It's Throwback Thursday....

I try to run a series on my Facebook Page that features a different topic each day (don't check though, I have gotten behind).  Since I am feeling a little blue and thinking about the past a bit, I thought I would go ahead and do a "Throwback Thursday" blog post.

The Cookin Hooties are all of the Country Gourmet Home
Consultants that I mentor and train!

My oldest daughter, photo taken 10 years ago when she was four!

My Paternal Grandparents (we called them Grandma and Grandpa Carlson).
They both are in heaven now and are missed!

Hubby with Son who is now 25 and married and oldest daughter who is now 14.

My baby, who is turning ten next month!

My Hubby's Grandma Jean, who is now in Heaven and missed...(shown with hubby and oldest daughter)

I decided to join the "Weekend Social Mix Blog Hop" - you can join too, just click on the image.....

CSS Style Cheat Sheet for Blogger

To Make extra large images on your blog re-size to the blog space available, add this code to your css.  You can change the max width percent if you want the image slightly smaller than 100%.


img {
max-width: 100%;
height: auto;
width: auto\9; /* ie8 */
}

To tighten up the space between gadgets (widgets) on your side bars use the following code, you will need to find out what your gadget (widget) id is and put it in place of the Red title.

Facebook Image Sizes

I am always trying to remember these sizes, so I thought I would immortalize them forever here on my own blog!

 

Facebook Cover Image: 851×315
Facebook Profile Image: 180×180
Facebook Custom Tab Image: 111×74
Facebook Shared Image: 403×403
Facebook Highlighted Image: 843×403
Facebook Milestone Image: 843×403
Facebook Ad Image: 111X72

Happy Friday!

Just a little cheer sending your way....can you believe that in less than one week it will be March?  How time flies! 

Monday Mingle - Business...A Typical Day

Click image to join the Monday Mingle
Business Edition Blog Hop!

Today I am linking up with Lynsey over at the Party Plan Coach for the Monday Mingle Business Edition.  Every Monday Lynsey posts a new topic and this weeks topic is:

What is daily life like for you? Take us through a “Typical Day In The Life Of You!”

I had to give this one a bit of thought since I don't really think I have a "typical day", since some days my daughter might have dance, another day she might have girl scouts and my other daughter likes to go to the high school football and basket ball games so there are variations day to day, but I will walk you through a typical week day that doesn't involve extra curricular "kid" activities!

I am what is known as a morning person...yep that's right, no alarm clocks for me, I am usually up by 5am every morning!  Mornings are usually when I get the most work done when it comes to my business.  My oldest daughter and hubby usually get up at about 6:30, so that means I have an hour and a half of quiet time all to myself in the mornings.  I spend that time on whatever needs to be done including any one of the following:

• ~Welcoming new downline consultants to my team.
• ~Individual team member training.
• ~Blog posts.
• ~Facebook page updates.
• ~Facebook team group updates.
• ~Tracking mine and team sales.
• ~Customer correspondence.
• ~Team member correspondence.
• ~Designing new fliers, logos, etc.
• ~Event research & planning.
• ~Working on my own sales/motivational training (Party Plan Divas, Deb Bixler or DSWA articles).
• 6:30 -7:30 ~Getting hubby and oldest daughter off to work/school.
• 7:30 -8:40 ~Getting the youngest daughter ready and off to school.
• 8:40-9:10 ~Taking care of the dog, then finishing up on any computer stuff.
• 9:10 -9:40 ~In the shower and getting ready for the day job (I work about 27 hours a week for a sign company).  I have about a half hour commute time to the job.
• 10:00 - 4 or 5 pm ~Work at the day job.
• 5:30 or so ~Get home, make dinner, help with homework, clean/straighten house.....this part of the process usually lasts until about 8 to 8:30.  Sometimes I don't get home until as late as 6:30 if I have to run errands after work.  

Once all of the family/house stuff is done I usually either try to read or maybe watch T.V. for a bit.  Sometimes I make it back on the computer.  I usually go to bed about 11 pm every night (I seem to function the best on about 6 hours of sleep). 
 
Weekends are usually open and family activities will take precedence over business, but I do usually still manage to get my morning time in.  In the Spring/Summer I do a few outdoor vendor events/fairs.  I don't do a lot of parties, but I would like to change that (I have focused a large portion of my business on recruiting/training/mentoring).  I would like to shuffle things a bit so that I can focus as much time on my customers/hostesses. 

I can tell from looking at my own schedule that the one thing that I don't usually schedule time for is phone calls!  That should change in about 2-3 weeks.  We bought our house three and a half years ago with the lower half of the house unfinished.  We are almost done with the downstairs (we are doing everything ourselves and learning as we go).  Once we are done I will be able to have a dedicated office/craft room!  Being able to shut the door and shut out distractions will go a long way towards being able to schedule and make phone calls.  Not to mention that I will actually be able to organize and have everything at my fingertips instead of here, there and everywhere I can find room......
If I have managed to get this far without a dedicated office space - just image what I will be able to do once I have one!  I am looking forward to breaking out of my own shell and moving forward!

Until next time, take care!

Strange Happenings

I was up way too late last night messing around with my blog......
I was trying to find a better set of social sharing icons than the standard ones that came with my blog and finally found ShareThis.com which allowed me to customize exactly which buttons I wanted to appear on each post and I was easily able to add it to my blog without having to go into my blog's HTML coding!

So I got it all added and then was messing around with some of my older posts updating my signature line and the strangest thing happened......

I have been using blogger on and off for over two years and have never had this one happen to me....

Suddenly all of my sidebar gadgets were floating at the bottom of all of my posts!  My footer was still where it was supposed to be.  I went into the Design/Layout section of my blog and it still showed my sidebar off to the right where it should be.  Although I love a good challenge, I was not impressed!

• First I tried "restoring" my blog from a previous backup when I new that the blog was working fine - that failed, all of the sidebar gadgets were still at the bottom of my posts.  So I knew it wasn't a problem with my HTML coding.  Then I tried going into my design section and changing the layout so that my sidebar would be on the left instead of the right and that didn't work either.  

• I then noticed something else strange - notice how I have an outline box around each of my posts?  All of my posts looked fine except the last two, I had the very last post embedded within the second to last post.  In other-words, the last post still had a box around it, but the second to last post had a box all the way around it and the last post, so it was a box within a box.   

• As a last ditch effort I thought something must be wrong with my last post so I changed it to draft and looked at my blog again and I still had the same problem......Hmmmm, something very strange was going on.  As a last ditch effort I decided that maybe the problem was that I the "share this" gadget would not allow me to have so many posts on my front page (I had 7 showing).  So I changed it to show only 6 and still had the same problem.  I then went in and changed it 5 with the same problem and then tried 4 posts showing.  The MAGIC number seems to be 4 posts since my blog magically aligned and put everything where it should be.

I am still not sure if this was a quirk of the "Share This" gadget or something else going on with a post or just some strange bloggy behavior, but I decided to work with only having only four posts showing!  Needless to say I had to move some of my sidebar gadgets around since with only four posts showing my sidebar ended up quite a bit longer than the posts and it looked funny.  So after some final shuffling around this morning, I ended up with my blog looking like this.

Now I am operating on about four and a half hours of sleep (darn blogger), but it's really my own fault since one of my quirks is that once I am presented with a problem like this I HAVE to solve it or it would have driven me crazy!

So my question for you is this ~ have you ever had your blog go crazy like this or do something else that you had a hard time figuring out?  What did it do, please share so I don't feel so alone in this crazy blogging world!

UPDATE:  

Darn blog.....I discovered that if I went to older posts the second page was doing the same thing that my first page was doing.  I think I nailed the problem down to a particular post and once I changed the date on that post the whole blog problem seemed to be resolved.  I am now back to showing 6 posts on each page and everything is where it should be!

Now You See It...Now You Don't!

A while back I was messing around with my new camera and seeing what kind of images I could capture and managed to catch the moon on a cloudy night. I am usually not very good at taking photos, but was surprised at how neat these turned out! 

My photography skills are still a work in progress and I will never be a professional, since I do not have enough patience, but with this camera at least I can take photos that work well on my blog.  

Thank you for stopping by The Mix Gal! Comments validate my blogging efforts, so I would love to hear from you. Take care and Keep Life Simple by Mixing It UP!
~♥KerrieLynn

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Am I THAT Different?

I know it has been a bit since I've posted anything new, but life has a way of getting busy and the next thing you know you don't have time to do the things you love to do! I try really hard to not "over commit" myself and it seems that no matter how hard I try I always find myself in the land of "too much to do". I am sure that this is something that most Moms do to themselves and I am probably not unique or alone in my "over abundance" of commitments! I think I am just being a tad maudlin today as well......first day back to the day job after a four day weekend will do that to you I suppose. It also doesn't help that it is a kind of Grey and overcast morning - where's my sunshine?

To top off the feeling sorry for myself mode that I currently find myself in I discovered that I am probably unique. Why do I think I am unique? Well I have this blog you see and I have a Facebook page that goes along with it and occasionally I will look at who is following me - imagine my surprise when I discovered that many of my family and close friends don't follow what is important to me. I try really hard to support anyone who has a FB Page or Blog - even if the subject matter is not one that I am particularly interested in. Am I unique? I just don't know.

Even at 47 years old I guess I still have things to learn that I should have learned long ago...... I personally think we all struggle in our own unique ways, trying to find our path in this world and remembering this is a hard concept for some people to learn. Just because you don't think something is important or it seems silly to you please remember that your action or non-action can cause someone to get their feelings hurt and you may not even know it! My Mom taught me a long time ago to "think about what you do before you do it" and in this busy, crazy mixed up world I think this is more important than ever.

 Total subject change......I finally broke down and ordered myself a new camera - yeah for me.

I am still a novice photographer but I think I will be able to shoot some awesome pictures with this camera. It has an "auto" feature for the camera challenged (like me) but it will let me work into learning all the fancy settings when I am ready for it. My current digital camera has a 4x optical zoom and are you ready for this.....my new camera has a 28x optical zoom and a micro setting for the close ups that will allow me to get within 1cm of my subject matter and it has a low light setting - I will finally be able to capture all of my kids school moments!Just look at how awesome it is...I cannot wait to get this camera in my hands and start seeing what it can do! My son just got married in Las Vegas and he and his wife will be having a wedding reception once they get home so I plan on running this camera through the paces during the reception!

I will definitely be letting you know how it works out. Maybe I will even take some pics using my old camera and then take the same pics using the new for a side by side comparison!

Thank you for stopping by The Mix Gal! Comments validate my blogging efforts, so I would love to hear from you. Take care and Keep Life Simple by Mixing It UP!
~♥KerrieLynn

↓Click to Leave a Comment

Happy Friday Photo Montage!

The sun is shining and it is a beautiful Pacific Northwest morning, what more could a person ask for? O.K., I know that is a rhetorical question, but for now life is good and I thought I would celebrate by showing off some great photos!

 

This is a free image that I got from dreamstime.com and with a little computer "magic" it makes a great impact!

 

My favorite morning beverage is COFFEE and I love these colors!

 

I just wish I had the magic touch or the knowledge to be able to grow something this beautiful!

 

There always has to be at least one Ferris Wheel ride or it's just not summer! That's my youngest in the middle - she is much braver than I!

 

Remember these slides? You just don't see too many of them any more - at least where I live. We have a family picnic every year at this park and the kids (some of the adults too) love going down this slide. It is about 15 or so feet up from the ground at the top!

 

The same park that has the slide (above) has quite a few fruit trees.

 

The "Kool-aid" stand.....a standard feature in our driveway each summer! I tried to talk her out of the $1 each price tag - she must have known what she was doing however, as she made $20 that day. It did help that the neighbor's had a bunch of guys over to work on a remodeling project!

 

One of my dreams realized......we finally got that big, four foot deep and twenty foot across above ground pool last year! I can't wait to put it up again this year - the first 80 degree day you will find me in the pool floating around on my air mattress!

That's it for today, hope you enjoyed my photo montage ~ I am so looking forward to summer!

Thank you for stopping by The Mix Gal! Comments validate my blogging efforts, so I would love to hear from you. Take care and Keep Life Simple by Mixing It UP!
~♥KerrieLynn

↓Click to Leave a Comment

Blog Writing Slump...

I've had a major case of blog writing slump these past few weeks.  Not sure if it is the weather - cold,  rainy days or what but it just doesn't seem like anything going in my life has been post worthy.  I am sure that I am not the only blogger to suffer from bouts of this.  

 

I think I need to create a go to list so when I don't have anything to write about I can just pull topics from the list.  There have been a couple of memorable occasions and I took pictures but have yet to download them.  This past Sunday was my hubby and my wedding anniversary so we managed to get a sitter and went out for dinner and the week before that we packed up the whole family and went to my friend's new restaurant that he just opened.  I took lots of photos of that excursion and did promise to write a review, so that post will be forthcoming in the next few days.  

 

A couple of weeks ago my Dad, my two girls and myself took a small road trip down to what used to be Northern State Mental Hospital - now rumored to be haunted.  My oldest daughter is writing a history project on the place - it's funny what you find in your own backyard that you never knew existed!  This place is only about a 45 minute drive from my house and I never even heard of it before.  I suppose that our day trip and photos are another blog post waiting to happen!

In retrospect, I guess I do have several things I could be blogging about so my "slump" must just be weather related.  I always have the hardest time during the transition from Winter to Spring.  All of the Winter Holidays are already past and I just seem to get into"funk" during this time of year - I need my sunshine and spring flowers!  It doesn't help that I woke up to a dusting of snow on everything this morning.  After writing this post I suppose I have gained a little bit of motivation - so maybe I am starting a roll!  Until next time,

Thank you for stopping by ~

Had to Hire Some Extra Help!

I've been so busy lately I decided to enlist some extra help.  He works cheap, but was not easy to train.....

Not sure what my customers think ~ he doesn't have much to say, so there is definitely no "hard selling" going on!

He tends to take too many breaks (notice the t.v. remote) and he is somewhat of a narcissist.

~Keep Life Simple by Mixing It Up! TM

Thank you for stopping by ~

Something to Think About.....

So many people move along because they think the grass is always greener “over there”…….but if they would just take the time to water their own grass they would find that not only is it just as Green, it belongs to them!

Too look great grass needs to be mowed, watered, fertilized, trimmed, groomed for weeds and sometimes de-bugged! Grass is only Green if you give it the attention it needs. Think of your Business or your Life as grass, is it Green or dead and brown?

~An original thought by KL of KLsCupboard.com

~Keep Life Simple by Mixing It Up! TM

Thank you for stopping by ~

Snowbound and Getting Cabin Fever!

The view from my kitchen deck - this was taken on Tuesday the 17th - our
first significant snow of the year!

We've been rocked with some pretty wild weather here in the Pacific Northwest this past week - snow, low temperatures and wild wind with gusts up to 50 miles per hour.  Needless to say it is a winter wonderland with snow drifts and wind chill temperatures at minus 15 (and lower).  The kids have enjoyed "Snow Days" this whole week since the schools have been closed.  It wasn't so bad earlier in the week when the kids could get outside to play, but then the winds started up yesterday and the temperatures dropped - I think we all have a small dose of cabin fever.  Our dog is even suffering....she just can't understand why Daddy isn't taking her out for her nightly walk - goofy dog!  She is a short hair Beagle/Pit mix - not a breed that does well in the cold, although she does love to play in the snow (it's the being wet that she hates).

Our "Bella" enjoying a romp in the snow!

I was excited to be able to get out last night and make a trip to the grocery store - I froze and I had to dive on "ice roads" but at least I got out and got to see people other than the hubby and kids! It's the small things in life that I take for granted and boy do I appreciate them when they are denied for any length of time!

Poor birdies - no food for them, this is our bird feeder that you see peeking out of the snow!  It has since become completely covered in snow.

Another view from my deck.....the train that usually runs twice a day (tracks are just beyond the trees) hasn't even been running - when it's too frozen for the train it is a good indicator that it's too cold for me!

 I will venture out today, the wind is still blowing but the temps are starting to warm up (it's 18 degrees right now, but supposed to get up in the low 30's).  I am so thankful I don't live in an area where this kind of crazy weather is normal - I can take it in small doses, but I will never be a "cold weather gal"........

Stay safe and warm everyone!  Spring is just around the corner......

~Keep Life Simple by Mixing It Up! TM

Thank you for stopping by ~

Happy New Year & Thank You!

Today starts 2012 and I just wanted to express a heartfelt thank you to each of you who follow my blog, support my business and/or leave me comments!  I began blogging just over a year ago as a way to express both myself and promote my work at home business and while I am sure I have made many mistakes along the way I am very happy with the blog that I have today and am very thankful to each and everyone of my followers.

I know that there are many blogs out there that I follow and I do read daily, but I don't always leave a comment so my hope is that there are many of you out there that do the same with my blog.  So whether or not you are a "silent follower" or a "vocal follower" you are appreciated!  Now I have to get off my computer and blog so I can get both my house and myself ready for our 2012 New Year's Dinner.  I have my family coming over to celebrate both the New Year and my Mom's Birthday!  We decided to keep it simple with hot dogs, potato salad, baked beans and chips.  Not the normal dinner you would expect in the middle of winter, but that's the way we roll!

~Keep Life Simple by Mixing It Up! TM

Want to read more articles similar to this one? Take a look at our Archives/Index page!

Thank you for stopping by ~

I'm Tired & Christmas is Creeping Up.....

The house is 95% decorated for Christmas, but I just feel tired this holiday season and can't seem to get fully into the holiday spirit!  Seems like I still have too much on my mind ~ gotta do this, that or the other thing and none of it has to do with the holidays!  Maybe when I get the house finished I will feel more in the holiday groove!

As with many it will be a financially tight Christmas this year so my brain is doing the scramble trying to figure out ways to cut the budget and things I can make!  The hubby is always the hardest to buy  or create something for.  We've been together long enough that I have already made him all of the really neat things I have ran across over the years.  So what do you make for the guy who seems to have everything and no longer collects anything?  He is a techno kind of guy and we are in the process of finishing his man cave (we bought an unfinished house that we are slowly finishing and one of the rooms is the "man cave").  I am thinking something to go in his cave, but not sure what......if anyone has any ideas I'd sure appreciate it!  Gotta dash for now ~

Working on A New Flier....

This morning I have been working on a new flier to use at my Country Gourmet Home Shows.  I have both a banner and a poster sized sign but they are booth too big and unwieldy to bring when I do my home shows.

The banner & poster work better (and were designed for) events.  I think I've narrowed it down to two designs, both are the same with the exception of borders around the images.  I think I am leaning towards the flier without borders, but I am open to your comments.  These are both designed to print out on standard 8.5" x 11" paper or card stock.

I would love to hear what you think!

Dis-regard the pale line on the left....

Dis-regard the pale line on the left - it's not part of the image!

R.S.V.P.?

RSVP Definition
(taken from www.businessdictionary.com)
An abbreviation often included in invitations to request that the invitee let the host know if he or she will be attending. From the French term, "Répondez si'l vous plaît," which means "please reply."

 One of the benefits of having a blog is that you occasionally get to vent or state a controversial opinion!  This past weekend we had a big dance birthday party for our daughter who was celebrating finally turning 13!  We were able to secure a local hall and a friend of our is a D.J. so we had all of our ducks in row for a great time!  Just over 50 kids were invited and we had pop, chips, dips, candy and cake pops for all.  The invitations were hand delivered one week in advance and each invitation include a typed out note (primarily for the parents sake) of what the party would entail.  The party had been discussed among my daughter's peers (with a date established) for about 2 weeks before the actual invitations went out.

Pumpkin Patch ~ Signs, Signs and More Signs!

We (my youngest daughter and I) took a trip to the Pumpkin Patch yesterday and although it was a typical Pacific Northwest rainy day, I did manage to snap lots of photos!  My day job is working for a sign company, so of course seeing all of the creative signage was a special treat!  I thought I would share with you what I found.  Please dis-regard any of the dates shown in the pictures - I am not a "techie" and I had the batteries out of the camera and the date re-set itself!

This pole had license plates from all states with the "One Nation Under God" at the top!

CommentLuv on My Blog Had to go Bye-Bye!

Blogger just doesn't like having CommentLuv on it, so I had to do away with it and go back standard Blogger Comment forms.  If you entered one of my contests by leaving a comment, don't worry it will still count (I have a copy of all CommentLuv comments).  Sorry for any confusion this may have caused!