Tell us what has been keeping you busy lately. I know some of you (Mary-Lou) have new things to announce......

Gosh, where do I start!

I've had quite a few things on the go of late. As most of you know, I am doing Uni units for advanced web design, with the project being to learn xhtml and css (no more html 4.01 and tables!) and design a website with a topic of our choice.

Then there has been the challenge of learning to hand code a Wordpress theme from scratch, which I have done and is now the new website for Jenni Markham Designs.

I've also taken on doing The Challenge, but sadly, I am starting to fall behind a bit in that, so I am hoping that next week I will have the chance to catch up.

My first Uni assignment is done and now the second one is due next Friday 6th, so I am trying to get the annotated bibliography completed by the weekend, so I have next week free (to catch up on the challenge of course).

Oh and then there's my son's wedding in November which I have to help organise and do all the invitations, placecards, rsvps etc for and have them ready to go out early September. Plus more...........

Thank god I have an understanding helpful DH who doesn't mind a bit of cooking and cleaning!

3 days after finishing this Uni unit, I am supposed to start the next one, but because I have wedding commitments, I have had to defer it until the next available study period, which is in February next year. Not happy about that, but too much to do with wedding.

Phew! I think that is all!

There's a saying I have been uttering a lot lately, which is, "Is it time to breathe?" LOL

been busy with orders. Still getting results from the ACA feature (a month later!).

Met with a publicist last night and looks like I'm going to be working with her. She's going to do regular features of Ahava in TV Soap magazine... and aim for all the high profile mags (vogue, cosmo, cleo etc).

I had a 20 year re-union with my old National Australia Bank work mates last night. God... those 20 years have gone so fast!!!

Trying to get ontop of my bookwork... although I always find other things to do.... so.... I'm going to do a few hours now..... bye....

Tough one Anne - you would kick yourself if she did it again as it is your reputation.

Me I am back working in the city 3 days a week on a 3 month contract..happy when that will be over..it is all Tax Gst related stuff. Which I am so far behind in for my own business (need to be paid to do that sort of work).

I have one website that I am working on in bits and pieces and I am doing the Challenge so I am in the midst of getting a 3rd one up..but I am enjoying it all. The Challenge is a fantastic learning tool and if I get all the way through I will be able to apply all I learn to each website.

I am waiting for an event to occur end of August and then I will be in the right frame of mind to move forward with shop4toys.

And very soon I will have a blog for shop4toys..I outsourced the pain and suffering of that to Anne.

At the moment Anne would not agree..she is dealing with my website and developer after all. my main reason for going back to work was so I could get money to outsource all of that yucky stuff. I get paid than hand it to Anne..I find outsourcing to Anne too easy.

Better go have orders interrupting my leisure / learning time...no challenge tonight. Might put it on my ipod so I can listen to it at work..I mean on the way to work...

Hi everyone...just thought I'd join in here.

I'm working on four different websites for clients...All my clients are going through a metamorphosis so it's quite exciting to be part of that process. One, Elizabeth Re, is standing for Federal Parliament, so if you are in the Stirling Region vote for Liz cause she's a woman of integrity, willing to get her hands dirty and stand up for what's right, not what's popular with the boys.

I've picked up a couple of new mentoring clients, plus am servicing some ongoing clients. Love working with people one-to-one to keep them fired and inspired and I'm also working on a joint venture with Jo McNeilly from Jo McNeilly & Associates, http://mcneilly.com.au which kicks off on 3 September 2010. Jo is amazing. She's a personality profiler who has worked for Corporate for the past decade career coaching, mentoring and delivering Myers-Briggs profiling. Loving working with Jo as I get the bonus of having a mentor in my world too and we balance each other skills wise - she's focusing on the personal development side of things and I am focusing on the practical skills development.

I'm also Assistant Editing national Australian magazine Finally at 40 Life Begins...a fabulous quarterly magazine. So loving feature writing and editing. I especially enjoy sourcing great women who are in the 40 plus demographic who have interesting stories to share. Next edition is looking great content wise...just ask me cause I've had to read it all! I've learned heaps on so many topics. No wonder journalists are brainy boxes - they're exposed to so much information.

While all of this is going on I am working on a new membership site, http://ultimatebusinesssupport.com which should be coming online in the next couple of months. I have a goal of 100 training videos to complete. Managed to get 15 done in a one day session of recording and one day of editing last week, so that tells me it's going to take me a while to crack the 100 but I'm up for it. When I sat down to do my list of what I felt was important I came up with well over 100 topics. The new YouTube.com channel is http://www.youtube.com/user/UltimateBusSuppport - please subscribe and help me launch the channel.

Had some great feedback from a client about my ebook, 10 Mistakes Business Owners Make That Can Seriously Sink Their Business that I offer as a free product from an Editor of a Magazine...that's always encouraging.

And just in case you don't know what I do after reading all of that, I am in the business of growing people to grow their businesses. So in essence, I am a holistic business support specialist who offers a one-stop shop for micro to medium business setup, launch and development. What I don't do, I outsource to my business partners while I am growing my team but the ultimate vision of The Creaticians is to build an agency of very skilled specialists who can walk with business owners through all the processes necessary for personal and business growth.

Sounds like it all worked out well than Emma, you are now working with a boss who is accepting of part time mothers.

Nah I don't have website issues - I outsourced putting wordpress - blog on to the shop4toys website to Anne, it was one thing I would never try (on that website)..hope to see Anne on Facebook Monday.

http://www.challenge.co/training/


The challenge takes you step by step of finding a micro niche, teaching you how to find keywords in that micro niche - setting up a webpage - finding and writing content (oops still must write that). Today was create a website day. Another 3 weeks or more I think..a lesson a day. All different expert presenters..

And all this learning is for free..lots of learning..really helpful learning..you would love it.. it would have been fantastic if I did this before I started a business

Next challenge lesson has arrived how to set up google analytics on wordpress..

It's not called the 30 day challenge now it's just The Challenge. This year they have changed the training format from 30 days to 7 weekly modules of training with a free week in between each weekly module. So it actually goes for a total of 14 weeks. Which, for me, it good at the moment. I am a full week behind due to Uni assignments, but this week being a free week in between modules, I should be able to play catch up.

The bit on how to write content was interesting Anne...with a timer and only 10 minutes to write on your topic..no stopping allowed. Then you can't look at it a day. Almost like doing an exam question.

Still haven't done it as I want that 10 minutes to be uninterrupted. (my excuse for avoidance)

And being shown how to use Market Sama..my new toy.

I've been playing what seems to be an eternal game of chicken and egg with getting products made and getting the website 'right'. Intermixed with a good dose of procrastinating cleverly disguised as 'research'.

I've been getting big custom orders which is great as obviously the best advertising is to get the product out there. My problem is while I'm making these orders these customers are spreading the word, people are checking out the site and obviously there's nothing available as I've been busying getting the customs made!

This week I am dedicating to stock, and a dash of organising my workspace which is currently a shambles