Isn’t she a sweetie? She looks so cozy, just lying there relaxing. I’ve been doing some relaxing today, myself. My computer has been misbehaving, and as I told you the other day, my kids were out of school, so not a whole lot of progress was made, work-wise today.

My Firefox browser is acting very wonky, and I’ve been fussing with it all day. I’ve disabled addons and I’ve re-enabled them, and I’ve uninstalled plugins, and I’ve uninstalled software that could possibly be causing trouble.  I was even thinking of uninstalling my groovy Weather Channel desktop software that I love.  I haven’t gotten to that point yet, though.  I got tired of it all a couple of hours ago and decided to just surf on (ack!) Internet Explorer for a little while before I go to sleep.

While doing that, I received an email in my inbox about a new Frank Kern video. I just love his videos! I learn so much from him. The video that I’m listening to tonight is revealing seven secrets that a lot of gurus haven’t even figured out! You can watch the other videos at his Mass Control blog. It’s all good stuff.

So go ahead, relax a little - but, learn while you’re doing it! That sounds like the perfect entrepeneur’s compromise to me!

Oh yes, and don’t forget Lynn Terry’s webinar tomorrow. Lynn will have a special guest on the webinar tomorrow. He has just written a guide to podcasting called, Niche Podcasting and his name is Alan Pederson.

I was totally pumped up and excited on Wednesday. I had somewhat of an epiphany, from witnessing the growth of a friend. I got totally focused, and realized exactly what I needed to do to go forward into the new year, and really grow in my online endeavors. I was so motivated - it really felt good. I was nervous, but, full of happy anticipation.

I got started on my newly-decided actions, and then was interrupted in the afternoon when it was time to go to the post office and pick up one of my kids. And by the time we were on our way home, it was snowing like mad here. And it just does not snow in Alabama very often - at all! So the kids were thrilled! And there was lots of playing and snowball-making and snowball-fighting, and picture-taking going on!

Work -what’s that?

New goals, new objectives -what are those?

Then on Thursday, there was some family drama which slowed down my productivity. When the dust cleared, I sat down to get to work, and my computer just was not in the mood to work. I spent the rest of the day doctoring it.

On Friday, one of the children stayed home from school, not feeling well, and my stomach decided to not feel well, too.

And since school got out on Friday, up until about twenty minutes ago, we’ve been hosting and entertaining extra children.

It’s funny, because, I still feel that excitement from Wednesday. I still feel like I’m on the verge of something really good. I’m about to jump off of that cliff of blind faith and it feels great! Only, I’ve just taken one foot and lifted it over the edge, and ….

STILL PAUSE!

Someone put me on pause. I’m still here, still waiting…might get some of that ‘new’ stuff going tomorrow, but, it will more likely get going on Monday, when ….NO! Hold that thought! Monday is a school holiday….

STILL PAUSE!

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you’ll know that I absolutely love Squidoo! You will also, then, know who dragged me into this mess! Tiffany Dow is the one who got me so excited about all the wonderful Squidoo possibilities! And she has done it again! She has written a new ebook about Squidoo. And this time she is teaching us how to make lenses and sell them! And she does this for a nice little sum! Her teenage son has even done it! The book is called, Flip That Lens and I am so excited about it! There are many, many ebooks out there that teach you lots of things, but, the thing that you have to realize about Tiffany is that she really has a talent for this - for teaching people through an ebook. Some people might be good teaching you if they are with you, but, their ebooks leave you scratching your head. Tiffany takes everything step-by-step and really has made me understand the best way to do things on Squidoo. She did that with her first book on the subject, Social Networking on Squidoo, and now she has done it with her new one! Check it out: Flip That Lens!

I joined a group at Work It, Mom!  a few weeks ago, in which we all decided to take on monthly goals, instead of these grand, yearly goals that might fall by the wayside almost as soon as they’d left our lips…

The group was started by Nataly, the owner of Work It, Mom!  and it is called 12 Small Goals for 2008.  I am so glad that Nataly decided to start this group - it makes the whole concept of ‘resolutions’ so much more doable for me!

The goal I picked for January is cleaning my office.  This place has become a complete and total pigsty! It has become the family dumping ground.  If anyone doesn’t know where something goes, somebody always says ‘put it in mom’s office’.  Ugh!  No more, people!  I have a hard enough time staying organized all on my own!

So I have spent the entire day in here working to make this place a haven for productiveness again and I am quite pleased with my progress so far!  My little monsters will get back on the school bus tomorrow after a long winter break, and I will get back at it.  And in no time at all, this place will HUMMMM with productivitity!

For now, though, I am exhausted!  I quit for the day - but, I’m quitting happy.  Pleased with my work…

I’m a little late getting back to you with the second half of my Free Webinar from Lynn Terry posts. We’ve had a hectic week at our house with the kids out of school and all of their activities. Life will hopefully get back to normal next Tuesday, when my sweet monsters go back to school. There were just a few more things about the webinar that I wanted to talk to you about. I just really got a lot out of it this time and I wanted to share as much of it as possible with you!

The next thing I wanted to talk to you about was something that Roy Montero shared with us that I really liked! He was talking about how so many of us spend (waste) so much time …preparing …making sure we’re ready …fixing. And that so often it’s “Ready ….. Aim …. …..” and that “Fire” just keeps getting put off again and again and again. He really heard this from another marketer, but, I can’t remember who it was, but, he says that what we need to be saying, instead, is….

“Ready - Fire - Aim!”

I just love that! And I can relate so much to the preparing, learning, gathering more information, getting ready… Ugh! Just do it, already! As I go into this new year, I’m going to keep that one simple phrase in my head …”Ready - Aim - Fire!” And I think it was Roy that said,

The important thing is that we just go.

That’s good stuff. So often I need to be reminded to just do it. Action, action, action! There is a lot of positive talk like that at The Warrior Forum. There are some really awesome marketers there, from whom I’ve learned an awful lot!

Getting back to the webinar, though, one of the things we were doing was helping Deb Gallardo with her site, The Story Ideas Virtuoso. Deb has a great ebook coming up that will help aspiring fiction authors in the process of finding their story ideas. Everyone was chiming in and giving Deb advice on what she could do to her blog to make it better and it was really interesting hearing all of the different tips. I love listening to/reading blog critiques, because, I always garner ideas for my own sites that way.

The really cool thing was that while we were on her site, there was a headline in her Blogrush widget that just jumped out at me. The title was

When This Occurs, Pack Up Your Dinosaurs and Leave the Room

I have to say that before even clicking through and reading the article - I love that! And then when I clicked through, I was pleased as punch! It was the perfect note on which to end this great session of looking forward and taking action in the new year! The article was posted at a blog called Gnorb.net. You can find the actual article here: Dinosaurs. It’s a positive article, especially for those of us with entrepeneurial blood, in which the author quotes a fabulous piece out of “Zen in the Art of Writing”, by Ray Bradbury.

And on that note, I’m packing up my dinosaurs!

I’ve told you here before about Lynn Terry’s free weekly webinars. She is so helpful and provides so much support, help, and information - all for free! The webinars are held every Tuesday at 11am Central time. It’s a really great format, because, it’s very interactive. There is a screen where Lynn can show us different webpages, and there is audio, which is controlled by Lynn - so not everyone is talking at once. And there is also a text chat, where you can ask questions and discuss the topic at hand freely. I really enjoy them!

Today our focus was on the new year, of course! Everyone is thinking all about the new year - the internet is abuzz with articles and blog posts about ‘how can you do differently than 2007?’ and ‘what are your goals for 2008?’ And of course, ‘how do you plan to get there?’ And that is a lot of what we talked about today. The whole thing ran for two and a half hours today! That is a long one. Now, the actual webinar is only an hour, but, often - Roy Montero (who hosts the webinar) and Lynn will stay after for a less-formal chat and discussion.

I just wanted to share with you a couple of the highlights that were very useful to me today. I am sure that I am going to miss a lot of stuff - but, for me personally - this is the stuff that struck me between the eyes and I felt compelled enough to write down.

Lynn shared with us about a book that has made a big difference in her organization and clutter habits. And actually, the book was freeing for her, because, it helped her to realize that she really is organized. Things might look messy, but, she knows where everything is and can find it for you in two seconds flat! I can so relate to that! The book is called, “Organizing from the Inside Out” by Julie Morgenstern. Lynn has mentioned it before, and I just haven’t looked into it yet. Given that, number one, she’s mentioned it more than once, and number two, it freed her up to realize she already was organized - I should really check it out! The author has written another helpful book, too, and that one is called, “Time Management from the Inside Out”. I am definitely going to check into those books! I should have some Amazon credit due to me from MyPoints - I know just what I’ll use it for!

Lynn did also mention another book, too. She frequently talks about this book, as do many marketers I’ve come across online. That book is “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill. Lynn says that this book completely changed her mindset! Awesome! It is another one I have been meaning to read, and just haven’t gotten around to, but, I could really use a change in my mindset. So I’ll be checking that one out, too!

One topic we discussed was ‘information overload’ and this, of course, led us to email. Ugh…I know so many of us are so bogged down by our emails, especially if we are involved in marketing online. (It is definitely not a problem confined to internet marketing, though, as my mother is a controller for a private tennis club, and deals with way too many emails, too!) As online marketers, though, we are trying to stay on top of what’s hot and fresh on the internet. We think we need to catch every morsel of information, and save it some folder for ‘later’. Oh my gawd - what a horrible cycle! I am so bad about this. Lynn sent us to a blog post she’d made on the topic of information overload in the form of emails, and one thing right in the beginning of the email did that ’striking me right between the eyes’ thing again (emphasis mine):

Your priority should be putting out content… not absorbing it.

That is good. I mean - good! I might just print that out and hang it on the wall over my desk! Focus, people, we need focus!

I think that is a good note to end on for today - I’ll share the rest with you tomorrow! Stay tuned…