Marie Forleo’s B-School that is!

I believe that everything happens for a reason and that when you ask The Universe for guidance you will get it. You just need to pay attention.

The last several months I have been stressing out big time trying to figure out a way to help support my family while still being able to work around the kids’ schedule. I was so depressed that I had convinced myself that I’d never be able to do anything creative ever again and I was a big loser and I might as well just give up and go back to bookkeeping. *cue Charlie Brown’s sad walk (with music)*

Yeah, it was pretty bad.

Then, about a month ago, one of my online friends mentioned that her life was changed by Marie Forleo. Well, I needed a little life changing myself and I had heard her name before so I went to her website to see what she was about.

What I discovered was that she has a web show called MarieTV and her passion is to teach women entrepreneurs how to run successful businesses doing what they love using the power of The Internet via a program called B-School.

B-school is an intensive 8-week course that teaches you everything you need to know about growing an online business including: starting the right business for you, creating a profit plan, building awesome websites, communication, list building, creating great products and services, marketing, and so much more. On top of that, you’ll be part of an amazing community of women who will support you all the way. And although the course was designed for women, men are absolutely welcome to join as well.

After signing up for Marie’s newsletter and watching a lot of MarieTV and doing a lot of research and soul searching and number crunching and talking it over with my husband, we decided that attending B-School would be worth making some sacrifices and tightening our belts a little tighter than usual for a while. So, I’m going for it and I’m so excited!

If you have a business that is not doing as well as you’d like it to do or you want to start a business, even if you don’t know what kind yet, head on over to rhhbschool.com and take a look for yourself. Even if you choose not to join this year, sign up for her newsletter at marieforleo.com and soak up all the awesome free information she gives every week.

If you do decide that B-School is just what you’ve been looking for, I highly recommend you sign up through one of the B-School Affiliates. These are ladies who are successful B-School graduates and they are offering all kinds of free products and/or services if you sign up through their link. Who doesn’t love free stuff, right?!

I wish I could link you to a nice, neat, comprehensive list of Affiliates but as far as I know, there isn’t one. What I can do is give you my tiny list of favorites.  This list only scratches the surface. You can find many more by using your Google skills.

Check out this sampling of B-School Affiliates for yourself:

Danielle LaPorte

Blacksburgh Belle

Susanna Frioni

Jenny Shih

Registration for B-School is open until March 4^th at 3pm EST so you have plenty of time to check it out.  If you decide to sign up please let me know in the comments below, or, if you found this post through Facebook, let me know there.  I’ve created a smaller B-School accountability group for my friends and I’d love for you to join us!

Looking forward to an exciting year!

XOXOX

One challenge I want to take on is a photo 365 project. That’s one photo a day for 365 days in a row. It seems pretty daunting for someone, like me, who has a habit of not ever completing anything but I feel it’s something I need to do.

I wasn’t sure how I was going to go about it until I was introduced to Project Life 365. The creators of Project Life 365 have put together a great website with prompts (or themes) for each day of the year. You take a picture based on the theme for that day, upload it to Instagram or any other social network of your choice with the appropriate tags, and then you can see and be inspired by what everyone else has posted for that theme. I thought this would be a lot more fun than just taking random pictures every day. I’ll be posting my images to Instagram, Flickr, and occasionally to my Facebook page. You can find links to all three on the main page if you’re interested in following my progress.

The theme for today is Resolution. One of my goals for this year is to learn something new every month. This month I’ve decided to explore bookmaking.

Project Life 365, Resolution, 1/365

This is something that I’ve been interested in doing for many years but I’ve just never gotten around to it and then Effy Wild decided to offer a FREE online bookmaking class at her site, Wild Soul Arts. The class consists of a .pdf, several step by step videos, and a recording of the livestream of Effy decorating the cover. I’m having a lot of fun and it’s not too late to join. Just sign up on her website and all the free bookmaking goodness is yours.

What are your goals for this year?

Not only did they bring Snapseed to Android (finally!) but they also added one new set of filters, called Retrolux, and completely revamped the Frames set.

Retrolux is aimed at the LoFi/Hipstamatic/Instagram crowd. It’s filled with lots of texture and crazy, colorful lightleaks. But in the true Snapseed spirit you have full control over each effect so you can create just the look you want. Each filter and texture in the set has multiple options as well so make sure you hit the button more than once to view them.

I have to admit, I really love the new Frames set. The old ones were good but these are even better. Take a minute to scroll through them all and you’ll see what I mean.  You can even change to a square crop with one click or color the frames to match your image.

Below are a couple of images using Retrolux and the new frames. I really love the polaroid frame on the picture of my daughter.

I almost forgot to mention the biggest change: Snapseed is now free for iOS and Android. That’s right, FREE! So, if you don’t already have it, what are you waiting for!? Go! Go! Go!

Below is my healthier hot chocolate recipe modified from the recipe on the outside of the Hershey’s Cocoa box.

HOT VANILLA ALMOND CHOCOLATE MILK

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup Hershey’s Natural Unsweetened Cocoa
• 1/2 cup coconut sugar
• 3 cups Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk
• 1/3 cup hot water

Makes enough for two large mugs.

In a medium saucepan mix together the cocoa and coconut sugar.  Add the hot water and stir until completely mixed.  Heat the cocoa/sugar mixture on the stove for a few minutes on low until most of the sugar has disolved.  Add the almond milk.  At this point you can turn the heat up a little bit and heat until it is the desired temperature, stiring continuously. Don’t let it boil.

Voila!  Creamy, dairy-free hot chocolate that won’t do a number on your blood sugar level.

Yum!

The last several months have been a huge turning point in my life.  After getting some not so stellar test results back from my doctor I decided it was time to stop being a victim of our society and take back control of my life.  It was time to get healthy before it was too late.  I started with excercise and then I completely changed my diet.  That was the easy part.  The hard part was going to be trying to lower my stress level by changing my thoughts and outlook on life.  So, I hit the books (I mean Internet) and surrounded myself with people who I admire and who are inspiring me to live a better life.

With that in mind, I’ve decided that this new incarnation of my blog will focus on more than just art.  Not only will I be talking about some of the things that are going on in my life but I also want to share with you all the cool stuff I’ve found and learned and I want to do it in more detail than I can on Facebook.   It is my hope that you might see something on this blog that will motivate you to live a better life as well.

My jouney has only just begun but I’m really looking forward to sharing it with all of you.

We even discovered three happy and healthy strawberry plants underneath all the weeds!

Speaking of things we discovered, I lifted up a large rock and found these two cute little baby snakes.  They are called  Sharp-Tailed Snakes and they eat slugs and other bugs so they are welcome to stay as long as they like.

Today, I’m going to try to get my seeds planted.  So exciting!

As you can see, I have a lot of work ahead of me in the weed pulling department but before you know it I will have lots of yummy fruits, vegetables and herbs.  I can’t wait to move in and get started!

And my fruit trees are blooming too!

Happy Holidays!