Work At Home Business Options

Archive for July, 2010

Now that Summer is in full swing and the heat is getting us down, one of the things I enjoy is making homemade summertime refreshing beverages for my family.

Some of the beverages I like to make are:

Cold Fruit Smoothies
Strawberry Lemonade
Lemonade
Fruit Punch
Sweet Tea
Peach Flavored Ice Tea
Iced Coffees
Milkshakes
Icees & Slushies

What kind of beverages do you and your family enjoy having in the summertime?

At times you are likely to encounter a stubborn customer or two. It is important to not give into customer demands…especially if those demands go against your Direct Sales Company Policy or Business Policy.

You want to be nice to your customer but firm with issues regarding customer policy. Don’t cave-in just because they threaten to go elsewhere. It is better to stay within your business policy guidelines than to step outside of them and get into trouble.

Getting started writing product reviews and posting your reviews on your blog or web site isn’t as hard as you might think. This article will give you some general information on how you can start your very own product review blog.

The first thing that you need to do is come up with a name for your review site. Once you have that, it is time to pick a blogging platform. You will find that those who write product reviews and post them on their blogs usually choose blogger or wordpress for their blogging platform. In my personal opinion, one is not better than the other, so the choice boils down to your personal preference.

Before you get started publishing any type of review, you need to educate yourself on the laws for your state and country. Here in the U.S.A. we need to have a Terms of Service and Disclaimer Policy posted on our sites. You can find several free examples of these online by doing a web search. You will need to get one posted up on your site before publishing any reviews.

Your next step is to write some sample product reviews. I suggest picking a few items from around your house and write honest and unbiased reviews about those items. You will want to include graphics with your review showing how that item is used in a real life home setting.

Once you have some sample reviews posted, it is now time to advertise and promote your new site. You will need to generate as much traffic to your site that you can. It is also recommended that you add a site tracker widget to your blog so that you can provide traffic information to the companies who request it.

I recommend that you draft up an introduction letter about you and your site so that you can contact the companies you are interested in and offer them your product review services. Some companies will accept this type of information via email and others will require that you postal mail your press/media kit to them.

Setting up and getting started with your own product review blog is not very hard. It will take a lot of hard work, time and patience before it takes off and requests roll in.

Shelly Hill is the co-owner of the Two Classy Chics Product Review and Giveaway Blog with her business partner Chris Carroll. Shelly and Chris have been promoting businesses online for the past 12 years. Both ladies are professional ghost writers and article marketers. You can visit them online at Two Classy Chics Product Reviews & Giveaways.

Thank goodness for spell checker, but wait, spell checker won’t detect correctly spelled words used incorrectly in a sentence. Your best bet is have a friend or virtual assistant proofread your articles and blog posts.

The most commonly confused and misused words are often homonyms — words that sound the same, but are spelled differently. The only way is to really pay attention to the homonyms when you’re proofreading. Words that uses apostrophes should be read aloud and fully.

For example:
Grandma’s house is 10 blocks away.
Grandma’s (Grandma is) sitting on the porch knitting.
Grandmas like to sit on the porch and knit.

Here are the most commonly misused words.

there, their, they’re, there’re
here, hear
principle, principal
to, too, two
you’re, your
loose, lose
then, than
effect, affect
accept, except
assure, ensure, insure
compliment, complement
it’s, its
no, know
new, knew
weather, whether
whose, who’s
past, passed
site, sight, cite
alot – it should be a lot

Even the best writers make mistakes, so take the time to read every word carefully.

When it comes to crock pot cooking (using a slow cooker), I enjoy using mine all year long. One of the recipes I enjoy making in it are Cabbage Rolls, which are also known as Pigs In A Blanket.

This recipe does take some preparation time, but is well worth your efforts.

To Prepare Cabbage: Fill a large stock pot with water and bring to a rapid boil. Take the core out of each head of cabbage. Place head into boiling water, cover and cook for 5 minutes, remove from water immediately. With one head, start taking the leaves off, being careful not to tear them. They should be pliable, if not, place back into the water for an additional minute or two.

Cabbage Rolls Recipe

2 large heads cabbage
2 to 3 lbs. lean ground beef
1 large onion, chopped
6 cups cooked rice
1 hot pepper, finely diced
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon salt
1 can tomato soup
1/2 can warm water

Fry the lean ground beef and chopped onion in a large skillet over medium heat until it’s not longer pink; drain grease. In a large mixing bowl, combine the cooked ground beef mixture with cooked rice, diced hot pepper, paprika and salt, set aside.

On a clean surface, such as a cutting board, place 2 to 3 tablespoons of meat mixture onto the center of the cabbage leaf. Overlap the sides of the leaf and roll. Repeat until your meat mixture is completely used up.

Place rolls into your slow cooker (crock pot) and pour the can of tomato soup over top along with a 1/2 can of warm water. Turn the dial to high heat, cover and slow cook them for 4 hours or until done.

If desired, you can freeze the left-overs for up to 6 months in your freezer as this recipe will make approximately 25 to 35 cabbage rolls.

This foodie article was written by Shelly Hill, owner of the Shakin ‘N Bakin Foodie Blog. Please visit the SNB blog for more free delicious slow cooker recipes.

A common misconception that many people have about those who work from home is that we have all the time in the world to make fancy dinners and to get those dinners onto the table on time every day of the week. As someone who works from home, I can honestly tell you that at times, I used to have a problem with that.

One way I solved that problem is by being prepared and here is how I do it.

I like to plan our family dinners 2 weeks in advance. I will sit down with my calendar and write down what I will be making each day for that 2 weeks time period and I plan on 5 dinners for each week.

To break that down even further, 2 of my 5 dinners will be something I make in my crock pot (slow cooker), 1 will be a meal that I pull from my freezer (I am big on making my own freezer meals) and the other 2 will be dinners I make from scratch.

When I do my grocery shopping, I use my 2-week dinner plan to steer me into the right direction of food items I need to purchase. I set aside 1 hour of my day to prepare my family’s dinnertime meal.

For crock pot meals I allow 20 minutes in the morning to assemble all ingredients into my crock pot. I then allow another 20 minutes during the day for checking on it and then the final 20 minutes is for finishing it up when its done or for preparing a side dish to go with it. Surely, most of us who work from home can spare a total hour :)

For my premade freezer meals, I will get it out of the freezer the night before and refrigerate it over night. Then 1 hour before I plan on serving dinner, I will finish thawing it in my microwave and then throw it into the oven or on the stove top to finish up its cooking time. While that is going on, I can prepare my side dishes.

For meals I make freshly from scratch….I like to make simple things such as meat loafs, grilled chicken, barbecue sandwiches and so forth.

I save all of my heavy duty cooking and baking for weekends when I have more time.

How do you like to plan out your weekday evening meals? Do you struggle with getting dinner onto the table each evening even though you work from home? Do you have any tips to share with our readers?