I Really Don't Have Time To Post...

I have worked 23 hours in the last 2 days. I think I am scheduled to have about another 25 hours in the next 2 days.

I have 15 pages of a grant narrative written. The maximum number of pages is 40. I have no idea how to make it so short. I have a 2 page long to-do list of what still needs to be written about. I hope to have the 40 page narrative plus the additional 10 or so pages of attachements done by Monday.

I spent about 5 hours on Monday rearranging and decorating the church. We are revamping a total of 8 areas and 7 bulletin boards. Thursday, I anticipate about 5 more hours to completion.

I have had 4 meetings and have 4 more before the week is over (as my schedule is now). I also spent 2 hours in a waiting room today for a client. I read about 38 more pages of my When Helping Hurts book.

We have had 3 photo shoots so far, with 4 more to go this week and 2 that have been rescheduled for next week. Those photos will be made into a 30 second PSA for our 7 partner coaltion.

I have done all this in temperatures that are above 90 degrees. I have used 5 air conditioners and 5 fans (not the same time or the same place) to remain cool. I also subject myself to showers with the water no warmer than 50 degrees to lower my body temperature.

I have broken into a sweat approximately 418 times in two days. I have gone through about 21 strokes of deodorant upon my underarm.

And, I've only had 1 night of sleep amongst it all...so I'm going to bed right now.

Help Wanted

So, blog reader friends....I have a quick and simple request for you...

If you didn't know, I have three technical jobs (not counting heARTworks). One such job is to do marketing for the Fort Wayne Fatherhood Coalition. I call it a baby organization; not because it focuses on babies, but because it was formed April 2010 and is still figuring everything else. Right now, we are seeking funding, running programs, trying to recruit dads into programs, educating the community, and filing for nonprofit status legally. It's a busy time.

Well, in the midst of all that, we also decided that we need a new website. When we first started, we had a web designer who rocked and got a site up and running for us, super fast. But, it's not effective for us to continually update and change and add to, so we are making a new one, which is what I'm in charge of.

I have a very rough start, but I want feedback before I go much farther...

Here is the original site (above). The info is great, but it's very static and we didn't have the possibility of making many changes, if any. And to make a change was a process, so we couldn't make updates on things immediately. (For example, I couldn't go in and make a change with contact info. I had to email the webdesigner and wait until it was done.)

Here's the homepage that I have done (using templates and such) with the help of wix.com. It's not live on our domain yet, because I want to get it all done first, but it is live on the wix site. I have added links to both photos, so that if you want to go look at the actual site, please do so.

But I am requesting feedback. I am not a webdesigner, but I do love marketing stuff. I want to make sure that this is the best possible when I present it to the coalition, so I'm turning to you bloggy friends to help. As an outsider, someone who has little or no knowledge of the coalition, does the home page give you good info and does it encourage you to click links and look around? Do you feel interested? Is the new page too simple? Too boring? Is it easy to see? Anything at all?

Thank you all! I know you got my back! :)

Unknowledgeable

I know nothing about small businesses. I know nothing about running a small business. I know nothing about being a business owner. I know nothing about what I am doing.

As heARTworks continues to blossom, I am beginning to wonder what to do?

And, it's slightly scary...

When do I worry about keeping a portion in an account for taxes? Do I keep a separate account to track money made and business spending? At what point do I begin to think about some sort of real advertising, or do I at all? When do I begin to really invest myself in it and take risks?

I did a fairly large job last week.. I lined up another this week. It's not like a full time job by any means, but it is a time commitment. And I feel that if I were to invest more time, I would have more jobs. As it is now, I don't have advertising at all, other than word of mouth and a facebook page.

When do I think about making it a legal business by getting incorporated? Who do I even talk to about these things?

As I type this, there was a blurb on the news about taxes...and the lady stated that starting a small business can be a tax writeoff for up to $10,000. I don't even know what that means.....

Oh...what to do...what to do....

Six Chapters - Friday through Monday

Chapter 1: Land of the Living
Yes, yes, I am still alive! And, in all honesty, I'm doing well. We have seemingly gotten over the last bout of illness [knock on wood] with the exception of a couple coughs here and there. My head is much clearer, my throat is no longer on fire, my nose is no longer raw. The worst part, at this moment, may be my chapped lips. And I can deal with that just fine.

Chapter 2: April Fools
Did anyone have any fun pranks on Friday? I didn't really try hard, but I did "borrow" a photo from a preggo friend of her postitive tests and I (1) posted it on Facebook and (2) sent it to the hubs. Within moments, my facebook notifications exploded, as did my phone with texts from friends. I got chewed out by a couple for posting on facebook without telling them, and my husband's reaction was quite calm. Haha. He did call me a jerk once I shared the Aprils Fool part! However, I am officially not pregnant. At all. Praise God! As much as I love little ones, I am fairly certain that I would end up in a padded room. My sister even called me on Friday to ask if I was preggo, and when I said no, she said "Thank God"...lol.

Chapter 3: Mural Finally

While having April Fools fun, I also hung out with a good friend and her kiddos. We spend the day at her mom's house where I was hired to paint a mural on a cabinet that she had gotten. The cabinet was handmade by someone she knew, so what better than to have a painting added on, right? It was a paying job, which felt good. And she loved it, which made it even better. She sent me some photos of landscapes that she liked, so I combined some of the elements to create this:

Chapter 4: Weekend Madness

After finishing the mural, we took the kids to my mom who offered to watch them both from Friday night until Sunday afternoon! Whooo hoo! And, boy, did we have plans for the weekend. Friday night, we continued with our Lent project of "giving up" material possessions. We went into the playroom in the basement and piece by piece, decided if we were going to (1) keep, (2) garage sale, or (3) trash each item. I believe that by the time we were done, we had over 15 plastic grocery bags of stuff for the garage sale and three trash cans full of trash. Don't worry, there is still more than enough stuff in there for the kids to be entertained for a long long time. When we had the room entirely empty, we called it quits for the night and watched a movie.

On Saturday, we woke up fairly early, had a quick breakfast (I love that the hubs cooks) and got to work. Jose headed to Lowe's and bought a ton of lumber while I began to do some deep deep cleaning. He came home and built a shelf in the pantry for the canned food (the plastic shelves we had were sagging) while I kept cleaning.

Then, we removed the chairs from our living room (one went to our bedroom, one went to the garage sale) and threw the rug to the basement before going out for a relaxing lunch. We felt that we deserved a little treat, so Flat Top it was. Then, we went to buy a rug. Our goal was a cheap one from Big Lots. Instead, we spent about twice what I hoped for (my goal was less than $75), but still got a great bargain. We ended up getting a rug at Menards, that was on sale. They only had the display left and when the employee took it off display, the corner got snagged and became unraveled about a half inch. We ended up getting it for $120 instead of the price listed of$150, so I decided to just do it. And I'm glad we did. I love love love it! After adding the two chairs that we had in our basement (that we got a year or so ago from a yard sale for $10 each!), our living room has become new again! Jose has big plans soon to strip the trim, stain it to match the stain in the dining room, and we will be painting...probably a robin egg blue...but for now, here it is...

Jose worked on building a large shelf in our toy room to block the kids from this huge concrete and metal thing that's sticking up in back corner (we think it was once where the water heater was) and I had to "phone a friend" to help get a couple pieces of plywood for the project. We had a ton of giggles because the boards had to go on top of her car/SUV/station wagon vehicle and it was quite the exciting drive. Thank goodness we live less than a half mile from Lowes! Then, she was awesome and made pizza for us at our house while Jose finished the project and began the next. As the night continued, we got the shelf in place, a frame around the sump pump (which will soon have boards across it to protect the kids from the pump and the pump from the kids), and re-assembled the room.

Then, we finished a movie and went to bed.

Chapter 5: Hop on over to Sunday

Welp, we overslept and didn't go to church. Instead, we went straight to my mom's for lunch. Then, we drove about 20 minutes to the next town east and went to see Hop with the kids. Cute movie, but Teo was quite ornery during a good portion of it. He did end up falling asleep, just in time to wake up for the entire drive home. Then, dinner and I went to church for our Lenten series. I was special enough to even have the mic for about five minutes or so and explain my role with the Fort Wayne Fatherhood Coalition and Anchor Community Church.

Chapter 6: Hello Monday

Back to life. Real world. Work. Hoping to get this week pretty much done by Wednesday night so that I get to clean Thursday and Friday..we'll see. Oh, and I'm going to try to keep blogging through this insanity...