Archive | July, 2010

Piles and Piles of Papers

28 Jul

I have a lot of piles in my kitchen. Piles of paper. They’re neat piles, but their still piles. Piles that make me crazy.

I’ve tried to combat them on several occasions. Throw stuff away. File it in the office. I even tried to hang these cute little folders on the wall for each of us to file our piles in.

They’re cute aren’t they? Well, they didn’t work either.

Why do I have piles you ask? Mostly because I worry about forgetting about something if it’s not out where I can see it. Out of sight, out of mind. Sometimes because I’m just not sure where to put it.

Right now when I look around my kitchen there are three piles.

Anyone have any tips? How do you combat the piles?

How do you keep track of all the magazine clippings, coupons, recipes, community activity guides, receipts, summer schedule, etc. that come into your home every day?

What about during the school year when you add to that list graded papers, permission slips, weekly newsletters from the teacher, spelling lists…? Truly the list goes on and on.

Generally I’m a pretty neat person. Everything has a place.

Except the papers.

Those don’t have a place. Or at least not a place where they can be safely put away but NOT forgotten.

We’ve Been Invaded!

25 Jul

Yes, we were invaded today. By those dirty, nasty little bugs called LICE!

Today began rather nicely. Both kids slept until 9:30, which means mommy got to sleep until 9:30. A very pleasant surprise since I haven’t been feeling 100% and am afraid I may be coming down with something.

I was craving Starbucks so I grabbed Emily, who loves to talk to all the people in coffee shop, and ran over to get us breakfast drinks. On the way home I stopped at the gas station to fill up really quickly and rolled the windows down so I could talk to Emily while we were waiting.

And that’s when I saw it.

Creepy, crawly, nasty thing right on her bangs. I drove home faster than I probably should have and we’ve been laundering, shampooing, combing, rinsing, and drying children (plus 1 parent), carpet, stuffed animals, bedding, and towels ever since. We’re almost done for today and can only hope that when we re-check in two days that we won’t have to start the process all over again.

Here’s a glimpse of that chaos of today…

Click to enlarge.

Breaking Through the Clutter

16 Jul

Last week I talked about things I love to read so much that I can’t wait for them to arrive in my inbox, in my mailbox or at my curb. Last week it was all about items I enjoy for personal reasons. This week I’m making a shift to things I love to read for business reasons.

I read a lot of business focused content each day, but there are only a few people that really manage to break through and provide content I know I can consistently count on.

Jay Baer writes a blog called Convince and Convert where he provides fantastic advice on creating a social media strategy. His methodology is simple and brilliant and makes social media very accessible for anyone, whether you’re a large corporation or a neighborhood restaurant. I’ve listened to his core presentation on creating a social media strategy at least three times and each time I pick up something new that I can apply to my work. I’ve also had the pleasure of meeting him in person and, despite his “fame” in social media circles, he’s a very easy going and fun person to be around.

Amber Naslund writes at Brass Tack Thinking and I’m not sure what more to say other than the fact that she is S-M-A-R-T. I love that she’s not afraid to disagree with what others have to say about social media and community management. With all of the “wash, rinse, repeat” that is present on the web – especially as it relates to social media – Amber is one of the few that consistently surprises me with original and brilliant content. She challenges her readers in a way very few others do.

Michael Hyatt is the Chairman and CEO at Thomas Nelson Publishers and writes about a number of topics from social media to management and leadership topics. There are a thousand blogs on the topic of management and leadership, but I find Michael’s to be much more realistic and relevant. I’m often overwhelmed by the volume of content that shows up in my RSS feed each day, but it’s a breath of fresh air when I find a new post from Michael. They are almost always short, sweet and very often I can walk away and immediately apply something I read.

So that’s it for my list of favorite reads. I’ve covered moms, shopping, sales, home organization, social media, management, writing and running, which pretty well sums me up…

I’m a mom who loves to shop (especially when she can get a good deal), enjoys reading about home organization (although not always good at applying it), is addicted to social media (both personally and professionally), and has recently picked up two new hobbies of writing and running (we’ll see how long they last).

Photo courtesy of smemon87.

Blogs and Mags and Ads. Oh My!

9 Jul

I love to read. A LOT.

For both personal and professional reasons I am reading all day long. I start out the morning catching up on blogs and articles, arrive home to my favorite magazines in the mailbox, and end the day in bed with a book.

As a matter of fact, sometimes my habit can get a little out of hand. With the plethora of information available on the web it can be overwhelming. I don’t want to miss anything good, but I also can’t afford to spend all my time reading when there’s work to be done.

Some things I read because I feel like I should and others I truly look forward to. After reading a great post on Marketing Pilgrim last week about content anticipation I thought I would share with you some of the content I anticipate.

There are plenty of  ”mommy bloggers” out there, but there are only a couple I truly look forward to reading. Holly Homer, the mom behind June Cleaver Nirvana, is mom to three boys, homeschools part-time, runs her own blog, as well as a community blogging site called BurbMom AND just started a company called Business2Blogger. Oh wait, I just discovered as I was writing this post that she also started DFWBloggers.com.

Good grief woman! I have no idea how she manages it all, but I do know that I love reading her posts. The reasons are pretty simple: (1) she’s funny and (2) she takes great pictures. What more could you ask for? Holly also happens to live in the same town I do and, although I’ve only met her briefly, she’s just as funny and down to earth in person, which only adds to the appeal of her blog.

Shanna Coady is equally as crazy but for a different reason. She writes at her blog My Favorite Everything. Just like Holly she has three children, but she has three girls. Here’s the crazy part though…all three are under the age of three. Seriously? My children are 6.5 years apart and I still struggle to keep up. You could admit me to an insane asylum if I had them that close together. But I digress.

The point is that I look forward to her posts each day. I love that they seem to magically appear while I’m sleeping each night and most mornings hers is the first I read. Just like the rest of us, she struggles to keep up with it all and her blog provides great insight into how she does it with tips and tricks, product recommendations, weekly menus, and monthly to-do lists. But the best part is how personal it is. She writes about her girls, her weight loss efforts, and her struggles & frustration, which makes it very real and very relatable.

As you know if you’re a regular reader of my blog, I’ve never been much of a writer and only recently have started to enjoy it. I’m always looking for people who write about writing. Hmm. That doesn’t sound quite right, but you get my point.

Julie Roads writes a little blog called Writing Roads that provides me with much-needed motivation. She’s an incredible writer and her blog very often pushes me to stop and think about things I otherwise might not. As an added bonus, she’s also a runner, so she provides not only writing and blogging inspiration, but also the occasional running inspiration.

I realize everything I’ve mentioned so far is online content. That shouldn’t be much of a surprise since, besides being a certified tech geek with an an iPhone, iPad and Macbook always in tow, my job is almost completely web and social media related. However, I do still occasionally read actual printed materials. I LOVE Real Simple magazine. I’ve been struggling to get it delivered since we moved six months ago, but it provides more helpful information than any other home or parenting magazine. I’m always ripping out pages to save for later.

Oddly, I also anticipate the Sunday ads each week. We only get the newspaper delivered on Sundays and I immediately break into that plastic wrapper of circulars. For years I’ve been doing this and rarely deviate from the norm: Target, Kohl’s, Wal-mart, and Best Buy, plus Parade magazine, of course. The rest of the paper immediately goes into the recycling bin. I am fully aware I could see all of these ads online, but there’s something about that Sunday morning tradition that I just can’t seem to shake it.

I really hate to write another two-part post, but this post has gotten a little longer than I expected and has focused entirely on things I read for personal reasons. Next time I will share some of the people who’s content I anticipate for business reasons.

What magazines, newspapers, blogs, etc. do you look forward to? I’m always looking for new stuff!

Everything Happens For a Reason – Part 2

1 Jul

There have been two events that have completely changed the course of my life. I believe, for the better. If you’d like to read about the first event than jump over to my last blog post – Everything Happens for a Reason.

The second event was when – suprise! – I got pregnant with my son. I was 24 and single so it wasn’t exactly in the plans.

For about the first 18 months I was with Ivie I flew back and forth between Dallas and Phoenix almost every week. Eventually the associate we had in Phoenix moved on to another company so I offered to move “permanently” to fill the hole that was left. I was there about 4 months when I found out about my little bundle of joy.

It’s hard to say anything negative about how or why it happened since it resulted in my sweet Nicholas. Let’s just say that Phoenix brought out a different side of me. I’d pretty much always been known as a “good” girl. I never experimented with drugs. I drank very little. I never snuck out of the house.  I did what I was supposed to do. What was expected.

Boy, were my family and friends in for the shock of their lives!

Apparently I thought I was entitled to a “wild” period in my life. For some people this wild time is during high school or college. For me, it was a brief 4 months that ended with a drug store pregnancy test and a sobbing phone call to my parents.

I was a mess.

I spent the first couple of weeks trying to determine exactly what I was going to do. The relationship with his biological father was never a serious one. As a matter of fact, by the time I found out I was pregnant with Nicholas, we’d already stopped seeing each other.

It didn’t take long to determine there was really only one option for me. I wasn’t a teenager. I was an adult woman with a good job, a strong career, and an incredibly supportive family, so I put in a request to transfer back to Dallas and started planning my second move in less than a year.

It was only a few weeks later when 9/11 took place. Wow! I was already emotional and overwhelmed by the direction my life had taken. The tragedy of 9/11 both put things into perspective and terrified me all at the same time. I just kept wondering what kind of world I would be bringing this baby into.

Eight years later our country is unfortunately still at war, but that sweet  baby boy has grown into an amazing little 3rd grader. He’s incredibly smart and polite, has the most amazing imagination and is THE best big brother to his sister Emily.

I can’t predict where life would have taken me had I not gotten pregnant with Nicholas. I may not have gotten that great promotion that provided my first management role. I wouldn’t have been here to welcome my niece into the world and be so involved in the first year of her life. I may not have met the man who would eventually become my husband.

Everything happens for a reason.

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