Tuesday, December 02, 2008

I Think I Need Oprah's Best Life Challenge

Photo of Oprah Winfrey at her 50th birthday pa...Image via WikipediaWow, It's almost 2009 already.

What a year. Hanna is getting bigger. We got her weaned. We're working on getting her potty trained.

My business is taking off. I've partnered with some amazing people over the year. I wrote an ebook that's doing quite well. I recently launched a membership site to help walk people through my favorite online marketing method.

and oh yeah. My belly is getting really big and so is my butt. (no I'm not pregnant, this is a bad thing)

It seems the more time I spend sitting at this desk I grow exponentially. It makes sense, it just seems a little unfair.

So I guess I'm in the same boat as Oprah, it looks like she's let herself go this year as well.

I've been seeing promo's for the Best Life Challenge, maybe she will be starting that again this year. Maybe I can get motivated and get on the band wagon to get in shape and lose some weight with Oprah.

It's frustrating. I've been getting so many areas of my life in order, and yet this weight thing is getting more and more out of whack.

Ahhh the balancing act that is my life ~ and I imagine any moms life. It just seems I don't move at all anymore. Here's a little bit of my "job progression"

Worked in Brooklyn, only transportation to client's homes was my feet (bus/subway).

Moved here ~ got a car. Drove to client's homes.

Quit job ~ turned WAHM. Don't even have client's homes to go to. Simply slide my butt in a chair in my living room and work, and work and work.

So from 5 miles a day to NADA and I wonder why my butt is growing. lol.

Something has got to be done. Just wondering how I find the motivation and consistency to make it happen.
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Friday, May 16, 2008

An Introduction to Children's Summer Camps

by Karen Thurm Safran

Children's summer camps offer kids a distinct opportunity that enables them to open up their mind to explore new things. They are also provided with a background to have some fun along with learning. You should not end up considering a single camp to be perfect for your kid. A cluster of summer camps that includes sport camps, computer camps, theatre camps etc. are the options available to choose from.

Attending summer camp is often the first time that children spend an extended period of time away from home, but they also have many advantages. Many children's summer camps employ high school or college kids as guides on the camps so that the kids feel relaxed and able to enjoy themselves.

Most children's summer camps offer a unique setting where kids are introduced to lifelong values such as character, integrity, teamwork and leadership. Besides this, most of the activities promote these values also and encourage both independence and teamwork. For example, there are activities such as outdoor adventures, sports, leadership training and carefully selected field trips.

Some options have to be taken into consideration while choosing a summer camp. There is a range of summer camps like dance camps, computer camps, sport camps, theater camps etc. may confuse you which one to choose. Though the summer camps that emphasize the arts are popular, computer camps are more preferred.

There is a computer camp called iD Tech Camps found at www.internaldrive,com is one of the most rewarding children's summer computer camp for your kids. They have been serving as a medium or tool since 1999 that imparts computer programs like computer programming, animation and games.

A children's summer camp is of a great advantage to attend for your kids because it provides them with devoted counselors and brilliant role models to interact with. They inspire them to learn something new and interesting. The children who attend the camp are quite safe secured under the supervising eye of qualified and experienced camp organizers.

Another advantage of attending a children's summer camp is that there are dedicated counselors and excellent role models available for your kids to see and interact with. Also, there are parents and experienced camp organizers in charge of the event, so the children who attend camp are safe and well cared for.

All aspects of the summer camp are organized to the last detail and have been run through many times before. This ensures that your child has the best possible experience. Even things such as the pickup at the airport to the last moment of the camp when the kids are boarding the home-bound flight can be pre-arrange to minimize worry.

Parents often remark how much more mature their sons and daughters seem in just a few short weeks following a summer camp which gives an indication of the huge advantage of having your child attend a summer camp.

About the Author:



Thursday, March 27, 2008

Hanna's first craft project

Today Hanna and I went to the local library for story time. This is our really local little, tiny library. I must admit though, they have an awesome children's library. Better I think than the one in Wichita.

Today story time was all about cows. We listened to three books about cows, all of which were quite funny and entertaining. Hanna was awesome. She sat in her little chair~ without touching me ~ through all three stories.

This story time is a little different than the Wichita story time we've been going to. In Wichita there is dancing and singing and moving about during story time and of course BUBBLES at the end!!

Here they just read a few books, AND THEN there is a craft project. I wasn't sure how she was going to do with a craft project but she did great!! She jumped right up to the table and grabbed out some crayons she wanted, colored away on her cute little cow. She talked to other children and was actually interactive! Woo hoo.

So here's Hanna and her first craft project. (while she's eating lunch, the cat's trying to get her ham, and she won't put down the olive)

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Staying on track!

Spring is getting here ~ today it was 69 degrees. Those kind of days absolutely must be spent at the . . . Playground!!!

I've been trying to get all my work done in the morning so I can go out and play in the beautiful weather all afternoon with Hanna. Luckily, things have been going well and I can get done what I need to get done before Hanna gets up from her nap.

I have to say it is still so easy to get sidetracked. I think the best thing I've done for my business is to decide who I want to work with in my business. When I figured that out, it was easy to identify WHY I wanted to work with those people, as well as find them!

Sometimes I think if things don't seem enough like work, it's easy to let myself get sidetracked. Even though that is one thing I love about working from home, it doesn't seem like work.

It's getting to know other people, and helping them if I can. That's fun for me, and it is ALL the WORK I have to do!! (just a quick reminder for myself. lol)

Sometimes I just make things too hard for myself when they don't need to be.

I added new Easter and tricycle pictures at myspace if you want to check them out.

Friday, March 21, 2008

The Next 6 Months

I realized I've gone and done it again, as much as I preach to stick to one thing I just looked around and realized I've been jumping from thing to thing to thing, not getting anywhere, again.

Dang, well that's ok. I've decided to pick up where I left off before I started roaming. I am going to get it together and work on one thing for the next 6 months.

I almost started a whole new blog, but I thought hmmm, that's just one more thing to take care of, so I am going to stick with this blog and make it my new home for the next 6 month challenge!

For the next 6 months I am going to stick to doing ONE THING!! (is there a post on this blog about 3 months ago that says the same thing?) ~ well it's really all about noticing you are off course and getting back on.

I love getting involved in new things, and trying new things. I know if I try to stop myself from doing that I will be frustrated and unhappy. What I've decided to do instead, is apply whatever new things I come across to my ONE THING. I think I can do it.

This one thing is a powerful opportunity to change my financial situation. I was thinking as I was laying in Hanna's bed in the middle of the night about all the things I have worked on in the last few months and I think they can all pretty much be applied to the one thing in some way shape or form. It's just one more way to challenge myself.

So stick around, and if you see me straying from just one thing ~ call me on it!

Jackie Lee :)

Thursday, March 20, 2008

OM Chant ~ Fill Yourself with the Vibration

I found a great blog today, while I was looking through BlogCatalog. It's all about mastering meditation, which I would love to do and find it difficult with a loud and rambunctious toddler in the house, but you know, baby steps.

Anyway, on this blog is a great OM meditation video I thought I would share with you all. If you have never done the OM meditation you will find it a wonderful way to fill yourself with the vibration of the universe.

Give a try and let me know what you think. :)

Jackie Lee

PS. I don't know if I told you, but I have started a new blog just about raising a spirited toddler. If you have one, or would like to follow along with her crazy antics, and my "trying to give up perfectionist" ways of dealing with her please stop by.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Kirtan Kriya ~ Meditation


I just received another addition of my Yoga for EveryBody newsletter. Today they included an amazing meditation, with a mantra as well as some hand movements. I just went through the meditation with the video and must say it is very powerful.

The Mantra is easy to remember it's just Sat Nam ~ which means truth and Name. When you repeat the mantra you are saying that you are part of the universal truth (which we all are).

The mantra breaks down into 4 parts. Sa Ta Na Ma. You press your thumb together with each of your fingers on each syllable. So for Sa you would press together your thumb and pointer finger, for Ta it would be thumb and middle finger, Na is thumb and ring finger and Ma is thumb and pinky.

This uses aspects of acupressure to change your brain waves. It is said to be very good for managing addictions as well.

The host of the video walks a executive on business through the meditation, and provides excellent instruction along the way.

If during the day you find yourself getting frustrated with the kids, not being able to get done everything you'd hoped, why not take five minutes to stop and do a little meditation to get you back in the right frame of mind.

Here's the link ~ feel GOOD!

Kirtan Kriya Meditation

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Nursing a baby

As you probably know we are still nursing in this house, although we have managed to wean this spirited toddler down to only nursing before nap and before bed.

This post really isn't about nursing Hanna. It's about Hanna nursing her baby. :)

Yesterday I heard her playing with her baby, talking about eating and I turned around to see her with her shirt up and her baby nursing. AAAAH, it was so cute. I was so proud.

I only wish I had been quicker and quieter with the camera and gotten a picture of it.

Do your breastfed kids nurse their babies? I'm just wondering and would love to hear. I hope this means the value of breastfeeding has been truly ingrained in her and she will nurse her babies when she's a mama.

I'd love to hear your stories of your babies nursing their babies, leave me a comment and tell me all about it~

Jackie Lee

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Baby Days at Walmart

If you are getting ready for a baby you might want to hop over to Wal Mart.com. They are having a huge sale on everything baby. They cut their already low prices on everything from bedding cribs to clothes and carseats.

Everything you need for baby is on sale. This sale only lasts from Feb 16 to March 1st. :)

Wal-Mart.com USA, LLC

Wednesday, February 06, 2008

Help Me Stay Top Momma!

A long long time ago I signed up at Top Momma. It's a site that helps you get traffic to your blog. I promptly forgot all about it, until this morning. I received an email saying I was TOP MOMMA!

Let me tell you how this works. It's a really simple and fun idea. There's a square of 25 boxes on the site. In each box is a picture. Each picture takes you to a Momma's Blog. You get to stay Top Momma (and in the square) by the number of clicks you get on your picture as well as other moms you refer to Top Momma.

Here's where I need you help. Please go to Top Momma and look for this picture of Hanna:


and Click It!

That's all, it's that simple. When you click it will take you to my blog, and I will get credit for the clicks.

If you are a Momma Blogger you might want to sign up to be Top Momma yourself. It's free and pretty fun to see your picture up there in the top spot. The key is picking a really cute/interesting picture people are going to want to click on.

I'll let you know how much traffic I get from this.

Thanks again!

Jackie

***UPdate***

Well I didn't last long at Top Momma ~ just 1 day. But it was fun. I'm not really sure if it drove much traffic to my blog. ~ The logo's cute though?!

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Our first bout of Sickness

I guess I'm really a mom now. Last night Hanna puked all over me. Poor thing. She had a stuffy nose and was sneezing, but didn't really act sick.

I had finished nursing her before bed and she was laying there, getting ready to fall asleep when all of a sudden, BLecK. Yuck. Poor baby.

She's not a sick kid and the only sickness she's had is stuffy/runny nose with teething, never has she had the vomiting.

She looked like she had no idea what to do, and looked so confused. We ended up having to shower off as we were both covered. She stayed up and was super clingy after that. She finally fell asleep about 10, and ended up sleeping until 8:30a. That's completely unheard of.

She's been fine today, sipping on juice and soup. Hopefully she is over the pukey part. She's still got a runny nose and some sneezing. We are using "Sniffles and Sneezes" homeopathics to help with that and it seems to be working pretty well.

Aaaah, passed another milestone. The first puking. The joys of motherhood. :)

Friday, January 25, 2008

Practical Yoga ~ Yoga Quickies

Wow,
I didn't realize I hadn't been here in so long. Shame on me.

Great things going on for me, South Beach is going pretty well. I've dropped a little over 5 pounds since my last post. I've not stuck to the first phase completely, but I'm doing the best I can and giving myself credit for what I am doing instead of beating myself up for the things that I could do better.

I've been trying to take that attitude into my day to day life as well. It seems to be working. The more I look at what's going right, the more things show up that are right.

I've gotten a couple new coaching clients in the last couple weeks, and I landed an amazing client for some of my writing services. It looks like this is going to be a long term relationship and that is pretty exciting.

I had just been playing the "wouldn't it be nice . . . " game and then along came this client. If you aren't familiar with "wouldn't it be nice" ~ it's a great law of attraction game you can play to lighten up when you get stressed out.

It goes something like this ~

wouldn't it be nice if ~ I got this great client
wouldn't it be nice if ~ I had 5000 dollars each month by the 15th in the bank
wouldn't it be nice if ~ Hanna would sleep all night
wouldn't it be nice if ~ Hanna decided to use the toilet again

I think you get the point. The cool thing about wouldn't it be nice is the energy around it. You don't get the oh, that will never happen for me feeling because ~ yeah it would be nice if all those things happened!!! You get to kind of go with it, and think about how cool it would be and it really raises my vibration.

You know once you get to a vibration that's a match to those things they show up. Last week it happened for me pretty quick with this new client.

Wow, not sure where all that came from, I really decided to post today because I just found the coolest website.

I'm trying to get back into a regular yoga/pilates practice ~ although I've not been as successful as I'd hoped to be by now, I do keep finding new resources that move me in that direction.

Anyway, in a Yoga email I get everyday there was a great little video for a "Yoga Quickie". After I watched it I realized there was a whole website and a video. The website is really cool and they have lots of short Yoga Quickie videos you can watch. Pretty fun.

IF you only have a minute, but want to get in some yoga, maybe you could try a Yoga Quickie. I'm going to try ~ because a little is better than none. :)

Have fun and don't forget to breathe.

Jackie Lee

Friday, January 18, 2008

South Beach Update

I'm on day 5 of South Beach Diet. I'm feeling really good. I've had the opportunity to eat really badly a couple times this week and have managed to choose wisely.

I've lost a few pounds already which is always nice.

IF you care to take a look, I'm tracking my meals over at Peer Trainer. IF you've never used peer trainer it's a pretty cool website. They have "groups" and "teams". Teams are small ~ up to 4 people. Groups are larger.

With your account you get a "log" where you can update your meals, exercise, any notes to yourself or your team. You can also leave messages to your team ~ the whole team will be able to see them. It's really nice if someone is doing really well you can leave them a way to go message. If someone is not doing so well you can remind them it all starts with the next meal, or the next choice. If you'd like to see my log drop on by

It is a very interactive platform that allows you to really support and help one another. My team is made up of my best friend, one of her friends and one of my friends from CafeMom. It's just another way women can support women in their efforts to lose weight and get healthy. (of course it's not just for men) :)

If you are looking to have some support in your weightloss efforts you might want to gather up a few friends and head over to peer trainer. :)

Monday, January 14, 2008

Best Life Challenge

South Beach or Best Life Challenge? I know I just started South Beach again today but Oprah got me pretty motivated today. She had Bob Greene on again and they started another Best Life Challenge.

I'm thinking about jumping ship. I put together a nice lens over at Squidoo on the Best Life Challenge.

I'm going to do a little more looking over The Best Life Challenge to see which I'm going to like better and feel would be more successful for me. I'll add to the lens as I do more research.

Enjoy!!

Jackie Lee :)

Do You Squidoo?


I love Squidoo. It's a great place to get information and it's a great place to earn a little extra cash. IF you've never played over at squidoo you should check it out!

This month over at the 30 Day Marketing Experiment Blog we are delving in to how to make money at squidoo ~ how to build lenses and everything you ever wanted to know about squidoo.

I have put up a couple new lenses recently and continue to add to my little lens collection. Here's a couple of my new lenses.

How to Cure Morning Sickness

Compare Online Diet Plans

Here's some of my favorite all time lenses.

What is a Vision Board?

Cloth Diaper Resource

Breastfeeding Resources

Here's one that brings in a fair amount of change each month.

How to add more friends at Myspace


As you can see you can come up with all kinds of things to talk about over at Squidoo. If you are interested in it, chances are someone else is too! You can easily monetize your lenses with certain "modules" like ebay, amazon and cafepress. The cool thing is you don't have to be an affiliate or do anything other than add that module to your lens to be able to get paid. Very cool, and it's a lot of fun.

OF course there are tons of advanced techniques you can learn to completely spiff up your lenses, and there are tons of ebooks and courses you can get about how to make money with Squidoo. I've bought a lot of them, and gotten some for free. The free ones tell you mostly how to set up a lens, going through each of the modules and that kind of information.

If you want to learn how to do some advanced stuff and market your lenses my favorite is Squidoo Queen, she definitely overdelivered.

Just one word of warning ~ Squidoo can quickly take your lens to number one over at google so if you are talking about stuff you don't want anyone else to know about ~ don't do it. ;) It is true Squidoo quickly ranks high in search results so you can quickly get a lot of traffic to your lens and if you have traffic and a good lens you can make some sales pretty easily.

If you haven't been there ~ check out Squidoo. If you have been there, go make a new lens. I'd love to see it. Leave me a comment, which will also be a nice backlink for your lens.

Until tomorrow,

Jackie Lee

Sunday, January 13, 2008

Getting Started with South Beach Diet ~ again

I mentioned in my last post I was trying to lose some weight and get in shape, so I'm getting started with South Beach Diet ~ again.

I was thinking this morning that a great goal would be for me to lose some weight and get in shape by my daughter's birthday which is May 10th. I want to get a family portrait done for her birthday and it would be nice if I was looking good. We will most likely have her birthday party at the lake and will be going on a lake vacation with Ryan's family a month or so after that. So some good incentive.

I decided to start South Beach again because it's the only diet that's ever worked for me that I feel I can actually manage as a life long thing. So I reread the South Beach Diet book and dug out my South Beach Diet Cookbook and put together a meal plan for the first week. I just was over at Amazon and found they have a South Beach Diet Quick and Easy Cookbook which I am very excited about. It has 200 recipes made in under 30 minutes. That's my kind of cookbook. The other cookbook is pretty fancy food my husband turns his nose up at, and takes a while to make. I will have to get this new cookbook!!! Aaahhh, another cookbook.

I cleaned out the refrigerator and all the cupboards ~ luckily this time we were pretty much out of food any way so I didn't have to get rid of much. We went grocery shopping and it feels really good to have so much nutritious food in the house again. Yay!! I remember how good I felt last time I did South Beach and I am looking forward to feeling like that again.

I am hoping to find room in the budget for South Beach Online, it's 5 bucks a week so we will see what I can do. I think it would be helpful for making up weekly menus they provide over 1000 recipes, as well as put together a shopping list as you put together your menu. That's the part I usually mess up is the list and then when I go to make dinner I am missing an ingredient, then I get mad and eat junk. Bad me!

My friend Lori is doing Body for Life and has agreed to join me at PeerTrainer to log our food and exercise and keep each other accountable. If you wanna come too just let me know.

I'm also planning to dust off the Power 90 DVDs I have here and do them for exercise. I am hoping to plan this all into my daily routines as I am currently reading Sink Reflections and Body Clutter by the FlyLady. I hope with all this stuff in place I will finally find something I can stick to. The Power 90 is 3 months so that will take me almost to Hanna's Birthday. :)

Feel free to ask me from time to time if I am sticking with the "life plan" and hopefully I will answer a loud and excited YOU BET!!!

I will post on my results on FULL DISCLOSURE FRIDAYs. If we get some people together that want to do this together, maybe we can find a way to do it like wordless wednesdays. All in good time, today I am just going to get started. :)

Until tomorrow,

Jackie Lee :)

Friday, January 11, 2008

What's for Dinner?



Everyday my husband calls when he's done with work ~ which of course can be any of a variety of times from 5 to 8pm ~ and asks what's for dinner. My car's muffler is busted and we're waiting on a new part so I haven't been able to get to the store. The dinner pickins are pretty slim around here. :( I am really wanting to eat better, lose weight, get more fit I started pulling together recipes. I thought I would put together a plan and a list for when I finally get to go grocery shopping again. I thought I'd share some of my favorites with you.

Quick Rosemary-Sage London Broil

Quick Rosemary-Sage London Broil

Ingredients

Serving Size: 1
2Tbsp. finely chopped fresh rosemary leaves
3Tbsp. finely chopped fresh sage
2 1/2Tsp. olive oil
1/2Tsp. seasoned salt
1/2Tsp. garlic pepper
2Cloves garlic, minced
49-oz. flank steaks (London broil)

Directions

Preheat broiler. Blend rosemary, sage, olive oil, seasoned salt, garlic pepper
and garlic in small bowl. Spread mixture evenly on both sides of steaks; press
lightly to help mixture adhere to meat.

Place steaks on rack of broiler pan. Broil 2 to 3 inches from heat 6 to 9 minutes
on each side or to desired doneness.



If you don't have a great set of mixing bowls, take a look at these, nice tight lids too.
Until next time! Enjoy dinner!

Jackie Lee :)

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

Wordless Wednesday!

Hanna using her "outside voice" outside for a change of pace!!!




Monday, January 07, 2008

What a weekend

We had a "heat wave" this weekend. It was in the high 50's low 60's. We took advantage and got out of the house and went to the zoo. We met up with a friend of ours and her daughter.

It was a good time and it was really fun to see the difference in temperament between the two girls ~ who are only 6 weeks apart in age.

One was all about independance, wandering off on her own, following animals along the glass.

The other was afraid of the gorillas, screaming each time one came near, wouldn't walk at all ~ demanded to be carried most of the day.

Can you imagine which one was mine? lol

It was a helpful thing to see for me, because sometimes I swear she does stuff just to torture me. It really isn't about that, it's just who she is. It's her temperament, and once I just accept it, we will have much easier time getting things done and having fun.

I haven't downloaded the pics yet, but I will probably have them done for Wednesday.

Jackie Lee :)

Friday, January 04, 2008

Trying to go with a schedule

We tried setting up a schedule before ~ back when Hanna was much younger and it totally didn't work out.

The more I read about toddlers though, the more I think I might need a more consistent plan for our days.

If any of you are using a schedule I would be glad to hear about how you set up your days. I have to manage to fit in Hanna, meals, housework and work. :)

Thanks for the input.

Jackie Lee :)

Calgon Take Me Away!!!!

AAAAAHHHHH, I'm about to pull my hair out.

All Hanna has done since she woke up this morning is scream. I can't seem to figure out what she wants and get it right. When I fail to get it right whatever it is I have figured out wrong gets thrown back at me or on the floor.

She is tormenting the dogs and cats, and screaming. DAMN

I am reading these positive discipline ~ although they don't believe in discipline ~ books and I don't know, maybe I'm not far enough into the books, because right now all I want to do is yell at her and tell her to stop screaming or I'm going to give her something to be screaming about.

I won't but jeez it feels like it would work. NOT.

Just needed to vent for a minute. We're going to go take a shower. I have gotten a good amount of stuff done today even with the screaming, so maybe I'll give up on getting anything else done until she goes down for a nap.

Here comes the screams again, gotta go.

Jackie Lee :)

Thursday, January 03, 2008

Do you ever get really excited about something . . .

and you look at the clock and realize it's 6:30pm and you haven't done a darn thing all day?

That's what happened to me yesterday.

Earlier this week I joined Wealthy Affiliate. I finally decided to stop being a tire-kicking, free ebook reading, trying to figure out how to make it work without spending any money girl, and just join and learn from people who are really doing it and doing it well.

There is a great saying ~Your income will be a direct reflection of the income of the people you surround yourself with ~ or something similar to that. Wealthy Affiliate was started by an filled with million dollar earners.

I was surprised to see how much "secret" information they are sharing within the walls of WA. One of my mentors Travis Sago (THE Bum Marketer) is an active member. In fact, that's what got me yesterday. There is a 30 page forum thread with over 200 posts where Travis walks someone through the entire process of coming up with a niche idea, how to define the customer ~ the whole process all the way to building a website and driving traffic. It was unreal.

I started the thread early in the day and before I next time I looked at the clock it was 6:30pm and Ryan was on his way home for dinner. What a learning experience. I am doing it all now. I'm following the plan that was laid out in that thread and doing it all myself, finding my own niche and setting up a profitable campaign. It's going so well. I just know this is going to be a huge piece of the "breakout year".

There are so many resources for markers inside Wealthy Affiliate. I couldn't believe it. Kyle and Carson have put together so much information. The only way you could not be successful being a member of Wealthy Affiliate would be if you didn't read it and put it into action!!

It's the best money I've ever spent, and it's been less than a week. I have already learned things that made the price of admission completely worth it.

OK wow, this is sounding very ADVERTISING like. Sorry, didn't mean to do that. I just can't believe what I've already learned and I'm kicking myself for not joining sooner. DUH.

If you join my username is MomtoHanna, send me a PM and add me as a friend!

Jackie Lee :)

Wednesday, January 02, 2008

Wordless Wednesday!

I tried to take a picture of my cat this morning and this is what I got instead.


I finally got the cat :)


who is clearly annoyed by the kid. :)

Tuesday, January 01, 2008

Happy New Year!!


I hope everyone had a wonderful, fun and safe New Year's Eve. I didn't quite make it to midnight. We watched the ball drop on TV and kissed and considered it the new year, even though it was only 11. (and that's pretty late for me)

This year feels different, this year feels special. I have a feeling this is going to be our breakout year financially!! I can feel it. It's going to be GREAT in 2008.

I am still working on my intentions for the year. I also work with themes, which are a little different. A theme is basically a concept you want to work on throughout the year. You put it out to the universe and leave it. You will find through the year the universe brings you ample circumstances to work on your theme.

I wrote an article about my theme for this month's edition of The Magic Happens if you'd like to check it out.

I want a chance to solidify my intentions before I post them. I have come across a couple amazing resources over the last few days that have changed my way of thinking, and in doing so, altered my intentions a little bit.

Don't worry, I'll keep you up-do-date on my intentions as well as the amazing resources I've found. For today, enjoy your black eyed peas and have fun with your family and loved ones.

Have a wonderful day and I can't wait to see what happens this year!!

Jackie Lee :)