Posts Tagged ‘Sleep’

Stressed, yes, that is the word of the day… maybe even the week… or month! But really it’s all good right?  Things are popping for us in so many different ways that I’m getting dizzy!  But most of it’s good change.  But change, no matter what kind it is, usually makes me a stress bunny!  So that’s exactly what’s kept me from posting lately.  I’m so stressed I can’t even think straight!  LOL!

So what exactly has me so stressed?  Well for one thing, our business is growing big enough that we’ve decided to actually rent an office.  Although I’m half excited about that, half not so excited about it.  I like working from home… even if I’m stuck to a desk for 12 hours a day, it’s still home.  I see my boys all day long and really if I absolutely HAD to do something, I could leave anytime (depending on how busy we are).  But getting an office means so many different things.

No more rolling out of bed and working in my P.J.’s all day long.  No more waiting till the first call comes in to sleep.  No more late nights.  No, with an office I actually have to get up, get dressed BEFORE someone calls.  BLECH!  But then the good things about it is, there is a real separation of home and office.  No more animal noises in the background when I’m on the phone.  No more getting mad at the boys for fighting or playing their music too loud.  No, the quiet office will be a nice change.

One of the reasons why we’ve decided to get an office is so the boys can have their own rooms.  Right now they share a room.  One of the rooms is our office.  Without having the office in the house, then they can have their own rooms.  We’re still looking for a bigger place, but it’s a heck of a lot easier to find the right place without having to worry about having enough rooms for everyone and an office.

We were trying to find a place where my mom & sister could live with us and the boys could have their own room, AND we could have an office.  But that would mean a 6 bedroom house.  Well, 6 bedroom houses are NOT cheap!  And they are few and far between.  For a while we thought that my sister might decide to move back to California and live with another family member.  5 bedroom houses are a little easier to find, and a little cheaper, but not much.

That’s when we decided that having an office out of the house would make things SOOO much easier!  So we found an office and we’re going forward with it.  Then we decided that we needed to find a 4 bedroom house that wasn’t too far from the office.  Well that’s when the Universe kicked in!  The stars all seemed to align together perfectly to find what may be the best fit for our family!!

Ok, no, that’s not the house.  Let me tell you how I found the place before I describe it.  I was looking online at rentals near our office and came across this nice 4 bedroom 2 bath house, with a pool, in our price range.  It looked really cute and all that.  Well Thursday we were out running errands and accidentally got onto the wrong freeway.  Well when we got off the freeway again I noticed that we just passed the street that the house was on.  So we turned around and found it.  Turns out the house next door to it is for rent as well.  We get out of the car, it’s at night, and are looking around it.  It’s a nice neighborhood.  We get back into the car and are about to drive away when an SUV pulls up beside us.  The guy in the car says he’s the owner of the two houses and asks if we’d like to see inside.

So there are two houses right next door to each other, about 3 miles from our new office.  The one house is a 4 bedroom (really only a 3 bedroom with another room that’s like a big closet), 2 bath, with a basement, tons of storage, huge kitchen and a pool.  Gardening & pool service are included in the rent, which is only a little more than what we’re paying for the house we’re in.  the house next door is a 2 bedroom 1 bath, with tons of storage, huge backyard, and is perfect for my mom and sister.

So we talked it over with Mom and Sis.  We all went to “officially” see the houses with the property manager on Sunday.  We all loved the houses!  They are each perfect for us!  And within our price range.  The move in is going to be a little difficult, but Steve and I have already been saving and have enough to cover our move in costs.  So covering mom & Cindy’s move in won’t be too hard.  So today we’ve put in the applications for the rental agreements!  Now comes the REALLY hard part…….

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There are many advantages to having a website. Just a few of them include being able to market your business globally, being able to accept orders while you sleep, and allowing people to receive information about your business in real time.

When you put your site online, you have a couple of choices. You can use a free web host or you can pay for web hosting. Your web host is the company that transmits your site onto the World Wide Web.

Web hosting is very affordable, and even those on the tightest budgets should make this a priority. Here are a few reasons why hosting your own site is the better alternative.

First and foremost, using a paid web host will keep your business image professional. When you use a free web host, you may look cheap or inexperienced. That isn’t the image you want to project to potential customers.

Many providers of free web hosting will display banner ads across their users’ sites. Since they are not receiving revenue through payment for their web hosting services, they need to earn revenue somehow. And so, these companies either display their own ads or the ads of others’.

As a user, you have no control of which ads are displayed. These ads could potentially offend your target market. If, by chance, the ad has something to do with the content on your page, your website visitor may click the ad, leave your site, and purchase an item from the other company instead of purchasing your product.

Many web hosts offer great customer support – to their paying customers. If you choose to use a free web host, they may only offer limited support or no support at all. If you have trouble transferring files or something of that nature, you may be left to figure it out by yourself. This can cause a lot of frustration.

Depending on the company you purchase your web hosting from, various features and benefits will be included. Some common features and benefits include message boards, online photo albums, blogs, shopping carts, and more. These items may not be included in the free web host plans.

When you pay for your web hosting, your web host company will guarantee the amount of time your website will be up and running. Usually, the guarantee rate falls between 95 and 99 percent. Free web hosts do not guarantee how much “up time” you will have. If your website is only up 50% of the time, you are potentially losing 50% of any traffic you send to your site.

As you can see, paying a small monthly fee to a web host is well worth the money. You can find web hosting for under $4 per month. Some companies will allow you to host unlimited sites for under $10 per month.