This is the first year that my husband and I have had money to really celebrate. Previous years were poor ones, partly because our firstborn needed surgery near Christmas for the past two years, partly because neither of us had good jobs.

Last Christmas, we received an amazing gift from my friend Julie. Our firstborn, Dorian, had just turned one and needed surgery to reverse his colostomy done at birth. You can read more about that here. I was 5 months pregnant with our second and there was absolutely NO WAY we were going to be able to afford the surgery before the new baby arrived.

Dorian at one year 

On that Christmas day, we enjoyed a dinner with my friend Julie and her husband and daughter, as well as my sister, down from Canada to visit. We exchanged simple gifts, stuffed toys for the kids, ornaments for the adults. Then Julie handed me an envelope. Inside was a list of names and dollar amounts. She had spent the previous two months raising money from people I don´t even know, as well as a handful of mutual friends.

Christmas Dinner 2006 

The amount raised? Just enough to cover the surgery my son needed and he had it in February, a full three months before his baby brother arrived. I´m still astounded that complete strangers gave their hard-earned money to help a baby they didn´t even know! One mom even put out a donation basket at her Christmas party and asked people to donate instead of bringing gifts!

Julie and Dorian, 2006 

We all need help at some point in our lives. Everyone has down times, whether financial or emotional and often there are people who will step up to help us, whether we know them or not. I´m sure you have had some help in your life, too.

So, when you find yourself up again and with a little extra love or extra cash to spend, will you give back? Here are a few ideas for returning the favor that someone else did you . . . or simply stocking up ahead for lean times to come!

• Invite someone you know has no family for Christmas dinner.

• “Adopt” a senior citizen from the local retirement home and take them some homemade Christmas cookies.

• Donate a food basket to a local family.

• Buy an extra toy and donate it to a needy child.

• Give a loan to a work at home mom in another country.

• Start sponsoring a child in a poorer country. Send them something special for the holidays.

• Donate a percentage of your December earnings to the charity of your choice.

• Make and stuff stockings to give to the homeless.

• Volunteer your family to serve Christmas dinner at a soup kitchen.

As you can see, you really don´t need a lot of money to give back! As for myself, I´ve pledged a specific amount of every $1000 that I earn online to Kiva, to help work at home moms in other countries get their businesses off the ground. Because a lot of people once helped me and my son and I feel that it is a debt that can be repaid by passing on the support.

Will you be giving back this Christmas?

You have just 2 days to enter my business directory listing contest! 

As a freelance writer, I´ve had my share of criticisms. Some were simply ploys to avoid paying me as much (”your work is terrible, we´ll use it anyway, but only pay fifty cents an article), but quite a bit has been constructive criticism.  And, though you can use it to grow, hearing that you didn´t do a good job can be painful.

Some people are more sensitive than others to criticism. For example, my husband couldn´t care less what people say about his musical abilities. He is quite confident that he plays well and any negative comments roll right off him, though he isn´t one to ignore tips that could help him.

I, on the other hand, take each and every remark to heart. It doesn´t even have to be cruel. A simple “Your headlines could use some spicing up” will make me fret for days . . . and a true insult will send me into a tailspin.

The trick to staying confident in the face of criticism seems to be not to take it personally. Yes, they are telling you that you aren´t doing the right thing, but rather than focus on how poorly you did or how awful you are, it´s time to look at what you can learn from the criticism. This isn´t easy and it certainly doesn´t come naturally to most people, but if you can master the ability of taking criticism and using it to improve, you have a skill that will serve you for the rest of your life.

If possible, if you really did mess up, offer to make amends. Redo the project. You´ll feel better about having done it right and the client will be happier and more likely to return. If you didn´t do anything wrong and you are certain that the criticism is unwarranted, distract yourself by watching a movie, reading a book or working on a project that will take your mind off it. Dwelling on negative remarks that aren´t true won´t help you at all.

Criticism is part of life. It´s part of running your own business. Sort the good from the bad, forget the bad and learn from the good.

You have just 3 days left to enter the free business listing contest!

 Last week, I talked about submitting your work at home mom business to a directory specifically for wahms. Unfortunately, while doing the research for the article, I couldn´t find many free directories. So, I have been working on one of my own.

The idea is that any mom can list her business for free. The free listing will include a link and a short, one line description. However, for a small fee, you can upgrade to a full listing with a logo and up to 255 characters in your description. Read on to find out how YOU can get this for free.

The At Home Mom Business Directory isn´t quite ready for the public, but I will be announcing the launch of the directory sometime next week. However, in the meantime . . . I have a little something special for ten readers who comment on this post.

GET IT FOR FREE

How would you like a free full listing for your work at home mom business? All you have to do is leave a comment on this post. That´s right, that´s it. Ten wahms who leave a comment will be getting an email from me requesting details and you will be receiving a one year full business directory listing for free (a $24.95 value). If you want to write me up on your blog or otherwise publicize the directory, that would be great, too, but it isn´t a prerequisite.

The giveaway will be open until Dec. 1. You do have to be a work at home mom, sorry, no dads at this time, and your website has to be family friendly.

Also, stay tuned for more exciting news, since I have a few other tricks up my sleeve for December! I would suggest subscribing to my blog feed to make sure you don´t miss anything important.

UPDATE: This contest is now closed. Thank you to all who entered.

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As a freelance writer, I do all of my work on my computer, with a lot of research online. Unfortunately, thought it´s nice to have such a wealth of information at my fingertips . . . it´s also very easy to get distracted!

Here´s my trick for staying on track while I´m working online: I work in spurts and reward myself.

For example, if I have 6 articles that need to go out today, 3 of them have to be written before I can touch that StumbleUpon bar or look for tasty squash soup recipes. For me, this technique is effective 95% of the time. Time limits on the reward is necessary, too. So, after finishing those first 3 articles, I might let myself check email or surf for ten minutes, then it´s back to work.

Making It Work For You 

You need to stay away from things that tend to be time-suckers for you. This will vary from person to person, but here are some of the biggest distractions online for work at home moms.

• Email. Try limiting the time you spend going through your email. Make it reasonable for you, if you have a LOT of email, try setting up filters to prioritize and deal with the most important emails early in the day, then leave everything else until the evening when you are tired and less likely to work well.

• Recipes. The internet is a great place to search for tonight´s dinner, but be careful you don´t get carried away, one recipe leads to another and another and before you know it, you´ve spent two hours drooling over photos of chocolate cheesecake that you will never make anyway! (TIP: Try downloading a freeware recipe organizer to keep all those recipes you´d like to try organized).

• Social Networks. If you promote your website, you probably use social networks like Facebook, Digg or StumbleUpon. These can be great promotional devices, but you can also get caught up in sending free gifts or hugs to your Facebook friends, reading through top stories on Digg, etc. Get in and get out. Tell yourself you´ll come back later to look for your long lost kindergarten pal, if that´s what it takes.

• Blogs. Having too many blogs in your feed reader can get out of hand. It´s really, really tough to avoid this problem, in my experience. However, I would suggest going through your Google Reader, Bloglines, or whatever you use every month and unsubscribing from all blogs that you aren´t as interested in as you thought, or that post too often for your liking or that have turned out to be a disappointment. Then set aside a certain amount of time per day to read through your blog feeds, otherwise the number of unread posts quickly multiplies!

• IM or Chatting. Skype, Windows Live and Yahoo have made it very easy to talk to friends around the world. It´s a great service, don´t get me wrong, I use Windows Live to connect with my sisters up in Canada  nearly every day. But, like all good things, an excess is bad. Chatting all day won´t help you work . . . unless that is your job. Keep your IM turned off until you have finished working, or, if you can´t bear to be disconnected for so long, stay invisible so you can see who is online, but aren´t forced to talk to anyone.

What is your biggest distraction online? How do you deal with it?

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This week we have Jennifer Torres from Salsa Babies joining us. Her business is dancing, with your baby. Personally, I have two left feet, but I still like to dance and these classes really appeal to me. Jennifer is a busy mom just like the rest of us, as you´ll see from her interview, but she does what she loves every single day!

1. What is your business?

Salsa Babies is a dance class that gets new moms moving and grooving while babies bounce along shaking maracas to the salsa beat. It’s a great opportunity for moms to get out and socialize and to introduce babies to music and movement. We now also offer Salsa Tots for little ones ready to dance on their own two feet, and we also have an online store with products such as t-shirts, bibs and CD’s. Salsa Babies is expanding across Canada, the US and Europe through licensing opportunities, which allow other moms the opportunity to work from home.

2. How did you get started?

I started the business after taking a year maternity leave and not wanting to return to my previous job as a receptionist at a marketing company. Salsa has been my passion for many years, and one day a friend suggested combining my love of dance with my desire to stay home with my kids. Fortunately, other people liked the idea and it took off more quickly than I ever expected.

3. What mistakes did you make when you were starting out? What did you learn from them?

Because I did not anticipate such a positive response, I did not set the business up for growth from the beginning. I think if I were to ever start a new business, I would look ahead and put a more solid plan in place rather than just flying by the seat of my pants.

4. How long have you been working from home? (was this your first business or have you had others where you worked from home?)

This is my first business venture and first time working from home. It has now been five and a half years and I’m pleased to say we’re still growing strong.

5. What are your tricks for balancing work, kids and household chores?

I am very clear in my mind that my kids come first, and that they are my whole reason for doing this in the first place. I pick them up and drop them off for school every day and my youngest comes with me when I teach classes. I get to the gym while they’re in school so I have time for myself each day. I never check email on the weekend and unless I have a major problem or deadline, I try to give myself at least a few hours each evening to relax and spend time with my husband after the kids are in bed. To be honest, the house is usually a mess, and we joke that if we never had guests over, it would never be clean!

6. How many children do you have? How old are they?

I have two girls, ages 6 and 3, and we recently got a new puppy which at times feels a lot like having another baby!

7. When do you usually work?

I work in little spurts throughout the day and have my office set up in the kids’ playroom, so I work while they play or while they’re at school. They are really good about understanding when I’m on an important call, and it’s definitely getting easier now that they are older. I used to do all my work with my daughter in the sling and my phone in the front pocket. It was like a portable office. For some reason I always seem to get calls on my cell while I’m in the middle of grocery shopping, but most people I deal with just find that funny and I think it makes them relax and feel like they’re dealing with a real person, rather than a big stuffy corporation.

8. What is the best part of being a mompreneur? And the worst?

The best part of being a mompreneur is that I’ve accomplished my goal of being able to be home for my kids. Whenever I have a rough day, I try to remind myself of that. The other great part is that I love teaching classes and having the social interaction with the moms and babies. It’s the most fun job in the world and I can’t believe I get paid to do it. I love being creative and the satisfaction of seeing my ideas put into action. The added bonus of this whole thing has been the domino effect and the difference it’s made for other women. I started out just trying to solve my own problem, and somehow along the way have enabled other women to stay home and accomplish the same goal, which makes me feel great. I truly feel blessed to have made so many friends and to work with such a strong and passionate group of women.

The worst part is that I basically wear all the hats, which can be overwhelming. Sometimes I wish I could just do the parts of the business that I love and leave the rest to someone else, but I’m not yet at that stage. The other thing about having your own business is that the work is never done. You don’t just pack up for the day and go home for dinner. Work is on my mind a lot and I sleep with a notebook beside my bed so I can jot down ideas. It can be hard to turn off, but my kids help to keep me in balance and aren’t afraid to let me know if I’m working too hard, and when they do, I listen.

9. What are your plans for the future of your business?

I have several projects on the go including DVD’s so moms and tots can do our classes from home. We are continuing to expand internationally as well which is very exciting. One of my dreams would be to take a year off and travel around to visit each class and get to know the moms in all our different locations.

10. What advice would you give new work at home moms?

I would advise new work-at-home moms to be willing to let some things go as long as the most important things are in place. You have to prioritize and set goals and not feel you have to do it all at once. I really believe you have to love what you do but also not be afraid to ask for help when you need it. I have found huge support from other mom entrepreneurs and really appreciate having peers who can relate to what I’m going through.
If Salsa Babies sounds like something you´d enjoy, why not pop over to the website to find out more?

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