Problogger, Gina Blitstein, offers up simple, yet effective, solutions to common problems women entrepreneurs face and the stresses they can lead to.

By Gina Blitstein

Recently I read a comment from a woman I follow on Twitter. She’s a cool lady whose blog I was fortunate to discover a couple years ago. I enjoyed her authenticity and her sense of humor. She’s an all-around nice person I’d be happy to know in real life - but only know virtually. She tweets about everything from her children’s adventures and misadventures, her ostensibly wonderful husband, trials at work or rudeness at her local Burger King. Like I said, she has all the appeal of a friend - except, of course, we’ve never actually met.

But anyone who’s chatted with those we meet in online communities like Twitter know that sometimes among the more banal and mundane comments we share in order to connect with one another is once in a while a kernel of wisdom - or at least truth and genuineness. And on September 28th, that’s exactly what I heard from this friend, “C.” Here is her Tweet, verbatim: “All day I’ve been feeling like my life is running me. I want to change that, but … how to be in charge, but not rigid?” “Wow!” I thought…”That’s heavy.” Her comment struck me as a genuine cry for help. C is definitely not alone in feeling this way - we’ve all been there. It just came out of the blue at 7:06 PM and was a call to action. “That’s a great topic for a Work It, Mom article!” I thought. C’s words resonated with me and sparked a plan - I’d research and write on this topic to help solve this dilemma for C and the rest of us who suffer from feeling this way!

The first step to attacking a problem is to identify how it has come to be. Let’s explore some of the possible reasons our lives are leading us around by the nose.

“We have the sense our lives are running us versus our running them because we engage daily in the single most deadly combat known to the professional woman today: Clock combat,” says Christine Louise Hohlbaum, author of ‘The Power of Slow: 101 Ways to Save Time in Our 24/7 World.’ Christine explains, “We race against time with a collective sense of urgency and somehow think by doing so, we are productive. It’s simply not true. We may not be to control time, but we can control what we do in the time we have.”

Christine outlines the misgivings under which we operate that cause us to feel a loss of control over our own lives. Many of us - unfortunately - can relate to these ways of getting through the day.

Problem #1 - We attempt to do too many things at once. Multitasking is a myth. Science shows our brains task-switch. We simply cannot fully focus on more than one thing at a time.
Solution - Slow down and look at the Big Picture. What are you running toward? Take a moment to remember what is truly important, then focus on that ~one thing at a time!

Problem #2 - We say ‘yes’ when we mean ‘no.’ It leads to unnecessary stress as we try to please everyone other than ourselves (including clients, family, friends and colleagues).
Solution - Learn to say ‘no’ with kindness. Remember saying ‘no’ to something is actually saying ‘yes’ to yourself.

Problem #3 - We forget whose running the ship. Too often we think external circumstances are in control. The reality is we are.
Solution - Remember you are the master of your own ship. How you decide to divvy out the units in your personal bank account of time is entirely up to you.

Certainly these are issues worth taking some effort to think about. Often we are so busy and have so many demands upon our time and energy that we slip into ‘auto pilot’ rather than making the very changes that could put us back in the driver’s seat. No wonder we feel that we’re not in charge…we’re not!

Admittedly, we will rock the proverbial boat by delegating, slowing our pace and simplifying; however that is precisely the type of change we need to implement in order to get a handle on our life. But that’s the thing…it’s our life and we should - and can - be in charge. Now that we’re aware of some of the pitfalls to which we’ve succumbed, let’s climb out - one step at a time - and start making the changes it will take to be the one running the show!

What changes can you make to stop being run by your life?

Whether it is writers block, a deep purple funk or getting stuck in a rut, we’ve all been there. When you’re working from home - like me - or even if you’re working outside of the home, finding inspiration that triggers motivation can be a challenge. Wanting to give some tips on inspiration, I realized I’m not the foremost expert on the topic but wanting to get a new blog post up sooner than later, I thought I’d improvise and share with you the Top 10 Thing that I personally do to get inspired.

10. Drink coffee. I hate to admit I’m back on a coffee jag. There is something about the first sip of coffee that really gets my brain engaged.

9. Change my surroundings. If I’m working in the dining room, I’ll switch to the living room or the home office (which is woefully neglected because it is in the basement, and I have a slight phobia of basements). In my pre-married life, I’d literally change my surroundings by moving furniture around, but I think that would drive my husband crazy. When in the city, I love working from cafes with wifi.

8. Peruse blogs. I’m still not adept at perusing my RSS feed reader but when I do, I find great nuggets of inspiration. I’ve also used a Web app called Snackr to create a ticker-like display of blog headlines across the bottom of my computer screen. I turn it on when I really need some brain tickling.

7. Engage in social networking. My watercooler is on Twitter. I get my news, tips on how to do things, and inspirational messages from Twitter. In those lulls in my brain, all I have to do is peruse my Twitterstream and get fired up with new ideas.

6. Play with my daughter. While it is hard when I’m frustrated from writers block or feeling down to get into the playful spirit, hearing my daughter laugh or hearing her tell a story can create a shift inside of me toward something more positive and inspired.

5. Read a book. I’m talking about the paper kind of book, not the digital. Sometimes, just holding a “real” book in my hands can be comforting. Reading something different - like fiction - can help to pull me out of my rut.

4. Engage in retail therapy. While it is hard to do much shopping in rural Alaska, I do enjoy stopping by the Tok General Store for a few items. While shopping to get out of a funk can be risky, I have to admit it really does help. When I’m in the “big city” and have a plethora of stores available to me, just walking in and looking around can do wonders for me.

3. Cook or bake. I’m domestically challenged, but I’ve discovered cooking and baking as a way to loosen up my creativity. I tend to open up several cookbooks at once and work off of different versions of a recipe and often have to be creative when I don’t have all the right ingredients. So far the experiments have been edible, and the creative time a great respite.

2. Take a shower. While some people love a nice hot bath, I prefer a nice hot shower to just let go of all the things that may be burdening me and affecting my creativity or mood. I could stand in a shower for hours but find that I’m suddenly inspired with a great idea which cuts the shower short.

1. Hug my husband. Love. Endorphins. Nothing like ‘em. When things are really caving in on me or getting me down, I throw my arms around my handsome hubby and know that I’m loved, protected, and valued. Love is inspiration.

What do YOU do to get inspired?

In the constant quest for work/life balance tips, problogger Gina Blitstein spoke with Michelle Riggen-Ransom and Pamela O’Hara of BatchBlue Software for their take on priorities and running a business AND family.

It’s no revelation to say that having a business requires a complete commitment. The same can be said of motherhood. When you wear both of these hats, the demands can seem overwhelming! How do you reconcile the amount you give of yourself to your business with the amount of yourself that you devote to your personal and family life? How do you make sure there’s enough of you to go around to remain happy and effective in both arenas?

The answer depends on your priorities.

I recently interviewed two accomplished mothers (who just happen to run the same company) about how they manage their roles as businesswomen and moms. Both women are emotionally invested in their business and fiercely dedicated to its success. They are equally passionate as mothers, committed to spending quality time with their families, despite their busy work life. Their answers, however, were surprisingly different.

Pamela O’Hara, President of BatchBlue Software, routinely works a 60-hour week. A

s a mother of 3 children aged 2, 5 and 7, Pamela appreciates the flexibility her schedule allows. While sometimes business is the focus, at other times the needs of her family come first.

Pamela explains, “The challenge with work/life balance is in all the grey areas.” As far as maintaining a clear delineation between what is ‘work’ time and what is ‘personal/family’ time, she admits that it’s a daily challenge. As for designating certain hours ‘for work’ or ‘for family,’ Pamela says any schedule is, “more of a guideline than a rule.”

According to Pamela, communication between work and family is key. “I try to communicate each to the other. I talk to my kids and husband about my work. So when I do have to take an afternoon to work they understand better why I have to do it. And same with the work environment. At BatchBlue we very much respect each other’s personal lives. We share what is happening professionally and personally in staff meetings and in the daily “status” e-mails we send to each other. We maintain flexible schedules so that everyone does have the ability to work family obligations into their workday as needed. In the end we all want the same thing - a healthy family and a successful business so as long as all is being communicated (which is not always easy, but something to keep working towards) they should be able to live together harmoniously.”

Pamela reassures women trying to balance the demands of a professional life with their personal life by revealing, “It doesn’t ever balance. Sometimes it swings one way, sometimes the other. Take it one day at a time and enjoy both. If you do you will be a better worker and family member.”

Michelle Riggen-Ransom is Director of Communications at BatchBlue Software where she averages 50 hours weekly. In contrast to her business partner, this mother of a 6 and a 2 year old says that she and her family are best served by a more structured approach. “I have to have a pretty strict schedule to make it all work for me,” Michelle says. She finds that compartmentalizing work and personal/family life is the best approach for her. She believes that, ideally, “when you are at work you think about work, when you are with the kids, you should fully be with them.” As far as maintaining the delineation between work and family time, Michelle says, “I’m pretty good at it, actually.”

While Michelle says that her personal and professional life are pretty integrated, she admits, “Family trumps work.” Ultimately what helps Michelle maintain separation of work and family is, “having a schedule that works, which I try very hard to stick to. That said, the slightest thing can throw it off (sick sitter or kid, unexpected travel etc.) so the line does invariably get blurred. You need to have a contingency plan in place for those times.”

Michelle advises women to cut themselves some slack when attempting to balance their work and life. “There is no perfect solution, no “having it all,” she says, “so don’t put pressure on yourself to try to create it.”

What, ultimately, is the payoff for making the balance work for you? Pamela says, “I think it is important to feel a sense of accomplishment outside of my family responsibilities. For me, that gives me the confidence and challenge I need to appreciate my own self worth. I think I make a much better parent understanding that I am an accomplished adult.” As for the flipside of the coin, regarding her family, she says, “They remind me daily why I want to be accomplished.” Michelle adds that while her house could use some straightening, “Hopefully my children will remember that they were loved and listened to and adored by parents who worked hard at their interesting jobs.”

Every woman will confront the challenges of divvying herself up among her various roles. Take into consideration your own priorities, whether you strive for a great amount of freedom or a high degree of structure - or somewhere in between. You can find an individual, workable balance between your work and personal life that will satisfy each and most importantly - you.

Where do your priorities lie when balancing your work and family?

Problogger Gina Blitstein offers methods she’s developed that can help you teach your children to embrace a wider variety of foods, and consequently eat more healthily.

By Gina Blitstein

Adults are well aware of the food pyramid. Most of us try to eat with its guidelines in mind so as to stay healthy and at an appropriate weight. While the food pyramid is a helpful guide toward nutritious eating, children know nothing about its principles - unless we adults make certain to teach them, that is. Children start early making judgments on what they like and don’t like to eat. No child is going to eat something just because we tell them that it is “good for you.” When children’s options are limited, their preferences are equally limited. That’s why it is vital that we as adults provide every opportunity for youngsters to experience a variety of foods in a variety of ways.

What can we do as the ones responsible for children’s health and physical development to broaden their food horizons? Having fed hundreds of children at all stages of development as a childcare provider for over 20 years, I’ve accumulated some knowledge and techniques pertaining to children’s nutrition and eating habits. With the right attitude, I know we can make a difference.

Children’s taste buds grow and mature along with the rest of their bodies. Just because a child shuns a particular food today doesn’t mean they won’t enjoy it tomorrow - or next year. Don’t let one dismissal of a food banish it from the child’s realm of existence. Broccoli exists, whether a child wants to eat it or not. Making broccoli disappear only makes the child feel she has more power over food choices than she rightfully should.

Of course you can’t make a child eat broccoli (or any food she chooses to boycott) but it should still be regularly offered in a variety of ways. I’ve found it effective to sometimes ‘camouflage’ a food and other times offer it outright. That way, even if the child chooses not to eat something this time, he is still receiving adequate nutrition.

Here are some methods I’ve developed over the years that have helped me teach children to embrace a wider variety of foods, and consequently eat more healthily:

• Your food processor is your friend. Whether you are a “from scratch” cook or you are opening a jar of spaghetti sauce or a can of soup, add some pureed vegetables to bump up the nutritional content. Adding pureed veggies to homemade meatloaf or meatballs is a great way not only to increase nutrition but flavor and moisture. Puree some peppers, onion and mushrooms and stir them into tomato sauce when making homemade pizza…kids will learn what tastes good on a pizza and not pick off the veggies. Pureed veggies can be mixed into lots of things…sloppy joe filling, taco meat, casseroles…Be sure to match appropriate vegetables with the food…I’m not proposing pureed broccoli in the tacos!

• Sauces and dips are also your friend. Let a child choose what she would like to dip her celery or fish stick in…ketchup on a carrot stick?! - while it may seem revolting to you, your kid is eating a carrot, right?

• Seasoning is your friend, too. A little touch of salt, chicken bouillon, even sugar on cooked veggies will make them much more palatable to children.

Of course it’s not just vegetables children don’t eat enough of. Meatloaf or meatballs is a good place to add some wheat germ or oatmeal for additional whole grains. Try this compromise to get a child to eat whole grain bread…use one slice of whole wheat and one slice of white in a sandwich. If you serve it white side up, he may not even notice, especially if it’s toasted. Cinnamon, peanut butter or jelly also make good camouflage for whole grain bread. If the kids aren’t fans of brown rice, try mixing it half and half with white rice.

As for encouraging children to eat more protein, pair it with something they already like. Try stirring extra cheese, ground beef, chicken, hot dogs or ham into macaroni and cheese.

Children must learn that the word chicken is not automatically followed by the word nugget. I not only cook a variety of foods but familiar foods in different ways. The best way to teach food’s many different incarnations is to allow children to observe the preparation. Giving them “face time” with food de-mystifies it, taking away the mystery of what ends up on their plate and ultimately in their mouth.

Finally, I offer these suggestions for encouraging a pleasant dining experience and a healthy relationship with food for all:

• Cook one meal for everyone. You are not a short order cook! Provide at least one representative from all the food groups, and you have accomplished your mission as the cook. Special orders encourage pickyness for pickyness’ sake.

• For anyone under the age of 5, prepare a plate with a little of everything. Once everything has been at least tasted, more of something may be taken. We don’t want to teach a child to “gorge” on one particular food to the exclusion of everything else.

• Even babies eat what the family eats…in most cases there is no reason for buying expensive jars of baby food! With very few exceptions, a baby can have a pureed version of what the rest of the family is eating. Before a baby begins eating proteins (around 8 months) you can reserve some vegetables from the family meal and puree or mash them to an appropriate texture. After starting proteins, a baby can eat a pureed version of the same meal. This is a fantastic way to gradually teach their taste buds to get used to flavors and textures.

Hopefully these suggestions will help the children you cook for learn to enjoy eating lots of healthy foods, and enjoy the lovely experience of eating!

What changes can you make toward teaching your children to eat nutritiously?

“The economy is in the dumps. People are stressed to their limits. And the environment continues to suffer from our excesses. If those with compatible jobs worked at home just one day a week, U.S. companies, individuals, and communities could over $350 billion a year and the environment would be spared thanks to the equivalent of taking six million cars permanently off the road. What’s more, our savings in oil would total almost 80% of our annual Iraqi imports,” says author Kate Lister in a promotional email pitching her book Undress For Success: The Naked Truth About Making Money at Home (Wiley, 2009).

The book, and the companion web site at Undress4Success.com, are places for employers, employees, freelancers, and entrepreneurs to get inspiration around working at home. I had the chance to email Kate by email about the book she co-wrote with Tom Harnish and about her theories on working from home.

Q: What was your “aha” moment about working at home?

When a mattress flew off the car in front of me as I traveled to work on the Sure-Kill Expressway one morning. Well, that was the final straw anyway. I simply could not stand the whole business suit and pantyhose scene. I grew up in a home-based business and always knew that’s where I’d wind up.

Q: What would you consider some main qualities a woman must have in order to successfully work from home?

Discipline, discipline, discipline. While there are plenty of distractions in a regular office setting—co-workers stopping by, coffee breaks, birthday parties, water cooler chit-chat—the workplace culture keeps you in check. When you start working from home, you face different kinds of distraction—household chores, the sofa—only now, there’s no one to keep you in check but yourself. You need to find a way to stay focused. And you need to train your family and friends that just because you don’t leave the house in the morning, you do have a real job and you really are working.

Q: What would you consider some main issues a woman must consider before working from her home?

Be sure your family and friends buy into the concept. No, you can’t run their errands, come out and play, and have dinner on the table when they get home. You have a real job!

Q: What are some common (and avoidable) pitfalls that someone working at home might fall into and how would you recommend avoiding them?

Someone once said “the nice thing about having your own business is you get to work half days; you just need to decide which twelve hours.” The same could be said about working from home. When your work is right there, it’s sometimes hard to turn it off. There’s alway one more email to read, one more phone call to make, one more text message to send. One teleworker we interviewed for Undress For Success—The Naked Truth About Working From Home told us she actually resorted to climbing in the car at 6pm, driving around the block, and returning home to mark the end of her day.

Q: What is the downside(s) of working at home?

For some, loneliness is an issue. We’re social creatures, after all. That’s why you see the coffee shops filled with people working on their laptops. One coffee shop owner we interviewed said his business has been transformed by the work at home movement. He’s actually remodeled twice to make more power outlets available.

Q: What is the one major takeaway you’d like people to get from reading your book?

There are legitimate home based jobs and business opportunities out there. If you want to work from home, we can help you make work what you do, instead of where, how, or when you do it.

How do you feel about working from home? Do you do it? Want to do it? Love it? Hate it?

As I look back over several decades of owning and running a business, I’ve come to realize the enormous differences between being a business owner in my 20s, my 30s and now my 40s. I thought I’d share some of the differences here and would love to hear your thoughts about being a business owner at different stages of your life.

Me as a Business Owner in My 20s

I started my first business in my late 20s, an Internet company in the mid-90s which made me the first female and for a while the youngest female to start a full-service Internet company (Web hosting, Web development, online content development, online marketing, Web publishing, online/offline sponsorship opportunities). How can I describe what it was like to start and run a company in my 20s? Let me spell it out for you as bluntly as I can:

• I had no idea what I was doing.
• I was insecure.
• I was idealistic and too trusting of the wrong people.
• I was too emotional about business.
• I was impatient and insensitive to how my actions affected others.

Everything I did in my 20s and early 30s for and with my business came from the heart and the gut which somehow worked and hit this zeitgeist that catapulted me into a spotlight that was both bright and glaring at the same time. My insecurities led me to trusting the wrong people and giving in to them. I was a terrible boss, so freaked out by the huge responsibilities on my shoulders that I hoarded a lot of work, redid work that others did rather than empowering and mentoring them, and isolated myself from others because I was so lost and unhappy.

Me as a Business Owner in My 30s

After a two-year stint working in a government PR and marketing job, I went back out on my own with an online consultancy. Running this business by myself and with just me as sole proprietor was like night and day to my first business.

• I was more familiar with the joys and perils of running a business so handled them more professionally.
• I was more savvy about business in general and took things slowly and deliberately.
• I had proved I could manage others well in my previous job but made a conscious choice not to do so based on my preference.
• I was able to look at my business as a business and not get too emotionally tied to it so I could make sound business decisions.

Having my own home-based business really suited me. Working alone, on my own, was what I needed at that time. I continued to hone my skills, expand my clientele, and began to actually make a good living, something that entirely eluded me in my 20s.

Me as a Business Owner in My 40s

At the end of last year, I realized that my business had the potential of being bigger than just me. I had gravitated from straight online marketing to social media marketing and felt the energy and excitement that I had felt in the 90s with my first Internet company. I brought in an incredibly talented business partner with the goal of turning my little one-person consultancy into a full-fledged business.

In my 40s, I am simply a better person, and this informs my business decisions. I realized that I could craft a business that suited the way I wanted to live my life rather than have my business rule me. And I could offer this type of opportunity to others who were seeking the same kind of reversal of the usual “live to work” and instead embrace the process of “work to live.”

In my 40s, I am

• more patient with myself and others.
• more focused on living a good life and being a good person rather than being a good worker.
• more able to delegate duties with trust and empower others to do their best.
• more selective about who I trust and more able to surround myself with good, smart people.
• more secure in admitting what I don’t know and then finding people who can take over those responsibilties.
• more excited about being wildly successful in business as a means to an end.

My “end” is the desire to travel the world with my family and always discover, always learn new things.

So many changes. And I like where this life - and my work - is going.

How have you changed over the years in terms of running a business or doing your work?

I recently had the opportunity to speak on a panel at BlogHer sponsored by Pepsico. The discussion topic was Live with Purpose and what that meant to women today. The panel was part of a larger project to document women’s thoughts about purpose and indexing this discussion and future discussions to see if and how women’s attitudes change over time.

One of the first questions was asking each of us about our own purpose.

“What is your purpose?”

We went around the circle of panelists, and each one of them said either “my children” or “my family.” One after another, the women expressed how their family was their main purpose. Then it was my turn.

“I’m a troublemaker,” I said. “I speak the unspoken, the taboo.”

Here is what I said: “My purpose is my work.”

There, I said it. Shocking? But why is it shocking? My purpose is my work, and without my work, I am not fulfilling who I am. And when I’m not being true to myself, I’m not any good to my husband or my daughter. I love my family very much. But not at the expense of me.

Women don’t speak about their work in those terms. Maybe some women don’t have satisfying work or don’t have a mission or purpose where their work is such a vital extension of who they are, their work is their oxygen. And that’s okay. Maybe other women truly believe they were put here on this earth to be a wife and bear children. Good for them.

But if you are one of those women whose work defines them, do you feel guilty about it? Do you apologize for it? Do you suppress your own needs and put the needs of others first?

I argue that if you do, you are denying the very reason you were put on this planet. We each have a purpose for being here, and most of us were not put here for others. Sure, reaching out and connecting to others staves off the loneliness, however, we have very little to offer others if we are half of who we are supposed to be.

Do you agree or disagree with my thoughts about purpose? What is YOUR purpose?

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• Lee Woodruff: What Do Women Want? What I Learned at Blogher (huffingtonpost.com)

Guest blogger Gina Blitstein provides some great ways of looking at taking control of your meals. This really resonates with me because I’m not much of a domestic goddess and stress over meals for my family on a daily basis.

No matter how busy or successful you are, you’ve got to eat. We all know how important a nutritious diet is to keep us at the peak of health and energy. We also know that during the course of a hectic day, food choices can be limited and far from healthy, not to mention outrageously expensive. That’s assuming, however, that we leave our food choices in hands other than our own.

I propose that it is easier than you think to eat well and economically - even when you’re swamped. With a bit of planning and preparation, we can take control of the food that we put into our body and the bodies of those for whom we may cook.

You may say that you can’t cook - or that you don’t like to cook. Well, lots of people who don’t like to exercise get themselves to the gym or out for a walk because they know it’s the right thing to do. You needn’t be Martha Stewart in the kitchen to prepare food that is not only delicious but nutritious and decidedly less expensive than dining out.

If your excuse for not cooking is that you work long hours and that you don’t want to come home to yet another job, I can ease your concern. There is so much cooking that can be prepped ahead of time that, with appropriate planning, a meal can be cooked and served in minutes. Really. It simply takes planning and preparation time that is no more than you’d spend waiting for a table at a restaurant or for your meal to be served. If you have the time to wait, you have the time to prep!

I have been a licensed child care provider for over 20 years and have prepared my share of meals and snacks along the way. Through the years I have picked up some habits and developed some routines that make cooking tasty and nutritious meals a breeze. In all fairness, I must admit that I do love to cook. But even with things we like to do, when we feel we must do them they quickly become drudgery - especially when they are labor-intensive. That’s why my cooking techniques are straightforward and little-to-no fuss.

Here’s an overview of my approach to taking control of meals:

1. Look for inspiration. Set your mind to see a restaurant menu everywhere. Television commercials, the internet, magazines…wherever you see food, act as if you were deciding on a restaurant. Ask yourself, “What kind of food do I want?” Include something that made an impression on you (Asian, Italian, burgers…) in your weekly menu plan.
2. Plan meals in advance. Take stock of what you have on hand in your kitchen. Any inspiration there? A half jar of salsa has turned into a Mexican fiesta at my house! Make a list of a few meals you’d like to make in the next few days. Are there any similarities in ingredients? You can use that to your advantage.
3. Turn shopping time into a search for inspiration. Look for seasonal fruits and vegetables and featured items. These will be particularly tasty and are usually on sale. If ground beef is on sale, for instance, consider hamburgers, tacos, meat sauce for spaghetti…
   
4. Don’t be scared off by recipes. Start simple if you aren’t adept in the kitchen. Don’t overwhelm yourself with complicated recipes. In fact, if you can, don’t even use them. Perhaps read a few recipes so you can get a feel for the types of ingredients that may be included in a certain cuisine or type of food as a point of reference. If you’ve eaten, you know how to make more dishes than you think you do. Experiment with some simple and healthy ingredients like pasta and vegetables. There is really no magic to it.
5. Prepare ingredients in bulk. Start thinking how you can save time by saving steps. For example, if you’re chopping an onion for spaghetti sauce and for topping the hamburgers you’ll be cooking in a couple days, process all the onions at once and put aside the slices until needed. It saves time because you’ve already assembled the cutting board and the knife. You’ll only need to wash them once, too. This strategy can even extend to cooking. You can brown your ground beef for spaghetti sauce and tacos in the same pan too. Store what you don’t need until you cook the second meal. It’s little things like this that can really make a difference time-wise.

Recently I discovered DinnerTool, a web site I wish I’d thought of first. It assists in meal and menu preparation and can point you to recipes based on such criteria as degree of difficulty, cuisine, health restrictions and budget. The recipe finder lets you plug in ingredients and find relevant recipes. Rest assured there is help available to get you on the road to better eating through the ‘do it yourself’ principle.

You don’t have to make the commitment to cook every day. You will see the benefit to your health and wallet even when if you start with a couple of nights a week. Be patient with yourself, and over time the habits will become second nature. My credo is this:

“Food doesn’t need to be fancy to be good, but it must be wholesome. Cooking doesn’t need to be complicated, but uncomplicated doesn’t need to be common.”

So treat yourself to some home cooking - it’s good for you in so many ways.

Who’s in control of your meals?

by guest blogger Gina Blitstein

Every mother stands in a powerful position to impart her various talents, values and ideals to her children. It is her responsibility and privilege to influence her children, teaching them by her example how to succeed and find happiness in their lives. When that mother is also an entrepreneur, or “mompreneur,” her children are the beneficiaries of a plethora of unique life, practical and social lessons. What can children learn from an entrepreneur mother?

Toni M Schulken, MS, OTR/L is a pediatric occupational therapist, inventor, president of Pathways For Learning & Pathways For Learning Products, a devoted wife and a proud mother of five young children. According to Toni, any family member working hard to make and achieve goals is a positive influence on others around them, particularly children. She believes that children learn many lessons from the circumstances of their mother’s entrepreneurial mindset and lifestyle.
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I cannot work without childcare of some kind. I cannot easily find reliable childcare in the rural Alaska community where I live. Without someone with my toddler during the days, providing her with undivided attention, my work day is fragmented and frustratingly unproductive.

So for the last month, I’ve been exploring the concept of a nanny living in our home. Trying to figure out the logistics of it nearly gave me a nervous breakdown.

First, where would she sleep? In order to accommodate her, the only logical space is our double home-office/recording studio in the basement which means finding a place for two desks and all of our equipment. We could move the upstairs guest room set up downstairs to be the nanny sleeping quarters, but our two desks would never fit in the upstairs guest room. My husband offered to move his desk to the weight room when he realized how crazed I was becoming trying to work out the details.

We couldn’t have the nanny sleep in the upstairs guestroom because then when in the world would my husband and I have sex? We’ve mastered the “we’ve got a toddler who could walk in any moment so we really should get that bedroom door lock fixed,” but the hubby knows that when we have guests, our home is a sex-free zone unless we can find a time when nobody is within earshot.
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