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EPnews -- from The Entrepreneurial Parent
a work-family resource for home-based entrepreneurs
@ http://www.en-parent.com
January 10, 2001
Lisa Roberts, Editor:
epideas@en-parent.com
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_______________CONTENTS_______________
- ... The Funny Things EP Kids
Say & Do
- ... EP of the Month -- Mona
Currey of Aegis Internet Technologies
- ... EP Times -- "Deadline
Deterrence" by Lisa Roberts
- ... EP Expert Essay -- "Let's
Talk Change" by Sarah Edwards
- ... What's Happening at EP --
Very Last Call for Book Research
_________________________________________
Editorial Note: EPnews is distributed
the 2nd and 4th Wednesdays of every
month, except during the summer. The Entrepreneurial Parent web
site
(en-parent.com) is a
hub of community and career resources for
Entrepreneurial Parents -- come visit often. Welcome all new
subscribers!
___________________________________
THE FUNNY THINGS EP KIDS SAY & DO!
Submitted by EPnews Subscriber,
Wendy Brown, Owner of "Your Office Annex," a
virtual office service, and StudentPoetry.com, a poetry web site
(mailto:brownew@cybertours.com):
The other day my three-year-old
daughter came up to me chatting about
circuses and clowns, and I noticed that she had some brown smudges
on her
nose that looked suspiciously like blood. At first I thought
her nose was
bleeding, and the smudges were dried blood. So, I asked her about
it. She
mentioned that she had tried to get the brown marker off the
window with her
finger.
I asked, "How'd the marker
get on the window?" and she admitted that she had
been drawing on the window. I started quizzing her on the appropriate
places
to draw and color, and as a veteran "wall" artist,
she answered all the
questions correctly. Q: "Where can you draw?" A: "On
paper..." So, I asked
her why she colored on the window.
She said, "So that it would
be pretty, like you."
=================================
Why work at home? So you can hear the funny things your EP Kids
say
throughout the day. Share with the EP Community something your
child said or
did recently that made you smirk, giggle, or LOL. Send your submission
via
e-mail to:epideas@en-parent.com.
And if you need a stockpile of smiles to get
you through your EP day, check out Grace Housholder's heartwarming
"The Funny
Kids Project" at www.funnykids.com. On those stressed-out
EP days, you'll be
glad you did!
Grace's coffee table book is
also available at:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0963871536/theentrepreneuri
___________________________________
EP OF THE MONTH
Mona Currey
http://en-parent.com/Profiles/Currey.htm
Every month we (try!) to highlight
the achievements of one of our newly
registered members by selecting them as our "EP of the Month."
As we review
our new member forms, we take a look at business names, niche
markets,
special PR or advertising techniques, innovative products or
services, and
other types of unique business practices.
This month we chose Mona Currey,
EP to 2 children, ages 5 and 7. Her company,
Aegis Internet Technologies at www.aegis-web.com, is a web design
company. We
love how she has set up her Portfolio -- with the screens of
her client sites
on one page instead of simple links. The visuals make all the
difference, and
we're very pleased to have Mona as a new member of our EP Community.
<begin round of applause>
Please welcome Mona Currey by
viewing her Profile Page at:
http://en-parent.com/Profiles/Currey.htm
and/or sending her a welcome
message at:
mailto:mona@aegis-web.com
</end round of applause>
To All -- Please Note: We now
hand out an "award" graphic to our EPs of the
Month, which can be prominently displayed on the winner's home
page or "press
room" page. We also continue to offer our selected EPs a
FREE Profile Page at
the EP Showcase and a photo link from our home page all month.
So please
spread the word among your friends, colleagues and email loops
-- invite the
EPs in your life to join en-parent.com as a registered member,
and let's
build the EP Community together!
_________________________________
EP TIMES -- AN EDITORIAL
"Deadline Deterrence"
© 2000, Lisa M. Roberts
This morning I had to laugh.
Last night I was up late, like I have been most
nights for the last week or so, reading through and taking notes
of the EP
Extended Survey results. For those of you new to en-parent.com,
this is the
form found at (www.en-parent.com/survey2.htm) that is being used
to conduct
research on a soon-to-be published book on Entrepreneurial Parents.
What I
began to notice last night is that very few respondents seemed
to be
concerned about "how to handle emergencies when you're under
deadline
pressure," or "how to find back-up childcare during
client meetings," with
most EPs basically saying, "No contest - family comes first."
Period.
Now I've been an EP for over
13 years, and my home career has gone through
many stages, growth spurts, and slow downs,Ķwith a
wide range in caliber of
clients and customers all along the way. And deadline pressure
has always
competed with family concerns. OK, maybe not emergencies (and
maybe that was
the wrong word to use), but your average child-related, unexpected
sidetracks
that can derail the best-planned course of entrepreneurial action.
Like this morning. About a month
ago I made arrangements to meet with a
colleague at my house to brainstorm business resolutions and
goals for the
new year. I chose a morning that my 4-year old was in "lunch
bunch" until
1:00 so we could think straight without distraction. This has
probably been
the only planned meeting I will take for the next three months
because of
several hard deadlines I'm committed to. And, bleary-eyed from
reading last
night, I turned in after the kitchen was cleaned but not any
other room of
the house, thinking I had a couple hours before she came and
after the kids
were all off to school.
So, wouldn't you know, about
2 a.m. my 4-year old starts whimpering in his
bed, complaining that his head and stomache "had too much
in it." I sat with
him for about 45 minutes with a bucket in the bathroom, waiting.
OK, nothing
happened, but his eyes were blurry and his forehead warm so I
knew "lunch
bunch" the next morning wasn't going to be. No problem,
there was a 90-minute
library video in the house. We were prepared...
Then about 6:30 a.m. the radio
alarm went off and the news came in -- "Only a
handful of school delays, hardly any at all in Connecticut,Ķ"
Of course, our
school district had to be one of them. A 90-minute delay -- the
exact amount
of time needed to clean the rest of the house! And thus this
early morning
became a blur, with two vibrant, healthy boys with 1.5 extra
hours on their
hands and a big lawn full of snow calling to them, a middle-school
age
daughter who was one late slip away from a detention and who
managed to miss
yet another bus (even though it was 90-minutes late, mind you),
and a little
one running a fever who I did not intend to drag out into the
cold...
In the end, everything miraculously
knocked into place like a
properly-designed domino arrangement. Jessica got a ride with
my next door
neighbor. The boys played in the snow but took the time to change
into dry
pants before catching their bus. I swept floors, cleaned the
downstairs
bathroom, threw in the last load of laundry and wiped down tables
in between
kids' breakfasts, and even had time for a bit of bagel and coffee
of my own.
And last but not least, my son was content watching his movie
in the playroom
while I had my meeting -- uninterrupted until the last 15 minutes
-- in the
dining room.
But the toll of handling everyday
"emergencies" while "under deadline
pressure" and business meetings adds up. Surely I'm not
the only EP who's got
the "Murphy's Law" phenomenon following his/her every
home career move! If
anyone's got some insights, tips or anecdotes on this topic,
feel free to
drop your comment off at:
http://en-parent.com/survey2.htm
(You can just answer that one
question and skip the rest if you've already
filled the survey out! But you only have until this weekend because
the form
will be coming down from the server then.)
Meantime, I gotta take a break
from this entire day and dance with Jessica &
Thomas to "Aida" (our latest household Broadway theme
music). Jessica just
walked in from school with an historical account of "Aida"
and we are most
curious!
Until next month, have fun...and
good luck with those deadlines vs.
"emergencies,"
Lisa
=================================
Lisa Roberts is the mother of four, Site Producer of The Entrepreneurial
Parent and author of "How to Raise A Family & A Career
Under One Roof: A
Parent's Guide to Home Business" (Bookhaven Press, 1997).
"EP Times" is a
continuation of the "Home Business Diary" essays originally
created for her
book, which is available for purchase at:
http://en-parent.com/order.htm
and through Amazon, at:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0943641179/theentrepreneuri
___________________________________
EP EXPERT ESSAY
"Let's Talk Change: New
Happy New Year, Special Friends"
© 2000, by Sarah Edwards
This time of year, I often think
of the following conversation because it
reminds me of why New Year's, quite unlike any other day, invites
us to stop
for a moment and look into our heart of hearts.
"Can you give me a tip,"
she had asked, smiling, "for what I might do to make
this year a little less stressful? I love my life. It's exciting.
I feel like
I'm accomplishing a lot, but," her brow wrinkled as she
paused briefly, "I'm
constantly rushing from one deadline to the next. There has to
be more to
life than this, but I've tried just about everything I know to
find more
balance."
If it hadn't been the New Year,
I might just have answered her question. But
it was the New Year, so I knew what she was really asking. I'd
been there.
She had run out of little adjustments she could make to improve
her life. A
big adjustment was lurking just around the corner. She just hadn't
seen it
yet. So, instead of jumping in with some peppy stress reduction
tips, I
proceeded cautiously.
"You know," I began,
"you seem like a successful person. You've achieved so
many of your dreams. It's quite natural to expect to feel satisfied
with your
life. Am I right?" She agreed immediately, so I went on.
"I'm wondering if
this feeling that there must be something more, means a new dream
of some
kind is taking form on your horizon?"
"Well, possibly," she
responded somewhat hesitantly. I could tell she was
doubtful and wanted to dismiss it, but couldn't. It was something
she'd need
to think about.
Evidently she did, because the
next time we talked, her life was quite
different. She and her husband had decided to have a baby and
she was working
part-time. "I still love my work," she emphasized,
beaming, "but now I have
another job I love. Can you imagine! Me, a mother!"
It seems she had surprised herself,
as we so often do when we look into our
hearts and let the seeds of a new dream into our lives. That's
the
opportunity each New Year gives us; a chance to prevent the person
we are
today from judging the dreams that are growing in the heart of
the person
we're yearning to become. That's the person who gets to take
the stage for
awhile around January 1st, the one who knows that we're not done,
that
there's something more for us, something more in us
Here's to the new dreams taking
form in your heart this New Year. Sarah
=====================================
Sarah Edwards is our EP Home Career Selection Expert and the
author of "The
Practical Dreamer's Handbook, Finding the Time, Money and Energy
to Live the
Life You Want to Live." Let's Talk Change is a weekly column.
Sarah wants to
hear about your dreams and the difficulties you're having in
creating them.
E-mail your questions, comments and ideas at www.practicaldreamer.net
and she
may answer or address them in future columns. Sarah and her husband
Paul have
written a dozen books on working from home and self-employment.
They have
over a million books in print. You can read more about them at:
http://en-parent.com/Experts/exp-edwards.htm
__________________________
WHAT'S HAPPENING AT EP
---> EP Survey Prize Winner
Receives EP Gift Basket
>From Colleen Paddock:
"I got the EP Gift Basket
when I came home yesterday and it was awesome!!! My
favorite had to be the tote bag that read "A lesser woman
would be dead"! How
many days have I related to that! Ha! Thank you so much -- I
enjoyed each
piece of it (and especially "The Family Organizer"
- wish I had it since
September...will re-buy that year after year!)
---> EP Book Research Comes
to an End
Once again, thanks go to all
Entrepreneurial Parents who participated in our
research for the forthcoming book, "The Entrepreneurial
Parent: How to Earn
Your Living at Home in the Internet Age and Still Enjoy Your
Family, Your
Life and Your Work" by Paul & Sarah Edwards and Lisa
Roberts (Putnam/Tarcher,
2001). We are happy to report that ALMOST 600 EPs responded to
our short
survey!
We are so close to making that
600 mark (about a half-dozen away, really)
that we're leaving the survey up on our site for this last final
week. We'll
take it down by the weekend, so if you're new to our list or
haven't yet
filled the survey out but have been meaning to, here's your last
opportunity
to do so. We would certainly appreciate your contribution, as
will many
future readers!
http://en-parent.com/survey.htm
Thanks much!
Lisa
_____________________________
CONTACT/SUBSCRIPTION INFO
The Entrepreneurial Parent, LLC
is not engaged in rendering legal or
financial advice. If expert assistance is required, the services
of a
licensed professional should be sought.
This newsletter may be redistributed
freely via the Internet. Re-publishing
of separate articles for your print publication needs approval
first; write
to: Roberts@en-parent.com
for permission.
© 2000, The Entrepreneurial
Parent, LLC
Editor: Lisa M. Roberts
POB 320722, Fairfield, CT 06432; http://en-parent.com
Ph/Fax: (203) 371-6212, Email: office@en-parent.com
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