Wedding Shower Invitations

If you are planning a bridal shower, there are a number of things you will want to take into consideration. This post is specifically about wedding shower invitations. You really don't need to worry about rules and guidelines. You just need to take a little time to plan things out and remember to focus on FUN!

First off...

Wedding shower invitations don't necessarily have to reflect the theme of the wedding itself. The real purpose of this bridal shower is to celebrate the bride before her big day, not focus on the wedding specifically.

To learn about wedding shower invitations, follow this link: Wedding Shower Invitations

Next...

You can print your own wedding invitations online. There are a lot of sources, like this one: Printable Wedding Invitations

Finally...

Don't fret about the cost of wedding invitations. There are a lot of options that don't require a lot of money. If you are interested in learning more about affordable wedding invitations, take a look at this: Affordable Wedding Invitations Online

You can really let loose and get creative in planning the wedding shower and these invitation ideas will get you started.

Good luck and ENJOY!

Web Site or Web Business?

Do you have a web site or a web business?
What is the difference?

Let me ask you this: Is a web site a business tool or is a web site a business? It’s a trick question. It's both.

As examples: For the small business owner, a web site is a sales and marketing tool. For the most of us – and probably all of us - a web site is a business.
Web site: A web site can be a family site with pictures and details of the family's life events. A web site can be a showcase of an individual's poetry. A web site doesn't necessarily have to sell or promote anything.

Web Business: A web business offers part or all of the business processes on one web site at one time. This could involve web-based marketing for a local printing company, a lead-generation site for a network marketer, an infopreneur site focused on affiliate programs or ebook sales, a jewelry designer who sells products via the internet – as well as many more possible types of businesses.

If you want your site to be a business, you have to treat it like one.

So, how do you objectively review your site to determine if it meets the criteria of a web business?

As Stephen Covey puts it: Begin with the end in mind.

In evaluating your web site, the first thing you want to focus on is how you are making money from it. Are you selling ebooks or a service? Are you generating income with Adsense? You need to determine what it is that you want your business to accomplish. What is the goal of your site?

Your MWR
What is it that you want your visitors to do? That's your Most Wanted Response.
Once you determine how you want your visitors to behave, you can determine if your site leads them to that goal. Does your content lead your visitor to your MWR?
If you have multiple MWR's, do you guide your visitors effectively on each page?
Do you pre-sell or do you sell?

Traffic
Now that you know what your site is going to accomplish, you have to ensure you reach your target audience. You need a solid marketing plan – as all successful businesses do. You have to assess and adjust your marketing scheme based on your audience and your goals.

I am not going to market my resume service the same way I market my herbal remedies affiliate programs. They are two totally different objectives and have to be handled in different ways. I can market my resume service via craigslist, but I'll do better posting to alternative health forum sites for herbal treatments.
Marketing your site comes on-line comes in the form of traffic generation and it can be done in a lot of ways: social bookmarking, article distribution, free and/or paid directories, press releases and more. Find out what works for your target audience – and don't be afraid to experiment with new ways of drawing traffic. You might be surprised at what works.

Presentation
What does your site look like? Does the look and feel match the site concept? If it doesn't, change it. Get someone else's opinion – friends, family or even in the forums. Make sure your site looks professional. If you need to hire a coach to update the design, do it. It will be worth it in the long run.

Is your site easy to navigate, with Tier 2 pages that sub-divide well and naturally lead to several Tier 3 pages?

Site structure (i.e., natural sub-categorization/flow/linking to numerous TIER 3s) is most important. Your visitors must feel that you have sliced and diced your site in a logical, easy-to-understand manner.

And lastly....

Content
Your site must provide some benefit to your audience.
A Web site's reputation is based on the depth of information and value that it provides to its visitors. You must be the expert in your field. If you are running a business, you have to represent yourself as a business owner, not as a hobbyist who wants to make a little money on the side. Well-written, keyword focused content pages are what ties your business goals to your visitor's needs. When you satisfy their hunger and thirst for information, they will reward you with their moolah.

Conclusion
So, next time you look at your site, evaluate it with these ideas in mind and make sure your web site is truly a web business.

How did all this amazing knowledge come about?

I work for SiteSell and in the past 4 years, I've learned a lot about search engine optimization, generating free traffic, ranking highly in the search engines and making thousands with Adsense.

Here's one of my sites: Professional-Resume-Example.com If you do a search on Google for professional resume, my site is usually #3 or #4. Not bad for a work-from-home-mom. ;)

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.

Carla

The Medicine Hut

In our modern world, it is getting more and more difficult to meet an completely healthy person. Many of us exist in some kind of middle stage - where - we are not exactly sick but we are not healthy either. Fatigue, tiredness, irritability, to name just a few, are the symptoms that plague many of us. Where we go from there, in most cases, is up to us.

You can find herbal remedies and natural treatments to improve your health and general wellness at this site: The Medicine Hut

If you want to see a full list of the topics that are covered, look here: The Medical Hut Sitemap

This site provides you with simple, easy to follow home health and herbal remedies (and even some herbal beauty tips) which anyone can prepare in their own kitchen.

_____________________________________________________________

Wisconsin Vacations

A friend of mine loves Wisconsin. Since I live in Texas, and have only barely wandered over the WI-IL border once, I wondered what Wisconsin had to offer.

Wisconsin Vacations

I soon found out that Wisconsin is all about the great outdoors - fishing, hunting, skiing, snowmobiling, wildlife and well - maybe a little about cheese, too.

Since it's blazing hot down here in the summer, I think a northern vacation is in order - and why not get out and enjoy the nice weather while relaxing by a lake - or on a lake. ;)

Oh, and I intend to find out more about the cabins she is so proud of. Check these out: Wisconsin Cabins

Enjoy her site. She has put a lot of work into it - and there's no one who knows more - or will give you a personal feel for Wisconsin than she will.

The beauty in everyday events.

We have a hole in our backyard. I didn't dig it. My kids didn't dig it. It's about 4 inches across and about as deep. For several weeks, the hole just existed - with the dirt that was dug out in a little mound beside it and grass nearby - dying as a result of being uprooted.

I knew what dug that hole. The same thing happened last year. It was a mama rabbit creating a proper den for her little offspring...tiny baby bunnies that would be born in just a short time.

Last year, four little bunnies found themselves growing up in our backyard. I watched over them as though they were my own babies. During one particularly harsh spring storm, one of the babies decided to see what all the fuss was about and in the process of checking out the thunder and lightning, became cold and very wet. I have no idea why I went into the back yard to check on them, but it's a good thing I did as this little bunny was gasping for breath and was as cold as the rain pelting it.

I saved his life that day.

Ok, well it's a little life, but it still counts. His brothers and sisters were smart and stayed put - nice and dry. I took him inside the house, wrapped him in a towel, then heated up a microwavable neck warmer and wrapped that around the towel. All the while, I stroked his little chest and tried to get him to breathe normally.

After two hours and a lot of TLC later, he seemed to be doing much better. I put him under my daughter's desk lamp and dried out his fur, then carefully returned him to his den. I named him Rupert.

He grew up with his brothers and sisters and they all hopped off to make their own little marks on the world. We still see signs of their presence everywhere... especially in my flower beds. But, it's ok. I enjoy sharing. I enjoy knowing they visit - even when we aren't looking.

We should all appreciate the world around us and find the beauty in everyday events.

Salt and Ice

Gracious, I haven't posted here in months.

My youngest daughter had a little science experiment a few days ago. She was to take two ice cubes and see what happened when salt was sprinkled on one of the ice cubes. Which one would melt the fastest?

Of course, anyone over the age of 10 probably knows the outcome, but one of the things that gave me pause for thought was the way the ice cube with the salt sprinkled on it actually looked like when it started to melt.

Every little sprinkle of salt created a hole in the ice. It didn't melt evenly. The ice cube remained intact, but the salt bore a hole through the ice wherever it landed.

As I reflected on this, I realized how much it reflected my own life. Each little sprinkle of salt represented a negative situation. While I still remained whole, each negative (life's events aren't all cheery, right?) had an effect, to varying degrees, based on how large the negative event was.

The larger the piece of salt, the larger or deeper the hole. The more significant the negative event, the deeper and/or wider the wound.

Pain is inevitable.

Sure, the ice continued to melt because that's what the experiment was designed to show. Fortunately, people do react differently than a piece of ice.

I am still here.

To be clear, the holes are still real.

And I do believe that nothing happens without a reason.

Wiping the Slate Clean

I went shopping for a new laptop today. The one in our home is at least 6 years old - and still works beautifully - but it is dated and doesn't operate quite as quickly as the PC I use for my work. In considering the implications of switching all of my work from the PC to the laptop (with a docking station), it occured to me that I would be starting with a fresh slate. It's quite an amazing proposition to consider - not just from a computing standpoint - but from a way of life perspective.

What if you could wipe the slate clean? What if you could load the programs of your choice and start from where you are and move forward?

I think of all the downloads I've made on my PC and it's stunning to realize that it continues to work in spite of how much junk I throw at it. To be able to get rid of those now-unwanted programs is such a blessing. Oh, sure, I could uninstall quite a few of those programs anyway, but who takes the time to do that? I surely don't. I simply look at my program files with furrowed brows and gasp at the file names I don't recognize.

What if I could look at the file names in my mind? Would I delete any of them?

What if I could dump the crud out of my life and start from where I am without all the baggage of the past? What if I could start right now and load fresh programs where I could begin new memories and feel free again?

And yet, what would I choose? Would I want to live differently than I do now? How would I factor in the people who mean the most to me? It's not as simple as I would like it to be - even in my imagination. Life is complicated. Decisions are complicated.

Of course, if I dumped the crud, I'd probably be apt to repeat mistakes. Well, I do that now. ;) But at least having memories of the icky stuff repels some distasteful options. If only we could be guaranteed not to have to go through the same crud twice.

We are irrational beings. We want it all. But, we are unwilling to pay the price for having it all - or, if we do pay the price - it takes the form of consequences. Just consider the sub-prime mortgage debacle. If more people had read the fine print or thought through their actions more thoroughly, they would have made (or should have made) different choices.

A foreclosure isn't something you can wipe off of any slate. Nor is a divorce. Nor is a hasty, angry word.

I suppose that uninstalling the bad stuff isn't such a great idea after all. Some of the good would likely get mixed in with some of the bad. The lessons from a myriad of consequences would be lost. Poor decisions would be repeated and I'd find myself at 65 exactly where I am at 43 - and what's the point of that? I'd be no farther along and simply have more wrinkles.

I guess I'll just enjoy my new laptop and be thankful that I can start anew with it. Perhaps it won't be another 6 years before it gets replaced, but when it does, it will be loaded with a lot of stuff I really don't need - and I'll love every minute of it.