Congratulations to Deb of Lift Bridge Cards and Crafts, she is the winner of the contest I held this week for a spot in the Busting the Blog Myth class that Sister Diane and Tara Swiger are hosting!

Deb said:

What a wonderful idea – I’m an educator, too, and have seen first hand the ripple effect of helping one student learn and grow.

I’ve taken Diane’s “Tune-up” class for blogs, and have become so much more confident and competent in my blog writing. I’m looking to take my crafty enterprises to the next level, and think that this class will really help propel me into the future. I have some great ideas, and need to get a little more education and support to make them a reality.

Busting the Blog Myth starts in just a few days so head on over to sign up now.

My day job outside of the home is in the Development Office at Northwest Indian College. The development office’s focus is on fundraising for scholarships and endowments for the students. We organize a couple of large events each years and also do other “typical” fundraising such as direct mail. We are currently planning our 4th Annual TL’aneq – Gathering for a Celebration event if you would like to attend!

I’ve been thinking about the impact that supporting people has on others. The American Indian College Fund recently started a new campaign titled Help a Student, Help a Tribe:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4ew7I0gmVs[/youtube]

The impact that one student can have is tremendous. The student from NWIC who is profiled as part of the AICF campaign can help stop 1,800 kids from being dropouts. That is a huge number! The difference one person can make can be measured and success can be the outcome.

This has definitely spilled over from my job into my online craft community support. I have also been supporting free (here is my inspiration for doing so – Sister Diane’s January update) and I’ve been thinking about how to take it a step farther. I love being able to buy an awesome Craft Sanity magazine (link is to the print copy) and know that doing this helps Jennifer continue to be able to put these magazines together. She isn’t a huge business, with financial backing, she is someone who has knowledge to share (in the form of writing and collecting stories, as well as photography, tutorial writing, layout, etc.). Supporting Jennifer allows her to reach more people

One thing I would like to do for February is to gift Sister Diane and Tara Swiger’s “Busting the Blog Myth” class to someone. Leave a comment on this post to be considered – tell me how taking this class would impact your business and online work. 

photo credit: nhburdick

From Sister Diane’s post: “Busting the Blog Myth: How to make a blog that actually markets your business (without being gross). It’s a four-day intensive, starting on February 20, that aims to help each participant dig deep into how blogging can best work for their businesses.”

The contest will run from today, Monday February 13, through Thursday, February 16. The winner will be picked using random.org and I will notify them (and post here) Friday morning.

My friend Carrie posted this on her blog the other day a long time ago and I thought it was fun.

7 Things I Don’t Do

1. Knit – regardless of how many times I want to or I am interested or I look at classes in town, I’ve never just done it. Completely lack of motivation to take another step tells me it just isn’t happening. Then I see beautiful pictures of yarn and I want to use it!

photo credit: orchidgalore

2. Deep cleaning – When the kids and I lived with Mom not too long ago, she remembered that I’m not the tidiest person around so we split the cost of a housekeeper. When the kids and I moved out, I kept using the service. I’ve never loved cleaning, I mean I do it because it has to be done, but that’s it. I am happy to turn this over to another person!

3. Drink coffee regularly – I was lucky enough to grow up living next door to my Grandma. For kids in my family, that meant meeting there before school and having breakfast (or just a snack) and coffee. This only lasted until we had to ride the bus, so from kindergarten until 6th grade, I had a cup of coffee just about every day. That coffee’d me out and now I just enjoy how good it smells.

photo credit: subsetsum

4. Iron clothes – While I like ironing fabric and even don’t mind ironing while I am quilting, ironing clothes is not appealing to me at all. I try to fold clothes as soon as they are out of the dryer.

5. Escape the clutter – I don’t know how I can be organized and know where everything is and still have a messy table! I know it is a matter of not having a place for everything, and this is an issue as long as we continue to move and move since every house is different and the storage opportunities at each house are different as well. This house is the smallest we’ve been in lately and the mess can drive me crazy. I’ve been getting rid of a lot of stuff as a result.

6. Scrapbook – this, like knitting, is something that I want to be able to do. I tried in the past – I have an album with probably eight pages finished – but it just doesn’t stick. I keep memories in a box which is so much less pressure then cutting them up to fit on a page! I have seen this cool page system over at Wendolonia and wonder if that will work for me? I got a Smash Journal and can’t wait to do something with it! I feel like if I find something that works, I’ll be more inclined to do it. Maybe this isn’t true though. Maybe I have to be satisfied with my photo boxes and other boxes of memorabilia.

7. Meal Planning – I have a calendar that has a space for meals, I have a notepad on the fridge for keeping track of a list for when we run out of food, but nothing works to help me meal plan. I have even tried cooking food and freezing it – that actually works really well – and having my kids help. I can plan for a few weeks and then lose the motivation or will or whatever it is. For example, last week – we did great with meal planning! Over the weekend I cooked a few things and froze them too. This is something I need to improve because once my classes start again, I am going to appreciate the planning. And I can plan and organize every other area of my life, why not this! Maybe it’s my changing mind during the day of what I am interested in eating. I wonder what can overcome that.

 

To put a spin on things, here are 4 Things I Do

1. Let my kids help – sometimes it is hard to let your kids do things because they won’t do it right (meaning your way). Of course this gets easier as they get older but I start early. I’ve let JW help quilt, he loves to sew. He asks “help sew?” and sits on my lap. I go slower and he is thrilled. He is fascinated to sit on my lap and touch the quilt, to help move it.

2. Make birthday cakes – so far I’ve made Dora, Elmo, a drum, a gumball machine (two or three times!), a strawberry and I’m not sure what else. I like having birthday parties at home, a throwback to how things have always been done in my family. I try to keep this tradition alive even though we move all the time.

3. Have a library – books are expensive and we use the library all the time. But I have a lot of books and love having them. I love that JW “reads” and that Alice and Jake read at any chance they get. Jake almost reads more then Alice does, which kind of surprises me. We have enough books for at least three, maybe four, bookcases. Most of the books are packed up as the house we are in is too small and there isn’t room for our bookcases. The important thing is to love the books that we have, so I do go through them and make sure we are getting rid of text books or pass along books to friends that we are done with.

4. Cook – I love to bake and cook. I don’t mind making a big dinner, even if it takes 20 minutes to eat after I cooked for two hours. I will try new things and cross my fingers it is delicious. And even better, if you see number two I don’t like cleaning (okay that says deep cleaning) so I have trained myself to clean up as I go when I cook. I put dishes in to soak or in the dishwasher and put ingredients/food away while I’m making it. The kitchen is rarely a huge mess after I am done. I may not be able to plan a meal, but I can cook.

Feel free to play along, and also enjoy Carrie’s 9 Things I Don’t Do.