Our Interior Design Business

Thanks for the post from Barney Crosby

My husband and I just opened an interior design business in Portland. We were both interior designers working for other people, and we figured it would be best for us to go out on our own. We were spending a lot of time making other people rich off of our hard work, and knew that could do it alone. What we didn’t realize is how hard it is to get clients. We know we are both talented designers, but we haven’t been so great at the business side. We love the freedom, but feel bogged down in administrative and financial work. So much goes into starting a business. We needed to have a contract for our clients to sign, and we definitely needed to start marketing ourselves if we wanted to make enough money to stay afloat. I definitely gained a new respect for my old boss when I started to realize how much work it takes. We searched wireless internet Portland and hooked up our wireless internet immediately. Online marketing is such a large part of any business these days and this service allows us to tap into that.

My Model Train Layout

Recently I went to an art festival that was held in the local train station. Walking around looking at all the displays I found myself in the back corner of the concourse. My eyes lit up like a kid on Christmas morning. Right there in front of me was a huge Model Train Layout. 3 or 4 trains were running at the same time. Passenger trains and freight trains wove their way in and out of cities and towns through the country and between mountains. This got me thinking about dusting off that old box of trains in the basement and putting something together for (me) the kids. They are just about the right age to actually enjoy model trains and it would be something we could do together.

Other than the train around the Christmas tree when I was a kid I never really had a model train layout. What did I know about building one? I did a bunch of research on the internet and turned up a great Model Train Blog Site that ended up being a huge help. They have a bunch of how to articles and even recommend an inexpensive guide that really helped me through the project.

I now have a great Model Train Layout that my kids and I enjoy together.

Need to Move

This guest post from Margaret Mills

We went to satellitetvfamily.com when we first got married to get some movie channels and it’s actually worked out well. We just ate and ate when we first moved in together because we were nesting but that meant both my new wife and I put on a few pounds and neither of us were feeling very good about our bodies. I actually found a workout channel on there that had steps we could do together in the comfort of our new home (we really couldn’t afford two gym memberships) and we’ve been trying to work out at least 3 times a week. It’s hard to have the motivation since we both work exhausting jobs and we want to spend time together but at least this way we’re working out beside each other and not wasting away at the gym. I know I’ve lost about 3 or 4 pounds so far and Shelly looks great, too, so we’ll see where we end up if we keep this going for a few more months.

New Jersey Photography is KAshots

It is always hard for me to choose what to throw up on my walls. Do I go with a picture of a flower, do I go with a picture of an animal, what about that awesome view of New York. The hardest part is actually finding the material to choose from. Retail stores have pictures to hang on walls, but then everyone in America is going to have that same picture hanging on their wall.

I want something a little more custom and unique. New Jersey Photography is where that uniqueness came in for me. Not only do they have a bounty of images to choose from, I get the comfort of knowing this was shot by a real person. A real photographer! How cool is that? She even lets me know when new pictures are up on the site. Every once in a while I like to refresh my decor, and this is the place to do it. KAshots.com has everything I could ever want in photos that are so vivid they just jump out and grab you. Custom photography is the way to go!

Enjoying trick or treating like I used to as a kid

Guest post written by Betty Howard

 

When I do special things with my kids I try to think about enjoying them like they enjoy them. It just makes it a lot more fun and as long as it's within reason and I am the responsible adult, it makes our time together so much more fun! I decided that I wanted to do that too for Halloween this year. I thought that it would even be good to try and dress up with my kids' costume them this year too. I think that as soon as I told htem about it, they were excited too!

 

But one of the things that I had to worry about so that we can still have fun is to stay safe on Halloween. So I used my Clear Philadelphia to look up a few extra tips and what times peiople are expecting to start turning on their porch lights for trick or treaters.

 

I did find some extra trick or treating safety tips and used them. Our costumes, a family of cowboys and cowgirls, were such a big hit with everyone that saw us!