Yesterday, today. . . life of an entreprenure business woman/mom… November 27, 2009

  !!!!!!HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!!!! 

Why no post yesterday??

-First there was computer work
-grocery store-gather ingredients for holiday baking
-then meeting and work on video with John1, Me, John2, Frances (who’s working with us on the Red Book and Cotton book project)
-back to grocery store because now my eggs had exceeded the four hour without refrigeration limit by an hour and a half and they were now officially trash and I had to have them for Thanksgiving baking…
-Stand in line with all the other late Thanksgiving meal shoppers
-home
-greet Zach, who has been with me for the last 4 days 
-drop grocery sacks on floor, peel off coat, dive into sacks, grab cookbook, start dumping ingredients into Kitchen Aid blending bowl
-duel task: prepare dinner
-Have a thought: haven’t checked emails all day, oh dear: quick check.  While there: check the job site I’ve joined to find a new family to nanny for, no leads, pop onto Facebook to post a quick status report, “Oh, there’s two emails”, tell myself,  “Ignore them, too busy,” can’t ignore, I’m a terrible ignorer, read emails, respond to the quickest one, forget to post status
-eat a nice meal with Zach
-keep an eye on the baking Pumpkin Bread loaves
-clean up–because I’m doing my level best keeping up with my dishes
-respond to another FB email
-Dial up John1 and together we set up his new channel on YouTube.  Lots to do and lots of decisions and who knew.  It never ceases to amaze me how long filling in start up information can take. Profiles go on forever and if you want a respectable one they take time.  Then the proofing, tweaking and finally its done.
-Hang up, now it’s like right around 11:10 p.m.
-back to FB write another email response
-pittle around with some other necessary things
-bed 1:30 a.m.  Choose sleep over blogging I was zonked and I wanted to be really fresh for tomorrow…

TODAY:
-shower
-On phone: with kids, John1, kids again, my brother called and I missed it and am just now remembering, ugh, decide with John1 we’re going to launch the video today…
-Peel Sweet Potatoes, boil, mash with butter, brown sugar, and top with cinnamon/brown sugar and marshmallows
-Phone call, jam phone under ear continue to get ready: John1-what do I think about…??  (YouTube wise)… Again, firsts…loaded with time and questions
-Go get Zach a fresh set of clothes, he was out.  Blah.
-Return with Dan to help with wheel chair
-Phone call: John1, bouncing YouTube question off me…Then….Yes!!  Theresa we have liftoff!!  The sucker went.  And I feel like I just birthed a baby. Now the wait for it to be posted!
-Myself, Dan, Zach, his chair, Pumpkin Bread, and hot Sweet Potato dish are now in truck, on the way to the kids/Scott’s/the ‘exs’ house.
-Arrive. Right on the money for dinner: 2 o’clock.  Phew.  Make gravy while Scott gets food on table.  Eat.
-It was a enjoyable day.  I determined that I was going to do all I could to ensure that not a single annoying word passed between Scott and I annnndddd…there was a couple.  But overall, no bickering, no rubbing “the cat’s fur the wrong way” in any real noticeable manner.  Triumph. 
-Got home around 10 called my parents, talked for about 45 minutes.
-Checked to figure out why the video never showed up on YouTube.  Dig around… ohhh, the silly thing is set for private: another thing to “set”, Well…tomorrow we’ll launch it.  The name of John1′s channel: http://www.youtube/JohnSolomonSandridge
-Got ready for bed annnndddd just couldn’t go…I needed to spend a few minutes with you first
  Missed you yesterday!  Glad to be back today.  Wondering if any of this was interesting… Humm, well, it’s the 2 days in the life of a woman entrepreneur/mom anyway, if you ever were wondering what we do

Night, Love ya,
Theresa Jane
-who will be up at 4 a.m. to go to Walmart’s door buster sale to press through crowds of people…before the sun is up.  Oh Yippee…    Oh and the pictures today are the smile faces 

Feeling like one of Snow White’s Seven Dwarfs: Droopy . . . October 22, 2009

It’s 1:14 am and I’m droopy. Droopy is one of the names of those seven dwarfs that hung out with Snow White right? If there isn’t one, then there should be. And I’m so droopy I don’t care to do a search to find out. Someone leave a comment with their names, then I’ll know for sure. LOL.

It’s been a full day. John2 and I had two phone meetings today, one with that guy I mentioned before that’s been in film for over 20 years and helped us before. Then we had one with just us. Among other meeting results we, well he more than me, came up with the perfect logo idea for our company: Free The Mind Productions. Completely different then the direction we were going in. But that’s the way creativity moves. John1 grabbed the idea and ran. In no time flat he was emailing me his creation and the stationary! He even free drew the picture on the computer. It’s not super detailed mind you, but if I were to go about doing it I wouldn’t have had all that done in under an hour and half, tweaks included. But then he did see it clearly in his mind, so that totally helps. Being an artist totally helps. Working with a publishing program for years also helps. Well, I get some of the credit pie, because WE had the meeting. I mean without me where would we have been We’re letting the logo sit for a few days then we’ll come back and look at it again and finalize. Once done I’ll share it!

We lost our graphic artist that’s worked with us for a year. So I’ve been scrambling to find a new one. We have a client that wants a book printed. EEEkkkk. Been emailing and calling people for a couple days. Besides talking with a few, I viewed a boat load of portfolios today. They’ve all merged into one sticky blob up there in my brain.

Worked a teeny bit more on understanding optimizing. I went to Google AdWords and used the Keyword tool to see what were keywords for my blog and Red Book and Cotton’s web site. Took awhile to figure out where the heck the page was to actually put the web sites in, then it was sticky and didn’t want to work, but then, it generated a list. I also tried to see where the rankings were on our sites. Don’t worry I’m not suffering from grandiose thoughts. I didn’t think we’d be soaring to the top of the charts or anything. I was just curious. Took it a long time for it to do it’s thing and when it was done I had no earthly idea what it was telling me. Couldn’t find a “translator” anywhere. Blah!

Saw my kids for awhile. Zach true to form said, “I don’t have any homework.” Got ornery when I pressed the matter. Zach’s teachers seem to have been on a “no homework streak” for a couple months now. I smell failure in the wind. SIGH. Helped Dan learn his spelling list. Test tomorrow. Had it been today, wellllllll, let’s just say it’s a good thing it wasn’t. When we were done he asked, “Want to go to McDonald’s? I’m stressed. I’ll pay.” He whipped out his wallet and produced a 5 spot, proof of his creditability.” Bless his little heart. He used the last of his b-day money to go out with me. What was he stressed about? I asked and he said, a touch forlorn, “Oh I don’t want to talk about that. Anything but that.” And that’s what we did.

Love ya,
Theresa Jane
-whose putting her backside in bed, it’s now 2:30 am. Hope it’s not too late I feel my second wind kicking in. . .

A do it all day . . . October 7, 2009

My surroundings isn’t the only thing fall is having an effect upon. Without thinking today it was the warm and soothing Ginger Aid tea with a bag of Lemon Zinger. Oh, and no ice please. I want it all steamy from my favorite mug: with it’s picture of a creamy orangy-yellow pumpkin with a cool green curly stem on a black back ground with stars splashed around. It’s 2 am and it’s me, my hot tea, my fuzzy pink slippers, the dark of night, gentle rain, the soft rumblings of far off thunder, crickets, and you Perfect . . .

Today was a do it all day: Got up, downed a glass of water and headed straight to the computer, to work, there was also an on and off meeting smattered throughout that spanned from morning till afternoon with John1: during his work, discussing how he sees the book video for Red Book and Cotton really needs to largely change from the way we were going, and he has put so much editing time into, and I agree, soooo let’s think it through, let’s map it out, to grab one of my famous three minute showers that I perfected in highschool in the effort to grab every single second of sleep I could, then off to car pool, take Grace, Caleb, and Daniel for their yearly check-ups at the doctors, with a stop off at Dairy Queen because they have 1/2 off 2pm-4pm on drinks and their shakes seemed to be calling out our names, one large vanilla for Cal and Grace, one large chocolate for Dan and me please, 4 o’clock: time for the appointment, paperwork, medical cards, waiting, off to our room, Caleb is in the 75 percentile for growth for is age, Dan 95%, Grace 98%, (their dad is 6′ but that is tall for his family, it’s my my side where the is height, towering height, I on the other hand was not granted the 5′ 10″ish of the females, and no where near the 6′ 2-3″ of the males, however it’s nothing that heels hasn’t fixed ), off to Best Buy then Target seeking the perfect video camera in the perfect price for Dan to use the rest of that B-day money on, however no decisions, have to think about it some more thanks to the IPod crazed sales guy got that got Dan all hyped up on choosing the new Nano Ipod with video capacities instead, which both myself, his father, and Grace are trying to discourage because by all reports these new wonders aren’t going to make him hap, hap, happy in the video area starting with the die before they film much of anything at all . . . issue, ugh. Home to eat, to homework, to home, to my work . . . to adding to areas like Amazon for authors and to the John Solomon Sandridge FB fan page and messing something up while there, which wasn’t major but it was a goof up that I thought would do something totally different, who knew fan pages didn’t keep their info within their boarders??? It posts to members walls and made no sense to the outside reader, oh well it will disappear, mark it off to something else learned, to Facebook breaking for about a half hour to chat with a couple friends, one I haven’t talked with in some time . To writing a bio for John1 that more appropriately suits a particular area I am adding him to, to here, rubbing my eyes amazed at all that’s involved in social marketing but confident in my looping through it. Little by little all this is getting Red Book and Cotton “out there” in the web more, and that’s the goal.

Love ya,
Theresa, whose’s eying a digital camera for herself, I don’t have one but want one, that way I can post pictures like of my cool Halloween mug and my kids and other neat things that surround all I blog about!