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Katrina’s World is just that – it’s all about me and my world. I’m Katrina Rauch, and I’m a mompreneur that loves to help people! Katrina’s World is all about helping you be a better mom, wife, and entrepreneur! My posts include tips on cleaning, cooking, couponing, crafting, giving, gardening, ways to save money and make money, and so much more! Enter your email on the left and join me so I can keep in contact with you!
Are You A Stress Eater?

Are You A Stress Eater?

browniesI love to run. I’m not great at it, but I love it.  I also love to eat, I love food so so sooo much – I love mexican food, salsa and chips, hamburgers, sourdough bread and most of all, BROWNIES!  When I have a really stressful day, either with my kids, or with work, I have a choice between eating a huge, chewy, chocolate brownie (which I love more than you will ever know), or jumping on my treadmill and running a couple miles.  I hate to admit it but, more often than it should, the brownie wins.

It’s so crazy because I’ll catch myself pulling a box of brownie mix from my stockpile whenever I’ve had an unexceptionally stressful day.  It’s like I’m on auto pilot; if I have a misunderstanding with a good friend, or too many arguments with my oldest son over his homework, or if my youngest (who is potty training), has repeated accidents, I automatically reach for a box of brownies to fix it and make it all better. That’s how I know that I’m absolutely a Stress-Eater.

Yesterday was one of those days where it seemed like every corner I turned I was putting out a fire or getting frustrated at my kids. I was trying so hard to be patient and “super-mom” all at the same time and I failed miserably!  Me and the kids has just spent the last hour trying to make glitter-snow playdough that left cornstartch all over the kitchen and the all over the kids, and don’t even get me started with where the glitter ended up.  By 5pm I Kat_Run2was about to chow down on every Christmas cookie that I could stuff into my mouth! I was exhausted and totally ready for a break.  I was stressed to the max and ready to indulge! But, You would be proud, I laced up my running shoes and hopped on my treadmill and ran a couple miles instead.

I’ve just recently been able to recognize that one of my poor food habit triggers is stress.  Now that I know this, I’m trying to replace the desire to eat something that I may regret later, with an activity that can relieve my stress instead. Tada! Running is perfect for this! It’s a great was to melt stress off my body and it’s great for my mood!  It’s not rocket science, but it’s hard to make a good choice when you want that instant gratification that comes from indulging in a yummy treat!  I’m trying to be better at this and recognizing my triggers is the first step!

What are your triggers? How do you deal with stress?  If you are anything like me and tend to turn to food when you are stressed, tired, exhausted, or emotional then consider these tips before you take your next bite:

  • Identify your triggers
  • Make a list of your top triggers
  • Find some type of exercise that you enjoy – walking, running, dancing, zumba, exercise video, karate, etc.
  • Make a list of the exercises you enjoy
  • Hang that list on your refrigerator where you can see it every time you are about to “stress-eat”
  • Actively choose one of exercises from your list next time you are stressed instead of indulging in a treat

It sounds really simple, but it’s actually really hard – for me at least! But I know you can do it!  Let me know how it goes! Good luck!

 

 

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December 22, 20140 commentsRead More
Stop Expecting Your Family To Be Perfect

Stop Expecting Your Family To Be Perfect

PerfectFamilyThis is the time of year when I just want everyone to get along. Wow, that sounded so cliché’, but really, I just want everyone to get along! Even in my own house. Our little family of five – I want all of us to just get along and when we don’t, I literally feel like screaming and throwing my own adult tantrum. Let me guess, your family makes you crazy, especially around Christmastime? Am I right? It seems like more family fights are hatched about really silly stuff this time of year. There are misunderstandings, hurt feelings and tears. It’s hard to keep your own family happy as well as the in-laws, and if you are like a lot of families you may have more than just two sets of in-laws to keep happy. I have one friend that has five different houses and five separate family get-together’s that she has to attend on Christmas day alone. How completely exhausting!

There are no perfect families. Every single one is messed up in one way or another, but they are your family. God perfectly designed you to be in that family to teach you something about yourself and for you to teach others in your family something. There is a plan – it’s not an oversight that the Lord made you and planted you exactly where you are. He knows you, He created every single person in your family and He knows all the inner-workings of how your family relates with each other. No one is perfect and a lot of times if you keep looking for the perfect family and don’t just LOVE the one you have, you are going to miss out on a lot of fun, love, and life.

Let me say it again – There are NO perfect families – the only perfect family is the one the that doesn’t exist on this side of Heaven. If you keep expecting everything to be perfect and then get angry when it isn’t, you are going to find yourself just plain unhappy. Most likely your family dynamics are not going to change – but your attitude can.   Your attitude of love and acceptance and remembering that we all have your issues, we all mess up, we all have people that we don’t get along with very well, but you are still a family. You can walk away from your friends and bad relationships, but you can’t just walk away from your family. Your family is special and important and if it’s just a simple thing you are frustrated about, get over it and realize that it’s not worth it.

Here are a few tips on how to survive Christmastime with your imperfect family:

  1. Your attitude is your choice – the smallest adjustment on your part can totally change your experience.
  2. Forget the little things that drive you crazy and focus on offering grace to others instead.
  3. For the person you have the hardest time getting along with, find and focus on at least one thing about them that you like – instead of the many things that you don’t like about them. I promise your outlook on that person will eventually change.
  4. Take a moment to tune out all the chaos and focus on Christ and all that makes Christmastime amazing!
  5. Remember Christmas is what you make of it!

PerfectFamily

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December 17, 20140 commentsRead More
No One Noticed My Shoes

No One Noticed My Shoes

NoOneNoticedMyShoesDoes this time of year make you feel like you are living in a blizzard of people, parties, gifts, cookies, and no one really even notices that you exist?  This is a perfect example: Today, my daughter was very sad when I picked her up early from school (which she knew was going to happen and was soooo excited about before she went to school).  She would not tell me what was wrong until much later that evening, but all day she was not being her normal, sweet, bubbly self. I figured she was just tired because we had a very busy Christmassy weekend of Christmas lights, church events, family events, dinner with friends and ended it all with a ride on a train, hot cocoa and lots of cookies (it was a really FUN, but busy weekend). I assumed she was just tired from all of that. After a full afternoon of her snapping and being short with both her brothers, she finally dissolved into tears and said she was so sad because no one at school noticed her new shoes. We had a nice talk about how it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks and it only matters what God thinks, and that she can’t let something like shoes put her in a bad mood. I also told her that her attitude is her choice and she was choosing to let the fact that no one oooohhhed and aaaahhhed over her shoes to dictate how she treated others. I also told her that I liked her shoes! She smiled and we laughed and we moved on.

But isn’t that true of us? You want someone to notice your shoes? Or your new outfit? Or that you just cleaned your bathroom? Or did five loads of laundry?   Or that you made an amazing lunch of chicken nuggets and Cheetos? Or that you single-handedly answered a work phone call while changing a poopy diaper on a squirmy toddler who really should be using the potty? I’m 100% guilty of this. I like to be noticed. I want someone to say “good job”. Let’s be honest, being a stay-at-home-mom, you very rarely hear from your 3 year old that you just did a really good job mopping your kitchen floor.   Often when no one notices all that we do, we feel unloved and unappreciated and then we are guilty of seeking approval from a cup that won’t ever be filled. We are seeking worth from men, who are just as unworthy as we are. WeNoOneNoticedMyShoes2 should instead be seeking worth and approval from the Lord who gives it willingly.  He has a plan for your life, you are unique to Him and your purpose is to serve Him using all the talents He gave you with a sense of JOY.  That’s the key – Joy. Find joy in all the small tasks you are blessed to have to do each day for your kids and family.  The joy is there, you just have to look for it.

“God’s kingdom isn’t a matter of what you put in your stomach, for goodness’ sake. It’s what God does with your life as he sets it right, puts it together, and completes it with joy. Your task is to single-mindedly serve Christ. Do that and you’ll kill two birds with one stone: pleasing the God above you and proving your worth to the people around you.” — Romans 14:17 (The Message)

So when no one notices your shoes, it’s no big deal – your worth is not found in your shoes, it’s found in the Lord.  He loves you more than you will ever grasp and longs to fill your cup everyday with JOY!

If you ever have any questions about whom the Lord is and what He means to me or can mean to you, please ask. I’d be more than happy to share more about the Lord of my life.
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December 9, 20140 commentsRead More
Exercise Is Hard

Exercise Is Hard

Fact: Exercise is hard.

I totally agree. I don’t wake up every morning and bound out of bed because I’m so excited to kick my butt and get all sweaty. Nope. Not at all. Every time my alarm goes off, I’m 100% tempted to stay in bed and I have all sorts of ideas going through my head about how I can get out of exercising. No joke, it’s a total mental struggle I have – every single morning. I try to reorganize the day and figure out how I can work in my exercise to some other part of the day like right before dinner when the kids are screaming at me because they are hungry. Perfect timing right? Uh, no. That would never happen! But it sure sounds tempting at 5:45 in the morning when I’m still tired from getting up in the middle of the night – twice – because my potty-training son had to go poop (who does that in the middle of the night? I think he just wanted some candy…oh well).  ExerciseIsHard

I am not one of those super-fit chicks, you know, the ones who can do one-handed handstands and have abs of steel (and they do these on the beach, I can’t even do that against a wall, let alone the beautiful beach…)? Deep down I wish I were. Really, I wish I was, and at one point in my life, right before I got married, I was probably the fittest I will ever be. I look back at those pictures fondly – and I reminisce about how great my arms looked in sleeveless shirts (I was really proud of my arms and shoulders – so silly of me, but I was – just being honest). I was also in my early 20’s, in my last year of college, and had tons of time on my hands to worry only about me. There was no late night feedings of a baby, there were no diapers to change, there was no school pick-up line to sit and wait in – three times a day, there was no daily dinner to cook to for five people, there was no grocery shopping trips with a toddler, or piles and piles of laundry to do every week. I had time back them to devote to myself and work on my appearance, and the funny thing is, back then I thought I didn’t have any time at all to do anything! I thought I was “soooo” busy! Isn’t it funny how we think, how our reality changes?

Now my everyday reality is that I’m getting older, have had three kids and my weight has gone up and down and up and down since the day I said, “I do.” I know one thing about myself; I’m a very planned person. I’m regimented and organized, I make lists and I really do follow them. When I decide something, I go for it, and I have an uncanny ability to stick with it and complete the job no matter how hard or how long it takes to do it. This proves why I can train for a half marathon for 16 weeks without missing even one workout. I know it’s only a half marathon, but it was so hard – oh let me tell you. But that’s another post in itself that I’m sure I’ll write about soon.

Back to my reality – so, as I was saying, I’m a fairly organized person that likes to compete with myself. This is helpful when dieting and with exercise, because I won’t quit, I’ll see it through, and I’ll stick to the plan. Throw in everyday life, kids, potty-training toddlers, sickness, and the fact that I had 2 surgeries last year, I know I’m just not the same person I was 15 years ago. I’m trying to accept my new reality and give myself a break. When you have a bad day and you don’t get up early like you had planned to exercise, it’s not big deal. It’s not going instantly make you gain 5 pounds instead. If you are a control freak like me, it’s tends to totally ruin my day – I will beat myself up for not getting up when in reality it’s just one day. Give yourself some grace. Who knows, maybe you will find the time later that day to exercise.

Some days, you just need a break too. Which was my day today. The hubs and I had totally planned to get up early like we always do to do T25, but I woke up with a pounding headache and he was just plain exhausted. Needless to say we skipped our workout. Instead of going back to sleep though, I got up and made a cup of coffee and curled up on the couch with my Bible and spent the next 30 minutes with the Lord. Was an excellent way to start the day even though I didn’t get to exercise. It’s a huge step for me to not beat myself up and realize that tomorrow is another day and another opportunity to exercise. Hopefully tomorrow morning is better and I’ll be right back to my routine.

See what I mean? Exercise is hard.

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December 3, 20140 commentsRead More
Help! I’m A Control Freak

Help! I’m A Control Freak

I know I’m a control freak, but nothing proves that more than when we do arts and crafts around my house, especially crafts that involve paint. Ok, sopainting3 today I decided it would be a great idea to do a painting project that I heard about. I’m enough of a control freak, that when I heard about this craft I was thinking that it would be the perfect craft to do because it didn’t sound very messy at all, and it was something that all three of my kids would enjoy doing. Boy was I wrong! Let me start at the beginning…

It’s late November, it’s cold outside today, super cold and snowy. We are on Thanksgiving break from school so all three kids are home and it’s not vacation time yet for my hubby, so I’m entertaining the kids this week until Thanksgiving day by myself. We don’t have any family visiting this year, so there are no cousins to play with and most of our friends are busy traveling that we don’t have a lot of playtime with our friends. We are basically stuck inside for 3 days and if I don’t plan things to do for the kids, I (yes, me) go crazy with them asking to play computer or watch movies all day (I think technology has a way of sucking their brains cells and turning them into little devils so I don’t like to let them play too much). My usual go-to when it’s cold out is to painting4craft something. My older kids LOVE to do crafts, my youngest, not so much.

Let me pause for a quick background on me to help you understand my craziness even more: I’m an artist. Yep. I am.  I’m a huge crafter, I love to scrapbook, draw with chalk, was an art major in college and have a Bachelor’s degree in Graphic Design. So I’m used to be wild, fun, “out-there” and getting messy.  But as I’ve already mentioned, I’m also a huge control freak who likes to be clean and I tend to clean up as I go when I’m being creative.  I’m much more creative with organized chaos

You would think that getting messy and having fun is what my house is like every day right? So 100% WRONG! I’m such a crazy control freak that I hate when things are messy. Hate it. Imagine trying to raise kids and be such a crazy control freak that you go nuts when they get messy? Do you know any moms that have a huge stash of Wet Wipes in their giant purse they can grab at a moment’s notice when their kids spill Ranch on their shirts, or literally waste an entire package of wipes when you are painting something because they are constantly making their kids wipe their hands every time they get a drop of paint on them? That’s me! I am that mom! UGGGGGH!!!! I must have the best kids in the world because they put up with my crazy neat-freakinesspainting7 and still want to keep doing crafts with me.

So back to our craft from today, it was a painting craft. You get a giant oatmeal container and roll a piece of paper and drop it in the container, and then you coat a few marbles with paint and shake them up inside the container. The paint stays in the container for the most part and it makes a really cool design on the paper. Sounds innocent enough right? I thought so too…but gosh, this was super messy. First off getting paint on the marbles is super complicated – it gets all over your fingers and I had wet wipes flying in the air trying to keep up with the kids and the paint drips. Don’t get my started on trying to get the marbles out of the containers…I had marbles flying all over the kitchen and because they are covered with paint they are super slippery and were rolling all over the table and floor and one even went flying across the room and covered my blinds with a nice line of red paint (because someone forgot to put their lid on their oatmeal container – he shall remain nameless). At first, I felt like a fireman flying around the kitchen trying to keep up with the fires that each one of my kids was setting, but after I yelled for the fifth time and was diving across the floor trying to save the runaway marble that was leaving a line of purple paint all the way to the laundry room, I seriously burst out laughing! The kids laughed, we all did, and the tension in the room that I had created with trying to stay “clean” dissipated! Yeah, we made a total mess, but it was so much fun! I was covered in paint from head to toe (seriously…head to toe), but it was washable paint, and the giggles that escaped my kid’s lips will be a sound I won’t easily forget. The fun was well worth every painting1spot of paint I had to clean up later.

So my point in all of this (and my point to myself) – relax and allow yourself to get messy (Katrina). Enjoy your kids and don’t yell at them when they are making a mess – after all, they are just kids (Katrina, are you listening?). Let them be creative and get dirty. My oldest tends to be pretty messy with just about everything – he always has stains on his clothes either from food or markers, but he’s very creative and he needs the freedom to get messy in order to be creative. I need to chill out – BIG TIME, with him and just let him be himself.

I said to myself, “Relax and rest. God has showered you with blessings.” –Psalm 116:11 The Message 

Such a powerful verse and such a good reminder.  As moms, God calls us to nurture our kids and love them as they are – just like He loves us as we are. So, if you are a control freak like me, chill out and focus on the blessings God has given you. Go get really messy and do it with your kids, and choose to laugh the whole time. After you are done, you will be thankful you allowed yourself the fun time with your kids and you will feel incredibly blessed. Promise. I sure did, and I mean that. After I chastised myself out loud, then told myself to chill out and have fun, finally, we all had a great time! We made some really pretty art too!

If you are a control freak like me then chill out, relax, and get messy! Hugs!

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November 25, 20140 commentsRead More
Katrina’s Coupon Tip #4 – Dig for Coupons

Katrina’s Coupon Tip #4 – Dig for Coupons

You’ll laugh, but I actually found a big stack of coupon inserts this morning on a walk with my youngest son.  We had just dropped the older two kids off at school and decided that since it was warm out, a whopping 34 degrees, that we might as well get some exercise and take the long way home from school.  We walked our regular route around the block, and it just so happens to be Thursday.  Thursday is trash pick-up day in our neighborhood, and usually the trash man comes pretty early.  We have several different trash companies that you can pick from and between the regular trash pick-up and the recycle pick-ups I honestly have no idea what time they come or whose truck is for which service.  But I do know that they come on Thursdays and I’ve seen a lot of recycle bins out in front of several neighbors houses (yes, I’ve walked our neighborhood and searched for which neighbors recycle).

I know of a few specific houses on our regular walking route that have a recycle bin for newspaper and if I happen to beat the trash man, I will go insertStackthrough their bins and help myself to their discarded coupons.  After all, one mans trash is another mans treasure!  So, this morning, I actually found a giant stack of coupon inserts from one single recycle bin in front of a neighbor’s house (this is the actual picture of the stack I found)! I was beyond excited! I plan to visit that neighbor later today and give them one of my “Coupons Wanted” fliers so they know that I would love to collect their discarded coupons and would be happy to stop by on a regular basis for any coupons they don’t want, especially now that I know they don’t seem to use their coupons.  

‘Shopping’ your neighbors trash bins is a great way to find out who uses their newspaper coupons and who doesn’t.  If they continually throw their coupons away then don’t be afraid to knock on their door and see if they wouldn’t mind saving them for you instead.  Nothing was ever gained by not asking.  Don’t be afraid to dig through trash bins, recycle bins or other places you find coupons discarded.  I look at discarded coupons as money – each one really is just like a dollar bill.  You would never throw away money would you?  Happy digging!

Have you ever dug through your neighbor’s trash for coupons?  Leave me a comment about the best coupon you found while digging!

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November 20, 20140 commentsRead More
12 Days of Christmas – What An Awesome Way To Bless Someone

12 Days of Christmas – What An Awesome Way To Bless Someone

Seriously this is one of the coolest ideas I’ve heard of yet to celebrate Christ’s birth! An amazing lady from my church shared this wonderful idea with Kat_sonshinekidsour Women’s Ministry a few weeks ago and I think it’s such a great idea! So great in fact, that our family has decided on how we can participate in this idea for our own Christmas celebration this year! I really wish I would’ve have caught on to this idea years ago, but oh well – time for a new tradition!

The idea is that you pick a neighbor, friend, group of people, etc. who you want to bless over a span of 12 days before Christmas, ending with the 12thday on Christmas day. It’s suggested that you pick a family in need of cheering up, or a family that is currently having a hard time, or maybe a family new to the area. Then for 12 consecutive days you leave them little gifts or treats on their doorstep – but the trick is that you have to do this in secret! You do not want them to know how you are! On day 1 you might leave them 1 ornament with a note about the “On the First Day of Christmas My True Love Gave to Me….”  On Day 2, maybe 2 cookies, and on and on up through day Day 12. On Day 12, your entire family shows up at their house with your final Day 12 gifts and you surprise the family you are blessing by personally giving them their 12th day gift. You get to reveal yourself and it’s so fun for the family to finally be let in on the secret. Isn’t that the coolest idea ever? My kids would be overjoyed to have little gifts left on our front door step for 12 straight days!  It’s like being “boo-ed” during Halloween, but so much better!

mx2Our family is adapting this idea to bless the amazing kids we met on our Mission Trip to San Felipe, Mexico last month! Our family, along with all our Mission Trip team members, have decided to send Sonshine Hacienda a huge box full of gifts for all the kids to share! We are going to wrap all the gifts according to which of the 12 Days of Christmas they are for and have the kids open up the gifts on the corresponding days. Quick background, my family and a big team from our local church, spent our Fall Break in October on a mission trip to San Felipe, Mexico to help out at home for abandoned/ abused children. You can read all about it by clicking here.  We had such a great time and met so many amazing kids that we wanted to extend our love and gratitude to them by sending them Christmas gifts. Here is what we are going to send them (a lot of the gifts are things the missionary couple that runs the Hacienda have asked for, and others are fun things we know they all would enjoy):

  • Day 1: One Advent calendar
  • Day 2: Two framed pictures of our group from when we were out there in October
  • Day 3: Three different ready-to-make ornament crafts for all the kids to make
  • Day 4: Four new board games like Jenga, Spot It, etc
  • Day 5: Five bottles of bubbles
  • Day 6: Six new shower curtains
  • Day 7: Seven bottles of body spray
  • Day 8: Eight new Spanish Bible Story books
  • Day 9: Nine packages of Spanish sticker books
  • Day 10: Ten new coloring books
  • Day 11: Eleven loofas and eleven super-hero wash cloths
  • Day 12: Ready to make cups for ALL the kids to make their own cupmx3

The list of things we are sending to them may sound silly, but to the kids that live at the Hacienda, this is going to be exciting! I wish we could be there to see the kids open their gifts each day! You can see that your list of things you might choose to bless a family with can be flexible and can suit that particular family.  Just have fun with it! Be the hands and feet of Jesus and really show how much you care this Christmas! You will be blessed in return!

Leave me a comment if your family have ever tried this idea before or if you plan to try it this year!

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November 19, 20140 commentsRead More
Why Do I Care What You Think of Me?

Why Do I Care What You Think of Me?

me_sadWhy do we care so much what others think of us?  Why do I compare my Facebook post that not very many people comment on with my ‘friend’ who has a bunch of people comment on every thought she posts?  For that matter, why do I care what my Facebook friends think of me?

Why do I catch myself wanting to change something on my website just because one person online wrote their opinion of something I said.  Needless to say it wasn’t a glowing opinion of what I said.  But why do I care what that one person thinks of me?  I don’t know them anyways, so why do I let it bother me so much?

Why do I care when a ‘friend’ whom, I thought I was speaking to in confidence, went ahead and told someone else about my concerns?  It hurts when you can’t trust your ‘friends.’  Doesn’t it make you want to walk around with tape over your mouth and never, ever say anything to anyone at all?  being betrayed is awful.  On the flip side, I know that I’ve also betrayed my friends before… but why does it hurt so much that they betrayed me?

I tell people all the time — I’ll introduce you to your next best friend.   It’s this talent that I have, I’m an out-going person, I know a lot of people, and it’s like second nature to me to connect people with other people.  Sometimes those people really have a lot in common and become really good friends.  It’s something I do without really even noticing – but I hate it.  I’m always the one left without friends in the end because as soon as in introduce them to someone else, they leave me in the dust.  And then I wonder why they don’t like me – but again, tell me why I care?

I know why I care.  I’m human.  People’s opinions hurt sometimes – actually they hurt a lot.  I want to be liked.  I want a best friend who knows my heart and keeps my confidences.  I want people to meet me, know me and know that I love the Lord.  Do you ever feel this way?  Do you worry what others think of you?  Do you wonder why you care so much what others think of you?

My advice to you: remember that you are special and unique and God made YOU to be exactly who YOU are.  God perfectly knit YOU in your mother’s womb to be the only YOU there ever will be.  He loves YOU more than anyone, or any friend ever will. Friends really do come and go.  Best friends are a true gift from the Lord and consider yourself very blessed if you have a best friend.

Psalm 139:13
“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.”

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November 15, 20142 commentsRead More
How to Generate An Income During “Naptime”

How to Generate An Income During “Naptime”

I’m sure a lot of you are asking, “What? Really? You can generate an income during my child’s naptime?  No way”  Yes, way!  You can! Let me start at the beginning though. I’m no expert, I’m not a web genius, I’ve never had a patent, and I don’t have a handmade product that I create and sell. I’m a wife, mom to three kids, and entrepreneur. I’ve always been business-minded. I have had many different types of businesses in the past – started them when I was kid – in fact as a middle-schooler I used to bake cookies for the neighbors and would sell them in batches. They were yummy too! By the time I was in high school I was running my school store and competing in business and marketing competitions. It was fun for me! God had the perfect man for me, so perfect that we spent a good deal of our Honeymoon planning our first company! Thankfully my husband is as business-minded as me and we make a great team!

Fast-forward to the present, me and hubs have been married for 12 years and the imagebusiness we dreamed up on our honeymoon was great! We fully supported ourselves and our new family on it for 7 years. As our family grew, my desire to be a mom won out over having a thriving business. I needed a break and I wanted to dive headfirst into mommy-hood. Which I did, and now with three kids (and I’m pretty sure there will be no more – at least that is the plan for right now) who are growing quickly and starting school, my business wheels are turning again and I’m starting to think about what I’m going to do when all three are in school full time.

If you are anything like me, you don’t want to wait, you want to start now! Building a business is hard. It’s hard even when you CAN devote hours and hours to it each day, and it’s even more challenging when you only have naptime to work on it. That’s me, right now. I work on my business during my kid’s naptime each day. On a good day, that can be 2 hours, but on most days, naptime is about an hour and a half. If you want to begin to build a business and all within a very small amount of time each day, here is what you need to do:

  1. Set aside a specific time each day to work on your business, like naptime.  Stick to that time.
  2. Turn off all distractions – Put down your phone, turn off Facebook, don’t even check emails.
  3. Don’t beat yourself up if your kids don’t sleep well or if someone needed a few extra snuggles – even if you only get 45mins that day to work on business – still work on it.
  4. Keep a notebook handy at all times to jot down business ideas, blog topics, tips, and thoughts all day long.
  5. Be consistent. 15mins each day adds up a lot at the end of the week. 45mins each day adds up even more – imagine how much you can get done in 2 hours each day if you are consistently dedicating the time to work on your business.
  6. Don’t give up. Keep working, keep blogging, keep posting, and keep researching. Everyone has to start somewhere.
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November 13, 20140 commentsRead More
Today Is Just Not My Day

Today Is Just Not My Day

Today is one of those days when I’m just not on top of it.  Bummed is a good way to describe how I feel.  I realized about an hour ago that I forgot to register for an important meeting for our business and now that I’m late in registering, I’m going to have to pay extra for it. Uggh. Yesterday my son woke up with the stomach flu. Talk about throwing your day for a loop. So I spent the better part of yesterday doing load after load of laundry to keep up with all the fluids he was losing. Not pretty. But on the flip side, I got to spend the day with my oldest son. He’s a sweetheart, even though he was so ill.  He is still home from school today, and it’s a whole different world when you are used to only one kid at home to now having two home and trying hard to keep them apart from each other so they don’t share germs.  On top of it all, I’ve lost my voice. Most people might think that’s God way of giving the world a break, but it sure makes it hard to make phone calls and ask your kids to do their chores. Plus, when I lose my voice that can only mean one thing – that I’m sick, sick, sick. And we all know when mommy is sick the whole house suffers – right? Plus it’s a vicious cycle – when I’m sick, I feel rotten, I have a short fuse, and then the kids are instantly in a bad mood because I’m in a bad mood, and then I forget things I need to do and the whole cycle starts again. Not a fun way to go about your day huh?

me_coen

But on the flip side, today is the day the Lord has made. I know what you all are thinking…”good one Katrina”… “way to sound cliché”… but it’s true. Today is exactly the day the Lord has made for you. He perfectly designed each thing in your day to mold you into the person He wants you to be. How you choose to react to each event that takes place in your life today is your choice, but the choices you make will impact your life deeply.

As my day draws to an end, I’m choosing to reflect on God’s word – Psalm 118:24.

Psalm 118:24
This is the day the Lord has made;
We will rejoice and be glad in it.

I’m thankful for the extra time I have with my older son the last two days – he’s such a great kid – I’m truly blessed. I’m also trying to ignore how much my throat hurts and be thankful that I can talk less and lead my children by example rather than by words. And as far as feeling bummed about my mistake with my business meeting, instead I’m going to be thankful that I forgot so I now know I won’t forget in the future! Take a moment to thank the Lord for your day and to remember that:

This is the day the Lord has made! I will rejoice and be glad in it!

 

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November 12, 20140 commentsRead More