Finally Free - Learning How to Work for Yourself

 When I first heard the term "side hustle," I thought it referred to illegal activity. I look back and laugh at how naive I was. Many people are realizing that their 9 to 5 job just isn't cutting it. Either they have increasing bills that they just can't keep up with, especially with the price of inflation. Or their job is taking up so much of their time that they don't really get to enjoy the things they're working so hard to get. I read about a man who was very wealthy: he bought a huge house with a gorgeous view; beautifully landscaped with a deck & fire pit. Nothing wrong with having nice things. But in order to retain that status, his job required him to work 6 days a week. And because it was a long commute every day, he would leave his home well before 5am and return around 9pm. In the back of my mind, I was thinking, "when do you get to enjoy this beautiful view from your house, if you are never there during daylight hours?" More and more ...

  As an online preschool teacher, and homeschool mother, I enjoy the work I do. I love preparing and delivering lessons; I love creating activities and printables that get children excited to learn. As I learned the technology to deliver classes online, as I'm continuing to learn varying marketing strategies, I am constantly coming across new "money making opportunities." I have heard from different entrepreneurs, that you need to have multiple streams of income, if something suddenly stops working. Being away from the 9-5 job that most of my friends have, I'm not worrying about being laid off, but being my own boss requires me to be diligent with my accounting practices, because I don't earn a paycheck every Friday. When one is self-employed, there are so many things that you have to consider, that you may not have thought of before as simply an employee. As I look into various affiliate programs, and educational platforms, I want to promote something I believe i...

I've always liked handwriting. As a child, I saw beautiful samples of handwriting and thought, "I want to be able to have handwriting as beautiful as that!" So, in my free time (sometimes in church during a sermon, I hate to admit) I would practice my penmanship until the letters looked like they came out of a book or a caligraphy print. I did end up taking a caligraphy class in college, just for the fun of it, even though I was an elementary education major. I was obsessed with what my handwriting looked like, that I would often copy something two or three times so it would look nice. In high school and college, I would quickly scribble down the notes I had to take from the professor in order to grasp the material (this was before our digital age). That afternoon or evening, I would rewrite my notes in another notebook, so they were organized and legible. It helped me study as well. The problem was that I was so attached to my notebooks full of beautiful handwriting, I h...

  I've grown up in a Christian home and heard Godly preaching on a regular basis. One of the things pastors, and teachers encouraged us to do was read the Bible for ourselves. If you could just dedicate 15 min. per day in God's Word it would change your life! It would give clarity to what you're hearing and being taught. It will give you direction for your life. You will find out more about the God you say you love. Martin Luther (during the Reformation period) was a living example of how, when he read the Bible for himself, found out that salvation is by faith and grace, not by any works that we could do. That's what started the whole "protestant" departure from the church of England. And from there we have many demoninations that take what they believe from God's Word and start their own churches. I digress; that's a discussion for another time. So, while growing up, I knew of only a handful of people who actually read through the entire Bible multip...

 I have been encouraged over the past few months to "dream big!" What is it that you really want? I had been stuck in my small world of contentment, not realizing I was actually being complacent. I was truly happy doing what I loved. I did not care that I did not own a big house or new car. I loved the simple life, and did not seek after high paying jobs. But my jobs were not paying the ordinary expenses of life. I realize I have potential - I could be doing more  with the gifts God has given me. I admit to being lazy and undisciplined. I take the easy route when given a choice and avoid hard things, telling myself it's not worth my effort or energy to pursue. (In other words, I didn't want it that badly.) So as I look towards my future and what I could be , if given the opportunity; I had to realize it was going to require work. What's that saying? "Anything worth pursuing is going to cost you in one way or another." I had just not been willing to attem...

I realize as I type this that I am a day late, but this is the first time I've heard of " Evaluate Your Life Day." At our home we usually joke about Hallmark creating  more holidays so they can sell more cards & gifts, but sometimes it's nice to focus on something special for a specific day. This holiday looked interesting, to say the least. THE HISTORY OF EVALUATE YOUR LIFE DAY Evaluate Your Life Day was created by Thomas and Ruth Roy, founders of Wellcat Holidays. The website specializes in creating quirky and fun holidays for celebrating life. So far, they’ve created about 80 existing holidays, including “For the Love of Mike Day” and “A Room of One’s Own Day”. Evaluate Your Life Day is all about self-evaluation and self-assessment, which involves assessing yourself in terms of what goals you’ve achieved. This assessment is carried out with the aim of becoming better and not for the purpose of self-judgment or criticism. In 1988, the Self-Evaluation Maintenance...