Bring On Lemons

It's a gorgeous day here - the sun is shining, the birds are chirping, and it was warm enough to leave my sweater at home. It's certainly not the weather that put me in a bit of a funk this morning ... and I'm not sure if that's the best way to describe my emotions anyway ... let me explain: I've been the super busy burning the candle at both ends person. The one who feels under appreciated and over-worked as well as the one with that voice inside screaming "what about what I want? Does NOBODY care what I want?" When I was living that life, I thought I was doing a good job being mindful of others. I would talk about 'perception is everything' and I thought I was being careful of my tone, my body language, and choosing my words carefully. You get the picture. I felt like I was walking on a tightrope that was a bit frayed on one end - I knew eventually the darn thing was going to give and I was going to plummet toward the ground. I didn't think...

New Plans For Your New Year - Reviewing Your Business and Setting Goals By  Sarah Eiden For many who work from home, the fall/holiday season is when their biggest sales are made. You'll be busy servicing customers... but after the holidays bustle, take some time for a work from home retreat. As the new year approaches, it is a great time to re-evaluate your business plans. Taking time now to look at your home business and set goals can help your business blossom in the coming year. Ask yourself - - Why are you in business? - What is actually making you money? DO MORE of it! - What is going well in your business? - What needs change? - What level of success do you want to accomplish? - What baby steps will you take to get there? - Are there "time wasters" that are eating into the time you can be focusing on making money? Please do not just read through these questions and do the "yeah, yeah". You are investing in yourself. Take the ...

Yes! I am now officially 35 years old. It took me this long to figure out who I am and what I want from life. In case you thought I was going to say 'It took me this long to grow up'.....ya right! I may be aging and getting older, but I have intentions of 'growing up'. Grown ups don't take off their flip flops and dance in the rain, they don't laugh when they trip up the stairs, and they take themselves all too seriously. My Daddy said he would never grow up, and I'm living by the same mantra. I am now (on paper) 5 years older than my fiance'...so does that make me a cougar? Sounds kind of sexy - so what the heck! I'm a lemonade making cougar with more laugh lines that I thought possible. This is a great life and I am thankful to all the bumps in the road that got me here - and I'm embracing all the bumps yet to come. Bring it on - bring on those lemons...the more lemons life throws at me, the more lemonade I'll have to enjoy with those peopl...

I had a boss that talked about sweat equity - where the money you put toward a project or your business isn't nearly as important as the work events and determination that you put into it. Here is what I have to say about that:

Each day is a gift in and of itself. Each day is actually a two-fer...as in: the day is a gift, and the day brings you a gift. The key is finding the gift some days. Today we received some bad news about the farm transition and expansion. I won't go into details, but there were so many gifts buried beneath the superficial struggles throughout the day. The struggle: The cows were too hot and not milking much The gift: Mark got to spend time with his Dad putting together the sprinkler system The struggle: Financing problems we had not planned for The gift: a team of professionals on the county/state/and bank level who pulled together to help us understand what we can do moving forward to make this less problematic. The struggle: Finding time for engagement pictures The gift: We scheduled them...and it means we have an afternoon together (may not be the location or time of day we originally planned, but it will be perfect since we are together) The struggle: No help for mil...

A sweet (and brutally honest) friend shared the following quote with me on Friday afternoon and it's still bee-bopping around in my head - which usually means I am meant to share it. So here is your gift from me this Memorial weekend:  "What people in the world think of you is really none of your business." ~Martha Graham This conversation came about because I have a lot of self doubt because I have always cared too much about what other people think, how they feel, and what they are saying about me. I can say that I don't care what other people think, but deep down inside, I want to be like-able. I try to never offend, treat others the way I would want to be treated, and if I have to deliver bad news...I try to do it as tactfully as possible while pointing out as many positives as possible. I try to see the good in others and I hope they'll do the same for me. When I find a fault I try to fix it, and I believe that people are always well-intended. I trus...

I'm sure you noticed in my recent post that I LOVE Agriculture, and you've heard me say that we need a blog dedicated solely to the farm (filled with pictures of the hills and meadows, of course). Tonight I am giddy with information about marketing and branding in the agriculture market, but more important, I am inspired by those I met this evening and those included in the presentation. Let me back up - The Economic Development Corp of Manitowoc County received a grant which enabled them to put on presentations relating to agriculture. Tonight's presentation was given by the lovely Andrea G. Neu who owns her own business and has spent nearly two decades on Wisconsin's Milk Marketing Board. She is more dedicated to dairy than most farmers I know - and she's inspirational. At her class, I met business owners such as Rick Braun from Braun Electric that provide barn equipment, excavation, manure management, septic and plumbing, etc...( http://www.braunelectricinc.co...

What's in Your Rear View Mirror? To your left, you'll see exactly what was in my rear view mirror today. It's a load of winter rye fresh off the field and on it's way into the silo. It's nourishment for the cattle at my fiance's farm and I spent the day hauling large (and heavy) wagons from the field, across the highway, and back to the farm. It was an incredibly rewarding day. I was able to experience life through the birth of a new calf, watch the amazing process of hoof trimming, and most important - I had an opportunity to reflect. My rear view mirror was important in the literal sense today as I was carefully backing up to the load in the trailer but in the metaphorical sense, it is important to know where we have been in order to know where we are going. If we shut out what is behind us, we will make the same mistakes we made in the past. As I was driving, I was certainly looking forward, but I was constantly aware of what was going on behind me. And ...

Believe In Yourself - there are enough people out there ready to knock you down or kick your a__, why do it for them?  Now don't go thinking that based on this title I am back to driving the bus...I definitely believe that God is the bus driver. Now that I've offended some, onto today's point which I'll get to via a story. I previously worked in a large office that had an IT department with several incredibly helpful people who would replace, repair, reboot, computers and could fix network problems, understood firewalls, etc... I was a bit more techy than some, but less than most, and when I got home at the end of the day I had trouble installing anything (including virus protection) on my home PC and went for years without a printer at home because I thought it was too confusing to get it networked correctly. Last week I paid $6.75 to have 9 pages scanned to a PDF and put on a memory stick. That was it for me, I knew it was time to upgrade my printer. I had a ...

When everything you know is taken from you - that is when you really have the opportunity to come alive! (feel free to quote me on that) I remember my mother saying "if it's not broke, then don't fix it" and in business, I've heard "keep doing what you're doing and you'll continue to get results". Both of those are a bunch of hooey in my book. If it's not broke, then break it so you can make it better, and if you keep doing what you're doing, someone is going to come in and do it better and you are going to fail. Life moves fast these days and business is moving even faster. If you want to get ahead, you need to embrace change with a vengeance. If something is working well, make it work better. If your marketing strategy is helping you gain clients, improve it to gain even more clients. If your turn-over ratio is low, find ways to make it even lower. Do you think Facebook and social networking is the best thing since sliced bread? Look ou...