A Makeup Emergency

I'm on the phone with a client this morning and letting my daughter, Emi, do whatever she pleases so she'll stay quiet. Mind you, I am in the same room, just letting her do her thing, so I can do mine.

I'm not paying much attention until I get off of the phone and turn around. She has taken a makeup "pack" out of my bathroom drawer, dug her nails into the 50 or so eyeshadow, lipsticks and blushes and "applied" the makeup to her face, clothes, tights, the bathroom carpet, and by the looks of the purple smudge on her teeth, has decided to eat some.

This with just 15 minutes to go before we need to scoot out the door to take my son to preschool. I did my best to clean her up so we could go, but some days, a girl's just got to have her "face on" before she presents herself to the world....

Employee Number One

There are certain times as a work-from-home entrepreneur that seem unbearable and one of those times, without question, is the passing of a pet. This week we had to put our beautiful dog Bogey down after a battle with cancer. Bogey was my stalwart companion. When I was on bedrest with my son Ethan, Boge put herself right down beside me and we toughed out the 5 weeks together. Not a day went by without her pawing my office door and once I let her in, laying down with a sigh at my feet. She was always here... until she wasn't.

As I work in my office, I find myself looking to the corner where she always laid and I'm missing her in so many new ways. Her wagging tail when I got home from meetings, her "love barks" in the middle of important conference calls, even her farts, which measured off the charts on the richter scale.

I think I would still miss Bogey just as much if I had a job outside the home, but I don't know that I would miss her as often.

So here's to you, my first and best "employee." You are missed more than you know.

Clean Up in Aisle 5...

As a non-coupon clipper I'm usually the one behind the person with the envelope huffing and puffing for them to hurry up so I can get on with it. But recently I read an article where a woman saved a whopping $75 on her grocery bill using coupons. It was one of those crazy articles where her total was $95 and her final tally was $17. WHAT?

Still stunned by a monthly grocery bill of $1200 per month for four (yes, you read that right), my mind reeled at the thought of saving all of that money. So the next morning I dutifully cut out all of my coupons and headed to the store with my one year old daughter. Each and every item I had clipped out was gone - every one! How could this be? We had just clipped out the coupons that morning.

I wearily made my way to the meat counter and asked the woman to give me the two for one coupon special on lunch meats. She looked at me and then at my overflowing cart and 15 month old. "Honey, that sale doesn't start until tomorrow."

So, with as much bravado as I could muster, I lifted my daughter out of the cart, asked them to restock it all said I'd visit again the next day.

Damn coupons!