Work at Home Mom Learns by Watching ?The Apprentice?

Lauren

Mommy's Helper - Mom's Market Ezine
Issue #121
Wednesday, March 15th, 2006

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Editor's Rambling:
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Note from Anita

Well, let?s see ? over the weekend we were running around with capris on and no coats ? today we have about ? ? of snow lying on the ground? Gotta love March, right? There?s been a lot of chatter around the message boards about the crazy weather we?ve been having lately, hope you?re having nicer weather than we are!

Do you think there should be 48 hour days vs. the 24 we have now? I often think how wonderful it would be for that to happen ? OR ? if I could just learn to survive without any sleep, I?d be one happy camper! But, you know how the saying goes, the more money you make, the more you?ll spend. The same concept applies to the more time you have on your hands, the more you?ll find to do to occupy that time. Just a little reminder from me personally this week ? don?t forget to give yourself a break once in a while Wink

Oh, and before I forget don?t you forget to stop by the message boards for our Post the Most Topics Contest! We have over $200 in prizes just waiting to be given away! You can find more details at http://mommyshelperonline.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3622

Till next week...

~Anita DeFrank
Mommy's Helper

Note from Kara

We've been extremely busy this week getting ready for several special announcements. If you aren't on our Direct Sales newsletter, you may not have heard about a new product to be released next week. Before we "let the cat out of the bag", we'll be having a chat on Thursday, March 16th at 7pm EST about the importance of calculating costs in Direct Sales. The chat will be held at WAHM Workshops, which is a new site owned by our friend Dianne from WAHM's United. Details can be found at: http://www.directsaleshelpers.com/chat.html

If you read our blog, you may have also heard about a new website to be announced shortly. It's still in the fine-tuning stage, but hopefully it will be ready by next week. In the mean time, feel free to read all about it at our blog: http://2wahms.blogspot.com

See you next week!

~Kara Kelso~
Mom's Market

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Article
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Work at Home Mom Learns by Watching ?The Apprentice?

Yes, I?m a self-proclaimed addict of The Apprentice. I must have my weekly dose of The Donald, Caroline, George and some angst-ridden hopefuls vying for the top spot. My husband likes to say he doesn?t like the show. But puzzlingly, he always seems to be around when the theme music comes on ? if not within those first three distinctive bass notes, then definitely by the time the O?Jays are singing.

So just why do I like watching? After all, I?m a work at home mom who was burned by corporate America twice ? once in a round of layoffs and again when I created a database my company was going to pay an outside consultant a nice sum of money to develop and I got zip for it. Is it that I want to live vicariously through the contestants? Am I subconsciously yearning to re-enter the corporate world with all of its office politics? Do I enjoy watching the contestants with bad interpersonal skills make horrible blunders and applauding those who excel due to their talent and people skills? Or, do I simply like the way Mr. Trump touts everything he touches as "the best"? Well, a little of all those things I guess. But, I mainly like watching it because it affords an opportunity to learn from other?s mistakes - and successes.

The skill set required for a top executive with ?Trump-worthy? caliber is essentially the same for a work at home mom that owns her own business. And on top of that, you?ve got to be able to apply those skills to your family. Some examples:

Time management ? deciding what can be done during the ever-so-precious nap time

People skills ?calming a loud child during a business call that you had to take

Creativity ? creating a new craft project to occupy your child during that call

Budgeting ? not giving in to your child?s wishes for everything he sees in the toy aisle

Conflict Management ? peeling apart two toddlers fighting over the same toy

Organization ? this can be as simple as having a place for your business papers that?s out the reach of inquisitive little hands

If only one of these skill sets is lacking, you can risk being unsuccessful and wind up in your own personal ?boardroom?, trying to figure out what went wrong. However, it?s not too late to try to get your act together. Some Apprentice contestants who have had their weakness identified for them (albeit on national television) were given the opportunity to make necessary changes in their performance. Perhaps in the end they didn?t win the top spot, but they came out of the experience wiser, and as a result, better poised for success. Some didn?t seem to learn from their mistakes, as revealed in their cab drive monologues. Perhaps they still experience a measure of success, but their inability to identify their weakness will always limit them.

Identify your strengths and weaknesses. Ask your husband, close friends and relatives what they think your strong and weak points are. Tell them not to be afraid to be honest, and then don?t get upset with them! Thank them for their honesty. Then, join a local work at home moms network where you can offer advice in your strong areas and get advice for the areas where you need it. If there isn?t one in your area, there are many great networks on the Internet ? just use a search engine and do a search for the phrase ?work at home moms help?. Try one or two out. If one doesn?t seem to be a fit for you, try another.

My suggestion for Mr. Trump? Have an episode where the contestants must create and host a two hour playgroup for ten children and their moms. Then, have the moms rate the results. Whichever team gets the highest ratings wins. Now that?s a true test of talent!

Angeline Schell worked in Corporate America for years, earning promotions and various performance awards. She decided to work at home after becoming a mom and does freelance writing alongside her main business of setting up wholesale shopping accounts. She lovingly manages a household of one husband, two toddlers and a cat.

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Childcare
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Parenting Tip: 10 Ways to Make Up Great Child Stories for Your Kids

It's fun to read child stories to your kids, but it's even MORE fun to make up your own. You don't need to be a creative genius to do so. All it takes is a little imagination and patience (with yourself). Follow these 10 suggestions, and you'll find that making up entertaining child stories is as easy as talking with a good friend.

1. A Picture's Worth a Thousand Words
Select a picture or series of pictures from a magazine, book, newspaper or wherever. Then describe what's happening in the picture or pictures.

2. Truth is Stranger than Fiction
Draw in events from your everyday life and then embellish them. For example, instead of "Jason played in the basketball game last Saturday," you could say "when Jason played in the basketball game last Saturday, he put on his magic shoes and scored 50 points!"

3. Look at the Larger World
Choose a story from the newspaper (nothing too heavy) and make up a story around it. You can personalize the news this way so that your child sees that real people are behind the events. This has the added benefit of being highly educational.

Just to prove that this can be done with even a "dry" topic, here's a headline from The Financial Times (the British business daily): "Crop Resistance - Why a Transatlantic Split Persists Over Genetically Modified Food." Depending upon your political views on this issue, you could make up a story that London is threatened by gigantic ears of corn, that soybeans morph into aliens or that wonderful new species of flora and fauna evolve in a genetically modified jungle that springs up outside New Orleans.

4. Get Back to Nature
Nature is a rich source of ideas. You can make up a story about the animal kingdom (e.g. an ant colony). You might imagine what it would be like to become an ant and see the world from that perspective. Or you could make up a story about the elements. Did you know that each element has a concept associated with it? Air = Thought, Fire = Desire, Water = Emotions, Earth = Stability. The universe or astronomy (sun, moon, planets, stars, etc.) is another possible source of inspiration.

5. Help from Your Hobbies
Why not make up a story centered around one of your hobbies? If you're an avid golfer, a story could be about how you got your golf ball back from a talking alligator in Florida.

6. Famous People
You could make up a story about a famous person (either deceased or still living) such as Jesus Christ, Alexander the Great or Justin Timberlake (might be best to try to stick roughly to known facts).

7. Choose a Time Period
It's always exciting to go back in time and imagine how people lived. This can be educational, too. You could make up a story about a Viking boy who becomes a great warrior and philosopher king.

8. Bring them to Life
What if all the objects in your life suddenly SPRANG TO LIFE? What would your car say? What would your TV do?

9. Borrow
If you're really "stuck", you can always borrow (but don't steal) ideas from other people's stories or get inspiration from folktales, parables, legend or myth. Just put your own ideas and names into the stories to personalize them. For example, you could take the Greek "Myth of Icarus" and update it for the 21st century. Instead of wings make from feathers and wax, Icarus has a solar-powered, artificial exoskeleton made from composite materials. With his hi-tech exoskeleton, he's actually able to land on the sun, but then he gets so hot that he plunges back to earth, drinks up half of Lake Ontario, and gets a terrible tummy ache.

10. Let Your Kids Tell YOU a Story
Kids are often more creative than adults, probably because they don't engage in self-censorship as much. They're not embarrassed to let their imaginations run wild! So, you could have your kids make up stories, too. They'll love getting involved and having the chance to express themselves.

You can combine any of the tips here with that approach. With tip #1, for example, you could take turns describing what's happening in a picture. It's fun to see how different people interpret a picture differently.

Another approach that I use with my own kids is the "story round robin". We take turns telling a single story, passing it on from one person to the next. The plot can get very intricate, indeed!

Conclusion

These are just a few ways you can get inspired to make up child stories. I'm sure you'll think of more. Above all, I hope you'll have a lot of fun with your storytelling!

P.S. If you record or write down any of your stories, you can send them to me and I'll publish them on my website with your name (and copyright) on them.

P.P.S. Here is a very interesting website that I discovered (not affiliated with me in any way) about the elements, astrology, dragons, etc.: http://www.orderofthewhitelion.com/. You'll find this a rich source of ideas.

Paul Arinaga is founder of the Child Stories Bank. http://www.child-stories-bank.com The Child Stories Bank provides FREE original children's stories as well as resources to help writers create and get their stories published, and a directory of child storybook illustrators.

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Coffee Break
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The Hapless Homemaker ? Not A Perfect 10

?Lisa Barker

My homemaking skills are not what they could be. Thanks to the women?s movement, when I was a child one did not waste time on domestic skills. Add to that my own tomboy distaste for the domestic arts (like sewing) and you have one hapless homemaker as a result.

Take cooking for example. Now I?m a pretty good cook and can whip up a roast with oven-browned potatoes, gravy and Yorkshire pudding with ease. I can please my husband with some good hearty meals and decadent desserts without inviting the local fire department each time. But I simply cannot go into the kitchen and make anything without hurting myself in some way.

Even if it?s just to butter toast, I will come out with a burn, blister, cut or singed hair. It never fails.

Ergo, not only do I wear an apron to protect my clothes but I also wear chain mail when slicing tomatoes and an insulated asbestos suit when baking cookies. I?ve been known to scare the beans out of my toddlers that way. One minute I?m taking my life in my hands over a hot stove and then next minute I run to find out why so-and-so is crying still dressed like a firefighter complete with a mask and chicken apron.

It does discourage door-to-door salespeople, so it?s not that bad.

Yet, even with all these precautions I take, I still manage to get hurt in some way while making a meal.

The kids are starting to take bets. They?ve even got chalkboards set up to keep track of the odds.

So it serves them right when they poke at what I?ve served and ask me what it is. ?Spaghetti and meatballs?but let me know if you find my finger. I accidentally sliced it off when I was preparing the sauce.?

?Cool!? (The boys.)

?Mother!? (The girls.)

My husband just shakes his head. He?s learned not to point fingers.

Laundry? Don?t get me started. Nothing gets by my super-shrink powers. My husband is not impressed with his purple socks and pink underwear. Who knew the power of bleach on black socks and the inconspicuous red sock mixed in with the whites? I still haven?t figured out how to get the seven melted crayons out of the dryer vents.

And what?s up with dry clean articles? Whose idea was it to put that notice on such a tiny bit of fabric that I only check AFTER the garment has come out of the dryer. Did you know a grown man in a shirt four sizes too small looks curiously like the monkey at the wharf with the man playing the organ grinder?

So, I?m a hapless homemaker, but I?ve got a good heart and my family knows it. The kids just showed me their chalkboards: 9, 9, 8, 9 and a perfect 10.

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Jelly Mom? is written by Lisa Barker, author of "Just Because Your Kids Drive You Insane...Doesn't Mean You Are A Bad Parent!" and syndicated through Martin-Ola Press/Parent To Parent. To publish Jelly Mom, buy the book or leave comments, please visit http://www.jellymom.com.

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Recipes
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German Chocolate Chip Bread

2 boxes of German Chocolate cake mix
2 small boxes of chocolate instant pudding
1- 12 oz sour cream
10 eggs
1 1/2 cups of oil
1/2 cup of water
12 oz of chocolate chips
1 cup of chopped nuts (if desired)

Instructions:
Mix together all ingredients. Pour into three greased loaf pans. Bake at 325 degrees for one hour or until done when tested with wooden pick.

May be frozen, heated in microwave, and keeps well in refrigerator for several days.

Do you have a favorite recipe to share?
Post them at Mommy's Helper Community (www.MommysHelperOnline.com/phpBB2)!
Note: Recipes must be quick, easy, healthy, and original. Nothing from a cookbook or a box please.

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