It can be hard when your office is a room in the family home. In my case it’s the room next to our bedroom, so sometimes it can be so tempting to just head to the right and dive under the covers. Working from home is NOT as easy as you’d think. Besides having the ability to work alone, you must have drive.

Make your space more friendly and less like work!

A couple weeks back Caron came home with about 3 or 4 bunches of flowers (must be a popular girl ), so I asked her if I could have a bunch to put on my desk. After-all the desk in the kitchen was a bit crowded and I hate overcrowded spaces. The male readers are probably saying, how sissy of you to want flowers on your desk. But get this… I love gardening and flowers so why not bring it into my space? The beauty, the colors and the reminder of my garden… those flowers added a sense of peace on hectic days.

Over the years I’ve come to realize that it’s very comforting when I surround myself with things that make me happy. Things that brings out emotions or memories of happy times. I’ve even gone as far as to put up images of things I’d like to have, so I can see what my goals are. Kinda materialistic? Who cares, I work hard and I deserve some material stuff

Most of us usually have pictures of our children, wife etc on our desk or desktop background and that’s great,  but I’ve gone a bit further.

After Caron and Tehya’s recent trip to the Mexican Riviera, they brought back a mini version of one of those local blanket things. Though I didn’t go with them, it still reminded me of what they did. I saw the beaches, the ruins at Tulum, the resort they stayed at, the food they ate, the street scenes in Playa del Carmen. Amazing pictures. That blanket now sits on my chair…

I drink tea in a different exotic Caribbean destination every day. Nothing beats daydreaming if not for just a couple minutes on a cold winter day about lounging on Darkwood beach In Antigua. Caron collects mugs whenever we travel (she just started collecting shot glasses, since we’re running out of room in the kitchen for mugs) so I’ve decided to put them to use. As I enjoy my tea, I glimpse at the cup and it takes me back to the location where they were purchased… St Lucia, St Maarten, USVI, Aruba..etc.

This morning I felt like reliving our trip to Barbados last year, so I grabbed the Barbados mug and enjoyed a wonderful cup of tea. An excellent way to start a gloomy, rainy and humid day.

Besides the blanket, mugs and pictures of what I’d like to enjoy… I also have a stuff from my trip to the world cup in Germany, Tehya’s trip to NY city and for the longest while I had the girls soccer book/schedule on my desk, since it reminded me of our weekly games during the summer. I looked forward to going to the games with a  cup of Tim Hortons in hand and 4 beautiful girls at my side (when we could convince Kieana to join us).

Surround yourself with things that brings out happy emotions and you’ll beat any work at home stress or boredom.

One of the more common things you hear from business owners, both online and offline is… “Make time for your family“. After all it’s very easy to get caught up in “work” and in many cases your family life suffers. I don’t think I have that problem, especially since I began using the services of a virtual assistant.

My problem is usually the opposite. I spend too much time not doing or building my online business. For example… I’m a huge fan of hot and spicy foods, especially hot sauces. Getting the right peppers locally that had “zing” to them was almost impossible. Sure, the ones in the supermarket are advertised as being super-hot, with a nice graphic of flames etc to convince buyers to beware! Truth is.. they’re usually like spicy ketchup to me. So I did what any pepper loving fella would do. I started planting my own!

So while I was harvesting my peppers this morning (see pic above) one of the campaigns I was paying to promote via pay per click advertising went down. I was paying for clicks to a landing page I created, but when some clicked on the actual offer they got a connection error. Yes,, prime example why you MUST watch the store. While I was giddy with all the beautiful peppers I was picking, I was sending money down the tube with my paid ads.

Lesson: If you’re advertising online, be sure to always keep checking your website or pages to ensure they are fully operational. There’s no fun knowing you spent a ton of cash and it resulted in nothing.

BTW, those pretty suckers you see in that pic are the real deal! Habanero! And yes, our girls also eat them with much ease as I do! The kids at their school never believe them when they say they eat the hottest peppers in the world.

Look on a supermarket shelf in your town or city soon. Tehya wants to start making her own brand of hot sauce to market. Last year she spent some time with my mom and she learned the secret to an amazing super-hot, but tasty sauce. Saty tuned if you like the firey stuff.

Most of yesterday  I spent trying to master the art of landing pages as they relate to affiliate marketing and investing in PPC search engines. For the newbies, this is when you buy traffic from the search engines to attract sales/leads to something you’re promoting.

Here’s an example. Go to Google and type in telecommute. When the page loads with the results, look to the right side of the page… you’ll see some ads. Probably you didn’t realize they were ads, but they are. Those represent the ads people purchase when they say they’re buying PPC ads.

Later in the day we decided to join some relatives to attend the rib fest that’s taking place in Burlington, which is about 20 minutes from our place. We were mere meters away from the entrance and I still couldn’t smell anything. Were they using some sort of nasa-like device to suppress that wonderful smell of meat simmering in BBQ sauce over a coal fire?

BTW, we arrived after 8 pm (started about 11 am I think) and the place were jammed-packed. It was already getting dark, but I did manage to take a few pics…

[Show as slideshow]

The assortment of yummies were plentiful. We had (I hope I can remember them all) BBQ flavors from Texas, Memphis, South Carolina, St. Louis, Louisiana, Florida, Alabama and a couple local teams. My vote for best all-round food (ribs, chicken, pulled pork, beans and slaw) goes to Boss Hog. Maybe next year I’ll try the brisket!

Couple observations;

1. I know it’s BBQ and there are many traditions, but would it kill you guys and gals to add a little friggin spice to the mix? The sauces were all good.. smokey and for most part sweet. Here’s what I was looking for… I wanted a piece of meat to challenge my taste buds, where I would have to sit back and rack-my-brains “what’s that I taste” in this sauce. Leave me guessing as to what that amazing secret ingredient is.

Maybe next year someone will be a bit daring and show up with an island rig! Some good jerk pork and chicken or some seasoned (herbs and spices) ribs. Boy I wish I could put together a team to add some Caribbean spice to a good but fairly dull menu.

2. I’ve been to several events this summer and this was the only one where there wasn’t a little dinky tent selling beer at the corner of the park. You know the ones where you have police at the small gate checking ID and you were sectioned off like farm animals. Nope, you were free to roam with beer in hand! Must be the clientèle this event attracted

This is a guest post by Shawnee Bowlin

The first thing that comes to mind when one thinks of working from home is leisure.  The thought immediately invokes an image of an easier life.  Working away from home is often imagined as more stressful.  While that is not always true, balancing work life with home life can be stressful whether one works at home or away from home.

Although working away from home does involve more travel time, there is also travel time with the work-at-home life.  Research, supplies, appointments, and post office visits are some of the reasons for travel.  There is also the time traveling that involves children who live in the home.  This doesn’t stop just because of a home work life.

Balancing the work-at-home life can be just as hectic, if not well organized, as balancing the work-away-from-home life.  It is imperative that schedules are respected when one works at home.  Work must be taken seriously regardless of the circumstances or surroundings.

First, the family must understand that having a parent at home does not mean a relaxed attitude towards the importance of the work life.  No work equals no money.  Working from home can definitely have many perks as opposed to working away from home, but work is still involved.

Second, distractions are still distractions whether one is in an office building or in the home office.  If weaknesses towards distractions can be recognized, quality work time can be maximized by avoiding those weaknesses.  Strong work ethics must prevail in any work situation.  Know your own strengths and weaknesses.

Third, a flexible schedule can hurt as much as it can help if not properly arranged.  Flexibility is often misunderstood when one decides that working from home is better.  Staying up all night to finish a project can still harm a person who neglects to get the work done because of the interruptions during normal work hours.  This also affects the next day’s work and can cause a domino effect until the proper balance is restored.

Finally, there is the responsibility to keep work areas in one place rather than strewn all over the house.  If organized properly, time spent searching for supplies, paperwork, and so on, or time spent rescuing these items from mischievous pets or toddlers can be avoided.  Besides being unprofessional, it just sounds lame to explain to a customer or business contact that the dog ate your project.

Balancing work life with home life is essential to making the most out of the work-from-home experience.  There must be a rational plan of action and a reality check for success to prevail.

After the post yesterday explaining to Cindy what some of the terms used online, in regards to working from home meant. I wanted to briefly touch on a very real and scarry subject. Email scams or phishing. This is when a spammer sends you an email that requires some sort of action by you. The goal is to get you to reveal a password, user name or any other account information.

How to tell if an e-mail message is fraudulent.

Here are a few phrases to look for if you think an e-mail message is a phishing scam.

“Verify your account.”

Businesses should not ask you to send passwords, login names, Social Security numbers, or other personal information through e-mail.

If you receive an e-mail asking you to update your credit card information, do not respond: this is a phishing scam.

“If you don’t respond within 48 hours, your account will be closed.”
These messages convey a sense of urgency so that you’ll respond immediately without thinking. Phishing e-mail message might even claim that your response is required because your account might have been compromised.

“Dear Valued Customer.”
Phishing e-mail messages are usually sent out in bulk and often do not contain your first or last name.

“Click the link below to gain access to your account.”

HTML-formatted messages can contain links or forms that you can fill out just as you’d fill out a form on a Web site. The links that you are urged to click may contain all or part of a real company’s name and are usually “masked,” meaning that the link you see does not take you to that address but somewhere different, usually a phony Web site.

I don’t want to scare you, but this is very REAL and daily thousands of unsuspecting individuals fall for these email scams.

Check out this pic I took this morning…

Kieana was busy in the kitchen last night, strange since she’s never in there. But I didn’t pay much attention to what she was doing. Afterall she’s grounded, so I figured she was bored and was trying to keep occupied. Well, seems she was busy leaving me a message. Not sure if you could read what’s written on the cupcakes.

Please

un

ground

me

Loveyou

Kinda creative, don’t you think?  So I switched around her letters and left her a message … “NO” Yup, I’m just as creative.