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Many people are trying to lose weight, but have you ever considered losing weight as a family? Typically, when one member of the family is not eating healthy foods, the rest of the family is also participating in unhealthy behaviors. Working together as a family to lose weight can be the push you need to actually do it. After all, you want what is best for your family, right?

 

Start by planning healthy meals together. Working as a family, you can split up the responsibilities. For example, have your spouse go grocery shopping, while you cook and your children do the dishes. Whenever you cook a healthy meal, make extras and take that along to work the next day instead of relying on take-out and fast food. Cooking together also helps you bond and can teach both you and your children valuable life skills.  You can cook extra portions of these healthy meals and freeze them as well.  Then you have quick meals to grab even when life gets busy.

 

As a family, join a gym as well. Sometimes there is a family discount if three or more members of a household join the same gym, and often the facilities found here are better than any exercising machines you may have at home. As a family, you can also play tennis or racquetball together or motivate one another to work out. Some gyms even have fun family resources, like family softball leagues and indoor swimming pools.

 

When you want to lose weight, working together as a family to set goals can also work really well. Setting goals is important for any weight loss program, but as a family you can work together to push one another. Some husband and wife teams even like some friendly competition when losing weight. For example, challenge your spouse to prepare for a marathon, train together, and then compete during the actual race to see who finishes first or finishes the most of the race.

 

No matter how much weight you want to lose, it is always easier to do so when you have people to help you along the way. Your family is perfect for this because you live together and already know one another’s eating and work out habits. When you lose weight together, you have a great chance to bond as well, providing strong family ties and better relationships in general. Losing weight is never easy, but with a little help from your family members, all of your weight loss goals can definitely be achieved one by one.

 

Val Selby is a personal trainer and owns http://busymommawellness.com.  A site dedicated to helping women get and stay healthy in all areas of life.

Tags: Weightloss

How to Make Your Refrigerator More Eco Friendly

By: Carrie Lauth

Many of us are trying to live a more sustainable, eco friendly lifestyle. One of the best places to start making changes is in our kitchens, the hub of the home and the place where we prepare food. Here are some tips on reducing your carbon footprint and making your kitchen a little healthier.

Make sure your fridge is set at 36 - 38 degrees. You will likely need to purchase a refrigerator thermometer to gauge this properly. Move the thermometer around so you can learn where the coldest and warmer spots in the fridge are, and use this information to determine how you organize your fridge.

Don't place your fridge close to a stove or sunny window where it will be warmer, causing the compressor to turn on more frequently.

Check the seals on your fridge. Place a dollar bill the door and close it. If you can slide the bill out easily, the seal may be too loose, letting cool air leak out. Clean them regularly with vinegar to cut down on the gunk and replace them if needed.

Vacuum your refrigerator coils. The more dust that sits on the coils, the less efficient it is at cooling. Use a brush attachment on your vacuum cleaner to clean it.

Keep your fridge 3/4 full to help it operate at maximum efficiency. Any more full and air can't circulate well. But if your fridge is half empty, it has to work harder to cool. Place containers of water in your fridge if you need to.

The next time you buy a fridge, make sure it's Energy Star certified. Look for the yellow sticker on the model you want when you go shopping. And the less popular style of refrigerator that has the freezer in a drawer on the bottom is 10-25% more efficient than side by sides.

Use glass to store leftovers. Not only will you avoid nasty chemicals like phtalates and BPA, but glass also gets colder - helping your fridge conserve energy.

Looking for more easy green living tips? Visit www.naturalmomstalkradio.com/blog. Healthy, whole foods recipes can also be found at www.naturalmomsrecipes.com

 

For more tips and resources, join our Be Green Group

Tags: Green Living

Hey ladies, you are going to see this button everywhere on our site for a little while.  lol

 

My WAHM Space was nominated for the Bizymoms Choice Awards! Help us win and bring even more traffic to all of our profiles and sites. Make sure and leave comments when you vote and let them know why you feel your vote should count. You never know when your testimonial will be used.

So please vote away and help us jack this site up even more.  We have so many huge things in store for this year!  This would just kick it off with a bigger bang.  Free VIP memberships was just the start!

Staying Committed to Your Business


Becoming an entrepreneur requires a certain amount of drive and enthusiasm.  If we didn't believe in ourselves and our businesses, we would still be working for someone else.  But when the going gets tough, it's easy to lose sight of why we started in the first place.  This can cause us to become unmotivated, and it could be the demise of the business we've worked so hard to build if we're not careful.

Businesses are like relationships:  commitment is an absolute must if they are to succeed.  Here are some tips for staying focused and pulling through the hard times.

* Write a mission statement if you haven't done so already.  It should concisely detail the purpose of your business and its key philosophies.  Many entrepreneurs neglect to do this unless it is required to obtain funding.  But a mission statement can help you remember why you wanted to start a business in the first place.

* Set goals.  If you don't have something specific to work toward, it's hard to stay motivated.  By setting challenging yet attainable and measurable goals, you increase your chances of succeeding whether you meet them or not.

* Don't overwork yourself.  Starting and running a business is hard work, and it's easy to get caught up in a cycle of endless 16-hour days.  It's rather ironic that this commitment to your business can result in burnout, which can leave you without the energy you need to keep going.  While it may not be feasible to take a vacation when your business is just getting off the ground, it doesn't hurt to take a day off every now and then.  Taking a breather will give you time to regroup and remember why you chose the path you're on.

* Outsource the tasks that bore or frustrate you.  Small business owners often fall into the trap of thinking they must do everything themselves.  Sometimes they are on tight budgets and don't feel they can afford to hire help, whilst others are unwilling to let go of the total control they have.  But if you're suffering from a lack of motivation, outsourcing can get you back on track by allowing you to focus on the things you love about your business.

* Evaluate the state of your business.  If you've hit a rough spot, perhaps a change of plans is in order.  You may need to focus your offerings more tightly, rethink your marketing methods, or invest in better equipment.  By isolating and solving the problem, you can get back to business as usual.

Sometimes it's hard to maintain the level of commitment that we have in the initial phases of a business venture.  By doing what it takes to remain focused and remembering why we chose this path in the first place, we can keep ourselves motivated.  When we reach our goals, we will realize that it was all worthwhile.

Val Selby
Working WAHM

Tags: Business Motivation

This is an easy to enter contest.  No subscription needed, just go and leave a comment to be entered for a Wii and Wii Fit.  OMG, I'd scream and scream if I won.  I want one so bad!

I want to get some friends together and have a Wii Fit party so we can make fun of each other.  Of course everyone would love to see me fail at it since I'm a trainer by day.  lol  

Go enter to win a Wii and Wii Fit.

Free Download: Marketing to Moms Online Guide

Billions of dollars are spent each year by a certain group of people…and that group is everywhere we look. Yep, you guessed it – I’m talking about moms. Mothers are responsible for much of the household spending and influence the buying decisions of family members across generations.

If you’re looking to market more effectively to this group of savvy online consumers, download Wendy Wood & Alice Seba's free 9-page report:

"Quick & Easy Ways to Market to the Powerful Multi-Billion Dollar Market of Mothers Online"

This report shows you:

- Just how big and influential the mom market is
- Why moms use the Internet & what they do there
- How to reach moms and gain their confidence – all on a shoestring budget.

Your download is completely free and comes without any type of obligation. No registering your email address and waiting for the download to be delivered. Simply click the link and save it to your computer. Please feel free to share this report with your fellow mom-to-mom marketing friends.

Click here to get yours.

It is a PDF document and you will need the free Adobe Acrobat Reader software to view it. If you don't have this software, you can get it here.

 

Tags: Report

Gingerbread is what I decorate my house in for Christmas every year.  I love the scent, the fun candy decorations, and the cute little gingerbread people.  Usually the kids make gingerbread houses at school, but alas they are getting older.  lol

I have a free report to help you make some gingerbread houses at home.  Don't forget that any grandparent or other family member would love to get a gingerbread house as a gift from the kids as well.

Download your free copy of How to Make a Gingerbread House and get to decorating today!

Tags: Gingerbread

This is a long post but SO TRUE.  Read it and apply.  Then decide if you are afraid to succeed.

 

Is It Time to Quit, or Are You Simply Afraid?

by Donna Gunter, The Online Biz Resource Queen (TM)

"You give up too easily," is what my 10-year old next door neighbor, Mike, told me in 1972 or so when I wanted to quit playing our game of chase.  I couldn't seem to tag him "out" as the last player the game, despite my best efforts of 10 minutes of trying. Of course, I vigorously denied that accusation, but have been given cause to think about what he told more than once, especially recently.

In my teens and early 20s, I was the most goal-driven, type A personality of anyone that I knew.  Whatever I wanted, I set a goal to achieve it, no matter what.  And, to my credit, that determination helped me a great deal.  It helped me find a way to pay for 2 college degrees without any help or support from my parents, who thought college was a complete waste of time. It gave me the courage to move to take my first professional job in the northeast U.S., a "foreign country," as I thought of it at the time, since I'd never stepped foot out of southern culture.  That move that opened my eyes to a whole new way of thinking and of doing things.  At that time in my life, failure wasn't an option.  And, I most certainly viewed quitting as failure.

And, through the school of hard knocks in the subsequent years, I became intimately acquainted with failure. I "quit" both of my college degrees, as I discovered too late that I was bored out of my mind with my choice of my bachelor's degrees (Speech Pathology/Audiology), and then stayed in a job too long and suffered from severe burnout so that I "quit" my career afforded me by my master's degree in higher education administration and completely left the field.  I then started a business in the crafts industry but "quit" that when it was no longer fun, and I realized that I didn't really have the skills to pull it off. 

My life was in shambles at the time, as I desperately searched for what I wanted to do when I grew up, and when I finally latched onto the notion of starting my own business as a virtual assistant, my marriage couldn't take the strain of that decision.  So, I decided to "quit" my marriage and ask for a divorce and move back to my home state of Texas and reinvent myself.  A few years later, after successfully launching my business, I decided to relocate to Arkansas in pursuit of another business opportunity, which turned out to be yet another failure, and I "quit" that as well.

I spent much of this time second-guessing myself and my decisions, wondering if I was quitting too soon because the going got rough and I was afraid, or if it was just really time to quit and move on.  I discovered that I wasn't alone in my thinking when I recently read Seth Godin's book, The Dip.  He defines the dip as a temporary setback that you will overcome if you keep pushing. So starting a new business venture is fun and thrilling in the beginning, but after two or three years, it can become very hard and not much fun at all.  But, on the other side starting a successful business, most people can see that they are changed for the better, have learned much along the way, and are hopefully making money from the venture.

So, how do you decide if you're simply in a dip, or if you really need to quit?  Godin says you need to make two considerations:

1.  Do you have the resources to get through it? and
2.  Is it worth what it will take?

As I evaluated my "quitting" as described above, it occurred to me that the answer in all cases to both questions was a loud and clear "No!"  Why?   Because I'd been secretly settling for mediocrity all along.  It was time to quit when the things I was measuring weren't improving, and I simply couldn't find anything better to measure.  Most importantly, the sick feeling in my gut that I experienced at the time at the thought of continuing wouldn't let me continue.

I've had moments of panic and fear along my journey, as well, and trying to distinguish between the fear and when I'm at a dead-end has been difficult.  What have I discovered?  The difference between a dead-end and a dip.  The dead-end won't get better, no matter how much I try, and the dip makes me feel panicked and scared because I know that I will be great at something and that scares the hell out of me because it pushes me completely outside my comfort zone.  More importantly, in a dip, I've realized that the end justifies the means.

I'm currently involved in moving a business venture extensively outside my comfort zone, and it scares me to death.  I often wake up in the middle of the night thinking, "What, are you crazy?  You have no idea about what you're doing.  Everyone is going to figure out that you're completely clueless -- a complete fake."

And that tells me that I'm right on course for success..;)

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR EZINE OR WEB SITE? You can, as long as you include this blurb with it: Online Business Resource Queen (TM) and Online Business Coach Donna Gunter helps independent service professionals learn how to automate their businesses, leverage their expertise on the Internet, and get more clients online. To claim your FR*EE gift, TurboCharge Your Online Marketing Toolkit, visit her site at OnlineBizU.com. Ask Donna an Internet Marketing question at  AskDonnaGunter.com.

Ladies do you have a website or domain for sale?  This yahoo group was created JUST for listing sites and domains for sale.  No other posts except and introduction are allowed.  This is not for listing your companies, your specials, NOTHING except websites and domains.

We're trying to get the word out because the more members we have the more promotion for our site/domain sales.  If you are in the market for a site or have some to sell off, join us and give us all the details.  Don't forget that we all run into people looking for websites as well so with these sites in mind we can help pass the info on when we run into people.

WEBSITESforSALE group

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