Well, you really aren’t renting out the home you live in, you rent out a second vacation property in Florida. We had a house built by this company and have been renting out this house for the past 2 1/2 years. We basically sit up here in Canada and keep track of the paperwork for each month. The parent company takes care of most of the renting and the work down in Florida.

Now while this might seem like the perfect home business, there are some drawbacks, especially in February when the wind is howling and in Florida, the temperatures are climbing. That hurts. But you have to remember that this is a business and you can only use your house when no one else wants it. It’s not really your house.

And then there is the hurricane season to deal with. Now that is fun too. If you haven’t gotten around to putting adequate insurance on your small business… you might want to do it asap! I will elaborate in the coming days… Remember Hurricane Charley??

There are some of you who are reading this blog who have already convinced yourself that you won’t make it, so why even try and chances are you won’t be with that attitude! My bit of advice today is to spend a little time every day deciding what home business appeals to you the most and then go to the library and start researching your topic. The more you know, the better your chances of success.

And if you have any legal questions, book yourself an appointment with a lawyer and ask away. My daughter did just that when she wanted to start her own landscaping business. She wanted to know if there was any laws preventing her from taking photographs of houses so that she could design a garden for the potential client.

The lawyer didn’t think that there would be a problem as long as you didn’t step onto the property, but she wasn’t a hundred percent sure. So, for a very nominal sum, she promised to look into the idea and within a week, she called my daughter in for another consultation and told her everything she found out.

My daughter decided against the small business and went to work for a major landscaping company, but I simply wanted to show you just how easy it is to find out the legalities that you might need to know.

Related Tags: lawyer, landscaping business,laws, taking photographs of houses, design a garden,landscaping company,legalities

I also write about fashion accessories on another blog and it seems that crocheted charms are huge. So far, I have seen them attached to beaded necklaces and belts too. If you have a hook handy, I would start working. You might have a very busy summer ahead of you! And these charms would work up fast! They are about the size of a silver dollar or a little larger than a toonie.

And just how long would it take to crocheted the necklace featured above. And yes, that’s crocheted too!

Related Tags: fashion accessories, crochet, charms

It’s a good thing that you usually can’t see my office, because it has to be the messiest room in my house. Actually, I’ve been telling my husband that it’s too small. I even suggested knocking down the wall between this room and the next bedroom, but he just ignored me.

But last night I took one look at the desk and decided that I could tidy it up a little at least. To be honest, I couldn’t even see the surface of the desk. So, I pulled off about 30 sticky notes that I had stuck to the surface, and put all the books on the floor by the desk. Maybe tonight I will actually get around to reshelving them. But hey, the bookshelves are clear across the other side of the room!

I might have to rethink how I organize my files too. Haven’t quite got that down yet either.

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It is bad enough when you are not getting paid but when orders keep coming in and you are not getting any acknowledgement for your collection efforts, you just can’t keep processing orders. These are steps you can take to get paid on those past due invoices and keep new invoices current.

Not the most creative and fun part of having your own home business, but an area you need to know how to handle. There is nothing more annoying than doing what is expected of you and then left… hanging!
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Now if you are thinking that this would make a good scam… stop right there. That’s not where I’m going with this. It might sound bizarre, but I am really fascinated with this stuff.

Believe it or not, it was my grandmother who used to do read tea leaves from her front porch. She had this old cup that she would use and the neighbors just couldn’t get enough. I wish now that I would have thought to ask her how she got started, but at the time, it never occurred to me.

It was years later that I happened to see a book in our local bookstore and I began thumbing through it. Needless to say that I bought the book! So if any of you have a gift of knowing about things before they happen, who knows, you might be a natural!

I even found you your first book on the subject!

You might not like this, but this is coming from someone who works at home. It’s not the most fun part of my day, but either is getting sick. I start with the things that I like the least and get them out of the way. For me, that is exercise and meditating.

First the exercise part. Maybe if I lived on the ocean, a nice brisk walk along the beach each morning might actually be enjoyable. But I don’t. The nearest ocean is a few thousand miles away, so I climb stairs. Nothing seems to get my heart pumping, so I set the timer for fifteen minutes and I climb stairs until it goes off.

Now the meditating part. How on earth someone is supposed to stop thinking when they have their office just a few feet away, is beyond me, but I try. I leave the office, close the door and use a completely different room to meditate. They say that it is really good for your blood pressure and surprisingly enough, it seems to be working. My last two trips to the doc showed the pressure dropping and dropping. I’m not off meds yet, but it seems that I’m headed in that direction.

The key here is to get anything you don’t want to do completed in the morning. That way, you can relax and get back to your office.

We will talk about working some play into your life in the days to come!

When you first started your home business, you probably thought that hey… this is going to be fun. I’m going to make a lot of money and I get to stay home all day long and do whatever I want. Don’t get me wrong… in a lot of cases, it is fun. But there is a firm line that you have to be prepared to draw.

There will come a time, no many times when you have to step back and make decisions that you aren’t going to like… for the good of the business. I’m talking from experience and will be basing a lot of what I talk about on this blog about my own business. But for now, I’m just want you to go into your business with your eyes wide open.

It’s a Business… First!

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I think that a lot of home businesses die a slow death because the owner simply loses interest. In the beginning, you couldn’t stop thinking about it. You even woke up in the middle of the night with new ideas. And then something happened.

It stopped being fun. It got to be more work and it simply didn’t have the same appeal that it once had. So what do you do now?

You re-work your original idea. You have to get that spark back. Look at your business from a different angle. Maybe the business has become stale. Now is the time to tweak it.

Or maybe what you need is a holiday. You close the door to your office and either literally go away on holiday, or you simply throw yourself into something else for a week or so. You would be amazed at different you feel after a break!

I worked with Avon in different capacities over the years, and there is one thing that I noticed. I never expected seniors to be my best customers, but they were. I think that they might like the company you offer to them with each visit. And be ready to stay for lunch. I can’t remember the number of times I had salmon and cucumber sandwiches offered to me.

In your area, it might be different, but it is well worth giving a little thought to.

Related Tags: Avon, best customers, seniors