August: the month of courses

I have signed up for 2 official and 1 non-official courses this month and I am pretty psyched for all of them! 

1. Mutual Funds Course - this one is official. It is offered by a seperate company but I am sponsered through Primerica. It's a $400 webinar based course plus the cost of babysitting Dexter. The course is one 2 hour intro session, plus 6 two hour webinar classes. While the intro class is on Aug 10, I basically need to start my pre-studying ASAP. I printed off the unit questions last night and read through the math lesson and overview. I'm hoping it won't be too bad.

Sidebar: Since it would be near impossible to concentrate with Dexter home (plus unprofessional), I looked into a part time day home. A friend of mine uses it and has been very happy. When I showed up to interview here,  I was a bit embarassed to realize I had been there before, two years ago when I was looking for casual day care for Dexter. At the time, he was around the one year old mark and Tyler was concerned with the amount of kids she had that were younger. Now the day home has a bit older kids and I feel confident she can do a good job.

Back to the course, it requires about 30 hours of pre-study prior to the webinars and then of course the webinar work. Afterwords, I am able to take a test at NAIT and pass with a minimum of 60%. Then I get to fill out a (29 page!) application for my Mutual Funds licence. This licence will authorize me to be full service with Primerica and offer RESPs and some other items that I am not currently eligible to do. I'm nervous about the course, but more so I'm nervous about the commitment that taking this course means. It's another financial investment and as well you have to be "full time" to hold a Mutual Funds licence. That means I need to stop procrastinating and get passionate about my business!

2. Brave Girls' Club: Soul Restoration I - this is the other official course. Again it is web based, but it's more of a self study/exploration, art class and it starts on Aug 7. The instructor have videos, assignments and artwork to print off and we make mixed media collages, an art journal, and personal truth cards. My friend Sian took a different course through them earlier this year and I thought her projects were fascinating. When she let me know they were offering this course, I promptly signed up. I'm super excited as I am into the self-exploration stuff right now and I've never done mixed media art before so it's a whole new technique. Seriously, super excited.

3. The Spark Kit - this is the unoffical course. A long while ago, in November in fact, Sian had offered a free download of this "Spark Kit". I didn't know exactly what it was about other than for business woman to enhance their business selves. Intriguing. She also had the download so we were talking about it the other day and she asked if I'd be interested in working through the sessions with her. Then she thought it would be really fun to blog about our experiences in a shared blog. I agreed profusely, it sounded like lots of fun! We're working on the shared blog part because we have a vision but I'm not sure if we'll be able to execute it using the free blog hosting sites available. So far my research has been a no. But I'm going to reach out to my facebook family for help! We're meeting on Aug 12 to make a plan on how we're going to execute this. Sian is also taking a work course in September and is equally busy with a working-out-of-town husband so it may be a 'slow and steady' work through.

In addition to my courses, I am planning a Alice In Wonderland themed, Unbirthday Tea Party for a few friends this month. I'm hoping its fun and can become an annual event. September is the birthday extraveganza month so lots of work for that, and we're also planning a trip to Vegas in November so some work involved there. Busy, busy as always!!

It's been so long...

It feels like a lifetime ago since I wrote a blog post. Why is that? The last post I wrote was in June, a mere 6 weeks ago. But quickly scanning back, I see I've only wrote a few posts over the last several months. I am constantly thinking about blogging. I'll think of a topic, idea, or event I want to share about and make a mental note...but all those mental notes do NOT hold up to pen and paper lol I also find the longer I wait to blog about a topic, the less relevant and necessary it seems. I've often wished for a way to simple way to record my voice and have that technologically transfered into a written blog. So, if you're capable of hooking me up with a free version of this, or know of where it exists, please let me know!

Decluttering Life

The last few months I have been trying to get a handle on life. I'd like to feel, on more days than not, that I am on top of my life rather than struggling to stay afloat. On too many days lately I have described my emotional state as stressed, exhausted, overwhelmed, frustrated, agitated... Those aren't the words I want inscribe on my tombstone! Instead I would like to be describing my days as joyful, peaceful, fun, rewarding and hey even fruitful (financially speaking). The ol' saying goes "when nothing changes, nothing changes" so what do I need to change to get my life on track?

When Tyler first took a shift in Fort Mac, I started by organizing some neglected spaces in the house. And honestly I really love organizing & re-working spaces. The payoff however, is a short term high unless I also develop some new habits to KEEP things in order, which in the past I have not done or been successful at. ~Organization is not a state but a behavior.~

I've been slowly immersing myself in organizational culture through podcasts, blogs, tv shows, audio books & actual books. And I'm equally slowly putting the pieces together.

Attempted Change #1: I have a really hard time keeping our bedroom clean. The biggest offense to this is my clothes, both clean and dirty, which end up in different laundry baskets, piled on the floor, left in suitcases etc. As this is a reoccurring problem, I'm trying to look at what the source(s) of it are. My first conclusion is that I have too many clothes lol If my room can get that messy & I can ignore it because i still have clothing options then that is part of the problem. Secondly, I believe that I am resistant to hanging clothes. I don't know why but it seems like tedious work. So on Monday I did a tiny clothing purge & cleaned out two dresser drawers so that about 80% of my clothes are in drawers now (I had dresses I rarely wear & books in my drawers before). I'm also going to work on the habit of putting my clothes in the appropriate areas at the end of each day. My portion of the closet is much more appealing to me now, but it's still a work in progress. Ideally I'd love to purchase a new closet organizer as I feel the space is under utilized but it's not really a budget priority right now.

(Pic 1: I have to share with you, embarrassingly, how dirty my bedroom floor was. I've often said that my house isn't "dirty it's just cluttered" but TV has taught me that dirt hides well under clutter.)

Peter Walsh, a well known organizer from Australia, says that when it comes to organizing a space, you should start with an empty room and a vision for the life you want and the type of room you need to accomplish that vision. Then the space & it's contents are built off that vision.

Unfortunately my life's vision doesn't fit into this house, nor honestly does it fit into my LIFE. Which brings me to my next focus: decluttering my calendar

I have a reputation for being late which is often caused from me under estimating how long it takes to accomplish tasks, etc within my day. Effectively, I am trying to squeeze too much into each day, week, month... My first step was to physically write in "relax" on one day a week (Mondays) and try not to book anything major for those days. Ultimately, "relax" is a bit misleading as I have counted on those days for catch up lol - but it a start! I am also going to limit how much I book per day. In the past I looked at each day as having three parts: morning, afternoon and evening, often booking two sometimes all three segments with major events. I have to remember Gretchen Rubin's mantra (from 'The Happiness Project') " I can do ANYthing, I just can't do EVERYthing". And when i do choose to incorporate something into my life, I need to be giving it my 100% focus when allotted.

I'm pretty much in the middle of this part/focus/project of decluttering right now. I am looking at what I really want out of life, what I value/prioritize and how things are going to fall into place. Its an even larger 'tweak' with Tyler away & me taking on some of his roles in his absence. Part of this process is to look at my relationships (friends, family, acquaintances) and evaluate where I am benefiting. The truth of the matter is that I am clinging to quite a few relationships where it is "hard work" to stay in touch (ie it's all me initiating everything, following up, having to re-schedule umpteen times) and that perhaps we have simply outgrown each other in this stage of our lives [which doesn't mean to say our paths won't re intertwine down the road]. Then I have a few relationships where the good doesn't outweigh the bad and the investment of my time, energy & emotions is not worthwhile.

I really feel I am ready to move forward and see what life has in store for me over this next hill :-) Its going to be fabulous!

An interesting, alternative perspective I heard once that stayed with me is, paraphrasing: to grow closer to our authentic selves we need not add to ourselves but in fact strip away/purge/shed unnecessaries. Hmm, that is coming out very clumsily so hopefully you can get the gist of what I'm saying. Right now I have too much excess in my life (in many different forms) and I am ready to shed those "shackles". Stay tuned!

Commuting

First off, I am loving everything I have been able to do with Primerica so far. My biggest complaint is that I don't feel as though I've given it enough of my focused time & effort. Improvement to come on that!

Okay, so with any career path, it is highly encouraged to work on your self development: increase your confidence, skills, knowledge, etc. I originally resisted any personal development through the traditional means of reading non-fiction books because generally I never complete them and I also REALLY enjoy reading fiction books so my personal time is dedicated to that. However, fellow Mompreneur, Sonja pointed out that I could do some audio listening for personal development. This actually works perfect for me because I have to do some commuting for my twice weekly meetings among other things, so now I can utilize this wasted time perfectly :-) I was SO excited to have this epiphany because I like to be what is called "coachable" in our business and by not working on improving myself, I was not being coachable. I love having my iphone because itunes has lots of really awesome podcasts that I have been listening to.  Here are some of my recommendations:

Everyday is Saturday with Sam Crowley

Organization Station with Monica Ricci

The Home Office Podcast

I also used to love Pregtastic, which is not business related so much, but great to listen to as someone who is, was or wants to be pregnant :-)

Other resources for audio I've used are my library (both virtually and the bricks and mortar place), amazon to buy audio books, and youtube.

Net Time vs Gross Time

I made an impromptu road trip to Grimshaw this weekend and on the way back I listened to a few fantastic podcasts. One of them, Organization Station with Monica Ricci, talked about the concept of "Net Time" which I found fascinating. I've have often quoted one of my favorite movies, Empire Records, and said "There are 24 usable hours in every day!". However, with some very logical reconsideration, is there really 24 hours?

Research has shown that after factoring in sleep, eating, bathroom breaks, life, etc, each of us only really has 4 - 7 hours of each day that can be used to be productive. Taking this into consideration, most of us are attempting to jam far too much into each day, which gets carried over to the next jam packed day resulting in us feeling completely unproductive & yet totally stressed out. Boy can I relate to that! 

A few of the other time concepts she touched on were "Tiny Time" and "Buffer Time":

Tiny Time is those little moments of time where things can be done as you register them, but if left undone, cumulate to become overwhelming. Examples could include things like putting your jacket away, getting your kids to put one toy away before using another (or group of toys), mail, and lately for me texts & emails! [Right now I have nearly 70 unread emails on my phone plus countless read but unanswered email , despite my new years resolution to not do that.]

Buffer Time, is just like it sounds, its building buffer time into your schedule. For example, if it normally takes you 30 minutes to drive somewhere, consider actually leaving with an extra ten minutes to account for traffic or unexpected delays (like needing fuel). Or, if your kids need to be ready for a ride at 3pm, start them getting ready in advance so they'll actually be ready for 2:50. The amount of buffer time would differ depending on the tasks. Its really a simple idea, but I admit I am uber guilty for not utilizing this and in fact doing the opposite by thinking I can jam an extra errand or task in the five "extra" minutes I think I have.

An example of something I've been continuously guilty for lately is with my sitters. I tell them I'll be home at say 9:00pm, but instead of leaving at 8:45 and thus packing up at 8:30, I tend to leave the place i'm at around 9:05 or 9:15. Very bad. It's not how I would want to be treated, so I need to make adjustments accordingly.

I'm really looking forward to making some improvements with this knowledge and listening to more podcasts from Monica.

Freezer Meals, an update

I believe I have sampled all the freezer meals I had made. All were delicious, but I have a few tweaks for the next batch I do:
-try pizza spaghetti with pizza sauce
-for Rachel's casserole I will cook the pasta less (more al dente), add more green peppers, and make bigger portions or maybe just more meat to pasta ratio
-for the stirfry, I dont think I'll precook the veggies. They came out a little too soggy for my liking. However, I think I would package my veggies separately, in fry order.

That all I can think of right now.

Party Favours

My mommy group had our 5th Anniversary so we threw a party. I wanted to "get my craft on" so u made these favors. The crayon packs for the kids & tea bag satchels for the mommies. So cute & so fun ;-)