CrazyBusy Mama! (Dot Calm)

Ideally, Christmas should be a time of joy, peace, and good family times. For many, however, financial worries overshadow the holiday, causing unneeded stress. My family and I know this stress first-hand.

Because my husband and I are both going through treatment for cancer (yes, unfortunately…both of us), neither of us are currently able to work outside the home. A side note here is that it’s been a wonderful opportunity to focus once again on my home business, but that’s a topic for another post.

So how do you take a time of year that’s stressful because of tight (or almost non-existent) finances and make it one of joy?

One big answer lies in having a frugal Christmas. Don’t believe the lies that the holidays have to be a time of extravagance. It is entirely possible to save money on your holiday meals and gifts. Following are some ways to save big money…and maybe have enough left over to buy treats for Santa’s reindeer.

1. Save moolah on your vittles. The grocery stores in your area probably send out weekly fliers (if you don’t get them in your mailbox, look in the Sunday paper). Don’t just recycle these — actually read them. I’ve saved a lot of money by utilizing these sales fliers. See which store has the best deals, and shop there. (I usually have two or three stores that I’ll bounce between — thankfully, they’re all pretty close together.) Clip coupons, too, and do so for at least three or four weeks before you plan to shop for the holiday meal. That way, you’ll have a good stash of coupons to choose from and a better chance of finding the ones you need. The week of your shopping trip, match up as many coupons as you can with the stores’ sales fliers. You could save twice on some items!

Some stores have their own coupons. My local Fred Meyer will give me a discount on something they have a coupon for even if I don’t have that particular coupon with me. All I have to do is ask.

Also, stock up on non-perishables as they go on sale in the weeks before Christmas. It’s another great way to save money, but you’ll also save yourself from the stress of “the big holiday shopping trip.”

Finally, go through your cupboards or pantry. Be creative and use what you have. Didn’t use all the cranberry sauce or pumpkin at Thanksgiving? Cranberry sauce looks just as much at home on a Christmas dinner table, and that can of pumpkin can be turned into bread, muffins, or cookies. Or pie.

2. Share the holiday meal duties. If you’re getting together with extended family, another way to save money on your holiday dinner is to make it a potluck. You can make the main dish and have others bring side dishes, drinks, and desserts. Most people love being able to contribute to the holiday meal. It will make them feel good to show off their best dish, so ask.

3. Put away the plastic! Do you max out the bank account and maybe even the credit cards when you buy Christmas gifts? Take advantage of layaway. Quite a few stores are bringing back this practice. You shop for your items, take them to the store’s layaway counter, and put down a percentage of the total. Over the following weeks you continue making payments until they’re paid off and you can take them home.

4. More creative gift buying. Purchase gifts when they’re on sale throughout the year. (Just don’t forget where you hide them!) An alternative to doing this is to set aside a certain amount of money each payday specifically for Christmas. Put the money in an envelope in a desk drawer, or better yet, in a designated savings account — where it might be a little less tempting to borrow from.

5. Homemade…and handmade…with love (or maybe just out of necessity). If you’re crafty, you can make gifts for some of the people in your life. You can put together cookie mixes in jars, coffee lovers’ baskets filled with mugs and their favorite coffee beans, scented eye pillows, etc. The sky is the limit, really. If you can make it, someone is sure to appreciate it. This is a great idea for gifts for teachers, neighbors, and others who’ve played an important part in your family’s lives throughout the year.

6. It really IS the thought that counts. Finally, if money is super tight this season, give fewer gifts to extended family and friends, or at least gifts that cost less. Do you really need to keep buying $20-30 gifts for nieces and nephews who are 18 or older? If you don’t want to stop buying for them, try giving them gift cards to a favorite store, coffee shop, or for iTunes for $5-15 instead. Look for other ways to cut costs in gift giving. Is there a friend you buy a gift for every year who never reciprocates? Perhaps this year’s gift can just be a card.

Hopefully, you’ve gotten some good ideas and have been inspired to save money this Christmas season. Make it merry!

I love your comments! What are some of your favorite ways to have a merry-yet-frugal holiday season?

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Sally Dinius is writer-in-chief here at CrazyBusyMama.com, a blog created to inspire and motivate busy mamas everywhere to feel healthy, fit, and in control of their lives. Follow her on Twitter at twitter.com/sdinius, and come join the CrazyBusy Mama Facebook page by clicking here.

It’s the same thing every morning. First, my alarm clock goes off (set to a very staticky radio station that I never seem to get around to fixing). I smack at it with an arm that had fallen asleep during the night — how ironic is that — then feel around blindly for my glasses. A few minutes later, I’m shuffling down the hallway…holding my trusty iPhone, my cat at my heels.

My husband usually wakes earlier than I do (and I’m up — most days — by 6 or 6:30), so he makes the coffee. I stumble into the kitchen, eyes squeezed shut against the too-bright lights, pour coffee and a little flavored creamer into a travel mug, and wander into the living room (the extent of my travels).

I turn on my phone, read something out of the YouVersion Bible app (my favorite way to start the morning), and sip at my coffee before moving on to the news apps. I am a total news junkie, and just like spending that time with God, not checking the news every morning would just leave me feeling like I was forgetting something. Seriously — I have six news apps on my phone. (I may or may not have just admitted that.)

Next, I move on to check my email inbox, searching through the junk for something sent by a real person — any real person, then it’s on to Facebook to read messages sent to me and to see what others could possible have to say at such an awkwardly early hour (well, early for me — many of my online friends live in entirely different time zones, and some in different countries).

Some mornings I’ll feel a little guilty for starting my day like this. But I’ve come to realize that this is just what I do. It’s how I wake up and prepare for my day. It’s a ritual, and it’s one that’s a part of who I am. I have the luxury…for now, at least…of starting my day off in a very easy-going manner. Why start off frazzled if I don’t need to?

I have no other rituals until the clock strikes 10 o’clock or so. It’s then — provided my wily five-year-old has gone to sleep — that my husband and I sit down in our family room and watch Seinfeld and Frasier reruns. The shows are still funny, and it’s our time together. I love starting and ending my day with these rituals. Somehow, I think it keeps me feeling balanced, if that makes sense.

It’s a rare woman, indeed, who hasn’t experienced some kind of stress-inducing upheaval in her life. Stress and anxiety that sticks around over a prolonged amount of time can also lead to depression (as you may know). Sometimes that depression can be very deep, or it can be such a light fog that it’s become your “new normal” until it’s diagnosed by a professional. In this current time in our nation’s history, when so many are experiencing financial hardship, that very stress+anxiety=depression equation is affecting many, many people.

You may be one of those women, or perhaps you’re facing other issues — small or large — that are causing you to feel some stress in your life. If you don’t have a ritual of your own, I strongly recommend that you create one. Maybe you don’t have an iPhone to have coffee with (sometimes my husband joins in on the conversation, which I also consider part of my morning ritual), and perhaps you can’t stand sitcom reruns, but I’m sure you can think of something you enjoy doing. In fact, you’re probably thinking of it right now.

Rituals are an important part of our lives because they provide a sense of sameness, of stability. We know, almost instinctively, that small children need rituals because those very rituals help them to feel safe and secure. Bedtime, for example, goes a little easier for all involved if the child knows that getting pajamas on, brushing teeth, reading a story, and perhaps a sleepy-time prayer are all a part of the routine. In the same way, rituals can also help us moms, who often feel we carry the weight of our worlds on our shoulders, to feel a little more safe and secure.

If you’re on your computer Facebooking with friends…and coffee…first thing in the morning, that is a ritual. Enjoy it! If you have a favorite show you watch on a regular basis, that’s a ritual, too. Enough with the guilt! Your ritual needs to be something you enjoy, not something someone else thinks you should do (like going for a walk with the dog at o’dark-thirty every day…unless you want to, of course).

Another ritual of mine is working out. Because we’re a busy family of six, I don’t always get to exercise right when I want to, but I consider it a comforting ritual when I’m able to do it. (Though perhaps “comforting” isn’t the best word to describe Jillian Michaels’ “30-Day Shred”!)

So, ladies, if you don’t have a ritual, get one — we all need some semblance of normal in our everyday lives. I would love to hear what your rituals are, if you’d like to share. Leave your comments below.

©2010 Sally Dinius
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Sally Dinius is writer-in-chief here at CrazyBusyMama.com, a blog created to inspire and motivate busy mamas everywhere to feel healthy, fit, and in control of their lives. Follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/sallydinius, and come join the CrazyBusy Mama Facebook page by clicking here.

I came across this post from last Christmas and decided it was definitely worth a reposting. Enjoy! – Ed.

Does this ever happen to you?

The holidays go by in a crinkly blur, and you’re left standing in the middle of wadded-up wrapping paper and worn-out decorations, scratching your head and asking:

“What in the heck just happened?”

Most of us, I think, go into the holiday season that way — we just let it happen. I’ve found, though, that the holidays I’ve enjoyed the most have been the ones I’ve taken time to plan. When I write down my Thanksgiving menu and the ingredients I need, meal prep is easier and the day is more enjoyable. Sending out Christmas cards isn’t so difficult if I make a list beforehand of who we’ll be sending them to. Having the cards, envelopes, pictures and stamps together in one box or basket that I can carry around with me (to fill them out wherever and whenever the mood strikes) is helpful, too.

Another wise practice is to keep all of your Christmas decorations in one place. My family and I broke that cardinal rule this year. I found two plastic totes in our utility room full of Christmas things (mostly my snowman collection), and various other things were in what I call our “Christmas Trunk.” It’s an old steamer trunk at the foot of our bed. Most years, it’s no big deal getting into the trunk: just flip the latches and lift the lid. But earlier this year, it was forced into double duty as a TV stand. The TV is an older one that is too heavy for me to lift on my own, so my sons helped with that.

After the totes and trunk had been gone through, along with a cupboard in our laundry/utility room, I found out why being unorganized can bite you in the rear: Our Advent wreath is missing. And because Sunday was the first Sunday of the Advent season, we weren’t able to begin our celebration, which includes candle lighting, the singing of carols or hymns, and reading Bible verses and a Christmas story or two.

The search for the wreath will continue tomorrow. Hopefully it won’t culminate with me buying a new one, because that’s when I’ll find the one that’s missing (it always works that way). And then I’ll have two.

If you’re like me and tend to let the holidays happen to you rather than the other way around, here are a few links to help you reign in some otherwise crazy days:

1. If you’re hosting a Christmas party or family get-together, Party411‘s Christmas Party Planning Guide will give you lots of ideas and help you feel at least a little bit sane. It’s a fun site to go through, so be ready to print out ideas you like — or at least have a notepad ready to write them down.

2. The interior decorating channel at About.com has a fantastic, short and simple article on how to plan for Christmas. I’m not going to recommend any other “get organized” list to you. This one’s pretty much perfect. Why? It’s the KISS principle: Keep it Simple, Sweetheart (or as I learned it years ago: Keep it Simple, Stupid…which isn’t very nice). This article tells you a few great ways to simplify without getting too complicated. I don’t know about you, but if I have too many things on my list, my brain shuts down and I start playing games on my computer. Yes, I did just admit that.

3. Once you’ve decided what you need to plan for, write it down. There are many ways to keep track of your list (or lists) electronically (such as in a note to yourself on your iPhone, et al), but I really like the good, old-fashioned write-it-down method, and I prefer to do that in a planner. The Busy Body Book is my all-time favorite planner. Each week is broken into five columns, which gives you five boxes to write in for each day. These columns can be used for anything: different family members (good for seeing what each child has going on that week at one glance), or use them to organize household tasks, work-related activities, or even…yes…the holidays. It’s very inexpensive and I think you’ll love it as much as I do.

So, if you haven’t already figured it out, the best holiday stress-reliever is…planning. Delegating follows at a very close second — please don’t think you have to do it all yourself.

Do you plan or delegate to lessen the stress of the holidays? I’d love to hear your strategies!

©2009 Sally Dinius
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Sally Dinius is writer-in-chief here at CrazyBusyMama.com, a blog created to inspire and motivate busy mamas everywhere to feel healthy, fit, and in control of their lives. Follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/sdinius, and come join the CrazyBusy Mama Facebook page by clicking here.

I don’t usually do this when grocery shopping, but the other day a certain product took me so much by surprise that I stopped, stared, and laughed out loud. (It was little embarrassing considering there were other shoppers nearby.) What was the product?

Organic pancake batter.

“What,” you ask, “is wrong with organic pancake batter?”

Nothing, usually, but this stuff was in a – wait for it – SPRAY CAN! You know – the same kind of can usually filled with processed “cheese” or whipped cream.

Being a camera-happy iPhone owner, I just had to take a picture of it, along with the ingredients list.

In case you can’t read them in the picture, the ingredients are:

“Filtered water, organic wheat flour (unbleached), organic cane sugar, organic eggs, sodium lactate to inhibit spoilage, organic soybean powder, leavening (dicalcium phosphate and sodium bicarbonate), sea salt, organic rice bran extract….”

And last but not least, that most organic of all ingredients (please note the sarcasm): “propellant.”

Hmm….

No, thank you.

How are you at reading labels? If you’re new to it, there are some food additives you’ll want to keep an eye out for. If any of the following ingredients are on the label you’re reading, you should really just put the product back on the shelf.

Let’s start with that propellant. The ingredient most often used as propellant in the same type of can containing the pancake batter (and whipped cream, etc.), is nitrous oxide. According to Drug-Forum.com, it’s been known to “leave a residue similar to motor oil” in whipped cream chargers, “which can be potentially harmful to the user.” Yum, right? With motor oil residue on your pancakes, who needs syrup?

MSG is next. Short for monosodium glutamate, MSG is a “flavor enhancer” with a nasty reputation for causing allergic reactions. It’s also a known neurotoxin that, once you eat it, never leaves your body. Never. Almost everyone has consumed MSG at one time or another, but the point is to do your best to avoid it from now on, and that includes knowing the sneaky aliases it goes by. According to the site, The Carbohydrate Addict, you may be consuming monosodium glutamate (and free glutamates, which they go into detail about on their site) if you eat foods containing the following:

enzyme modified
anything fermented
anything protein fortified
anything ultra pasteurized
autolyzed yeast
barley malt
broth
bouillon
calcium caseinate
carrageen
flavoring
natural flavoring
gelatin
hydrolyzed oat flour
hydrolyzed vegetable
hydrolyzed protein
malt extract
maltodextrin
natural flavors,
pectin
plant protein extract
potassium glutamate
sodium caseinate
soy protein
soy sauce
stock
textured protein
whey protein
yeast extract
yeast food

Like I said…sneaky. (For further reading on how MSG is often hidden in your food, check out Truth in Labeling. )

Besides propellant and MSG, be on the lookout for the other usual criminals: sugar, high fructose corn syrup, different types of fat, white flour, unnecessary additives, and artificial sweeteners like sucralose (a.k.a. Splenda). Choose to keep natural foods in your cupboards as much as possible and make your own meals instead of eating out (especially at fast food joints). Your family may give you a tough time about it, but eventually – when they realize how good they feel – they’ll thank you!

©2010 Sally Dinius

Need a little help when it comes to knowing what to cook to get your family healthy? Try the Healthy Urban Kitchen Cookbook. You’ll get some helpful bonuses along with these tasty (and did I mention “healthy”?) recipes.

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Sally Dinius is writer-in-chief here at CrazyBusyMama.com, a blog created to inspire and motivate busy mamas everywhere to feel healthy, fit, and in control of their lives. Follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/sdinius, and become a member of the CrazyBusy Mama Facebook fan page by clicking here.

By Guest Blogger Aurelia Williams, author of Balancing Work and Family


The trend of moms working from home to be near their children has grown in the last couple of years. Now that they have found jobs or businesses to run, they’re starting to realize that working from home is not as easy as they thought it would be. The work they do is hard to separate form their personal lives, which makes it hard to schedule time for work responsibilities and home duties.

The workspace these moms use to do their jobs at ends up being a part of their household, so that makes dividing work and home life even more difficult to do — and one of the motivating reasons for creating my Balancing Work and Family guide. Imagine that your office is a part of the dining room, which also happens to be the room where you eat your meals as a family. How easy is it going to be for you to leave your work life to be with your family when the office is 5 feet away from the dinner table?

The realities of dividing work and personal life can get smudged for work at home moms. When that happens, one’s stress level is sure to rise, which could jeopardize one’s sanity. To prevent your sanity from leaving, you should find ways to ensure that separation takes place between your job/business and your family life.

Assess the current situation. Try to find an area, within your home, to have your office so that it won’t interfere with your family life. The home office needs a room with a door where you can be apart from the rest of the house. A den or a garage can be converted into office space that is exclusive to your business. Some people have resorted to placing their office in the laundry room, just because it has a door! When that is not an option, set up shop in your bedroom to keep it away from the family areas.

Organization is the next step. A messy desk can be a huge distraction when trying to work. Everything needs to have its place. If you worked in an office, your boss would not stand for a messy work space. There’s no difference when you’re office is at home and not at the worksite.

Use inexpensive organizing items, such as baskets with separate compartments to help organize the odds and ends on your desk. You can keep rubber stamps, letters, invoices, pens, pencils, and the like in here. Organization makes finding things much easier, which results in a more relaxed work day.

Keep your business phone separate from the family phone line. When using the same line, you run the risk of your children answering business calls or picking up the phone during a conference call. This causes your professionalism to fly right out the window and takes your customers or employers along with it.

The same goes for the computer. It’s best to keep your business computer separate from what the other family members use, but budgets don’t always allow for this. In that case, make sure that the business/job files and documents can’t be easily accessed by anyone but you. This will help prevent some of the stress that could be brought on by family members stumbling on a client’s important document and accidentally deleting them.

Be sure to use calendars or planners as they are very helpful when trying to keep track of business appointments or deadlines and family appointments. This will lessen the stress of setting up family appointments when you’ve forgotten about business deadlines you have.

Consider hiring a sitter on days you have a lot of work to do. Being a work at home mom gives you the benefit of controlling your own schedule. Having a sitter keeps the kids away from your office and gives you quiet time to focus on your work and gives your kids a chance to have fun without you feeling too guilty.

Mixing business with family in the home setting can be a major source of stress. Keeping the business side of your life organized and separate is crucial to success in keeping your stress levels down and your sanity intact.

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Get More Help:

Working at home can be extremely rewarding, but it’s challenging. Get the help you need with Real Life Guidance to Balancing Work and Family. It’s your practical guide to tracking your time, setting priorities, learning to say no and achieving that balance you strive for.

An interesting re-think of time management by guest blogger Cindy Dachuk. Enjoy.

If you are anything like me, then you likely find yourself overloaded with more things to do in a day than can possibly be accomplished. We use technology more to stay on top of things, and to keep in touch with everyone, than to free up our time. We try to cram as much as possible into our workday, to be as productive as possible, in the vain hope that perhaps we won’t have to work late or take work home to catch up.

Is it little wonder then that we are always on the search for the latest tool or tip that helps us manage our time more efficiently? After all, that’s the real issue, isn’t it? Not having enough of that precious commodity – time. Or… is it?

Maybe, instead of continuing to work at managing our time and tasks more effectively, we need to reframe our thinking. The issue with time is that it’s finite. No matter how you do the math, there are only 24 hours in a day. Instead of learning to manage your time more efficiently you have to learn manage the Energy you bring to your tasks.

Much of the early research on energy management comes to us from the world of sports, but it is just as applicable to our day-to-day work lives. Heck… to our lives in general! As a professional athlete, it is essential to understand exactly what it takes to achieve consistent, peak performance. Research has shown that though it is important to hone the technical skills each athlete brings to their respective sport, it is essential that they maximize the Energy output in order to increase performance.

We may not be operating our daily lives at the same physical level as professional athletes, but the machines we’re using to accomplish our work (our bodies) are the same. The challenge for us though, is that we are typically asked to ‘perform’ for 8 hours a day, a minimum of 5 days a week, without the benefit of the knowledge or training that athletes receive.

A key training method of elite athletes is known as Periodization, first introduced by the early Greeks. Periodization is the concept of improving performance through balancing periods of activity with periods of rest. Consider your typical work day though. You likely…

- Wake up to an alarm clock blaring at you

- Race through your morning routine to get out the door as quickly as possible to beat the traffic

- Move from one task to another, one meeting to another, with no pause

- Take lunch at your desk so you can continue to work… you wouldn’t want to ‘waste’ time!

- Race home, work tucked under your arm

- Fix dinner – Spend time with the kids (that all-important ‘quality’ time!)

- Squeeze in a little more work

- Collapse in front of the television to ‘vegetate’

- Drag yourself to bed so you can get up tomorrow to do it all again!

Where was the rest, the renewal, in your day? Oh… right… it’s called vacation and it doesn’t come daily, it comes annually! We live in a world where ‘busyness’ is worn like a badge of honour and where renewal and recovery get ignored. However, our ability to be fully engaged at work, to be optimally productive, depends upon our ability to periodically ‘disengage’ successfully.

Building moments of recovery into your work day will enable you to engage in your tasks more fully and passionately. Research has clearly shown that productivity increases when people build in periods of renewal into their work day. Even though they are ‘breaking’ more, they get more done than those choosing to work ‘flat out’. Some of the most creative thinkers (such as daVinci and Einstein) were strong advocates of breaks, to allow their subconscious minds to work out the problem at hand.

I have clients that will not schedule any meeting exceeding 90 minutes in length, without scheduling a break, recognizing the link of our energy levels to our body’s natural Ultradian Rhythms. And… really… most meetings run needlessly long anyway!

Consider breaking your day into 90-120 minute blocks of time. Rather than fighting these natural body rhythms, defer to them instead. A break needn’t be long in duration for it to provide you with enough of a rest for your energy and focus to improve. Potential ideas for workday renewal breaks?

- take a walk

- read a chapter of a book, or listen to one

- listen to music

- do some light stretches

- prepare and eat a light, healthy snack

- work on a puzzle, crossword, sudoku

You get the idea! Whatever activity would work best for you and relieve you of some of the physical and mental stress you’ve experienced so far. Allow your mind to switch gears, take a break from the task at hand, so that it can be more focused when you return. Odds are that the solution to the problem you were stuck on before the break, is waiting for you upon your return!

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About the Author: As the President of the Titan Training Group, Cindy Dachuk has traveled throughout the United States and Canada delivering workshops and training programs, primarily in: Understanding Style Differences, Personality-Based Persuasion, Executive Presence, Personal Branding, Gender Differences, Personal Presentation Skills. Cindy’s work as a Personal Coach has provided her with the opportunity to work with clients on a one-on-one basis, mentoring them in the development of a personal plant of action. Her book, It’s Time Now, is based on her experiences in helping others identify and achieve their life goals. http://www.titantraining.ca

Article Source: Ezine Articles

It’s like tradition for me: Every holiday season I order groceries online at least once, sometimes twice. There have been various reasons for doing this, but the biggest and best if getting to skip the crowds.

The store I order from 90% of the time is Safeway. It seems like I’m always getting a coupon in the mail for free delivery, so I’m thinking I may start utilizing their services more. I’ve never had a bad experience with delivery from Safeway.com (you’ll also see links below for Genuardis and Vons, who are in the Safeway “family”).

Give them a try! It’ll save you at least one headache this season.

Safeway.com currently delivers in these areas: California, Arizona, Maryland, Oregon, Virginia, Washington and Washington D.C. Click here to get your free turkey and free delivery from Safeway.

Genuardis.com delivers to customers in The Greater Philadelphia Metropolitan area. Click here to get your free turkey and free delivery from Genuardis.

Vons.com currently delivers in these areas: Los Angeles, Inland Empire, Orange County, San Diego, Ventura, and Las Vegas. Click here to get your free turkey and free delivery from Vons.

Hurry! This promotion ends on Tuesday, November 17.

I’ve been in a good deal of pain for the last three days. It started with my muscles tightening — mostly in my neck and shoulders — then the pain in my head began and gradually became worse. I have, for the most part, been dead to the world since Monday night and good for nothin’ better than sitting around and playing silly games on Facebook. That…and a little blogging. (After years of having these headaches, I know when to cut myself some slack.)

I’m not totally sure why I get tension headaches…could be stress, could be hormones, could be my fibromyalgia (most likely a combination of the three), but I’ve been getting them since I was about 17. If you’re someone who’s also afflicted by headaches, I’ve compiled some tips that have provided relief for me at one time or another. Maybe you’ll find them to be helpful, as well.

1. Accept your limitations. Whether your headaches are classified as tension headaches or migraines (or have another cause), relax and accept that you may not be able to keep up with your daily activities. Kick the guilt out of the room. You can’t help this. (If your headache is due to a hangover, that’s another story….)

2. Rest and delegate. Have hubby or an older child make dinner. If that’s not possible, just announce that tonight is a cereal night. Kids like that once in a while. Do you have babies or toddlers? Have someone help with at least some of their care so that you can rest.

3. Turn on the answering machine and/or set up an automated email response. Friends, family, and clients alike will (hopefully) understand if you honestly can’t work because of a bad headache. So that you don’t have to explain yourself, let your calls go to voicemail and set up an automatic message that goes out to anyone who emails you. Because not everyone understands how devastating a bad headache can be, feel free to just say you’re sick.

4. Take a hot shower. With my tension headaches, I can often hurt all the way down to my hips (I blame this part on my fibromyalgia). A hot shower can work wonders when it comes to loosening up tight, painful muscles. If you’re having trouble standing up without your head pounding, try a bath and add a few drops each of peppermint and lavender essential oils to the bath water. This is also a good time to try stretching out your sore neck and shoulders.

5. Turn up the heat. Because tension headaches have muscular involvement, a hot rice or herbal pack laid over the top of my head or around my neck works wonders for me (heat relaxes muscles). Conversely, inflammation is also involved, so an ice pack can be equally soothing. Trading off between the two can really help. Check out the Thermalon line of heat-cold wraps and pain relieving sprays.

6. Take two and call me in the morning. Excedrin for Tension Headaches sometimes helps me. I say sometimes because it worked the last time I had one of these headaches, but not this time around. Might work for you, though, so it’s worth a try, right? Experiment with other pain relievers to see what your perfect fit is. If nothing works, check with your doctor — you may need something stronger.

7. Rub it out. The best thing I have found for banishing knots in my shoulders (which I always get along with these headaches) is the TheraCane Massager. It’s perfect for working on those sore areas you can’t get to just by reaching over your shoulder with your fingertips. Your affected muscle will want to become inflamed again after you tell it who’s boss, so be keep an ice pack at the ready.

8. Rub it in. Topical analgesics like Tiger Balm Neck and Shoulder Rub and stick-on heat patches like ThermaCare Neck and Shoulder HeatWraps can also be soothing on sore shoulder and neck muscles.

Has something else worked for you? Leave a comment and tell me about it!
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My daughter (my exercise buddy) and I like to work out with videos. We find it keeps us motivated to do an entire workout if we’ve got someone telling us what to do. Knowing it will be over after a set amount of time also helps.

Something else that keeps me working out each day is simply knowing how beneficial exercise really is. One benefit is that it helps you to look better. Case in point: I was interested in quickly losing a few inches around my midsection (contrary to popular belief, the “muffin top” look is not attractive — I know this first hand) and my thighs. I also wanted to shape up my arms, which were definitely in need of…something.

My arms are now becoming more toned, and the inches are melting away. Even more amazing, I can finally see some definition in my abs. Let’s go through the list of benefits together and see if we can’t get you inspired to begin exercising, too:

1. YOU’LL LOSE WEIGHT
For most women, this is the number one reason for beginning a workout routine. What you may not know is that if you don’t break a sweat, you probably won’t lose the weight. “Slow and steady wins the race,” but it doesn’t take off the pounds. You’ve got to get your heart rate up if you want to burn calories and melt away the fat. Walking at a good speed around your neighborhood is a good place to start, then build up to running if that’s possible for you (always check with your doctor before starting a strenuous workout routine). I recommend Billy Blanks’ Tae Bo: Fat Blasting Cardio & Total Body Fat Blasteras a good workout to follow if you want to get fit and trim in a hurry.

2. YOU CAN ACHIEVE TOTAL BODY OR SPOT TONING
If you want to change the shape of your body, you need to work out. Period. Dieting may help you lose some of the weight, but the flabby areas will still be flabby when the weight is gone. The good news is that muscles respond fairly quickly to exercise, and it’s possible to see exciting results within days. The areas most women want to see toned on their bodies are the arms, abs, glutes, and thighs. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I recommend Tae Bo, but if you’re looking for something on the more mellow side, try Pilates.

Again, try to work in some cardio if you’re wanting to tone up. Belly fat and cellulite will be banished much faster if you are moving faster. You can work your abs as much as you want, but if you’re not burning off the fat, no one will see the evidence of your hard work.

3. YOU’LL SLEEP BETTER
You’ll fall asleep faster and sleep more soundly if you’re working your body. Don’t exercise too close to bedtime, though, or the adrenaline produced during your workout might actually keep you awake. I tend to work out later at night, sometimes around 9 or 10, but I’m a night owl, anyway. It’s also when I get the TV.

4. YOU’LL LOOK PURDY
It goes without saying that we look better when we’re toned and trim. That’s what we’re shooting for, after all (besides becoming healthier): to tone our muscles and lose weight. Plus, if you focus on exercises that strengthen your core muscles, you’ll find your posture improving. And if you’ve ever done any people watching, you know that people with good posture come across as more attractive, confident, powerful, and approachable.

5. YOU’LL EAT HEALTHIER
When you begin doing one good thing for your body, you’ll find yourself thinking twice about your other bad habits. Since I started working out, I find I just don’t want the cheesy crackers, donuts, cookies, lunch meats and other no-no’s like I once did. I’m reaching for — and actually wanting — healthy foods like veggies and fruits, whole-grain breads, low-fat cheeses, and the like. I’m also drinking more water.

6. YOU’LL HAVE A STRONGER HEART AND LUNGS
According to the National Institutes for Health, “physical inactivity is a major risk factor for heart disease that you have control over.” Like any muscle, the heart gets weaker when it’s underused and stronger with increased activity. The stronger your heart becomes, the less winded you will feel when climbing a flight of stairs, lifting a heavy package, etc. This is because the heart won’t have to beat as fast during times of exertion. After exertion, the “fit” heart will return to its resting rate much more quickly than the heart of someone who is out of shape.

And with all the deep breathing and increased oxygen intake that goes along with working out, your lungs will become stronger, too.

7. YOU’LL BE ZINGING WITH INCREASED ENERGY
Strange as it sounds, working your body can increase your energy levels over time. People who are inactive and out of shape have weaker bodies than people who stay fit and active. Being in shape — having a stronger body — will give you that extra spark to keep going through each day.

8. YOU’LL FIND YOU HAVE A BRIGHTER OUTLOOK and FEWER STRESS-RELATED SYMPTOMS
I’ve been feeling very stressed out lately, and am finding myself trying to juggle not only my daily responsibilities but also a hefty level of anxiety. Depression, anxiety’s close friend, has been hanging around, too. These two pals were almost unbearable a couple of evenings ago. In the past, I would’ve been tempted to down a couple of teaspoons of Children’s Benedryl to knock myself out for the night. This time, however, I tossed on my exercise clothes, grabbed my dumbbells, and headed for the family room for a good workout. Was the stress gone? No. Anxiety? No. The levels were down, though, and compared to how helpless I’ve been feeling lately, I felt like I’d actually accomplished something. I did feel better (and I slept good, too, after that workout — no Benedryl required).

Researchers have found that at least 30 minutes of exercise can produce the same benefits in a depressed person as taking medication would. But without the drugged, hangover feeling.

Exercise improves our moods by causing the brain to release certain chemicals. These are:

Endorphins. A neurotransmitter that reduces pain and gives you a feeling of well-being. People have even been known to experience feelings of euphoria from endorphins released during exercise.

Serotonin. Another neurotransmitter, it helps to relay information between brain cells. If serotonin levels are low, not only can your mood be adversely affected, but also appetite, memory, how you interract socially, and your ability to learn new things.

Dopamine. A neurotransmitter that is formed from the amino acid tyrosine, dopamine controls the way we experience pleasure and pain. It also has an effect on perception, movement, and emotion, and is necessary to keep the central nervous system working as it should. Imbalances of dopamine and serotonin have been found in people with schizophrenia and bipolar-related psychoses.

Adrenaline. You’ve most likely heard the term “fight or flight” in connection with the hormone adrenaline. When adrenaline is produced by the adrenal gland in our bodies, our heart rates go up, our blood vessels dilate to allow the passage of greater quantities of blood throughout our bodies, and our air passages also dilate to allow the intake of more oxygen. It’s easy to see why adrenaline is needed during a workout: When the heart is able to pump more oxygen-carrying blood to our muscles, we experience periods of greater physical endurance and ability.

9. YOU’LL GET A BOOST IN YOUR METABOLISM
Many of us talk about wanting to speed up our metabolism, but we don’t fully understand what it is. In a nutshell, it’s the body’s process of combining nutrients with oxygen, which provides energy that keeps our bodies functioning.  This energy is measured in “calories.”

Normally, our bodies take glucose and turn it into energy. When the glucose runs out, the metabolism process turns to the fat stored in our bodies and turns that into energy. However, if we have too much glucose in our bodies (from overeating — and eating the wrong things, at that), the stored fat is never utilized, and the glucose is turned into even more fat. The metabolism process, then, slows down as the pounds are packed on.

If you want to boost your metabolism, eat the right things (never starve yourself) and go for the cardio workouts, which keep your metabolic rate high for several hours. Weight training is also necessary if you want a higher metabolism: The more muscle mass you have, the more calories you’ll burn — even at rest.

10. YOU’LL LOWER YOUR RISK OF DEVELOPING CERTAIN CANCERS
Recent studies have shown that vigorous exercise actually reduces the risk of getting certain cancers: ovarian, colorectal, and breast cancers, to be specific. The researchers aren’t sure why that is, but I have a feeling it has something to do with more oxygen being delivered throughout the body during exercise. Cancer thrives in an “anerobic” (oxygen-less) environment, so this may be one reason why exercise “does a body good.” Another possible reason is that obese people have a higher cancer risk than thinner people. Eating more fruits and veggies also plays a part.

For those already diagnosed with cancer, like my husband (multiple myeloma), exercise can also be highly beneficial in combatting the disease. Lonnie’s oncologist suggested he walk as often as he can, for starters.

View the American Cancer Society’s page on Food and Fitness for more information.

Resources:

• Billy Blanks’ Tae Bo: Fat Blasting Cardio & Total Body Fat Blaster
• Pilates DVD Workouts

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If you look close enough, there are many parallels in life. For example, I’ve dealt with a condition called fibromyalgia for years. If I eat the wrong things or work on my knees a little too long in the garden, I can literally feel the muscles in my body freezing up like the Tin Man did in The Wizard of Oz.

“Oil,” the Tin Man tried to tell Dorothy, “I need oil.”

“Massage,” I whine to my husband, “I need a massage.”

Let’s take that example and parallel it with our work-at-home careers. I can think of several things that can get “rusty”:

• Skills
• Knowledge
• Business relationships
• Personal relationships (family and friends)

Let’s take a quick look at each of these, and the oil needed to keep them “working.”

Rusty Skills: We’ve got to keep our skills up. By trade, I’m a web designer/developer. I realized this morning, however, that my skills had gotten a bit rusty over the past couple of months. I’d forgotten how to write some very simple snippets of code. Anyone who’s a designer or developer knows that if you don’t keep refreshing your memory regarding what you already know, your career will die a slow and painful death. 

The Oil: It’s been a couple of months since I last built a web site, but I’m working this weekend on revamping an old site of mine. It was one of the first sites I’d ever built, and oh, wow — is the coding pathetic or what! I’ll be rebuilding it from the ground up: an excellent exercise to refresh and build on my skills. What can you do to refresh your skills? 

Rusty Knowledge: Our world is constantly changing. If you work at home, chances are you work online. Talk about something that continually morphs — that’s the Internet! Not keeping up on the latest trends is a guaranteed way to get left in the dust of your competitors. For me, not keeping up on the latest code releases is a bad, bad idea. 

The Oil: To succeed online, you must promote your business. To do this, you need to keep up on all the latest social networking sites and strategies. Be careful, though: Everyone and their brother wants to sell you this program or that to teach you how to market yourself. Please…be wise, be shrewd, and tread carefully. I lost track of how many of my Twitter followers lately have sent  me direct messages in an attempt to sell me a program that teaches how to get “targeted Twitter traffic.” What?? Do a little research on your own…there’s plenty of free information out there, and you’ll get to keep that dough in your pocket. (Free tip: Sign up at — and use — Twellow, the “Twitter Yellow Pages.”) A good rule of thumb that I’ve heard repeated again and again: If it sounds to good to be true, IT IS.

Social networking aside, do some brainstorming on paper to discover ways you can increase your knowledge, and thereby really boost your career. Should you take a class? Do some online tutorials? Read (current) books by successful people in your line of work? Do this exercise and you’ll be miles ahead of most people in your field.

Rusty Business Relationships: You met so-and-so at a mixer last year, and really would like to utilize her services now. Doggone it, though — you can’t remember her name. You think you got her email address, but lost the napkin it was written on. If you’d stayed in contact, you might have been able to get a good deal on such-and-such now. You win some, you lose some, right?

The Oil: As soon as you make a new business contact, record their information in your online address book. As a back-up, also write it in a notebook that you keep just for that reason, or print out a hard copy of your online contacts. If your business contacts are people you met on Facebook (for example), comment on their updates once in a while. Same thing if you know them on Twitter. Take note: This is for the purpose of building relationships and, possibly, friendships. Never spam your Facebook friends or Twitter followers. (Though you can, of course, mention new blog posts, product reviews, etc. — just don’t forget to be personal first and foremost.)

Rusty Personal Relationships: It’s easy to get so caught up in our work that our personal relationships begin to suffer. I’ve been known to work on a project for an entire day before realizing what time it was. And then I feel horrible, of course, because I’d spent little or no quality time with my kids that day. It can be the same with our friendships: If we can’t remember the last time we saw our friends socially, we know we’re working too hard.

The Oil: Make sure you know what your priorities are. List them on paper and post the list above your desk — or wherever you’ll see it most often. Above your desk is an excellent place to keep it: It will remind you while you’re working that you need to stop for a while and tend to those priorities.

Also, make friends with your timer. Your timer will help you fit as much into your day as possible. You’ll be able to care for your family, tend to your house (or make sure the kids are doing their chores), and get some serious work done on your latest project. Some things really don’t take as long as we think. It’s amazing what can be accomplished in 15 minute bursts.

I hope this has been helpful for you today. If you also have strategies to prevent yourself from becoming rusty in the various areas of your life, please share!

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