He dropped everything he was doing to work with me in creating this site. It actually came out almost exactly as I had imagined it in my mind… how often does that happen?

Since this site has sort of taken on a stay at home mom/work at home mom niche, from this point on I will be talking about some of the struggles that a stay at home mom faces when she is starting her own business.

I can tell you the first one I’m facing… self confidence. It’s tough to always believe in yourself but if you aren’t believing you can do this, no one else will either. Moments of self doubt will arise but you just need to push your way through.

The second challenge that some stay at home moms face while trying to start their own business… money honey. Luckily for me the overhead for creating my site, getting my gallery up and running and stuff like that has been little to no cost.

As I move forward I’m going to need to come up with money to be able to register for local fairs and stuff like that. There are actually two upcoming events that I am interested in going to and will need to come up with the money in less than a month. The pressure is on but I am absolutely determined.

I’ll let you guys know how that goes.

After all, not only do you have your work at home job to do but now that you run your home like a business your time management is very important.

But do you know what’s even more important than running your home smoothly? Your health and the example that you are setting for your children. If mama’s not healthy, ain’t nobody healthy.

You get up, you get dressed down to your shoes (at least you should be), you get everyone ready for their day and then you set right into doing some housework or performing tasks for your stay at home mom job… what’s missing? Exercise.

If you take into consideration all the stress that is involved with maintaining a full schedule such as the one a work at home/stay at home mom keeps it really does make sense that a little exercise would be needed in order to relieve said stress.

Let’s forget about ourselves for a minute. What better way to make sure that your children grow up knowing the importance of exercise in their lives than to lead by example. After all, it really doesn’t matter what we tell our children if they see us doing the exact opposite. Actions speak louder than words.

Scheduling Exercise Into Your Stay At Home Mom Duties

In my opinion, daily exercise should be scheduled into your day just as you would schedule any other task that needs to be completed. By scheduling it ahead of time you won’t be able to use the excuse that there is no time. But who would use excuses to avoid exercise… hmmm?

Treat your exercise as you would any other task on your to do list. Figure out what is needed and how much time you need to allot for your exercise and stick to that. This will help it become a regular routine that is easier to follow.

Perfect Exercise Ideas For Work At Home/Stay At Home Moms

Not all stay at home/work at home moms are able to pop off to the gym during the day. I fall into that category.

Now at first I used this as the perfect excuse to avoid exercise. But finally I began to realize that I was in dire need of daily movement. Just movement. I didn’t need to be at a gym lifting weights or taking cardio kick boxing. I just needed to get myself moving.

I have now incorporated a morning walk into my schedule. My son rides his bike and I haul ass behind him trying desperately to catch up. It has worked out really great for both of us. Plus by involving him in this routine it keeps me more accountable than if I was just going it alone.

If you think about it, there are tons of things that stay at home moms/work at home moms can do to get in their daily exercise right in their homes or neighborhoods.

• Walk on a treadmill or in your neighborhood
• Work out programs available on your cable’s On Demand feature
• Get a small trampoline – did you know that 5 minutes of constant jumping on a trampoline is equal to a 15 minute jog?!
• Dance with your children in your very own living room

The point is, that if you want to schedule exercise into your day it can be done and it should be done. So get moving!

Every person in the world has days from time to time when they are feeling a little off and their motivation is in the toilet. But not every person has to try and be productive on these days while they are sitting in their own home. Now that takes some doing.

Mama told me there’d be days like this but she didn’t really tell me how to deal with them. Luckily I’ve figured out a few tricks that help me keep my motivation on bad days.

There were times in my not-so-productive days when a bad day would be written off as just that and I wouldn’t get anything done. Some people call these mental health days but for me, they didn’t really do anything but make me feel guilty about all of the things I neglected to do.

It seems that I’ve been able to pull a few tricks from up my sleeves that allow me to get through these bad days and still be productive:

• Pull yourself out of bed, get yourself groomed, get yourself ready for the day down to your shoes – The only thing you are going to accomplish by staying in your PJ’s is to subconsciously be ready to dart back to bed.
• Have some caffeine – if you’re into that sort of thing. Skipping coffee when you are used to having it will only make you feel worse.
• Prepare a list of the necessities that you need to get accomplished today. Remember…just the imperative things. Everything else can wait until you are back to your normal self. So how many imperative things could you really have for the day? We’ll say four.
• Start with number one. Work all the way through until it is completed. You will see that completing this first task has made you feel like you are getting something accomplished. Oooh, just think how it will feel to finish another thing on your list!
• Go for number two and then take a well deserved break. Eat your lunch, take a walk, whatever you can do to make yourself feel a little refreshed.
• Now finish with number three and number four. Guess what – you did it.
• Collapse!

No matter how you want to deal with a bad day the key is to have a plan in place BEFORE the bad day hits. It could be like my plan or completely different. The point is not how you get things done but that you do get things done.

The last thing you want to do on your bad day is to remind yourself that even though you weren’t feeling up to it, you got done what you needed to get done. You should also remind yourself that today is over. No matter how annoying, sad, aggravating or miserable it was…it’s over.

Tomorrow is a new day and today has no impact on tomorrow other than a positive one because you didn’t leave things hanging over your head. Good job.