New Resource - The Confidence to Act

Here is a business resource that I have yet to check out. Being a Mom Masterminds member entitles me to this resource as part of the buiness tools available at MM. But it's also available to other women in business who are not members of Mom Masterminds.


This resource is presented by Kelly McCausey:
The topic of having Confidence in making business decisions, especially decisions about launching new products, came up here at Mom Masterminds in September of 2005.

I interviewed four women who I know to be brimming over with apparent confidence and asked them about their own journeys through the valley of insecurity and indecision - and yes - they have all been there.

You will really enjoy these interviews and I hope you will be deeply encouraged to move forward with your own ideas and dreams.

Click Here to find out more about The Confidence to Act!

I plan to check out this tool during the month of January and will be sure to post my personal opinion on what I think of this tool.

Most visitors ever!

I just checked my webstats this morning for AllAboutFastpitch.com and the number of visitors to the site each month continues to grow!

Unique Visitors

Sep 2005 1378
Oct 2005 1678
Nov 2005 1622
Dec 2005 1743

When I was looking at stats earlier this month, it didn't look like I'd have more unique visitors than last month, but it's such a nice reminder that things are moving in a positive direction and the work I'm doing on the site is worth it!

Back from a long weekend

Well, I'm back from a long Christmas weekend with my family. We're looking forward to this short week and another long weekend! Hope you all had a Mele Kelikimaka (Merry Christmas)!

Last night we bought some novelty fireworks for the upcoming New Year. We also started making some plans with family for the New Year's celebration. Looks like we're planning on Prime Rib and Alaskan King Crab Legs ~ Yummy!

My mother-in-law has this belief that you should clean up your house to bring in the New Year otherwise your house will be messy the entire year. I had never heard of this until I got married. So each year, I did at least some cleaning for the New Year, but my house seems to always be a mess anyway. So last year, I decided not to the big cleaning. Funny enough, my mother-in-law decided the same thing. LOL. Funny thing is, now that they New Year is coming around again, I realize that my house this year was way more disorganized and cluttered than I care for. I just couldn't stand it most of the time. So......I am going to straighten up and start 2006 off on the right foot. I'm also using this issue as additional motivation to earn more WAHM money ~ I'd like to "outsource" some house chores in 2006! I'll certainly let you know if I accomplish that goal. :)

Business - staying on track

Another thing I like about Mom Masterminds is that it helps me get back on track when I sort of put my business on the back burner. The people there are wonderful at motivating and giving great tips of their own. I have to admit that with everything that was going on the past month, I've been slacking. Now that I have more time at home due to Baby Sitting Blues ~ I'm going back to MM to find out how else I can improve my business and see how I can make up the ground I lost this past month. I've already begun implementing a few things and am seeing results!

WAHMs most definitely must be able to "work without supervision" and be a "self directed learner". "Work without supervision" is something that you see in many job requirements and being a "self directed learner" is something my kids are now evaluated for in school.

Still not done ~ Christmas Shopping!

I started earlier than usual this year, but I still have a few people on my list that I just can't a gift for. Ugh ~ time is running out. I'll probably be in a crowd on Friday with all the other last minute shoppers. I'm not looking forward to that. I've noticed that the malls are getting more and more crowded. On top of that, we have our Secret Santa due on Friday for our softball team. I have to get that taken care of. I believe the limit is $10 ~ I'm finding out that there's not a whole lot of cool stuff you can buy with $10. Not anything a high school girl would like anyway.

Well ~ wish me luck on getting this done!

Holiday Weight Loss Rules

Got this via e-mail and just thought I'd share. ;)

In my frustration I have developed 6 dieting rules that should apply for this Christmas season....in a fair world. These rules should be made law!!

1. If you eat food off of someone else's plate, the calories should not count. Also, if you didn't order it and end up eating it, the calories should not count.
2. If you eat standing up, only 1/2 the calories should count. This is a great rules for moms that prepare kids meals and end up standing up to eat themselves!!
3. If you think about going to the gym 5 times without going, you can add 150 calories to your exercise calories bank. After all, thinking about going to the gym is hard work. This also should apply if you watch 5 exercise videos--without exercising.
4. If you have a piece of cake with a diet drink, the calories cancel themselves out.
5. If you pay money to lose weight, i.e. many weight loss programs require monthly fees, then the pounds should automatically be removed from your body.
6. We should be able to pay someone to exercise for us and download the benefits to our body somehow!

Merry Christmas and happy eating--especially the cake/pies/cookies as long as you have a diet drink with it.

Have a Happy Holiday Season!

Christmas Dinner follow-up

To follow up on my Christmas party post, DH and I did have a great time at my company party. DH tried sake for the first time. It was cold sake (some sake is served warm). It looked like water. DH said it was sweet, but did still taste like alcohol going down. We went to a Japanese restaurant were we ordered a bunch of different types of meat, seafood, and vegetables and cooked it ourselves. Now that I think about it, that doesn't seem fair ~ LOL. You pay a "sit down and dine price" but cook your own food. Well, we weren't paying for it so I won't complain. :)

One strange thing about this place we ate at was that the owner of our company wanted to drink Chardonnay. She was going to order a glass for herself, then asked about just getting the bottle since some other people wanted to have some too. By the glass it was $3.95. When they came back to let her know what the price was going to be for the bottle, they said it would be $90.00! First of all, according to the wine drinkers at the party, the brand they had wasn't worth anywhere near $90.00. Second, would we have even gotten 10 glasses of wine out of that bottle? I don't think so. It would only cost us $39.50 to buy 10 glasses of wine ~ why should we pay $90.00 for the bottle? How mento is that? I thought it was supposed to be less costly to buy it by the bottle. LOL

Anyway, we did have a good time and the owner actually took a moment to say how great a contribution to the company she thinks I am. That was nice, but uncomfortable in a way because I don't take compliments well. Mostly because I don't agree with half of them. I do expect to be good at what I do, but I'm no superwoman and she makes me sound like one.

So.....with just my two days of having a babysitter per week, I'm still going to go into the office as much as I can. They want me to stay on with them for as long as possible. They do plan on bringing in another employee that can be there all the time. It really is best if someone is there on a daily basis so that's a good thing. I won't have the burden all on me to take care of everything during the limited time I'm there. The company is determined to work something out so that I can stay on board. So at this point, I will continue to work on the days that I can. We'll just have to see how things go. If it is a positive situation all the way around then we'll roll with it. I really hope we find someone good that will help us all be more efficient. I think this is actually a blessing in disguise for everyone.

Company Christmas Party

One perk of working outside the home is going to company Christmas parties. Our company is having more of a Company Christmas Dinner more than a party because there are only 4 employees, but it still should be lots of fun! Each Christmas party I've been to with this company has been small, but a blast just the same.

Tomorrow night, DH and I will have a night out without the kids to attend my Company Christmas Dinner. I guess that's another cool thing about it company Christmas parties. They give DH and I a reason to get a sitter and do something together without the kids! I guess if I ever do become a full-time WAHM ~ we'll still have to arrange to have a "company Christmas party" to go to ~ even if it's just us.

Outsourcing - Giving it a shot!

Yes ~ I'm taking my first venture into outsourcing. I certainly see how it could be beneficial in getting things done! However, it is also a little scary to have someone else make files for you. At first I didn't really know what it is I wanted from a VA. That's one thing that held me back from outsourcing before ~ I had no clue how I wanted to utilize another person's services. However, I found that once I sat down to really put some thought into it, I was able to get a good idea of what I wanted to get done and what would really benefit me and my online businesses. Hopefully things go well. I kind of like where this is taking me. Of course, outsourcing does mean that I'm having to pay someone else to do things that I used to do on my own. Why do this?

Well, I'm finding that it gets done faster than if I try to do everything that's going on in my head. Delegating tasks to someone else also allows me to stay focused on how I want to develop my online businesses. I don't get sidetracked with the actual "doing". Like I said, I like the direction it's taking me, I just hope everything works out. Giving someone else access to my site/blogs even if it's with their own username/password is a bit scary.

Mom Masterminds ~ Limited Space!!!

This is taken directly from the Mom Masterminds Blog:

"We are committed to getting our new members settled in and on the right track with their businesses…so we WILL be shutting down the site to new members at the end of this week. That means if you sign up before Sunday, December 18, 2005 12 PM EST and we haven’t reached full membership capacity, you’ll be guaranteed a spot and your membership rate will grandfathered at the current rate."

So for those of you who have been thinking about joining Mom Masterminds, but have been putting it off ~ it's time to take action!

Click here to learn more and get started! I know I'll never regret becoming an MM member.

Baby sitting blues

The most difficult thing about working outside the home is finding a baby sitter! Before I began working my "outside the home" job, I did say that if it was too much of a problem, I just wouldn't work. Well, it's just about getting to that point.

I lost a sitter (I was using two) and now only have a sitter two days out of the week. I'm sure if I tried, I could find another sitter. However, I don't like leaving my son with people who are not family, and honestly, I'm tired of bouncing him around. He's been cared for by my SIL, DH's cousin, my neighbor, and sometimes he comes to work with me. It's never been consistent for very long and I just don't feel comfortable changing his "routine", if you can call it that, again.

I'm really not sure what I'm going to do, but maybe this will catapult me into full-time WAHM status much quicker than I originally planned. We'll see what happens.

Shopping with a WAHM for Christmas

For the first time ever, I've shopped with a WAHM for a couple of Christmas presents. The WAHM I purchased gifts from is also a Mom Masterminds member. Her website is www.MonkeyBums.com ~ I bought a cool baby sling for my brother/sister in-law and cute Monkey Bum Pants for my daughter. Can't wait to get them!

New Toy!

With all the hustle and bustle of my son's party, I more or less forgot all about my own birthday which was the next day. LOL. It was a nice surprise to know that DH didn't forget. He presented me with my brand new toy on the morning on my birthday ~ a Palm Tungsten E PDA!

I've never had a PDA before so hopefully I can utilize it well and get more organized. Now I just have to get a nice big memory card so that I can include photos on my family and songs to listen to.