SloCountyMoms.net

By: Adriana Copaceanu 

Most work at home moms start home based businesses because they want to be home with their little ones. And I was no different: I left a great corporate job to be around my two children.

But then, you put a lot of work in your business, and it works! Yes, you are getting orders, and making some money, but the flip side is that you don’t have as much time for your little ones. How do you then balance your time? Do you still put your children first? Or do you go for the “just a minute honey!” line and hope they can’t tell time?

It happened to me: one day, during my first Christmas season in business, I was busy with an order for 150 gift baskets. It was hard work, and stress was running high. The deadline was approaching, and I had no time to stop to even straighten the room.

There were boxes with product everywhere, there were empty boxes, and there was gourmet food everywhere: a true disaster area! And just then, my 4 year old daughter (now 11) came to me with her big brown eyes in tears: “Mommy, I am bored and I am lonely… Can we play a little?” What could I do? I was alone at home with her, and if I stopped to play, there was no way I could finish my order in time.

So, I thought quickly, on my feet, of how I could play with her and work at the same time. And I came up with the idea of building her an office right next to mine out of used/damages boxes. She was ecstatic! And SHE did all the work! I told her where to go and get the boxes, and made room for her by me desk. She built a desk, improvised a chair, and even had items to sell in her store.

With that in place, I was able to continue my work uninterrupted most of the time. She loved watching and copying me: when I picked up the phone to talk to a customer, she picked up her imaginary phone. When I needed to make a basket, she made one of her own. When I calculated the price for my baskets, she picked up a pencil and calculated her own prices.

In time, her office evolved: the old, damaged boxes were replaced with actual wooden drawers. Inventory I wasn’t able to sell became her store’s inventory. She even got an adding machine, and a couch. Now, her office is her favorite spot to play. And it’s not just an office anymore: it’s an entire building with different shops. She has a restaurant, a bath and body store, a book store, and a toy store.

The store has helped her in many ways:

-she learned about maintaining and ordering inventory
-she learned about phone etiquette
-she learned addition and subtraction
-she learned organization skills
-she learned to be creative (little bits and pieces of ribbon, irregular baskets, empty containers have become great assets to her business)

Could YOU be using your business to teach your kids business basics while having fun? I am sure you could. Just take some time and think how your situation can be used to plant some business seeds in your child.

Article by:

Adriana Copaceanu is a busy mom of 2. Visit her Busy Moms Online if you are looking for ways to maximize your precious time. And if you are a new mom, you’ll find everything you need to know at her Baby’s First Year website.

This weekend, I was featured in one of our local newspapers, The Santa Maria Times.  Below is the article by Emily Welly: 

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Ellen Gaver of Arroyo Grande never thought she’d become an entrepreneur. And she certainly didn’t think she’d be one who gets her job done from home.

But that’s exactly what she does. And she does it because it allows her to be a mom.

Eight years ago, Gaver quit her job as a grocery store manager at JJ’s Market in Arroyo Grande, a position that for her meant 60-hour work weeks.

Her son, Dan, had just turned 6, and she realized she barely knew him.

He’d been with a great day care provider, she said. “But she knew him way better than I knew him,” she added.

Gaver planned to take the summer off and then find a part-time job when Dan started school. “I had to learn who my son was,” she said.

But the path to finding that part-time job wasn’t as simple as she hoped. When her son started first grade, she decided that going back to the traditional workforce, even part time, wouldn’t work for her.

So, she spent two long years searching for something that would work for her: a job she was passionate about that she could do from home.

Eventually, Gaver found it: She works from home as an account broker for a wellness company that sells household and personal products - from cleaners to makeup - that are nontoxic. Gaver declined to name the 21-year-old company because it prohibits employees from advertising it or its products in print or otherwise.

“What I love about what I do is that it’s passive, it’s peaceful,” she said. “It’s part of my life.”

She began teaching people about the company she worked for, and toxins in their homes, and then helped them set up wholesale accounts. As an account broker, Gaver is paid residually each time a customer orders a product. Customers can learn to act as sellers like Gaver, or they can simply order the products.

Gaver began meeting moms who were in the same position she was, and eventually founded SLO County Moms, an organization of people working for the same company selling and buying the products. The way she sees it, they’re working together to build income and create safer, healthier homes for their families.

Gaver’s experience in starting SLO County Moms was featured in the book “Weekend Entrepreneur: 101 Great Ways to Earn Extra Cash,” by Michelle Anton and Jennifer Basye Sander, which was published last summer.

And Dan is now 14, a freshman in high school. “I don’t know how that happened so fast,” said Gaver. “I just blinked.”

Gaver estimates a total of 20 to 25 hours a week are spent on work. But they’re spread out, “an hour here, an hour there,” she said, so it’s hard to count.

She admits that such a flexible schedule might not work for everyone - and she knows other moms who set hours for themselves - but with focus and determination, it works for her.

“It is exactly what I hoped for,” said Gaver. “It’s the best thing I ever did. Ever.”

But that’s not to say there aren’t challenges.

When Gaver left her job, for example, the financial burden was a struggle, she said. “It’s been a long climb out of that,” she said. “But I wouldn’t have done it different.”

That’s because for her, the stress she faced in her full-time job, coupled with what it took away from her family life, were too much.

“I don’t think I’d be sane if I continued to do what I did,” she said. “I just couldn’t do it all.”

Additionally, Gaver said her biggest fear in trying to work from home was that she would feel isolated. But she’s found other outlets, including the gym, the Internet and her neighborhood, to keep her social.

“It’s neat,” she said. “It’s a whole world that didn’t exist before.”

A handful of Santa Maria women also found that a key element in making staying at home work was finding a support system of other moms. So they began meeting daily in Waller Park to walk each morning.

In the summer, when the kids are off school, they’re surrounded by their little ones. The older kids run or ride circles around them while they walk. The younger ones rest quietly while they’re pushed in strollers or held in carriers.

“It’s just kept growing,” said Tammy Martin, another mom in the group, which generally attracts four or five women a day. They might look like stay-at-home moms, but each has a full schedule that for most includes a job. But for each of them, making mothering and working jive took some creativity.

Martin, whose husband is in the military, is a sales consultant for Stampin’ Up, a company that sells decorative stamp sets and accessories for greeting cards, scrapbooking, craft projects and home decor, through the home party system. She likes it because it brings in extra income, but also allows her to work with her husband’s schedule.

Adhering to a schedule is key for working moms and stay-at-home moms alike, according to stay-at-home mother of two, Monique Vallier of Santa Maria. And adjusting to the shift between summertime and school year schedules can be especially trying, she added. Vallier suggested it might be easier for stay-at-home moms to adjust since they likely have more flexibility in their own schedules to make their kids’ schedules work.

But, she said, other organizational details may require more monitoring by moms at home. Budgeting and watching bills, for example, can become more important, especially if finances are tight because one parent is staying home.

But the extra work is worth it for many mothers who have chosen to find a way to make more time for their children.

“I didn’t want other people raising my kids,” Martin said of her desire to keep them at home rather than in day care.

Rebecca Picek of Santa Maria, mother of three, didn’t want to put her children in day care, either. But she also knew she couldn’t afford to stop working. “I have to (work),” she said. So she and her husband have a balanced schedule where her husband works days and she works nights at Vons.

But playing the role of mom all day and then working at night is exhausting for Picek. It’s not easy to be up at 7 a.m. to get the kids ready for the day when you’ve been up since 1 a.m., she said.

Tanya Bolte felt differently. She spent most of 2006 as a stay-at-home mom, after leaving a full-time job. She quickly decided she’d rather be working, and she said having her daughter in day care or preschool doesn’t bother her. A part-time job, she said, would be ideal.

“I’m one that likes to be out working,” she said last summer when she was preparing to re-enter the working world. Being a full-time mom to her daughter, she said, was exhausting. “I only have one, but she’s enough.”

But when she began working, she learned that it’s hard to have the best of both worlds.

She’s now employed part time at Home Depot, and she likes her job, but being on a changing schedule makes it hard for her to spend time with her daughter when she’d like to. The job also puts extra stress on her husband, she said, who has been taking over bedtime duties while Bolte works the evening shift.

“I want to stay working but I want a more set schedule,” she said. One that would allow her to work during the hours her daughter is in school would be better, she added.

“Once you get back to working, you realize what you’re missing.”

Emily Welly can be reached at 739-2220 or ewelly@santamaria times.com.

Watch Out:

Ellen Gaver was lucky to find a legitimate work-at-home job that she was passionate about through an online advertisement. But that can be tricky business because of how rampant work-at-home scams are.

Before starting a work-at-home job, do your homework to avoid being scammed. After all, according to the Better Business Bureau, getting caught in a work-at-home scam could cause you to lose money, waste time, ruin your reputation or even become the target of legal action.

Warning signs of a work-at-home scam, according to the Better Business Bureau, include:

n Overstated claims of product effectiveness;

n Exaggerated claims of potential earnings and profits;

n Claims of “inside” information;

n Requirements of money for instructions or products before an explanation of how the plan works;

n Claims of “no experience necessary.”

“If it sounds too good to be true, chances are it’s a scam,” the Better Business Bureau warned in a news release. The organization suggests contacting them to get a reliability report on a specific work-at-home company if you’re considering signing up with them.

For more information, visit www.bbb.org or call Santa Barbara County’s Consumer Protection Unit at 568-2300.

A few other online resources: the Mompreneur Center at www.entrepreneur.com and Home Based Working Moms, www.hbwm.com.

For more information on SLO County Moms, contact Gaver at 474-8225 or ellen@slocounty moms.com, or visit www.slocounty moms.com.

The following article was written by a friend of mine and I wanted to share it with you.  This is a great message and one that we should probably read everyday!  Enjoy…

Embracing Your Beauty

By Rebecca White

For so many women beauty is what we see in magazines and on TV, we don’t focus on inner beauty or our own uniqueness.  Don’t roll your eyes and tell me “I know that already” Well do you?

How many times do you go into your bathroom and look at yourself and compare yourself to those women on TV or in magazines?  How many times do you pick yourself apart?  I need to lose weight, I have my frizzy hair, my butt needs to be smaller so on and so forth.

What about taking a good long look at yourself and see the things you do like about yourself?  Do you like your smile?  Do you like the way your legs look in a skirt?  Does your face light up when you smile?  Notice the things you love about yourself!  Only when you can honestly say you love you, that is the time you will show others your confidence and your inner beauty.  You will walk with an air of pride because you love you!

Stop listening to the negative thoughts in your head:

I am a failure

I don’t deserve….

I wish I had…

This will never work out….

These thoughts only bring you down!  Find that powerful woman warrior inside of yourself the one that tells you:

You are beautiful

You are successful

You do deserve this or that

It will work out

Think of the negative thoughts as a knarled old tree.  Darkness surrounding it, no animals around, the way the branches are leaning towards the ground and the bark is falling off it.

Then think of the positive thoughts as that giant oak tree, standing there magnificent, tall and proud.  The sun is shining behind the tree, the birds are singing and building their homes and the branches are rising to the sun to meet the day!

Who do you want to be?

Do you remember the old saying “I am woman hear me roar!”  We as women need to stand up and be proud of ourselves, our bodies, our homes, our careers, our choice to stay home with the kids, or our choice to work outside the home.  There is enough negative thoughts around us each day, don’t let your own thoughts be another thing to tear you down.

We, as women, tend to give out all our positive energy to our families and friends and all we are left with is the negative energy.  Many times we don’t even realize it till we are sick or tired or wondering where to go next.

When you have negative thoughts go write them down on a piece of paper, walk over to the sink and with a lighter or match and light the paper while saying “I release all negative thoughts and energy. I will only allow positive thoughts to rule inside of me”.

So be proud of who you are, no matter what imperfections you may have.  Would you want to live in a world were everyone looked the same, acted the same?  I know I wouldn’t.

Rebecca White is the host for Heal Yourself Talk Radio.  HYTR was started to help teach others to learn how to heal their mind, body and soul.  Be sure to sign up for the newsletter for weekly inspirations, podcast releases and more.  Visit HYTR today at http://www.healyourselftalk.com

By Mindy Pennybacker

There’s nothing like a cleanser that actually works as advertised, bulldozing through dirt and leaving a surface sparkling clean. But conventional cleaning products can actually leave indoor air polluted with a toxic smog of petrochemical volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and the synthetic fragrances used to mask them. Think, then, what damage cleaning products used on a regular basis year-round can do in the enclosed space of a home, where VOCs can build up for months. “When they evaporate, they are transported directly to the brain, where they can be as intoxicating as ether or chloroform,” says Kaye Kilburn, professor of internal medicine at the University of Southern California medical school. “They are palpably dangerous to health.” In other words, when someone complains of being knocked out after cleaning house, it’s likely more than just a turn of phrase.Think, then, what damage cleaning products used on a regular basis year-round can do in the enclosed space of a home, where VOCs can build up for months. “When they evaporate, they are transported directly to the brain, where they can be as intoxicating as ether or chloroform,” says Kaye Kilburn, professor of internal medicine at the University of Southern California medical school. “They are palpably dangerous to health.” In other words, when someone complains of being knocked out after cleaning house, it’s likely more than just a turn of phrase.Cleaning product VOCs, many of which are neurotoxins and known or suspected carcinogens and/or hormone disruptors, have been implicated in headaches, dizziness, watery eyes, skin rashes and respiratory problems. A Spanish study published in 2003 surveyed more than 4,000 women and found that 25 percent of asthma cases in the group were attributable to domestic cleaning work. Here are some ingredients to avoid in cleaning products, and safer, simpler alternatives.