Child Care Exchange for Working Parents

Published on June 25, 2009 by brandyellen in Work At Home Support

I often tell people I have a “Mommy’s Helper” and really it’s simply my sister or someone else helping me while I work my regular business hours at home. It is not always easy for me to have family or friends help watch my children while I work and it’s not always easy to afford to pay for this help. I am lucky to have a younger sister who is going to school and needs extra cash to help me for a lower than normal rate, and it’s a plus because my children get to spend some time with their aunti. I recall my younger years spending Summers with my aunt and I loved it! I am glad my children get to have some fun aunti time while mommy gets some much needed work done.

For those of you who work outside or inside of the home and find it’s hard to pay for child care, Care.com has a great service called Child Care Exchange. I have heard mixed feelings about child care exchanging, however, I think it’s an excellent idea. As parents we need to get a break whether it’s for a night out or to get some work done and as more and more people find themselves living paycheck to paycheck it’s HARD to afford to have care. Care.com hears parents and understands YOU, so they have created the Child Care Exchange program.

I love recommending this site and service to my friends and family because they offer free background checks, that is a money saver in itself! If you are unable to afford a babysitter but are in need of one please take a peek at Care.com’s Child Exchange program, it’s fast, it’s easy and you will be able to possibly create life long friend for your little one.

Tags: care.com, Child, Childcare, daycare, family, home, Organizations, Resources and Referral

4 Comments

Giveaway Blast Day # 8 UpSpring Baby Walking Wings

Published on June 24, 2009 by brandyellen in giveaways

Today is day # 8 … that means only 22 more days until I meet my best virtual friend Dwan … I will say I have to wonder what in the world we were thinking having this giveaway blast because it has created a heavy work load for us and we are doing this all out of pocket, which is actually why if you donate any amount of money to our giveaway blast we are allowing you one entry for every $1 donated into any of our giveaways. This means you can donate $5 and put 5 entries on one giveaway or split it up. So in case you want to get some extra entries or an entry doing nothing but donating a couple bucks, click here. Okay I do know why we are doing this: We want to share our excitement and countdown with you all – our loyal readers – we both THANK YOU for stopping by and hope you will come back often!

Now .. for todays giveaway I am offering a product from UpSpring Baby, the exciting part is I have reviewed this product in the past!! Oh yeah! I am giving one lucky reader their choice of UpSpring Baby Walking Wings – there are two color patterns for a girl or a boy … so if you win and have a girl you can have the girl pattern, or if you have a boy you can have the boy pattern.

If you missed my review please head on over to The Guilty Parent where you can read my review! Be sure to leave a comment, I am a contributor there and enjoy reading the comments!

Giveaway starts today and ends 12am EST July 3rd

Simply as pie to enter … simply do the following:

FIRST: Visit UpSpring Baby and tell me one feature you love about Walking Wings by leaving a comment below. Be sure to include an email address when you lave the comment, it’s required, will not be used for any purpose other than to thank you once for your comment and to notify you if you win!

Extra Entries:

Blog about this giveaway linking to UpSpring Baby {www.upspringbaby.com} and Happily Blended {www.happilyblended.com}
Join my Happy Friends through Google Friend Connect on my right hand side bar.
Add Happily Blended to your blog roll via my sidebar button code or link.
Enter any of my other contests and leave a comment on this post afterwards.
Subscribe to my weekly newsletter to get deals, specials and news before anyone else!

As always – if you are already on my newsletter list, already have my button or link on your site or already joined my happy friends it COUNTS .. so leave a comment!

Good luck and have fun!

Tags: blog, E-mail address, Friend Connect, friends, Google, OpenSocial, Search Engines, Searching

57 Comments

Fundraising for Relay For Life Local Event

Published on June 24, 2009 by brandyellen in Brandy's Life

This year, hundreds of thousands of people will hear the words “You have cancer,” and there’s a good chance that some of them will be people we know and love. We have all been touched by cancer in some way … and we all have the power to make a difference. That’s why I have chosen to fight back right here in my own community by participating in the American Cancer Society Relay For Life®.

I want to invite you to join me in the fight against cancer by making a donation in support of my efforts. Further down in this message is a link to my personal Relay For Life® Web page where you can make a safe online contribution. Your donation helps improve the lives of cancer patients through support services such as free wigs, rides to treatment, and summer camp for children with cancer. You can also sign up to join my team and learn more about Relay and how it’s changing lives.

Relay For Life® brings more than 3.5 million people from across the country together each year to celebrate the lives of those who have battled cancer, remember loved ones lost, and fight back against a disease that takes too much. This fun-filled, overnight event empowers everyone to help fight cancer by raising money and awareness to support the American Cancer Society’s lifesaving mission.

Thank you in advance for your support. Together, we will celebrate, remember, and fight back.

To help me raise funds visit my personal Relay For Life Page.

For state fundraising notices and the American Cancer Society’s Privacy Policy, please paste the following link into your browser: http://www.cancer.org/docroot/SU/su_0.asp.

Tags: American Cancer Society, Cancer, Conditions and Diseases, Donation, Fundraising, Health, Privacy Policy, Relay For Life

4 Comments

Wordless Wednesday: SmileBox Version: Wedding Day Toast

Published on June 24, 2009 by brandyellen in Memes, wordless wednesday

Click to play this Smilebox slideshow: The Toast

Make a Smilebox slideshow

See more Wordless Wednesday Here and Here

10 Comments

Blog Maintenance and Promotion

Published on June 23, 2009 by brandyellen in VA Services

As a business owner, I know how hard it can be trying to promote and maintain your blog while working on other areas of your business that require your attention. Brandy Ellen’s Business Solutions

is here to help you, and we don’t charge an arm and a leg. We want YOU to succeed and we want to help YOU alleviate those small tasks that can take up your day. BEBS download Merlin’s Apprentice

Back by Midnight dvdrip enjoys helping the small and large businesses promote their blogs daily through a wide variety of services. Please read on if you are at your wits end with daily promotion and may be interested in handing that work load over to a virtual assistant.

Blog Maintenance

Do you need someone to work with plugins, upload ads to your site, submit your site to search engines, and maybe even write a blog post or two? Brandy Ellen’s Business Solutions is happy to help maintain your blog on an as needed or consistent basis.

We have maintained multiple blogs to include writing the articles, added widgets to the sidebar and basic theme changes. BEBS is ready to help YOU get your blog moving forward in a positive direction an a regular basis.

Blog Updates: Let Us Submit Your New Content

Whether you update your blog daily, every other day or three times a week, Brandy Ellen’s Business Solutions is happy to help promote your content. We work hard to submit your fresh content daily to a variety of websites. Get your fresh content uploaded to Digg, Technorati and other similar sites as often as you need. When you hire BEBS

to complete the social media, bookmarking and article sharing site submissions you have just alleviated near an hour of work off your hands. Feels good already doesn’t it?

Theres a Stranger in my House trailer Entrecard: Free Advertising, Increased Traffic

Another service that many bloggers use to increase website traffic is Entrecard. If you are not familiar with Entrecard then I will tell you how it works:

You sign up for a free account.
Place a widget {HTML code copy & paste procedure} into your blog’s sidebar.
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daily to “drop” onto other blogs.
Earn credits by dropping onto other blogs.
Use credits to advertise on other blogs.

This is a fantastic service, first because it is FREE advertising and second because Entrecard

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If any of these services are of interest to you please contact us today for a free, no obligation service proposal.