I love Christmas, and the whole holiday season. It has to be one of my favorite times of year. But it can also be the most stressful time of year if I don’t plan for it and get organized right from the start.

I don’t care if you work outside the home, or are a WAHM/SAHM like me, taking time to plan and organize right from the start can be the difference between and great season with many family memories or a chaotic nightmare of wrapping presents until 3 AM Christmas Eve, forgetting to defrost the turkey, and then having out of town guests just show up for dinner.

So what can you do now to help you get organized and be able to enjoy the holiday events with your kids, family and friends?

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christmas, Christmas activities, Christmas for WAHM, Christmas organizing, Holiday, Holiday planning, holiday preparation, Moms, Pets, Web 2.0

Mine goes something like this…

5:00 AM. I get up, grab a coffee and go outside for some not so fresh air. This is when I like to have a bit of quiet gratitude time.

5:15 - 6:00 I’m already online checking stats, pages, emails and the like. If I can pull off a quick post during this time I do.

6:00 - 8:15 - I’m busy with my kids. They have some special needs and so require pretty much my full attention.

8:15 - Take my first look at the good ol “to do” list and decide what must get done right away, and what I can put off. If I have appointments with doctors, schools, specialist or others I try to plan them in the morning.

If I have an at home day, I try to do research and blog. It takes me some time to put out a post. I still spend too much time writing and then re-writing, I need to trust what I’ve said the first time.

3:00 - The kids get back home, I need to tend to their needs. I am online, but my attention is split and so I can’t do things that are really mindful at this point.

4:30 - 7:00 Atleast 3 days a week we have after school activities planned. When we get home, it’s either a quick supper on the fly, or eating something that I’ve prepared in the crock pot.

7:00 - 8:30 Again attention is split between the kids and the computer.

8:30 - 11 or 12. Posting, research, commenting …

11:00-1:00 - Fall into bed at some point. Only to be woken several times through the night to tend to my sons needs.

5:00 AM - Wake up..rinse..repeat

That I guess would be my typical day. I laughed when I saw that it looks much like Robyn’s from Practical Blogging. I’m sure it’s similar to many WAHM’s

Some days are better.. some are worse.

What I find is that I need to organize my working time better. I use to have a great schedule set up, and I’ve gotten out of that. I seem to run off on a tangent. I’ll be commenting or researching, and all of a sudden it will be time for the kids to get home.

Poof! 3 hours is lost, never to be recovered.

I need to re-write my schedule. Post it on my board. And, Get out my timer!!

Blogging can be is A LOT of work, I think a Blogging Schedule is a must.

Add that to any other online projects I’m working on, plus being the “CEO” of your home, plus being super mom can leave me absolutely comma tired by the end of a day. :sleep:

What about you?

Expect the Best,

Blogging, blogging schedule, Kids, Moms, organization, time to sleep, WAHM Work at Home

Honestly? I’m ready for them to go back tomorrow. Have I starting getting them ready to go back? I haven’t done the first thing.

Being a stay at home mom, I love summer. In June. I plan to spend time with the kids, go camping, plan fun activities, have family BBQ’s, let the kids stay up late, not have a definite schedule…all that kind of great stuff.

And we did do that. But we’ve had many other trials and tribulations along the way this year.

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Moms, WAHM Work at Home

This is something I know I’ve brought up before, but it’s worth repeating.  If you’re like me, you try and jam enough stuff for 36 hours into a 24 hour day.  I was cruising around the other day and came across this article about time management and I thought I’d share it with you, enjoy…

Work At Home Time Management
By: Tammy Embrich

Tammy’s two WAH websites focus on free telecommute job leads and more.

Sk*rt is the latest and greatest social networking site…. with a twist.  It was designed for women! 

Skirt was put together by four talented women who saw a need.  They were looking for a collection of great content for women.  The idea came to them during a conference call they were having when the superbowl was on.

How Does it work?

Basically you can submit anything to Sk*rt that you think would be of interest to other women.  Once something has been submitted you can “love it” up and make it popular.  Very similar to digging something.

  ”sk*rt is the place to find and/or link to anything and everything on the Web that you’d like to share with other women. If sk*rt users like what you submit, they’ll vote for it. The more votes, the more likely your link will make it to the front page. Links on the front page are seen by everybody and get lots of love. The front page content is ever-changing and always cool.

Of course, no one person can keep track of every cool thing out there. So sk*rt users bring the content. Vote for the content. Determine what’s good and what’s bad. sk*rt works to make sure you don’t miss any of the good stuff.”

How to start getting involved with Sk*rt? 

They have created a you-tube to show you how quick and easy it is to start using this service, but basically this is what you want to do:

1. Register an account and set up your profile page.
2. While your at it, add me as a friend my user name is wahmbuddy
3. Start submitting articles and voting for others.

It’s really that simple.  Even filling out your profile info will only take you one minute.  I added a skirt bookmarklet to my links page so that I can easily submit any article that I see while I’m out cruising the blogosphere that I feel is “sk*rt” worthy.

Because this social media is sooo young, there is great potential to for it to help you in your everyday blogging and online business.  My friend Ponn actually posted an article about just that the other day.  She talks about becoming a “Power User” and really using sk*rt to help us get more traffic.  She lays out a way to systematically increase your visibility on this network.  It’s a great read.

The one thing that I don’t see on sk*rt and I think it is lacking is an area for business women and work at home moms in the categories section.  This is a huge area that is being missed.

If you see something that you like on Home with Heather that you feel is “Sk*rt” worthy, please love me up and if I see something that is of interest to me on your page, I will of course do the same.

Expect the Best,

It’s summer and that’s awesome.  The kids are home and we get to spend time with them, plan great family things, take the kids to the park, the zoo, the fair, go on a picnic …

But what kind of activities are you moms planning to keep your cool (in more ways than one ;)) this summer?

I’ve come up with quick list of 11 things you can do to avoid “summer mom burnout” 

• Make a no cook meal, like cold cuts and a veggie tray.  Let the kids eat it out under a tree, and make it a cool picnic.  They can’t hurt much and it will give you a few minutes of quiet time.
• Do some preplanning for kids to go to a day camp part of the time.  This will give you time to catch up in the house, your business, or hell just relax for the day.
• Trade kids.  Have a sleepover with your son or daughter best friend.  Make arrangements with the mom to do a swap.  Gives each mom a night off.
• Arrange for a sitter to go on a date night with your hubby or for lunch with your friend.
• “Double date” with another mom.  Plan to do activities together.  This gives the kids someone to play with and you someone to visit with.  It’s always great to chat with a grown up.
• Go for a cheap movie matinee in air conditioned comfort.
• Go to the mall with a friend for the afternoon if shopping is your thing.
• Have some pre-planned activities the kids can do on their own to allow you time for blogging, business, phone calls or whatever else needs to be done.
• Keep a semi-schedule with your kids so do have a bedtime that is before yours.  You need some wind down time at the end of the day.
• I always get up atleast an hour before my children.  Even in the summer.  This gives me some quiet time to be grateful, enjoy the morning, and plan my day.
• Camping is the bomb in my family.  I go regularly with some family and friends.  We always have other kids to play with and other adults to visit with.  Our best summer memories have been made out at our trailer.  Guess what, we don’t even spend much money, swimming in the lake is free, so are campfires and water fights.

We all love our kids and we all love summer.  But in order to do the best for our kids, we need to think of ourselves. 

Remember the old saying - “If Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy”

Absolutely plan a summer full of great fun for the kids, but remember to make it great fun for you too.  Don’t run yourself to the point of exhaustion trying to keep them happy, your house in order, and your business or blog at full speed.

Just a few quick thoughts off the top of my head tonight.  I’m sure you can think of more creative ideas to be with the kids, but also keep some mom time for you.  More4Kids posted a blog and started her own list of 7 Mom Tips for an Enjoyable Summer.  You should check it out.

Love to hear your thoughts.  Share ideas with other moms.

Expect the Best,

Our Kids Are Special is a site (my first) that I started about 2 1/2 years ago.  I hadn’t really done anything to it for a long time and have been meaning to get back to it for equally as long.  I spent the weekend updating it into a blog style site and plan to start blogging it regularly.

It is a family site dedicated to helping parents and caregivers of special needs children.  I have lived and worked with children with disabilities for over 20 years and am passionate about helping these children and their parents/caregivers.

You may be a biological parent to your child, you may have adopted, or be a foster parent.  How ever you got your little angel doesn’t matter.  What does matter is that it takes a special kind of love to care for the needs of a special child.  It also takes special knowledge, caring and patience. 

It is my hope to provide you with information, resources and dialogue to aid you in parenting your special child. 

I would love to hear and write about your inspirational stories too.  When talking about kids or families on this site, I will not ever use actual names.  I feel it important to honor the privacy of the children/families.

As this site grows, I want it to become a huge resource for you, the parent.

Please stop by Our Kids Are Special and check it out.  Leave me a comment.  If you’re looking for information in a certain area, or if you have a story or article that you would like to share email me at:

heather @ ourkidsarespecial.com (take out the spaces)

I’d love to hear from you.

adoptive parent, biological parent, caregiver, children with disabilities, foster parent, Moms, our kids are special, parent, parenting special needs, special needs, Uncategorized