The Importance of Office Organization

This is an office. This isn't my office, but if I had one at the moment, I would hope that it would look as neat and organized as this. Since I moved to my new apartment, I am currently using the breakfast nook as my desk. I don't even have a desk right now. My apartment is only 800 square feet, most of which has been delegated to the bathroom and the bedrooms. I have a tiny dining room which would be my office if I had one. Right now, it serves as a play room for Hail while we are in the living room. Since he doesn't really have any playmates, he doesn't like to play in his room so he has a corner of the living room that he plays in.

My tiny "office" space is a mess. I have pens, books, diapers and all kinds of things strewn about my already tiny space. I was looking for something earlier and I kept thinking to myself how much easier it would be to find if I had an office and a desk to put important things on. Then, I realized that that is exactly what I said about using the breakfast nook. "Things will stay organized if I have a smaller space to work with." How I wish that were true.

If I had a whole office, I could have a desk to organize things. A bookshelf to keep the books on and a comfortable chair to sit in, where my feet will touch the ground, while I'm working.

I just filed my taxes the other day and I couldn't find any of the documents that I wanted so that I could do so. If I had more room I could actually sit comfortably and pay more attention to the work that I'm doing instead of worrying that my feet are asleep from dangling off the ground and is my computer going to fall onto the counter behind it. *Sigh* I wish I had an office so that I could be more organized.

Getting up, Moving on

Sad to say, last night I failed to blog. It was the 5 day of the New Year and I forgot to blog because I was so busy preparing for today that I forgot, ran out of time, I'm not really sure. Work wise, yesterday was a bust. I did not get anything done because I had to go all the way downtown to pay rent. From my house to downtown Portland is an hour drive round trip. Then, when I got there, I got a ticket! I parked in a spot that I got from another passenger car like mine. I have parked there dozens of times before, but I got a ticket because now this spot is a truck loading and unloading zone. I do not ever remember seeing any signage stating as much in the dozen times I have parked there. Therefore, now I have a $65 ticket that I have to pay sometime this month.

I start school again on Monday for the first time since Hail was born. I plan on finishing up my degree with some business courses so that I am more prepared to go into anything baking related, business/ clerical related or English related such as copy writing, editing or basic journalism. One of the classes that I'm taking is called becoming a virtual assistant. I knew nothing about what this was until I logged onto a work at home forum that I joined a few years ago. Apparently, what I have gathered about this course is that I can be an office assistant or continue doing what I do most of the time by updating company's blogs, and writing their web content but get paid more for it because I have a fancy title. After doing some basic research on a few freelance sites that I also have joined, I am a little intimidated because I am going to be competing with people overseas that are willing to do entire jobs for $2 an hour. This is completely unacceptable pricing even for a beginner like me. What most people fail to realize while they take on jobs is that they have to make a profit. Doing this work is their business and if you are selling yourself for $2 an hour, you must not think very highly of your own abilities. If people want the work done correctly, they will pay your fees.

The workload for this course is a minimum of 10 hours a week, not to mention the rest of my courses I have elected to take. Because of this, I do not know when I'm going to be able to work again, simply because I do not know when I will have the time. Thank my lucky stars I get financial aid from school to help with room and board as well as household expenses so that I can still keep my condo without worrying about rent being late or stressing out about the bills.

The first assignment due before class starts is to write your online resume for those that you want to market yourself to. In working on this assignment, I was a little clueless. I have a resume that shows all the work I have done online, but it was very basic and I really wanted to jazz it up. Here are some tips I found online for creating an effective resume for working online.

* It is not necessary to detail every job that you have ever had. Instead, only include jobs on your resume that are applicable to the job you want to obtain. This is called a target resume and it works great.
* Always start with the most current job you have had. This will show that you have been recently employed.
* When detailing online work, it is not necessary to say where you did the work. It really could have been anywhere; while you traveled, where you live, where they live, anywhere.
* Have samples of your work available upon request. Do not include them directly on your resume because they will take up space that you may need for other things. Simply state on your resume that you have samples available upon request.
* If you have applicable experience from volunteering, awards, or education, be sure to include this on your resume. It is all about selling yourself and anything that you can include that will give you a leg up will give you an edge over the competition.
* Always use spell check! This may sound stupid, but I can't tell you how many times I have looked at others resumes as well as my own with horrible spelling errors and other grammatical mistakes that make it sound like you are uneducated. This is the last thing that you want when presenting yourself online for a job. Keep in mind, this resume that you are sending out is your first impression. Most people that work online will never meet their employers; therefore, their resume must stand out from others and say, "Pick me!"

I hope that these tips have been helpful for anyone that is looking to spruce up their online resume. I found them to be extremely helpful.

Laundry Help From the Anti-Laundry Fairy

It is no secret that I hate doing laundry. I get no enjoyment or satisfaction from washing, drying, and folding clothes that I will inevitably have to re-fold because Hail has tried to "help" mommy. Doing laundry stresses me out, frankly. No matter what I do, there is always at least one sock missing. Right now, I have five errant socks sitting on my armchair because they have lost their mate. I have looked in the bedrooms, in the laundry basket, behind the couch and furniture, behind the washer and dryer- everywhere they could possibly be. I am sure that the laundry monster has eaten them.

Because of my overall dislike for doing the laundry, I have even started hanging my clothes. Unless I can stuff it in a drawer and not worry about folding it, I will not, everything hangs. However, I cannot do this with my socks. No matter how hard I try, I cannot avoid sock folding. I tried just loosely stuffing them in a drawer, but it seemed as if I was losing more socks than I did in the washer/ dryer. Then I learned of a few nifty tricks to help keep socks together. When I tried it, I was relieved to find that all my socks were there, but displeased that I still had to fold them all. Here are the few laundry tips I learned;

* Throw all your socks in a mesh sack before putting them in the washer. The sack can be washed, your socks get clean, and they all stay together.
* When you want to make your clothes fluffier while cutting your dryer time in half, put a few tennis balls in the dryer. They act as a dryer sheet and you do not have to buy new ones once you have established your dryer ball.
* If you have a problem with your animals, especially cats, trying to sleep in your laundry basket, place a few dryer sheets in there. My cat used to try to pee in the laundry basket because she was mad that I would put things in her bed. Cats hate the static and will choose somewhere else to lie.

All these tips have helped make my laundry experiences a little easier; however, I still have not found the cure for completely avoiding laundry. If anyone can help me here, it would be appreciated.

Out With the Old, In With the New

One of my personal goals this year is to get rid of the old; people that don't deserve my time or aren't there to support me, things I want to change such as paint colors, wardrobe and habits as well as many other things.

One of the "old" things that I am for sure getting rid of is my couch. While it has served its purpose by providing me a place to park my butt, but we did find it on the side of the road the day before we moved into the condo. Also, it has broken in the center so 3/ of the couch can no longer be sat on. One of the many reasons that we chose this couch, nearly by fate, is because it matched the green wall from the previous tenants of the condo. Before finding the couch, the only piece of furniture to sit on was a red overstuffed chair. This makes me feel like I am always waiting for Christmas; what, with my red furniture and green walls.

When the couch goes, the wall paint will be changing too. We found a great blue sectional couch that we want to take up the living room. If we get this, the blue and green are going to clash badly. Not to mention, the paint job is less than stellar, with lines of green on the wall and corners unevenly painted. I am unsure as to what color I want to paint the wall, perhaps just a plain white. No matter which, I know that I am going to dread the process. While the paint dries, I am going to have the daunting task of keeping Hail out of the living room. I do not want him to touch my paint and I do not want him inhaling the paint fumes either. I did learn a nifty trick though that many people will be happy to know. When you are painting your home, room, floor, whatever, add a teaspoon of vanilla extract into your paint while you are stirring it. No matter the color, it will remain the same but the extract takes away the paint smell that we all know and hate.

Gah! Sick!

Well I am starting my new year off sick. My sinuses are KILLING me. To make it all worse, I feel as if my whole head is swimming above me, disconnected from my body. I definitely don't feel up to doing anything, so blogging will be it for me today. I didn't improve anything either by doing a bunch of running around on the bus today either. Here was my day;
We went to the college to pick up books, only to find that the college was closed. The trip out wasn't a complete bust; however, because we were meeting someone to sell an old phone. Then we went to Raph's mom's house so that Hail could see his "girlfriend" and doggies. We stopped at the post office, but they were closed, then decided that we were tired and hungry. We went to the Village Inn for breakfast. They have some pretty good food, although my bacon and mushroom omelet could have gone with a little less holendaise sauce. When I came home, my head hurt so bad that I took a nap.

This brings me to my topic of this blog, time management. When you work from home, it is all too simple to say, I can rearrange my schedule and work whenever. Well too many days of taking time out to grocery shopping, going to the post office, whatever, will lead to nothing ever getting done. I also have a little kiddo so I don't have much time for anything as it is.... Tomorrow I also have a busy day since I have to go back to the post office to mail my packages and back to the school to pick up books. I also have to go grocery shopping which is always a 2 hour event or longer. So my question to all of you is; when you have the availability to change your schedule as you need and you do, how do you stay organized and manage your time so everything isn't rushed and you feel behind?

Happy New Year!!!

Well 2011 was a decent one, although several less than pleasant things happened throughout the year. The good things that did happen include; health of myself and my baby boy, finding an AMAZING guy like Raph, having the ability to work for myself successfully, and getting started with school again. Unfortunately, I get to spend the first day of the year doing my taxes. How I loathe taxes, but how I love the refund! I decided to try and do it today so that I can get it back as soon as physically possible. So because I have been slacking miserably, I am going to try and post every day of the year, at least once, but hopefully more. Here are my New Year's goals of the year.

1. blog daily- I really want to get good at this working for myself and creating my own income so that I don't have to worry about taking a day off as often as I did in 2011. I want to blog daily to help get my information out there and hopefully it will be something that will inspire at least one person.
2. work less, earn more- That's right. I want to work less but continue earning money through my residual sites I write for. Don't be surprised if you see links for articles I've done pop up from time to time and also, don't forget to click on them as well. :)I want to master social networking to aid in my earning potential as well.
3. Complete the 50 book challenge- This year, I am going with the theme of nurture. I want to nurture my mind and feed it full of books. Hail loves books and I do too but I need a little more mental stimulation than One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. I have tried this challenge several times and have always fallen a few books short. I suspect this year will also be difficult because I now have a little one that I have to deal with first and foremost before reading, unlike before.
4. Take a Class and Learn Something- I have just started knitting and admittedly I am not good at it. I have figured out how to make a simple rib using knit and purl stitches but I know nothing else. This will be the world's longest scarf if I don't learn to cast off.
5. Get Healthy- Each year I say that I'm going to lose weight and it never happens the way that I want it to. This year, I'm going to more loosely define it so that I will still be getting healthy but don't necessarily have to limit myself to just losing weight. I really want to start drinking more water and figure out what is causing and how to fix my iron issue.
6. Spend More Time Adventuring with Hail- As many of you may know, we just recently moved to Portland. Because of the odd weather we've had this year, we haven't had time to really explore and venture out into our new world. I want to explore things, go to the mountains, ballet, Saturday Market, Ape Caves, just do things we haven't gotten to explore yet. I want to create awesome, lasting memories with him that he will remember the rest of his life.

I'm sure that there are many more things that I would love to do but I can't really think of any right now. Me and my little buddy, a big 15 months old today, are going to go get in trouble at the grocery store :)

Update

I have not written on my blog nearly as often as I wanted to. I have been overwhelmed with parenting an active and fussy little one as well as everyday life, working and all other life's attempts. We have survived Hail's first birthday, Halloween and now we are approaching Thanksgiving. I'm not sure what we are going to do for the holiday but I'm sure that it is gonna be a little rough.

Some of the challenges we are experiencing include; separation anxiety, "mommy neediness," not walking, not really talking, not using sippy cups or making huge attempts to hold his own bottle (he's starting to work on it but gets pissy because he hasn't figured out that he has to tip his head back), not wanting to eat table food or feed himself,and not sleeping well at night or nap-time. He throws a huge fit each time it is time to sleep and he wants to go to bed at 6PM, which means he is getting up around 3AM. I have tried and fought him to stay up longer and the couple times I succeeded, he still woke up that 3AM :/

Other than all that, things have been going well. We got our own place in Portland. We live with an awesome guy who loves us, and all the bills are getting paid. What more can you ask for right? Here's a recent picture of the little one on Halloween.