QUICK!   I want you to imagine you give yourself permission to relax!

No no no, now stop that laughing!  Stop it I say!  It’s true, you know - you really don’t have to spend a bazillion hours blogging at your site or building your products or commenting on blogs or debating on forums or designing on Photoshop or …..

Get what I mean?

Yes indeed, you, yes YOU can actually give yourself permission to relax.  I promise you, the world won’t fall in pieces!

Are you still chortling?  You mean you’re done and back to sitting calmly?

Good! 

Seriously though, as a work at home mom and entrepreneur, giving myself permission to relax is one of the most difficult things I endure.  Yes, endure… because I always have this mental idea that I could be doing more.

Are you the same?

If so, [Read more]

Morning!

Yesterday I wrote the magnificently  insightful post:  How Stupid Are You?  Basically I discussed how important it is to know when you’re giving more than you’re receiving…and what to do when such non-optimal situations occur.

I neglected one very important step, however.

Here it is:

[Read more]

It’s been said that a picture is worth a thousand words….and I’d certainly agree!  The challenge you have as a blogger, however, is to ensure the pictures load as quickly as possible.  After all, amazingly enough, the entire world is NOT on a cable modem. 

Luckily, this is quite simple to do!  And instead of giving you a dozen tools to simplify the job, I’ll just point you to (drumroll please!) [Read more]

Tip of the Hat Alert!

I’d like to publicly thank Darren Rowse, his commentors and his guest poster Chris Brogan for the article How I Use Twitter to Promote My Blog.

I’ve been following Darren now since I got into pro blogging; super super resources the man has to offer.  I especially like his ‘Featured Post’ layout, and decided to implement that on my site - finished it this morning.

As a guest blogger on Darren’s site, Chris wrote:

…Instead of telling your Twitter audience that you’ve published a new post, ask them their opinion on the core topic you’ve covered. “Do you think banner ads are dead?” followed by a link to your site is much more appealing than posting to Twitter, “Banner Ads Are Not Dead.” Asking a question engages your Twitter followers and solicits their experience.…MORE…

 I’ve [Read more]

Yesterday I wrote my first Twitter rant over here.

It’s time for my second Twitter rant.  I’m sure you’ll agree with the fact there’s

No way to share images. 

is utterly maddening!  Oh sure, I can send a tinyURL to an image, what about dragging and dropping the image to my Twitter box and having it sent to specific people?

What’s wrong with adding that most-likely-short bit of code to simplify my life?   Unless I want to hire someone to take a picture of the image and then send it over to [Read more]

You know, I’ve been educating myself quite a lot about Twitter lately, and I can really see the benefits to it. 

But the more I analyze it, the more I realize…it’s missing some key critical features.  And for my Friday Musings, I’ve decided to start listing them, one by one.

Let’s start with:

No way to communicate in MORE than 140 characters. 

Sure, I know, the basis for Twitter IS 140 characters or less, but c’mon!  If someone [Read more]

In two words, I am going to reveal to you the secret for eternal bliss.  Yes indeed, only 2 (count ‘em, 2!) words:

Are you ready?  Atingle with excitement?  Riveted on the edge of your seat?  Okay, here we go:

"A full night of heavenly luxurious sleep couple with" "utterly decadent coffee upon waking up".

What do you mean that’s not two words?  ‘course it is!  Don’t you see [Read more]

You know, niche blogging ideas can emerge from the strangest of places.

No, I’m not talking about praying to the All Powerful Blog Idea Faerie, or dropping your freshly-made piping hot morning coffee onto your pajama-clad nether regions, or even absently-mindedly commenting to your darling children:

"No dear, we do NOT use Mommy’s newly folded clothing as the scratch pad for your Elmer glueing (ohmigosh wow, what a magnificent blogging topic!)"

Instead, I’m referring to tried and true testosterone-fueled ability of [Read more]

Are you sitting down?  You should be to ensure you don’t fall off your chair after visualizing the following:

You promise me now you’re sitting, right?  I don’t have to worry about hearing large <THUMPS>?

Alright then….tell me.  Picture the following.

SpongeBob SquarePants battling the Cloverfield Monster.

Okay now!  Is that image firmly lodged within your cranium?

Is it crowding out visions of freshly-perked coffee and the spine-tingling joy of a neat laundry room (complete with nary a single sock in sight)?

Excellent.  Now tell me….what on earth could such an image convey?  You’ve all heard, a picture is worth a thousand words….what would cute yellow SpongeBob up against mean scary Cloverfields make people think?

Hang on, wait a sec, what’s that you just thought?

[Read more]

Money…it’s good.

I like money.  Don’t you?  Money enables me to keep my kids in slide rulers, my parakeets in Macaw-sized Nutriberries, my coffee maker always perking (although I will admit, it doesn’t do a darn for keeping kids sock pairs intact….).  But I digress.

Recession….it’s bad.

I don’t like a recession.  Recessions mean less money will be spent, which might mean less slide rulers can be bought or my parakeets will have to endure agony of plain old birdieSeed or my coffee maker will [Read more]