Archive for the 'The Home Office' Category

You Almost Lost Me Last Night

Friday, November 3rd, 2006

Although this post is a little dramatic, I mean it when I say you almost lost me last night - as in, my whole family and could have easily died.

Our whole house was filled with carbon monoxide at 2:00am.

Thankfully I was actually up and working on a deadline and didn’t sleep through the CO2 alarms going off - which we stupidly only had installed in the furthest-from-our-bedroom basement corner of our home.

PLEASE ensure you have CO Detectors (an affiliate link - but I would feel better if you got them now at a local store) installed and working in your homes today. According to our (wonderful!) local fire department:

eMom is happy her kids are safe!If you start showing signs of Carbon Monoxide poisoning while you are sleeping, you can be guaranteed you won’t wake up.

The most important place to put a CO2 detector is near your bedrooms. We had dangerously high levels on the top floor of the house, but our CO2 detector that I placed on the middle floor never went off (because I didn’t trust the first reading from an older detector in the basement :: dumb).

Signs of Carbon Monoxide poisoning include nausea, headaches, vomiting and flu-like symptoms. The key difference between the flu and CO2 poisoning is that the whole family will come down with it at once - whereas the flu knocks over family members one at a time.

If your CO2 detectors go off, call 911 right away (though I have in the past turned them off and they didn’t go on again - I’m thinking that wasn’t the smartest move now…)

Here’s a link to the full Wikipedia article on Carbon Monoxide Poisoning

Please be safe and keep your families safe too. I was lazy and had 2 CO2 detectors sitting in the store bag for months. I assure you today they are working and in their proper places.

Do the same and make sure you have a CO2 detector for every level of your house. And SPREAD the word - having these detectors in your home is now a law in most states, anyway!

~

*Edit* For those of you who are curious, I am still sitting in a very cold house as I wait on the second professional to come out to our house and figure out what the problem is. The gas co. and fire department seemed pretty confident there was something blocking the flue. The hvac guy I just had out here wasn’t able to find anything in the flue, nor able to figure out a furnace problem without charging us a lot of $$. I’m now waiting for a chimney sweep to come out and check the flue more thoroughly…

The wonderful chimney sweeping company found two dead squirrels in the flue - we are all clean and finally safely warming up!
I am so happy and grateful, not much can bother me today :)

Job Posting :: Chicago-based Email Marketing Coordinator

Monday, October 30th, 2006

One of the other paying gigs that has landed in my lap recently is a recruiting job from one of my old clients (I used to do a lot of recruiting work in the online marketing niche for Chicago companies).

I’m working on behalf of my client to find an Email Marketing Coordinator to work in their Chicago-based office. The big “must” for this position is that they are looking for someone with html experience, and someone who loves social networking. It’s an entry-level position with some huge potential for growth for someone who is really self-directed.

I doubt many of my readers will fit the bill for this one - but if you know someone who would be a good fit or even interested, please have them get in touch with me directly, or send me their contact info.
My contact page is the best way to reach me, by the way - thanks in advance for helping to spread the word!

The complete job description is in the full blog entry (more…)

A Productive and Organized Home Office

Thursday, September 14th, 2006

I haven’t talked much about my own home office, mostly because it has been under construction for a few months. For a while there, I was even breaking my own work at home rule by working in the living room with SpongeBob songs in the background. But that was at least better than working in this mess:

eMom under construction

Like the footprints in the dust? I thought that was a nice touch.

Anyway, the office is near complete, and I am finally moved in. Check out my soon-to-be-spiffy new digs:

eMom's spiffy new digs

Once I moved in, I was immediately able to tune out the noise in the house - at the same time, by finally working at a real desk again in my own little cubby, my mind and body immediately knew it was time to get to work, and I focused more than ever before.

With renewed focus came also tons of energy. Which then started spilling over into other areas of organization:

  • I spent many hours [way more than I care to admit to] cleaning out Outlook. I had well over 5000 emails (just from April!!) in various folders - including my deleted items. Thanks to inspiration from wonderful professional organizer Jessica Duquette, every single email is in its proper folder, or permanently deleted (as in, even gone from my deleted items *shudder*!).
  • I have a beautiful new armoire in my kitchen - something I have wanted for months - because the cabinets simply couldn’t hold all of our stuff (and I keep my kitchen lean - I don’t spend enough time there to justify too much tupperware or rarely used gadgets!)
  • I am making weekly commitments to tackle different areas or long-standing piles of stuff. Since we moved into our house less than a year ago, I’m totally guilty of sitting on unpacked boxes. Last week it was the garage and not allowing any dirty dishes in my sink for more than an hour. This week I am committing to completing the office bookcase and trim so that my workspace is fully complete.

Great lessons came from this experience for me - which started when the aforementioned Jessica turned me onto another professional organizer’s blog, Ariane Benefit’s Neat Living.

I’ve blogged about both of these wonderful and inspirational ladies before - but the impact of their work is finally coming to fruition in my business and life - and WOW. WHAT a difference!

Some key takeaway lessons learned - and my fave links from these Queens of the White Space:

  • Clutter robs us of our energy - which is exactly the energy we need to run a productive and successful home based business
  • Too much stuff distracts you from the present and keeps you attached to the past
  • The stress of always having to look for something is enormous - and hurts the ones we love the most
  • Read it more eloquently from the horse’s mouth:

And I want to thank both of you for your wonderful blogs - and want to suggest that everyone subscribe to their feeds - Jessica and Ariane consistently write great articles that I am able to put to use on a consistent basis!

But What if I Don’t Want to be an Entrepreneur?

Thursday, August 3rd, 2006

I know that I focus a lot on starting up your own business here on my site, simply because I can’t seem to stop myself from starting up businesses (I swore off of them last time… I think I need EA meetings… Hi, my name is Wendy, I’m an Entreprenur Addict…)

Anyway, I know there are a lot of moms out there who want to work from home, yet just aren’t cut out for this business building gig. No worries. Thanks to Sarah Zeldman’s SolutionsForBusyMoms Blog, I can send you to a great resource to learn all about Telecommuting. Rather than steal her thunder, just go read the post!

New Work at Home Articles Section Coming Soon

Wednesday, July 26th, 2006

I was up until the wee hours of the morning last night to meet my own self-imposed deadline to have three new articles written for the eMoms at Home site. The topics include:

The Top 10 Personal Barriers to Professional Success

The Top 10 Work at Home Key Success Ingredients

Secrets to Faster Blogging Success

I just need some time to proofread the work and build the site section, so look for this new resource by the end of the week. DONE!!

New eMoms Home Office Store

Monday, June 26th, 2006

Well, in a quick little brainstorm, I decided to add an affiliate store to the eMoms at Home site. The site is getting great traffic based on what I am writing about, and it seems silly to just have it be a blog sitting here. I’m working at home to make money from home, and key to that is ensuring I am constantly planting the seeds of revenue.

Since my home office is still under construction, I can’t quite go shopping for my home office as of yet. But everyone else can in the new eMoms Home Office Store. I had a great setup in our old house in our basement - and I LIVED at OfficeMax, which was practically walking distance from where we lived. Now, it’s farther away, but I now have my own OfficeMax store to stock up on whatever I need.

Clutter in the Home Office

Tuesday, June 20th, 2006

Ah, a topic near and not-too-dear to my heart. Clutter. I don’t just have it in my home office, I got it everywhere! Well, actually, I will admit in all fairness that my home is much less cluttered than ever before in my life. This is mostly due to the fact that we finally have a home large enough for our 5 person family. Keeping clutter out of the way in a tiny home with so many people is a disaster waiting to happen - but it happens to all of us from time to time.

I found a great blog today called “It’s not about your stuff!Get productive, the lazy way! Jessica Duquette, lifestyle and productivity consultant, has the recipe to make your life flow more smoothly…”. (more…)