Tuesday, October 27, 2009
I'm closing in on 30 pounds lost
Out of the 100 that I'm trying to lose, I am almost rid of 30. I've been standing at 29 pounds lost for a while and just upped my exercise last night, turning some of the treadmill walking minutes to jogging minutes.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
adoption scrapbook supplies
We are an international family, having adopted two children from Guatemala. This business began in 2000 shortly after receiving their referrals, with the understanding that we would be able to spend more time with our kids at home and still give back to the adoption community.
It started out slow but now is quite a project. I also give adoption lifebook workshops to groups of adoptive and foster parents, teaching them the importance of sharing pre-adoptive life history and how to go about doing that in a sensitive and truthful way. Here is a listing of all lifebook workshops on my events calendar.
Friday, September 18, 2009
losing 100 pounds
One of my current goals is to lose 100 pounds, and my other blog is helping me be accountable so that I can accomplish the goal. I really think I can do it. I've lost 20 so far. Eighty more pounds seems difficult, and I know the first 20 were the easiest. But, I'm going to give it my best college try.
The support of fellow bloggers, friends, family and others with their own weight loss journeys has been invaluable thus far. If you have a weight loss goal you're earnestly working toward, especially if it is one where you need to lose a substantial amount of weight, please contact me. I'd love to follow you or add you to my blog roll so that I can be inspired by you and hopefully so that I can help motivate you as well. I'm an upbeat and positive thinker that intends to meet my goal.
The support of fellow bloggers, friends, family and others with their own weight loss journeys has been invaluable thus far. If you have a weight loss goal you're earnestly working toward, especially if it is one where you need to lose a substantial amount of weight, please contact me. I'd love to follow you or add you to my blog roll so that I can be inspired by you and hopefully so that I can help motivate you as well. I'm an upbeat and positive thinker that intends to meet my goal.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Latin American Adoptive Families of Wisconsin
Currently, I am the Vice President of LAAF-WI, a non-profit company in Wisconsin that seeks to provide information, support, education, outreach and social activities for families in Wisconsin that have or are thinking about adopting from a Latin American country.
This past weekend, we had our annual Fiesta. I asked my daughter (age 10 from Guatemala) to take some photos while I manned my vendor table. (I sell adoption jewelry and scrapbook supplies.) When she came back to return my camera, I assumed that she had taken photos of people, the crafts, activities, food, etc., but since the only thing I specifically mentioned that I wanted a picture of was the mariachi band performers, that is all she captured on film. :) Anyway, here is a picture of the fantastic band:
This past weekend, we had our annual Fiesta. I asked my daughter (age 10 from Guatemala) to take some photos while I manned my vendor table. (I sell adoption jewelry and scrapbook supplies.) When she came back to return my camera, I assumed that she had taken photos of people, the crafts, activities, food, etc., but since the only thing I specifically mentioned that I wanted a picture of was the mariachi band performers, that is all she captured on film. :) Anyway, here is a picture of the fantastic band:
Thursday, September 10, 2009
how can I lower my insurance costs
My husband and I are self-employed. We own our own business and therefore do not have the benefit of group insurance policies. The only thing we could do is apply for an individual plan. Rates are sky high, especially considering we are both overweight. I have to thank God neither of us are smokers! Anyway, our family premium (we have three kids) was $850 per month as of today. However, we just got notification by mail today that as of next month our monthly premium, should we decide to continue would be $1,008 per month! I gasped in horror when I read it and dh looked at me as if I had seen a ghost.
In this poor economy, when our income is only about 50% of what it was in recent years, we struggle to fathom how we can continue being the recipients of health insurance! As it is, we have a $3500 deductible, and not all of the services we get are covered. So, before the insurance company would pay a penny, we would be out $13,700 ($850 x 12 months plus $3500 deductible).
Hubby just got off the phone with the insurance company and their suggestion was to go up to a $10,000 deductible and then our premiums would be $489 per month. So, if we take that offer, we would be out $15,868 per year if we were unfortunate enough to meet our deductible.
Fortunately my entire family is healthy and has no pre-existing conditions. We do not plan on having any more children (our surprise sweetheart born in 2008 came via c-section and we thankfully did have our insurance at that point) and the older kids are not yet of age to participate in full-contact high school sports.
I don't know what we are going to do. Considering we are healthy, I'm wondering if the monthly premiums we'd save by cancelling our insurance would more than pay for the preventive exams and well-child care and immunizations.
We are careful and cautious and have always maintained insurance as responsible members of society. What have others done? When budgets just do not allow, has insurance been one of the expenses you've decided to let go?
In this poor economy, when our income is only about 50% of what it was in recent years, we struggle to fathom how we can continue being the recipients of health insurance! As it is, we have a $3500 deductible, and not all of the services we get are covered. So, before the insurance company would pay a penny, we would be out $13,700 ($850 x 12 months plus $3500 deductible).
Hubby just got off the phone with the insurance company and their suggestion was to go up to a $10,000 deductible and then our premiums would be $489 per month. So, if we take that offer, we would be out $15,868 per year if we were unfortunate enough to meet our deductible.
Fortunately my entire family is healthy and has no pre-existing conditions. We do not plan on having any more children (our surprise sweetheart born in 2008 came via c-section and we thankfully did have our insurance at that point) and the older kids are not yet of age to participate in full-contact high school sports.
I don't know what we are going to do. Considering we are healthy, I'm wondering if the monthly premiums we'd save by cancelling our insurance would more than pay for the preventive exams and well-child care and immunizations.
We are careful and cautious and have always maintained insurance as responsible members of society. What have others done? When budgets just do not allow, has insurance been one of the expenses you've decided to let go?
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
selling my commercial embroidery machine
In late 2006, I bought a commercial embroidery machine. It was supposed to supplement the scrapbook business I own. I thought it would be neat to embroider custom scrapbook covers to suit the needs of my niche customer base, adoptive families. After all, when is the last time you saw a scrapbook cover that was specific to adoption!
I didn't realize that I would have such a hard time finding the right type of material to do the embroidery. I mean, with that machine, I could embroider on just about anything, including toilet paper and nylon hose! But, unless it was going to be on one of those stretchy book covers, I was going to have to hire a book-binding service to adhere the embroidered cloth to the scrapbook album. By the time I bought the plain album, the material to be embroidered upon, compensated for the consumables used during embroidery, binding and a little for my time, that album was going to be so expensive that no one would want to pay.
I did find one workable option. Charles Craft, a company specializing in needlework products, made a scrapbook album cover meant to be used by those that enjoyed the art of cross stitch. Unfortunately, the cover would not actually fit on any of the name brand albums I wanted to carry. I ended up buying a case of covers and a case of albums Charles Craft recommended, Pioneer brand Photo Albums. They sold well, and despite I wasn't crazy with the actual stability of the album itself, I wanted to make it work! In fact, here is one that I have remaining:
I didn't realize that I would have such a hard time finding the right type of material to do the embroidery. I mean, with that machine, I could embroider on just about anything, including toilet paper and nylon hose! But, unless it was going to be on one of those stretchy book covers, I was going to have to hire a book-binding service to adhere the embroidered cloth to the scrapbook album. By the time I bought the plain album, the material to be embroidered upon, compensated for the consumables used during embroidery, binding and a little for my time, that album was going to be so expensive that no one would want to pay.
I did find one workable option. Charles Craft, a company specializing in needlework products, made a scrapbook album cover meant to be used by those that enjoyed the art of cross stitch. Unfortunately, the cover would not actually fit on any of the name brand albums I wanted to carry. I ended up buying a case of covers and a case of albums Charles Craft recommended, Pioneer brand Photo Albums. They sold well, and despite I wasn't crazy with the actual stability of the album itself, I wanted to make it work! In fact, here is one that I have remaining:
Much to my disappointment, Charles Craft discontinued the sale of the needlework album covers, which had previously been available in both cream and navy.
Since I couldn't make album covers, I dabbled for a while in apparel. Again, I had a fair amount of success, but came up with every reason in the book for why the embroidery business was not for me...
Let me state, the machine I have is incredible! It should be for the $11,000 I paid for it! I hate to see it go. I really don't like giving up on anything I start out to do. But, with another baby that joined the family since the machine's purchase and two other side-businesses, there simply is not the time. Anyone want a really cool embroidery machine? It's an Amaya XT embroidery machine and it works great. And I have the stand, software and hoops to make it a viable startup business (or add-on if you already have other Amaya XT machines in your shop). Here's a photo from the manufacturer if you're interested:
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