Patriotic Hair Bow

I made a 4th of July bow today that M will be sporting on Monday. It is a combination of two bows I teach how to make on how-to-make-hair-bows.com. I like.

JCP Photo Shoot

My parents were in town the other day (like two weeks ago) and we went to Meridian's Dairy Days at Storey Park where there were a bunch of vendor booths set up. One of them was for JCP Portraits and I "won" 50% off of a package and anything else I ordered if I booked there. I had been meaning to get pictures of Morgan for her 2nd birthday and this seemed like a good opportunity (even though I am two months late) so I booked their "garden babies" package. Here are some of the results. I'm thinking of taking the cream colored ones and making a gallery wall with white frames and changing her room decor to white and cream.

We're Up!

Last year one of my New Years Resolutions was to start a business. I had everything finished from my end by the end of the year so I claimed to have reached that goal, but now I can officially say that we are up and running!

How-to-make-hair-bows.com is the website. We sell a group of instructional videos and pdf manuals that teach how to make all kinds of hair bows (and they are all super cute!). The cost for the package is $27 and buyers get instant access to the videos -- no waiting for a DVD!

If you click on the link and go to the site you will see a video that starts playing that shows examples of some of the bows. That was a project I just finished and I'll break it down to my amateur abilities. First I took all of the pictures of the bows that either I or my friend, Sarah, made. Then I put them together as a slide video. Then I did a voice over and decided that I needed some music to go with. So I looked for royalty free music and decided that I would rather play my own music than buy royalty free (hey, the business has a minimal budget right now) so I made up this song on the piano and recorded myself playing it. Then I edited the song so you can only notice a mistake or two and I put it as background music on the video, rendered it, then sent it to our smart guy who put it on the website.

There are a few tweaks that need to be made, but right now things are good to go.

And the best news... we got our first sale last night! Hip, hip, hooray!

If you don't mind helping me out, I'd really appreciate it if you "liked" our facebook page.

I'm not asking you to buy the program, but if you want to learn how to make the bows, it will teach you how (and you know where to find me if you have a question).

Utah Trip and the Scots

I got an email from one of my besties that lives in Las Vegas a while ago inviting me to meet her in Utah while she and her family were there for the Scottish festival at Thanksgiving Point so I took the oportunity to visit some other friends and family on the same weekend. I don't know how I didn't get any pictures of me and Kim, but I got a bunch of Morgan (surprise!) and Bri, who is a great hugger. We took Nana with us to the festival with us.Later that weekend we went to my brother's and had dinner with my family and they took Morgan to Lynndyl for a few days while I went to Sarah's and helped her decorate her house. I also got my hair done and we realized that it's really hard to decorate, go to lunch, and do hair all in one day before I left. We didn't get a lot finished with the decor, but we had some good ideas.

M Smiles

Morgan has learned how to smile on command and we're loving it. She still likes to play in the cupboards. And she chooses her own accessories -- which always includes the baby towel as a shawl or "Punzel" hair and often the Marti Gras necklace.

Love this girl!

Language of Love

You've heard of the five languages of love, right? Words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service, and physical touch? Yeah, those languages. My language is definitely "quality time." The one I care about least is receiving gifts. I seriously don't care if I get a gift for my birthday, Christmas, etc. -- and don't get me wrong, those are very important dates to me that I celebrate for weeks in advance. The problem is that just because I don't need gifts, I think that other people don't and I don't give them when I should. It's not a money issue -- although I am pretty frugal -- it's that I don't think it's important. For instance, I think it means more for me to make a trip to Utah to visit people than buy a gift for the people I visit. I end up spending more money and time, but it's worth it to me.

I have recently realized that a bunch of people close to me speak "love" differently than I do -- with gifts -- so next year I will do better speaking back to them. I hope they know how much I love them. I'm just telling them with MY language and not THEIRS.

What is your language of love?

Denver

I've been trying for days to upload pictures from my Denver trip and I finally googled help (obviously blogging wasn't priority). Troubleshooting told me to try to do it in Internet Explorer instead of Chrome, and guess what... it worked! You are dead to me, Chrome. (Okay, we'll talk later).

So, Denver was pretty great. I stayed at the Sheraton on 16th Street Mall. It's this street downtown with great shopping and there are pianos set between the lanes of the street so anyone that wants to be creative can play. Now, y'all know I love me a painted piano, so you can imagine my excitement when I saw these.I went running outside one of the days after the conference and found this great running path along a creek. It was kind of like the Greenbelt or Provo River Trail, only the river was the size of the Lazy River at Seven Peaks and as deep as the kiddie pool. But, water's water.

I ended my run at the state capitol. That statue in front is dedicated to the Colorado soldiers who died in the Civil War. There were 4,900 volunteers from Colorado (population 25,000ish) and it wasn't even a state yet! Interesting, I know!

The conference (seminar) was about home staging and marketing your business. It really motivated me in a lot of ways. One was to be more organized with my time. New goal: exercise by 7:15am so I can be ready for the day when Morgan wakes up. Then I'll be able to get my business work done (for the four that I'm working on) during her nap time.

You want to hear a few of the things I learned that impacted me?

1. You are the average of the top 5 people you hang around. So basically, you are probably richer than two of the 5 people you hang around most and poorer than two (money is just an easy example). Who do you want to be?... With whom are you surrounding yourself?

2. Leverage time, money expertise and people. You can usually get more accomplished if you have some help. For example, if you don't know how to recarpet a house and you're doing a rehab project, hire someone who does. It will save you time and frustration (and help someone else out).

3. Under promise and over deliver. People will love you and your work.

4. Utilize the front and BACK of a business card. The back of a card is great real estate that should be taken advantage of.

5. If you are going to someone's house to stage or for a consult to sell (as an agent), take a pair of inside shoes. This shows respect for their house. Granted, this is not one of the biggest things I learned, but I like it because it is a simple thing that makes a big impression.

Okay, now take these and find a way to use them in your daily lives -- if you're still reading this. Haha!

I Wanna Be

Right now I'm in Denver for a home staging conference. It hasn't started yet so don't think this post is about incredible new things that I've learned. It's really about the best conversation I had yesterday.

I had just arrived at the Denver airport and went to the SuperShuttle desk to find out where to catch my shuttle. This conversation is with the guy at the desk.

Him - "What's your last name?"

Me - "Rich"

Him - (looking at computer for my name) "Like, 'I wanna be?'"

Me - (chuckle) "Or maybe, 'who doesn't want to be?'"

Him - "Or, 'if you were you wouldn't be taking SuperShuttle.'"

Me - (laugh) "Yep. That's pretty much it."

Thank goodness for people who make you laugh.

Memorial Day

Since we were alone (as far as family goes) in Idaho this Memorial day I wasn't sure what there was for us to do. We spent most of the day cleaning the house and Tom fixed a drain that took hours longer than he was planning. That evening we did get invited to a bar-b-que at our neighbor's house. This is the kind of house/yard that makes you realize there will always be something better than yours -- and I was very grateful. I got a lot of inspiration from their plants, pots, furniture, pool slide, and other decorations. They also heat their pool so Morgan got to go swimming even though the temperature outside was in the 60's.

This ended up being the best picture of the day -- stupid camera battery. It was just before the swim party.

That night we purchased some flowers to put around our tree. I planted them on Tuesday with Morgan running around and picking them up and throwing them. Let's just say I wasn't very patient. Some people really love gardening and planting flowers. I learned that I am not one of them. Not one bit. It was like pulling teeth, only worse. Here's to perennials next year and forever more!