What is A Bullet Journal and Is it Right for You?

What is A Bullet Journal and Is it Right for You?

by | Home and Lifestyle, Karen Rae

What is A Bullet Journal and Is it Right for You?

Bullet journaling is all the rage right now. Pinterest is filled with ways to decorate your bullet journal and many people swear by this organization/journaling method. So, how do you know if a bullet journal is right for you? 

First, what is a bullet journal? A bullet journal is a method of journaling and note-taking that uses bullet points as the core structure. Instead of writing long sentences you write in bulleted points. You can use any blank journal or notebook and it is truly a combination of a journal, planner and to-do list. Because you use a blank journal or notebook you can get super creative with the layouts, décor, and colors as you decorate it. Search bullet journal on Pinterest and you will see great examples of minimal to highly decorated bullet journals.

Here is a list of who would benefit from a bullet journal: 

  • People who have a million to-do lists at all times
  • People who prefer pen and paper to app-based planning 
  • People who love goal-setting and habit tracking
  • People who like stationery, journaling, scrapbooking, beautiful pens, etc. 
  • People who really love planners
  • People who are creative and like to decorate, draw, doodle in their planners
  • People who would really like to keep a journal/diary but are having trouble sticking with the habit

A bullet journal can be a simple blank book or a creative outlet for you. If you love the idea of combining your journals, planners and to-do lists it is worth a try. A bullet journal is truly what you make of it and unlike pre-printed planners or journals it can be customized to exactly what you need in your life at that moment. 

What is A Bullet Journal and Is it Right for You?
Karen Rae

Karen Rae

Owner, Fave Lifestyles
www.FaveLifestyles.com

about

Karen Rae

I was becoming an empty nester, a woman of a more interesting age and in transition. Sound familiar? I was at that place where we question our purpose, value, and worth and what in the world are we going to do with the rest of our lives.

I noticed women have a huge hunger to belong to a community of women where they can feel safe, share openly from their heart and have other women to do life with! This is why I created my Fave Lifestyles.

Fave is for the woman who wants to call Fave her community of women who support, uplift, and make her feel better about herself. I want to create a place where we help her answer life's questions and just do life together!

Let's Do Life Together at Fave Lifestyles

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4 Common Mistakes Made When Hiring A Web Designer

4 Common Mistakes Made When Hiring A Web Designer

by | Business, Danielle LaFleur

4 Common Mistakes Made When Hiring A Web Designer

You are ready to have a website built for your company and have decided to take the step of hiring a professional, smart decision! Your website is a cornerstone of your marketing efforts and should be a well thought out tool to share your product or service and attract clients. Many business owners make some common mistakes when hiring a web designer, make sure that you avoid these errors when searching for the perfect web design company. 

Hiring Based on Price

 Typically, businesses have a budget for their web design project and the easiest way to compare is based on price. Like many things, not all web designers are created equal. Go into the hiring process with an idea of what you need your website to do for your business and make sure that you are finding a company that can deliver on your goals. A website design project requires a lot of communication so make sure you like the people you hire as you will be working closely together on your project. 

Not Knowing the Cost and Process of Maintenance

 A website is not a project that is completed and then never touched again. There are continuous updates that are needed to maintain usability and even more important, security. As the website owner you need to know the process of maintaining your site and the cost to either do it yourself or the cost to secure a maintenance package with your web designer. Once you have a professional website created, we always recommend an ongoing maintenance package to our clients. Updates come out frequently and often a new update creates little tasks that can take a novice user a ton of time to complete, while your expert web designer will be able to fix quickly and efficiently so your customers do not experience any issues. 

No Content Management System

 Unless you will never need to do anything with your website, you will need a user-friendly content management system. Some well-known CMS systems are WordPress and Square Space. A CMS allows a user to make changes to the website in a user- friendly platform. If you want to add a blog post or change a phone number, you can do it within your CMS without needing a vast amount of web design knowledge. 

Not Doing Your Research

As with any service you hire you should do your research. Not only should you look for a company who can help you achieve your website goals, you should look into past work, client recommendations and their own site. Any reputable web design company will be able to share a portfolio of their work with you. Spend some time navigating those sites for usability, and how you enjoy the site as a customer. You should also ask for recommendations/testimonials from past clients that speak to the process of working with their company. Finally, take a look at their own website, this is another great place to navigate around and see how you like their aesthetic, navigation and usability of a site. 

It is best to hire your web designer before you are at an emergency point with your site. Good design does not happen overnight, and you will be able to enjoy a smooth process if you have allowed enough time for the project. Start the conversation early with your chosen designer and use our list of common mistakes to navigate the hiring process. 

4 Common Mistakes Made When Hiring A Web Designer
Danielle LaFleur

Danielle LaFleur

Entrepreneur | Coach | Business Strategist www.EasyAsPieDesign.com
www.daniellelafleur.com
www.mysliceofpie.com

about

Danielle LaFleur

Danielle has over 27+ years in Marketing, IT, and Network design, development, and workforce leadership training. She is the owner of Gray Lux, Inc. She understands the real needs every small businesses has in creating value online and in-person with their clients.

She is dedicated to creating successes for her team and her clients.

Danielle has helped hundreds of small businesses maximize extra revenue streams, and has created a process for extracting an ROI from an ROE in training and development which is currently being used in over 100+ corporations.

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Do You Play?

Do You Play?

by | Karen Herold, Spirituality, Your Best Self

Do You Play

Remember when you were a child? Think back to a glorious memory of playing, feel the abandonment to joy, the creative flow of just playing for the sheer joy of the experience…Why did we ever stop???

Once a month I host an evening at my home called Artsy Fartsy Sip n’ Play. It is a 3-hour workshop of creative exploration, play and perhaps deepening self awareness that is a gift of the creative flow. I have hosted a number of these evening events and I have found myself increasingly aware of the challenge that many of us have in simply playing. In fact, it is not unusual for someone to ask, “what are we supposed to do with this when it is done???” The underlying assumption, usually stated as a fact that we all accept and know as “truth”, is that we must be creating something for some practical reason otherwise we are…gulp…WASTING TIME!

And there we have it. The difference between that lovely memory of simple play that we experienced as a child, and that “shoulding” on ourselves that becomes normal as we become grown up and learn that we should always be working towards something, always be efficient, always be growing, learning, working, doing, succeeding, multi-tasking, meeting our goals, and on and on and on.

The one word you don’t see on that list is that we should be simply Be-ing.In a single word we are reminded of the difference between that memory of play…when we were totally and completely in the moment, imagining and creating and playing without attempting to reach anything, and the reality of being adult women with responsibilities and plans and commitments and goals and all of it.

This gift of being in the moment, of experiencing the creative flow, of listening to messages from Spirit is a gift of creative play, and it is why I believe it is vitally important for women to make play a priority in their lives.

We all have heard about meditation and other mindfulness-based practices, and how they are so beneficial in helping us to be more in the moment and less reactive. I personally am a meditator. It took me many tries and many unsuccessful attempts before I began to call myself that. I encourage my clients to meditate as part of the process of transition. I must be honest, though, many of my clients struggle with starting and maintaining a regular meditation practice. It takes effort to make it happen, and often we don’t have the energy or the space in our busy lives to commit to it on a regular basis.

The good news is that there are other practices we can adopt to help us practice moving into the space of “Being”. And creative play is one of them…isn’t that great??? It would be helpful if we could get a prescription from the Dr. that says, “Play is healthy and good for you and you should do it 3 times each week”. The good news is that you don’t need it. You can choose to play on a regular basis. You can blow bubbles or make giant bubbles (one of my favorite ways to play) or make a paper airplane or play with clay and make funny faces out of it or swing on a swing or jump on a trampoline, the list is truly endless. You are limited only by your imagination.

Add some play into your life and maybe do a little less “shoulding” on yourself and a little more “Being” with yourself…and perhaps you’ll start creating more of those glorious memories.

Karen Herold

Karen Herold

Transition Life Coach | Energy Psychologist | Creative Arts Facilitator
www.wisetransition.com

about

 

Karen Herold

 

 

After 30 plus in the business world Karen Herold considers herself a recovering CPA, finance and executive management business leader. She left her business career to pursue a master’s in transpersonal psychology followed soon thereafter by certification as a psychosynthesis life coach. She brings her wisdom and knowledge as a yoga teacher, creative expression arts facilitator, energy psychologist and a life transition coach to each coaching session. Karen is also a member of the faculty at Sofia University. Karen empowers and encourages her clients to embrace Transition as an Invitation to envision, create and manifest their next stage in life as one that is filled with Purpose, Meaning and Value. Karen is a contributing author to The Call of Self: Psychosynthesis Life Coaching, which is a journey to understanding transpersonally oriented life coaching where she shares her experience of the intersection of life coaching and volleyball coaching.

Karen is the mother of three adult daughters…all of whom she coached in club volleyball at one time or another. She is also grandmother to four young grandchildren and is recently married to her loving husband Chris.

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Creating Summer Memories for Children and Grandchildren

Creating Summer Memories for Children and Grandchildren

by | Elisa Hawkinson, Home and Lifestyle

Creating Summer Memories for Children and Grandchildren

As a parent or grandparent kids are almost out of school so plans are being made now for summer fun and activities.  It is time to set those goals to create lasting memories.

Being the mom-slave catering to their lazy schedule and whims and moaning two young teen boys was not this mom’s idea of a memorable summer. So, our schedule meant a time to get up each day well before noon.  No sleeping in until whenever they felt like getting up.

There were regular daily chores and some outdoor projects that had to be completed to get to the fun like trips to the beach, zoo, movie or backpacking trips with their dad and sometimes mom too.

To this day 20 years later the guys still groan about the hours they spent digging a ditch between our home and the neighbors. It had springs that caused intermittent flooding in the yard.  The ditch was to direct the water run down the front yard hill and into the gutter.  The construction required a pry bar, a heavy metal pole to break up the soil to shovel aside.  They called their time spent ditch digging as being in the gulag.  They also had to help collect large rocks from a local quarry area and haul home in a truck to line ditch.  They made us parents laugh but it helped build their young muscles and work out their high summer energy.  To this day they now claim their own children will be digging a ditch because they know how good it was for them.

One of the boys had his friend help him dig a huge hole in the yard for koi pond this mom wanted.  Plans changed and it turned into a lovely stream that spilled over well placed rocks for that soothing gurgling sound.  They did enjoy that.

They had plenty of time to romp around the 50 acres of green belt behind out home, playing with friends and taking field trips with friends to parks, beaches and the zoo. 

Each summer included the youth group camping trip with friends. As a youth leader-mom time with deep discussions and laughter helped lead the young women in maturing into womanhood with the fun talks and much laughter.  Twenty years later many of the kids, now adults with their own children, meet over meals and movies in each other’s homes. A few of the guys and gals found life partners within the group.

As a grandparent, summer projects with grandchildren vary with the age of the grandchildren. My sister is planning to have two of her pre-teen granddaughters help build birdhouses to replace old ones for the side of the barn.  Another is doing wide ranging mediums in art projects. My younger grandchildren will be going to the park to play often on the slides, swings and lots of sand building castles at the beach.  Personally, I won’t give up on investing into the children’s lives.  They won’t forget their summers!

Elisa (Lisa) Hawkinson

Elisa (Lisa) Hawkinson

Elisa Hawkinson
Professional Organizer | Author Calming Your Chaos | Leader of the Smooth Organizer Community
www.elisahawkinson.com

about

Elisa (Lisa) Hawkinson

 

 

Since 2000 Elisa (Lisa) Hawkinson, author of Calming Your Chaos, has been teaching and training businesses and individuals to support anyone who is not naturally organized on a consistent basis to be just that. Her HOW2GetOrganized seminars, workshops, and speaking along with hands-on coaching and coaching by phone has evolved from her natural genetic bent for order. Efficiency, calm, productivity and profitability are increased with the help of HOW2 and Elisa.

 

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How to Deal with an Empty Nest as a Single Mom

How to Deal with an Empty Nest as a Single Mom

by | Home and Lifestyle, Karen Rae

How to Deal with an Empty Nest as a Single Mom

When you are facing an empty nest as a single mom you can feel even more emotions than those with a spouse. Single moms have likely been doing everything with and for their child and when those children leave the nest it leaves a huge hole in the routine and a lot of time to fill. So, how do single moms deal with an empty nest?

TIPS TO DEAL WITH EMPTY NEST SYNDROME FOR SINGLE MOMS

If the bareness in your life as a single parent empty nest rushes to bite you, then don’t worry! Think of it this way, everybody has entered this world alone and would exit alone. It is you, who has to deal with all sorts of pain as a one-woman army. Make yourself strong; think about the things that you once thought for your own. This is the time to fulfill your desires and follow your passion.Here are a few tips that can help eliminate the sorrows you have in your life as a single parent empty nest:

Also Read: Rinse, Not Repeat, How To Know If You Are A Good Mom

Practice Self-Care

As a single mom you probably put yourself on the back burner most of the time. Now that you have more free time make self-care a central part of your life. Whether it is a new exercise routine, finding a new hobby or simply picking up a good book more often, self-care will help you focus on your needs and take care of yourself. Not only would this upkeep your health; but would also take you out from your single parent empty nest sorrows.

Find New Interests

Is there something you have always wanted to do but never had the time? If yes, then now it’s the time to follow your passion. Now that you have more time revisit those interests and get them on your calendar. By exploring new interests, you also open yourself up to making new friends expanding your social circle and lessen your sufferings as a single parent empty nest.

Start Dating Again

The best way to deal with empty nest syndrome for single moms is to start dating again. if you are interested in meeting someone, this is a great time to enter the dating world. Although it can seem intimidating, don’t overthink it and enjoy the process of meeting new people. Even if you do not meet the perfect person immediately, the act of dating will get you out of your house and meeting people.

Also Read: 5 Steps to Forgiveness After Divorce

Plan A Trip

 Your last child is out the door, how about a celebratory trip? Grab some friends and take a weekend away! Or, make it longer and go somewhere exotic. A trip is something you can look forward to as you child is preparing to leave. A trip also gets you out of your house those first tough days when your home feels too quiet.

Lean on Family & Friends

Another best way to deal with empty nest syndrome for single moms is to reach out to friends and family. Make an effort to connect, host a party or simply meet for coffee. The people who are close to you will likely know that this is a hard time for you, so make sure you reach out for their support.

Talk with A Therapist

If you are really struggling to balance your life as a single parent nest, seek professional help. A therapist can help you work through your feelings and find methods of coping. As you are moving into this new stage of your life professional help can make the road a little smoother.

Being a single empty nester can feel very lonely, but it is really an exciting new chapter in your life. Not only is it thrilling to see your children get their start in the world, but it is a fresh start for you to define what the next stage looks like in your life.

Also Read: How To Plan A Move As A Single Woman

How to Deal with an Empty Nest as a Single Mom
Karen Rae

Karen Rae

Owner, Fave Lifestyles
www.FaveLifestyles.com

about

Karen Rae

I was becoming an empty nester, a woman of a more interesting age and in transition. Sound familiar? I was at that place where we question our purpose, value, and worth and what in the world are we going to do with the rest of our lives.

I noticed women have a huge hunger to belong to a community of women where they can feel safe, share openly from their heart and have other women to do life with! This is why I created my Fave Lifestyles.

Fave is for the woman who wants to call Fave her community of women who support, uplift, and make her feel better about herself. I want to create a place where we help her answer life's questions and just do life together!

Let's Do Life Together at Fave Lifestyles

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