Haven’t I been a lousy blogger so say!? No updates, not a word from me for months! I feel a little explanation is in order to tell you what happened.

Well In May, me and Revka started talking and planning various projects so we got a bit busy doing that. Then I was blessed with a trip to Sweden. After not seeing my family for five years God finally opened the doors for me so I was able to go with little Choriço. It was a fantastic moment and we had a wonderful time. We stayed for six weeks and would have liked to stay longer if it hadn’t been for the fact that we missed dear Daddy here at home. And of course I had to go back home as I had clients waiting for me.

I was quite busy during my trip, my mom has had two strokes and there was a lot that needed to be done as she doesn’t have any help. So unfortunately I didn’t take long walks along the seashore as planned to, but I’m not complaining, it was nice to hear the seagulls ad see them floating around.

Choriço also learned a lot of Swedish which I of course am thrilled about. Now I only need to keep it up, which isn’t easy I have to admit.

Since I came back I have had a lot of work and have restructured many things for my business. I have become a lot more focused and I have seen a big increase in productivity which is great.

And now? I am back, busy busy but focused. You’ll see a lot more of me here now! At least that is my plan

Yesterday was  another day that will always be remembered. First it was when my son almost lost his finger, now this.

Yesterday at 8.02 the phone rang. My husband had just taken our son to school. School starts at 8.00 normally. First I couldn’t understand who it was that was calling, because we get so many sales calls and she couldn’t get my name right I almost got irritated. It was from school; Choriço had fallen and hit his chin. I asked if he was bleeding and the answer was yes and he will probably need stitching. It was that last part that upset me.

I quickly called a friend of mine whose son is a classmate of Choriço. Only that yesterday she hadn’t taken him to school. She quickly took me to school where little Choriço was waiting. He started crying when I came and was bleeding a little. The cut wasn’t very deep, but deep enough to need stitching. So I took him to the local health center and then off to the hospital. Amazingly we were attended to quickly. He needed four stitches. As the doctor was doing her job I held his arms and looked the other way talking about Christmas and Transformers.

As the doctor applied the anastetic he screamed, but the pain was over in an instant and he got so quiet that I was afraid something had happend and had to ask if he was OK. A quick look and he was.

It was a scary experience, not as scary as the finger one, but surely something I will remeber.. and he as well…

Ask me if I want to change my WAHM life to a 9-5 job for a higher salary and I’ll tell you no! (Well if you catch me on a day when I’m feeling down I might just take you up on that offer) However there are days when I wish I had a more 9-5 alike job, where someone tells you what to do, how to do it and when to do it. I often find that on those days it is because I am lacking structure and haven’t planned what I will be doing. When you are a WAHM you have to rely on yourself to do those things and that can be challenging.

As a WAHM you have the option of doing things when you want to and how you want to. Of course, there are a times when you can’t change how something is done or there are deadlines to be met, but many times you are pretty flexible and can go off for a break whenever you want. Not to say you should take a break every ten minutes, you sure can if you want to, but you probably won’t work very effectively. In fact I have to remind myself of taking breaks more frequently. When I talk about breaks I mean a break where you distract yourself or gather your thoughts so that when you go back to your tasks you can focus better.

Because of the liberty that WAHM life brings it also means you have to act as your own boss and included in that job is watching over yourself, tell yourself what to do, when to do it and how to do it. If you are not very structured that can be very hard and you might find yourself missing out on deadlines and always trying to catch up on work that needs to be done.

Here are a three basic tips to help you get structured and work a bit more efficiently;

• Make lists, both for the household and your business. Make a list of the days when the bathroom will be cleaned, what day laundry is done and when the clothes will be ironed. Have set days for your business as well, what day you do specific tasks and how to ensure you meet deadlines.

• Always have goal. If you can clearly see your goal it will be much easier for you to ensure you do what is needed.

• Don’t be afraid to ask for help or invest in something that will help you work better. That can include a babysitter, a new program that will help you save time or anything else that in the long turn will be well worth the money.

With a basic structure your WAHM life will be so much easier and you will definitely not long back to your old 9-5 job.

How do you stay focused a as WAHM?

As I was cleaning up piles of cut papers, toys, crayons and additional mess my son made last night I couldn’t help thinking that there will be a day when I will miss this mess.

Right now I think it is pretty boring and time consuming to clean up after him and I was thinking just that a moment ago when a different thought came into mind and made the cleaning much easier. There will be a day when there won’t be any mess to clean up…

And that is a pretty sad thought actually, not at all nice as you might think. Instead I am reminded that these years will soon be gone to never come back. Son my son will be grown up and won’t need me to pick up after him any longer. He will be able to fix his sandwiches himself (actually he could really be doing that), he won’t need me to tell him what not to do or what to do.

I see how big my son already is, he is five now and I find that incredibly hard to believe. Where did my baby go?? That tiny little thing I held in my arms on New Years Eve 2003? Actually he was meant to be born January 1st on 2004, but instead the doctors decided that Dec 29 2003 would be a better day. I remember it like it was yesterday yet those days are so far away….

I’ll just continue to clean up this mess and be thankful that I have some mess to clean up, that is a blessing I was given.

One of the reasons I love living in Brazil is just because of the weather. The warm climate suits me perfectly!

But not in the winter.

In the winter it is cold.  Cold.  Cold. Did I say cold enough times? Once more?:  Cold.

If there had only been snow and really warm clothes to buy I guess that would have been OK.

But no snow, and it is hard to find really good warm clothes that don’t cost you a fortune. The cold came slowly about two weeks ago and yesterday it rained all day and today it is freezing!  I had to go into town today to pay some bills so I also took the opportunity to go to my favorite shop and see if they had any new warm clothes that would suit my critical taste. And they had imported clothes. Doesn’t that just say something about the clothes quality here?

Maybe it ’s just me, but I prefer European clothes in both styles and fabric. Finding anything with cotton here is difficult and more expensive, in Europe it’s normal and not necessarily more expensive. Well I managed to find a wonderful knitted imported cardigan and will now stay warm.

Now I just need to swap the flip flops for something warmer….

Work for me Wednesday – Homemade Salad Dressing

I love to make my own things and as an avid cook something I’ve thought about making myself lately is homemade salad dressing. I’m talking about the kind of salad dressing you buy in the supermarket, not the vinegar,salt, oil kinda thing you hastily put together before dinner. There were three reasons why I wanted to do this:
1. Definitely more economic
2. No strange and unknown additional ingredients – all natural and definitely more healthy.
3. I was pretty tired of the same old vinegar/oil/salt dressing. It is simple and lovely but sometimes you just want something new. lol

Well this morning I had some extra time to prepare food and I got this “now or never” moment that one gets once in a while so I started.

I can’t give you exact instructions for how I did it, sorry. But don’t worry about that! Becasue it actually makes it even better, then you can make sure you add what you like and not what I like.

TIP: I took a look at the old salad dressing bottle I had and checked what ingredients they used. it’s good to know that whenever you read ingredients on anything it is listed in the order of what it contains most. Meaning: the first ingredients on my salad dressing bottles was: water. So it contains more water than anything. However when I made my dressing that didn’t really do the trick for me so I used more oil than water.
Start out small, use only a little bit of everything so you can get tot eh taste you want and gradually add oil, water and vinegar. Perhaps you need to add a bit more salt. If you find that it is too acidy then try adding a few teaspoons sugar. (Check your salad bottle and you will see that sugar is included) That happened to me and when I added a few tsp of sugar it became much better.

To make your own homemade healthy salad dressing you need:

Oil (I used normal cooking oil)
Vinegar – red and white or just one of them
Water

Dried spices
Garlic paste

Extra tip for garlic lovers: Put 2-3 garlic “heads” (peel first!) in a blender with some oil and mix until smooth. Transfer over into a small recipient and add salt. Now you have a ready to use garlic paste!You can add dried herbs to this as well if you want to and store in an airtight container. Here in Brazil we use that all the time when we cook rice – I’ll tell you about that another day.

Of course if you don’t want to make lots of garlic paste then just add a few pressed garlic cloves.

Ok Linda, how do I make this dressing? (get to the point girl!)
I’m sorry, let me give you the full recipe;

Oil
Vinegar
Water
Dried spices and herbs
Garlic paste

(dried cheese for cheese dressing)

In a blender mix a little bit of oil, water and vinegar. Most oil, less water and even less vinegar. Add spices or herbs you like. I used ready dried spices with an Italian touch for one.

Keep mixing until you get the proportions right and it is delicious.

Cheese dressing:
I made two dressings, one with only herbs and another one with dried grated Parmesan cheese. It’s the same thing as before only that you add cheese to get that wonderful cheesy taste.

Storage: I took use of the bought salad dressing plastic bottles that I had saved from before, otherwise you can probably just use a plastic jar with lid.

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Previous post: Success In 7 Days – Start your Online biz in only 7 days!

It is finally here! The book that I’ve worked on for some time now. Actually I started writing it early last year, but I never got around to finish it off.

See I wanted to help moms to find a job they could do at home, to bring in some money to support their families. And I’m not talking about paid to click, paid to read or anything like that. I’m talking about a job they can do at home, over the internet.

It was hard in the beginning when I started, I looked around, but couldn’t find enough information on how to do it.
Everywhere I saw these “I know it all” people, but they never gave you real advice on how to do things or where to start. It’s like there is some secret going around and you can’t spell out and clearly explain how to start earning online.

Of course there are lots of valuable information out there, I shouldn’t say there isn’t. I just think it could be even more to make sure that moms especiallyaren’t beign scammed. Becasue moms are a vulnerable target for those out there
to fool. They play on the desperate need of making money and promise to bring in riches and riches.

So I’ve written Success In 7 Days – Start Your Online Biz In 7 Days! in there I’ve explained how to see what’s is scam or not,how to find out what you can do from home over the internet, how to get started and especially; how to price your services.It also includes information on how to work easier and make make sure you grow your business without working more.
The ultimate is to work less so you can spend more time with your children.

I’m not promising that you will get rich and famous – that all depends on you. What I’m giving is real advise that I wish I’d had when I started. Then perhaps I wouldn’t have spent so much time looking, but instead doing.

If you are wondering how to work at home and bring in some real money to your family doing something you like over the Internet then my tip is that you go check out Success In 7 Days. Right now it is part of the “10 Day May Madness” and is priced at only $5! Once the 10 Day May Madness is over
the 19th it will go back to regular price at $24.97

And if you are thinking, just like I was in the beginning,”but I can’t spend any money” then my best advise to you is: I wish I had know that to make money I had to spend money in the beginning. And $5 or $24.97 is nothing if you have the possibility to start workign at home without being scammed and only workign for yourself.

And know what? If you after $5 days really honestly think that my advise was worth nothing I will refund your money, no questions asked.

If you know someone who wants to work at home over the Internet , but don’t know how or where to start then guide them to Success In 7 Days.

Please let me know if you have any questions or comments!
Go to Success in 7 Days here.

God is taking me to amazing places and He is giving me so much more than I could ever ask for. I am so glad to be a woman saved by grace, but I am sad it took me such a long time to become one. Some days I wish it had happened earlier. That I would have had parents who talked to me about Jesus and what it means to live according to the Word.

God has a plan for us and He knows where we are to serve Him. It will not be where we think we should be , but where He wants us to be. God gives us spiritual gifts to use when we serve him and we have to find out what He wants for us. At my church we have a special “course” (I don’t know a better word for it) where you find out how you can best serve and to deepen your faith. I had a very high score on almost all gifts, but there were three that stood out and had the highest score, they were: Mercy, wisdom and encouragement.

“But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ” Efésios 4:7

“For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ” Efésios 4:12

I have always been a helper and I love helping whenever I can so I decided to start visiting those in need. I didn’t get very far though and didn’t visit one single person except one lady who has a wonderful testimony to give. I was asking God to show me where I should serve Him as I felt as if I wasn’t doing anything to serve Him.

Our church has been going under some changes lately which is changing the church in various ways. Last year our missionaries M & M left us which had a big impact of the church. M & M we miss you so much!! Our former pastor heard God calling him to serve in a different town and went to serve there. Our new pastor (or pastora as they say here, it’s a female pastor) was given some challenges, and one of them were our Children’s Ministry.

I noticed there were times no one was available to take care of the children, other times they were in the care of a younger adolescent and I wasn’t completely happy about that. When my son one day came out of there all smeared with paint I decided to raise my concern and I started to pray even more for the children’s ministry. As I was talking to a friend from church about it I suggested we started to involve the mothers as well because as it was it wasn’t satisfactory. We talked about me being in charge of organizing a list with the mothers who would help. We raised the idea to our pastor who thought it was a great idea and we had a meeting with the mothers. Without me saying a word about the idea coming from me the mothers appointed me as the organizer.

As the ministry was without a leader God put in my heart that I should accept the ´full leadership if so only temporary. And let me tell you how I know this is all God’s work; I’m not a children’s type of person. I don’t really know how to play with kids; I’ve never had the vocation to surround myself with children. I never thought I would be where I am today. But God worked my heart slowly but surely to make me pray for the ministry, to encourage me to involve myself and to change the way it was being taken care of.

I don’t really think this is my final destination, I am more seeing myself as a temporary solution until God raises the right people to take care of this precious ministry, but until then I will do the best I can and trust that He will lead me. And if he wants me to stay I’ll stay and serve Him with a glad heart!

“And now, Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul” De 10:12

When God says Go you just follow!

What has God been telling you lately? I am grateful God is working in my life, what are you grateful for today?  Read more about Gratefulness at Gratituesday!

I knew it would happen, I just knew.

Even before I got to bed I could feel it, that familiar feeling that wouldn’t let me sleep at night. Even though I knew it would happen I tried to fool myself and went to bed like I wasn’t feeling anything at all. I laid there for a while, squeezing my pillow, tossing and turning.

It was the thinking that was keeping me awake. The planning. This is an old friend of mine and he’s got me in his grip only that this time I felt it wouldn’t be the same. I felt it was time for a change. As I was lying there I kept thinking to myself “what time is it?” “Can I put on the computer to write just a little bit? Just a tiny little bit?” Of course I kept saying to myself to stop being so silly and go back to sleep.

It was impossible and before I could stop myself my body had risen and I was up in the living room. It was 11.45 pm, or 23,46 it you will. I could hear the neighbor’s dogs barking and before turning on the lights I hide myself behind the curtain looking at why they were barking. The cautious side of me told me to not turn on the light until I was sure they weren’t barking at someone on the street. There was no one on the street but a few dogs who were strolling around outside my gate to try and impress one of my female dogs “Jade”. This little experience served to know not to let her out or their will be little puppies here soon and we do not want that to happen.

I finally turned on the lights and did what I’ve done a dozen times, took out a pen and paper and started jotting down my ideas. I was thinking to myself how this could be different as I’ve done this a dozen times to no result, but I continued and after an hour I had three A4 full of ideas and plans. And this time I did something I’ve never done before: I put it up beside my desk as a reminder of what I need to do and want to do. It’s not only about what I need to do, it’s about what I want to do.

Oh what plans do you wonder? Just the usual thousands ideas of blogging and business… I am very good at brainstorming I can tell you! Need someone to brainstorm ideas with I can probably help you a long way.lol
And today I feel so good, I decided not to start writing after I had made my plans, but instead go to sleep. I fell asleep like a baby and slept the whole night without trouble. OWnderful feeling.

If you are struggling with something my advice is to pray about it and wait for the answer. If you are not the praying type, and not everyone is, then sit still for some time and think through what to do. Allow yourself the time it takes to form the plans and decisions you need to make. It can take a long time, but it will be worth it.

There are 4 things Mom bloggers wish they had done from the beginning when they started to blog, and here is how you can learn from them.

On Mom Bloggers Club there was recently a discussion about what mom bloggers would do if they could start all over again and here are the most important things most of them wished they had done before;

• Getting a domain name. When you start blogging for fun it can take some time to understand the value if having your own domain name. Not only will this bring you more credibility but also make your site more memorable than if it says blahablog.blahasubdomain.com if you want to make money with your blog it is even more important. A domain name costs from $1.99-$10/year so it is no big cost.
• Getting hosting. This goes hand in hand with the domain name issue and this is really the biggest issue and the most important one. When you use a free service your blog is not yours really. Anything can happen to your blog, there are several horror stories about how blogs have disappeared. Not that I want to scare you but it is the truth (I once had no access to my blogs because they went under the “spam” blog detection. A horrible thing really). You can find good reliable hosting for just a few dollars a month. I have been with Bluehost for a year and I am very happy with them and have never had any problem. Their support system is very good. I highly recommend them.
• Investing in a professional blog design. Because this is the area where I work and I see lots of blogs all day I cannot tell you enough how important this is. Your blog design makes the first impression and it is only natural that if your blog is nicely designed your readers will enjoy coming back. Once again; if you plan to make money with your blog this is just as important as the domain name and the hosting.
• Being more focused. Who are you blogging for? instead of blogging for the whole wide world, try and narrow it down a little bit and think through what you want with your blog. Who is going to read your blog and what topics will your write about? This can be a difficult question but it is worth thinking about.

If you have recently started to blog the above mentioned things will help you a long way. If you have started out on a free host such as B*logger then  moving to wordpress and your own hosting is still the best you can do. Wordpress is a wonderful blogging tool and can also be used for your business if you have one.

If you have any questions or would like to know more, leave a comment, email me or sign up for my personal mailing list where I will share even more tips with you!