writing) becomes even more real to me.

And now, I need to get to my office and package up the most recent set of completed puzzles so their owners can get what they have been waiting for. After that, the next round of puzzles wait for me to get them going. Oh, and the church newsletter isn't going to edit itself. Don't I still need to get the greeting card order filled? I need some sleep.

I had a dream that a recent vending event would net us three new custom jobs.
We got three new custom jobs.

I told a friend in her first trimester that she would be having a girl because I wanted that for her.
She told us today that she found out it's a girl. (Yes. She wanted it for herself too.)

If you say it AND believe it AND work for it, it can happen right? Right.

No Love Lost Over Web Work

The past couple of weeks have been all about the Village Works website redesign - and "Lost." I don't really know much else, not even my book right now. I've been watching Lost in the between times because I wanted to watch it when it first came on but it didn't work out. So for all these seasons I've been listening to my co-workers rave about it. I decided to just do it because that is what I do - pile too much on my little plate of little time. So as I work on my website, I might watch an episode or two. I made it through season one and through lots of angst over the site, trying to figure out how to do what was in my head. After about 2 months of on and off attention, frustration, questions to support, and much thinking, the bells went off, the big picture finally came in clearly and I went into website design overdrive.

I took a tiny break to clean my office one Sunday afternoon and do laundry. I also watched more Lost - a lot more Lost. Truly I am lost in Lost. I am one DVD away from finishing season 2 but season 3 was nebulous. One co-worker had loaned me season 1. Another one had 2. But her season 3 is currently being sloooowly devoured by her sister so what would I do after I finished season 2? Netflix, here I come.

Monday was another night of hard website work and now I am a Netflix member to boot. Season 3 DVD 1 is on its way, though I still have to watch that last DVD from 2. The new and final season - 6 - starts mid-January, I am told, and I am pretty determined to be caught up by then. And you know what else will happen by then? Before then? The website will launch. That's the plan.

This website design has been a major exercise in patience and creativity. My laptop seems to be getting tired too and I can feel my hand being forced to go figure out how to speed it up as well as my desktop. It's the holidays (yeah. Admit it. It is.) and I don't want to spend money on computer issues right now. But my kids are on there as much as I am, so that can't be helping. Darn it all, I don't have time to learn how to care for computers but I have to if I want to get this operational some time this decade. I'll start with the computer people I know to guide me (thank God for people I trust who have this kind of knowledge).

In the meanwhile, I am pressing on. trying to work on one thing at a time and always finding something else to do that will improve some tiny little thing. Last night's "little" improvement took me about 5 hours to implement. It was a custom form I created to go along with the puzzles we offer for customization. I couldn't display those in the same way I could the regular puzzles we can sell one at a time. So I had to figure out how to create a similar display that worked differently. It was a simple form. That's all it was. Or it was supposed to be simple. I am still thinking of ways to tweak it.

The upside is by adding that form, I may have figured out how to do something the support people said I couldn't do and that will majorly improve what my customers experience on our site. I would tell you what it is but first I have to get it to work and then I'll announce it in one of our newsletters one day. It'll be one of the many little bells & whistles we'll be looking to add over time. Well, little to the rest of the world but no small feat to implement.

It wouldn't have been the first time I figured out how to do something the support people said I couldn't so as they say, where there is a will, there is a way. And if you can call/IM the support people multiple times over multiple days, you will probably find the person who DOES know how to do what you want to do.

I have to admit. I have worked with 2 web developers, interviewed maybe 2 more after them, I am working with yet another to do just a custom homepage and I knew this wasn't easy work. But I have a whole new appreciation for what they do. The time it takes to do the simplest of things. I am working with a template which is harder to wrangle than you might think. I can't imagine building things from scratch in code! And oh yes, I do use a little code here and there too. Our template is full - FULL - of all kinds of things to discover and when they said it was customizable, I thought it was a sales pitch. But they were right. And having all those options makes the work that much more challenging, though rewarding as you watch your vision come to life.

It is amazing to finally see all of Village Works in one place, at last. It's like going from a studio apartment to a high-tech mansion. And we aren't even fully moved in. So many buttons to push and colors to add. Our plan was to make our online store the only place you need to go for all things Village Works. You can see everything we offer. You can communicate with us. You can sign up for our newsletter. You can get quotes. You can find out how to work with us as wholesellers. You can find out how we can help you do a fundraiser. And hopefully, later, you can find out much more that is specific to you, the individual customer. And all you have to remember - and bookmark - and share with rest of the world - is www.vwepuzzles.com.

I am truly happy we went this particular templated road. I didn't want to. Didn't expect to. But it was a good deal, even with all the work involved. Right now if you go to www.vwepuzzles.com, you get an under construction page that looks like you got a computer error. It's not my style in the least. So hopefully tomorrow you will see a better looking under construction page. And soon, I'll have a select few testing out what I've done so far as I keep going. The plan is to launch before Thanksgiving and even then it will be just the beginning. You know I'll let you all know when you can see it live and online!

Web Wonders

If it's November, it must be NaNoWriMo time. I didn't do it last year, but because of the book I am working on, I quickly signed up this year as my way to force myself to get some more work done on it. And I have been. I started in October though, gathering the info. Now it's time to write. But I haven't. Not yet. Because I've been so very tied up in our revamped website. It's fun and tiring and overwhelming and so full of potential.

I am building it. I didn't want to. I tried not to. I wanted to give it away but it was so very hard finding someone with a vision that already was in line with my own so I'd feel like I could trust them to get the job done. But either the person was a disappointment and/or too small (we need major customer support at all times. No more 1-man operations for us.), or the company was too expensive for what we wanted. And I've always had a hard time settling for less. I do it when I have to but I go down fighting. Trust me.

So after a good year of searching and interviewing and maybe figuring out how we'll do this, we landed on our solution. The price was right - even better than the reasonably priced plan we thought we were going to go with - and I could get what I wanted...for the most part. And we were even able to get Graphic Guru in on it for herself. Truly a win-win.

Still, some concessions had to be made, but way less than before. It would simply require more work on our part to get there. We could have a site that showed what we wanted, when we wanted. People could EASILY buy. Everything connects there and it is good. On top of that, we have the extra bonus of being able to control our SEO work on the site and we even learned how to watch the competition too. Then I found a designer who could do some of the custom work I knew I couldn't do myself. We spoke on the phone and we clicked. I haven't seen her first draft yet but being the controlling person I am, I had already made a really detailed plan of what I wanted and created a visual to go along with it. You'd have to be totally about your own agenda and clueless to miss the mark on this. If she comes through like I think she will, it will be the icing on the cake.

So I haven't written yet. Because I have been wrapped up in the site. It is amazing just how many little pieces there are to put in place. And while doing this, we are also following though on Step 1 of our online marketing plan. But that will require time to complete since it shouldn't all be done at once. Bizzy Girl's sister agreed to help us out with all this and it's about time for me to bring her in on it now that I have a better handle on things. And that will free me up to write.

Am I being a little vague? Yeah. I know it. I can't give away all my business secrets after all. Though they aren't MY secrets. Just things we learned and decided to do. Anyone could do the same but I'm afraid you'll have to just watch us and see how we do. If you like it and want to do the same, I may be persuaded to share a tip or two. :-)

And don't worry. I will make time for some writing too and end the month with 50,000 more words to add to my book.

October Optimism

We've been busy - Bizzy Girl and I. Last Saturday we trekked back up to Hartford with our designing friend who I don't think I named for blogging purposes. I shall dub her Graphic Guru because she really is a great designer and co-creative force for part of my business. It's good to be surrounded by like minds.

The three of us have given Hartford much play lately. (And if you've been to Hartford, you'll know that's saying a lot. It can be a depressing sight.) Twice last month we drove up for the Get Motivated Seminar and the Women's Expo, which I still have to tell you more about. Bizzy Girl went back there later on for a 2-day financial workshop precipitated by the seminar. And this past weekend was a website seminar also the result of said seminar. We have truly been riding the wave of that seminar, let me tell you.

We went. We listened. We critiqued with discriminating ears because we have MUCH experience in websites and how they should operate at best, as well as the cost to get them done. We were promised free websites just for going but once we saw all we could get - the analyzing features that are available - we left there with paid sites, more enthusiasm than ever and me? I was slightly cringing because I knew the work ahead. I had done much of it before. But I knew this time we had Bizzy Girl's sister as long-distance help in getting the site together. We also knew the value of what we were getting and now going to be able to do (and the crazy good price we got on it). It's worth the time and effort it's going to take to get this ball rolling.

Last week, our young photographer showed us the product shots she did and they are fantastic. She's making adjustments to some of them and I can't wait to see the finished products. It won't be easy implementing the vision I have for the site but it WILL happen. Hopefully before 2010 but a launch of Jan. 1, 2010 is a goal worth setting. I'm going to be busy for the rest of this year.

October is proving to be interesting.

• I am heavily into my interviews for my book. (76 more mommies needed please!)
• I am heavily into the website redesign, WITH some new photos awaiting upload. (Nope. Not gonna Facebook those. You'll have to wait!)
• I am restructuring my and the kids' life insurance policies after discovering they are not going to do what I wanted them to do and that is going to save me money I can now reinvest in my kids' 529 plans as well as my Roth IRA. (My financial adviser is going to love me.)
• I am, consequently, killing a good percentage of debt and hopefully shifting that in a way that will lift a load for good and finally allow me to focus more on today and tomorrow with just a slight nod to yesterday as I get rid of it faster than expected.
• This week, we'll be reassessing the business itself and getting a clearer plan in place with a little help from an expert.
• And at the end of the month, 2 days of training on how to effectively use all the tools our website offers and really make it the success it's meant to be.

I'm feeling pretty good about the work ahead and I think I may even look into 1 or 2 additional streams of income as I work toward my ultimate goal - freedom to be me. I'm 39 later this year. 40 is coming. I am blessed to still love my job but I want to be emancipated before too long. There is much work ahead but this time last month, it was just a long-standing vision. Now it's a vision with an evolving plan of action. It feels good.

You want something different? Do something different.

Back to School Part II and More

I'm still trying to figure out what's going on with the month of September. It's a month full of all sorts of activities and possibilities from what I can feel and from what I am told. I really have no idea what to expect from one moment to the next. I do know a lot of stuff is going on with people around me and I am simply doing my best to go with the flow this month.

For instance, Daughter and Son finally got their beloved items from my parents. I was looking for one box but three arrived and not all at once. Two boxes one day and about 4 days later, the third box arrived with the highly coveted backpacks. Except Mr. T took a look at Son's and saw it was too small for his needs so he's sticking with what he has. Mr. T had just bought it about a month before school ended so it was still new enough. Daughter got her Jonas Brothers and all is right with the world.


And speaking of the kidlets, Mr. T says Daughter is an old woman because she just lost another tooth.


See that one in the middle at the top? That one is loose now too. Go figure. Son had two teeth pulled himself just last week. There's one of them on the bottom left there.


They're beginning to look like baby hillbillies (No offense to the hillbillies of the world who are proud gummers.) and I am rapidly running out of $1 bills as everyone pretends the Tooth Fairy is real but we all know mommy is losing sleep waiting on the baby hillbillies to conk out.

There are also lots of changes at work as co-workers come and go - more in this month than any other in the four years I've been here. Some changes I still am not at liberty to divulge to the world (but it has NOTHING TO DO WITH ME so calm down!). Work will be an interesting place too for a while.

And the business? Well, last week, Bizzy Girl and a friend of ours, who has partnered with us for the greeting card line, all went to get inspired at a Get Motivated seminar in Hartford and that was really quite a treat. I heard words from Joe Montana, Laura Bush, Rudy Giuliani and Colin Powell. All cool. Colin Powell is actually quite funny. But the people who had me on the edge of my seat were ones I had never heard of before - Tamara Lowe (I'm buying her book right after this), James Smith (this man is hilarious. That's him over there with the folded arms.), Phil Town, Zig Ziggler (whose name seemed to ring a bell) and Krish Dhanam (captivating despite his harmless look down there on the lower left). And the unexpected icing on the cake is that the majority of these previously unknown people credited God with their success. So very unexpected. Tamara (the lady in blue up there on the right) went as far as to tell the antsy ones to bear with her while she told the people who really needed it the prayer they needed to say in order make Jesus their savior. (And if you comment negatively about mixing God into these business-like things, it's going to fall on deaf ears and I'll delete it anyway so why waste your time?)

My friends and I were thrilled. We are used to being in the world but not of it. Just like we are used to being black females who worked (or have worked) in predominately white environments. It's just part of our reality. And these truly motivational words these people shared would have motivated us anyway. But because they spoke the words through their faith - our shared faith - it made the whole thing even easier to consume. I highly recommend you check these people out if you ever get the chance. And the profits from Tamara's book - ALL of the profits - are going to support various charities. A woman after my own heart.

After all that dynamic speaking on Wednesday, my same friends and I all trekked to Hartford this past weekend for the Women's Expo. Our first major, 2-day expo at which we were going to be vendors. This was not inexpensive to do but we had to try. I won't go into detail about this just yet. It deserves a post all it's own. But I will say it is very tiring to do these things and we learned quite a bit, which I will share with you as well. Nevertheless, it was fun if only because I haven't laughed so hard or slept so deeply in quite awhile and sharing a hotel room with Bizzy Girl and our partner in success was an experience worth repeating. I even got a short story out of the deal. It has something to do with blond hairs showing up in the oddest of places. (Yet another future blog post!) Oh! And our newest fun find? Fresh Company located in Hartford. I bought two fun bracelets from them (here's one of them below) and their prices are fantastic. Tell them I sent you!


Stay tuned for more from the expo!

Buying Black

I don't know if you know about Maggie and John Anderson. They are the Chicago couple who have dedicated their money to black-owned businesses for this entire year. It is called The Empowerment Experiment and they are half-way through. I knew about them some time ago but I wasn't keeping close track. However, the idea of keeping black money circulating within black businesses is as ingrained in me as buying American as much as possible or recycling. The couple came back to mind yesterday on the CBS Early Show, probably because it's really close to August, which is Black Business Month according to @ajlovesya over on Twitter and that one was one I didn't know about.

If you missed them on the show yesterday, here's the video, which will hopefully stay available for awhile:


Watch CBS Videos Online

Now, the one thing Maggie Anderson didn't say in response to Larry Elder that I would have said? "Are you freakin' kidding me?" I mean really. If anyone is naive enough to think that Jews don't spend with Jews and Asians don't spend with Asians and Hispanics don't spend with Hispanics then please, go off to some mountaintop to live alone with your ignorance. Of course they do! And no one is calling it racism when they do. They simply understand the value of culture and supporting their own. I am certain many of them and others of different groups at a minimum look to do business with their own first. Of course they do! It's like choosing someone over your own family to not do it. The difference is they may not make a public announcement they are doing it like the Andersons have and so no one calls them on it. Women are publicly supporting women, as we should and as I do, but I haven't heard cries of sexism. What pisses me off is when black people choose to do something others have been doing for a lifetime, suddenly we are being racist, sexist, elitist, whatever.

Here's the thing: What the Andersons are doing is very difficult. The fact is black-owned businesses are not one every corner. Hair dressers and barbers, funeral homes, churches - those are black-owned/run in abundance. Most other businesses/institutions are not. The Andersons at least have a black-owned grocery store in the vicinity. If there is one in CT, I couldn't tell you where it is. So you see, it's a big, not-so-cheap thing to do this experiment. A very big thing. And to do it is not to say they choose to sacrifice quality or customer service or anything a good business should have. Instead, I'll bet you it forces some black businesses who aren't already operating that way to get their acts straight because they are getting attention and it's good for business.

Bizzy Girl and I absolutely seek to work with our own as much as possible. In some places we've been successful. In other places, it didn't work out. So we look until we find the people - of any race - who we feel we can work with. We happily work with a variety of people but in our business and well as in our personal lives, when choosing who you will associate with in any manner, there is an order and you can't tell me it's not the same for everyone - black, Christian and female are top three for us and this order can change. Barring those categories, we want to work with American companies and keep things as close to home as we can. Family friendly matters to us as well. It's not unheard of to be selective in this manner, so why try to make it sound like the Andersons are doing something that will divide people?

As I know I've said in the past, the black race is a fractured, wounded group. We must uplift each other whenever we can. We are so far removed from the greatness we hail from that even ancestral memory is lacking and getting back that former glory must be an intentional action. We have a black president now to help remind us of this. We have people like George Fraser who have been pushing for years for us to understand the power within ourselves, advocating multiple streams of income and business ownership. The Andersons are just one of many people doing what has been the mission for as long as I can remember. Instead of criticizing this - especially black people. Come on now, black people, don't choose to malign your own. - we can choose to celebrate this not just as a race. Every race can choose to uplift their own and we can also choose to uplift each other as Americans. No one needs to be excluded. This is simply work on self that needs to be done. You know how they say you can't love others until you first learn to love yourself? Charity begins at home? That is what this is and there is no reason to apologize for it.

If you have not yet watched the CNBC special Black in America Part 2 (I don't think you can see it online yet), it would behoove you to do so and remember the power of the people.

Blurred Vision

I've been pondering the whole see-it-say-it-create-it belief system. I do believe in it but I think it has some caveats worth paying attention to. I was talking with a friend one night last week about how much clearer things are for me these days - I can see the life I want better than ever but it's not entirely in focus yet. It's enough for me to have something to build on but it's not yet crystal clear. It's like standing at Penn Station (or a million different places in D.C.) and clearly seeing the Washington Monument. But there are streets to navigate and a whole mall in between, as well as lines to wait in. It's not necessarily a straight shot to get there once you arrive at that train stop and start heading in that direction.

My friend thought it wasn't a good thing to not see it clearly. I understood why she said that. A lot of people say it, after all. Normally you need to clearly see your vision in order to obtain it. The more in focus it is, the better your focus can be on the goal. But I had to think about that a second. I had experience with focusing on a vision and I knew that at least once in my life, I had passions and desires to do a myriad of seemingly random things that may have appeared to others to be me simply occupying my own time in a strange city I did not grow up or attend college in. When I first started work on a master's in Religious Studies my father asked me what I was going to do with the degree. "Beats me. I only know I can do a chaplain internship through this program and I'm going to pay for it all myself, one class at a time." Eleven classes and I don't know how many years later, I got to the point where I needed to write my thesis and be done. One day I'll do that. But I got what I wanted - the chaplain experience.

At the same time I was volunteering with AmeriCorps and worked for a social service agency during the day while I was working my regular, full-time night job as a copy editor. I was the editor of and one of the writers for my church newsletter for five years during this time. "What are you going to do with these things?" is a question I got a lot. I'd only smile and say, "beats me. I just know I want to do this." But here's my question back: Why does one always have to know what they are going to do?

Passions are there to help propel you to a greater goal of which you know nothing about. Only God knows. I believe that following your heart/passions is always worthwhile, even if you can't always see where you are going and even if it seems like a really pointless pursuit to the rest of the world or even to yourself.

So I thought about my friend's comment about a clear goal and I finally surmised that a clear goal can sometimes work against you. I think if you always know the exact end, you may possibly be a little lazy in the work to get to that end. I mean, if you knew the end, risks wouldn't be risks but sure things and isn't the excitement in the risk sometimes? If you knew the exact end, wouldn't the road essentially be easy, not the obstacle-ridden path that builds patience, character and wisdom? If the end is always clearly in view, would you even go the direction that has those unexpected sidetracks that lead to something unexpectedly fruitful? And then, consequently, if you're so busy knowing the end and not working toward the unknown, can you ever get to that end?

I'm thinking you have to have a vision, it just doesn't always have to be a clear one. But having that vision isn't enough. You have to be willing to follow your heart's map to get there and open to dealing with the surprises along the way. About 11 years after I started doing those myriad of things that never quite flowed together on a resume, I learned of a job with a start-up company that made my eyes go wide as I read about the job duties and type of person they sought. Everything I had done up until that moment had come together in that one position. I couldn't have purposely prepared for it if I tried. The start-up has been my best job venture to date (It's been 4 years now) as it not only utilizes all the things I love to do but I watch entrepreneurship at its best as I continue to build my own business.

Right now I can still see generalities when it comes to my future, though some specifics have gotten very clear this year. I still don't know exactly how I'm going to get to the Promised Land and admittedly, the desert is a scary place so I may be intentionally closing my eyes to some things. But I know I will get there and I know blind trust is a huge part of how I'll get there and I'm OK with that.