Happy Friday

March 5th, 2010 · No Comments · Brandy's Life

It’s Friday, the sun is shining outside and all I can think of is Spring is near. I love the idea of lilac’s being in bloom, they are my favorite in the whole wide world. I love the idea of being able to clean up my yard and maybe having a garden this year. I doubt I will ever get the garden idea going, but hey it’s just a thought!

I love the idea of being able to take 2 hour walks everyday and not freeze my butt off. I am excited about the chirping of the birds first thing in the morning. Those morning doves that sound like they are saying “who cooks for who” .  Really Spring is near and I can’t wait!

Fall is my favorite season by far, but Spring will do because I am ready for the snow to be melted away and ready for that mud if I have to deal with it to be warm & feel the sun shining in my face! This weekend I have no children and I am not sure what I will do but if it’s nice out you can bet you will find me cleaning like crazy and if I can opening some windows, oh yeah I am ready, are you?

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How Weather Affects My Life

March 4th, 2010 · 2 Comments · Miscellaneous

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of AccuWeather. All opinions are 100% mine.

I am constantly watching the weather, especially with Winter heading out and Spring coming in, I want to see whether the weather is going to be sunny and warm or cold with precipitation. My children are ready to get outside and enjoy the outdoor life again, but in order to do so we must keep a close eye on the weather forecasts.

When it comes to planning an outdoor playdate I usually make sure to review the weather forecast prior to confirming any plans. If you are not up to date with the weather and you make plans to go on a playdate with your kids and then have to cancel on the children for the playdate due to bad weather, they are going to be very upset about the whole situation. Weather isn’t too bad here in NH but there can be days of rain and snow depending upon the season and I don’t like to make plans without first consulting the weather forecast!

The new AccuWeather site makes it easier to review the radar, local weather and if travelling it allows me to look at the next state over to ensure weather is okay when we visit family in Vermont. I love the AccuWeather site because it gives you weather at the click of a button and the site is very easy to navigate!

Visit my sponsor: Weather for Your Life

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Yes We Work From Home

March 4th, 2010 · 6 Comments · Blogging Support, Work At Home Support

I had a poll live on my site a little while back to find out who works from home strictly and who does both a job outside of the home & work at home. It seems the poll has brought my attention to the fact that out of all the people who took the poll (22 people) that 16 of them or 73% work strictly from home only.

It appears that as there are more layoffs and employers stop giving pay increases to their employees that family’s are left to be creative and find a new form of income. If you think like I do, you want to make a living so that you can support your family but you don’t want to be in a position where you are working your butt off only to be laid off or removed from the position as soon as you get to the high pay rate. It sounds horrible but it happens all the time, employer’s find a way to remove the high paying, long time, loyal employees to find young, cheap help that will work for lower rates than any long term employee would work for.

You could sit back and think about how messed up that situation is or you could be proactive and think “what can I do to support my family?”. That is the question I asked myself a few years back and really pushed that question in 2008, I knew I needed to be financially independent so that I could support my children in a way that would show them Mama works hard to take care of us. Sure enough I founded HappilyBlended.com, AskBrandyEllen.Blogspot.com and Brandy Ellen’s Business Solutions all at the end of 2008 through mid 2009!

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Still Building My Blog

March 4th, 2010 · 2 Comments · Blogging Support

Today is Day 3 but I never completed day 2 of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog, don’t know what this book is all about? Click here to view more details

Day 2 – Create a List

I have created many lists and Tuesday I have a Top 10 List I usually post up (didn’t this week) which is meant to be funny, inspirational, serious, or just out of the blue ideas I have each week. I like keeping my Top 10 Tuesday posts different each week so that you never know if you are coming over here to laugh, cry, think or get creative! I love reading lists and most others do as well. Lists are a creative, fun and fast way to share useful information to your readers without getting into too many long paragraphs! Makes it easy on the eyes for scanning!

Day 3 – Promote a Blog Post

If you don’t have 31 Days to Build a Better Blog you really should get it because the tips and ideas @ProBlogger has in this book for day 3 are amazing! Most of them I already do, however, his reasons behind why to promote your blog posts in specific ways really open your eyes to the why behind blog post promotion!

POST ONE:

Do you ever feel like you work too hard and let yourself get unorganized? Remember we all seem to start the New Year off with the mission to be cleaner, more productive, more organized & more determined to reach our goals. As the year moves forward we find that we start feeling overwhelmed with everything going on and organization efforts cease to exist, you may feel your motivation and determination lowering as each day passes, frustrated on how to start moving forward to being productive again. Overworked, Overwhelmed & Exhausted is a great article that is just the beginning of me helping you get motivated and stay on course in a better, more organized year, it’s a must read!

POST TWO:

Do you ever wonder what the best way is for you to market your blog? You have tried social media and it’s not all it’s cracked up to be, you just don’t get Twitter and feel you have better things to do in your day.  Well have you tried Blog Networking? Learn more about Blog Networking and how it can help you succeed in meeting new bloggers, connecting at a more personal level with your readers and gaining more comments on your blog!

There you have it Day 2 and Day 3 completed in the same day! What do you think? Did I make you want to go read those two posts?

Head on over to Riding with No Hands to see how everyone else did on their efforts to build a better blog!

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Fixing Up The House

March 4th, 2010 · 1 Comment · Miscellaneous

I am determined to get my house fixed this Spring, seriously! I want to have replacement windows installed so that I can have energy star rated windows and have windows that work and open in a way that allows my oldest to open a window if she is hot. Right now she can’t keep the window’s open in the house because they are really tricky to get open let alone keep open! I am not sure if vinyl replacement windows are the answer, but they do look nice!

Overall I do enjoy dreaming about what I want to do with my home and every year I swear to myself I will do just a few things to make my house look better from the outside to the eyes of a driver by, but I never get it done. Whether it be due to lack of time or money, it simply doesn’t happen!  I know my home has vinyl siding, but not so sure it has insulated vinyl siding which may be something to look into come Spring time to save some money on the heating bill next Winter!

I know my home isn’t insulated very well and is not energy efficient by any means. Luckily we have only gone through a couple full tanks of oil every Winter for heating, but I know if the home can be set up to be more insulated and energy efficient we could save so much more next Winter!

Do you do anything to fix up your home come Spring time? Do you have any energy efficient things you wish to add to your home this year?

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Social Media is Addicting?

March 3rd, 2010 · 2 Comments · Blogging Support, Work At Home Support, social media

I truly think Twitter can be addicting but others may see Facebook as addicting. I mean I can get on both social media sites from my home PC, my laptop, and my Blackberry Curve. All three products allow me to stay connected to the social media world virtually anywhere I go. I could be in the grocery store shopping with my children and tweeting on Twitter from my smartphone!

When is enough enough? Don’t get me wrong, I totally dig social media and all it has done to open the doors to my blog and my business as well as my work at home income, but overall social media can be a disease that takes over a person, allowing them to further ignore their family and in turn creating a monster!

Think about it, if a person gets addicted to pills or alcohol or illegal drugs we step in and say something. Do you step in and say something to a friend or family member you feel is addicted to social media? Would you tell them that they need to seek help from their physician or counselor?

I honestly love my smartphone, I think it’s a useful business tool, but that is exactly what my Blackberry Curve is … a business tool. This is not a toy, this is not something that has to be in front of my eyes 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Gosh I swear the work at home person tends to put in more overtime than that work-acholic parent who works outside of the home in a job! It is time we sit back and truly think about the endless hours we spend on social media and ask yourself if that time could be better spent with your family?

I know when I am in the grocery store shopping with my three kids there is no way I could have my smartphone in my face typing away on Twitter or FB while actually still keeping an eye on my children. Could you imagine how bad a parent would feel if their head was so far into their smartphone & social media tweets or status updates that they lost a child? I know I would be devastated and I would never want to touch a smartphone again.

I think we are all diving into social media because it connects us not only on a business level but on a personal,  community type level with our peers, but remember who your real life friends are, remember who your family is and remember if you know someone who is addicted to social media to speak up and let them hear your side about the subject, sometimes all an addict needs to hear is that there is a concern and they will be able to work on changing their habit in a way that is more healthy for themselves & their loved ones!

What do you think; do you think Social Media is addicting? Do you feel too many of us are on it for more hours than we should be? Would you tell a friend if you thought they were addicted to Twitter or Facebook?

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Medical Alert Products

March 3rd, 2010 · No Comments · Miscellaneous

You know we all get old one day, eventually, it may be years, it may be months but we will get older and possibly need the use of medical alert products. Maybe you already have an elderly relative that is taking full advantage of an emergency response system. I know I would want my elderly relative to be taken care of. The relative actually doesn’t even have to be elderly, heck if I lived so alone that there was never an adult here I would so want to have some system in place to protect the home and myself if there were to be an emergency situation!

Just think if you were to fall down all you would have to do is hit a medical alert button and you would be all set with help coming! I know my oldest is aware of what to do should an emergency situation arise with me, but the other two are so young that I can’t quite teach them what to dial. My 3 year old can barely listen to me let alone concentrate long enough for me to teach him to dial 911, ya know?!

So do you have any medical alert type products in your home or relatives home? How do you teach your children to react should an emergency situation arise that left you unable to get up and dial emergency help?!

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Wordless Wednesday: My Hat & Baby K

March 3rd, 2010 · 6 Comments · wordless wednesday

I got a new hat from Swagbucks on accident, didn’t mean to use my points for it, but I kinda like it! Oh and check out Baby K he gets into everything!
BrandyEllen Swagbucks Hat

IMG00197 20100225 1840 Wordless Wednesday: My Hat & Baby K

Oh and before you leave … check out the loves of my life …

My Sweet Children

My Sweet Children

Happy Wordless Wendesday! Check out WW HQ and Momspective & MomDot & 5 Minutes for Mom for some more great posts! Link Up your WW Post below:

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