This Bag is Made for Traveling – Business on the Go
I have owned my gift basket company www.thepersonalgiftbasket.com for over eleven years. When I need to be away from my home office; networking at a local chamber event, or out doing my weekly errands, I want a system that has everything I need to better serve my clients and perspective clients. I created my traveling office to help me be prepared to take an order or give information about my company anywhere I go. The bag is not only functional but cute (which means a lot too) as well so I don ‘t feel awkward carrying it.
I ordered my bag from Thirty-One, I like it because it’s big enough to hold everything I need. Inside my bag I have the following:
* Blank order forms – I’m always prepared to take that order
* Neat Receipts scanner – this comes in handy when I am making purchases I can scan the receipt right to my laptop.
* Promotional postcards and brochures
* Business card
* Clip board – when I need a hard surface to write.
* Paper clips & stapler
* Journal and blank paper
* Mechanical Pencils & lead refill
* PayPal – credit card plug-in (again always prepared to receive the order)
* Post-it notes – in all sizes.
* Travel mug
* Calculator
* Sample of a delicious product – I try to keep a sample of one of the many products I put inside our gifts with me to give out.
Simple and functional.
~ Lisa
Aspiring Cook: Tater Tots Casserole (Pintrest Recipe)
I love Pintrest and I can always find great meals that are quick and easy to make during our busy week days. I pinned this recipe from craftcookcoupon.blogspot.com and made it for dinner last night…delicious!
Ingredients:
1 can of cream of mushroom soup
1 to 2 pounds of ground beef
1 bag of tater tots
1 bag of cheese – your choice of cheese
Brown ground beef and drain any fat. After draining fat, place ground beef back into the pan.
Add the can of cream of mushroom soup to your ground beef, stirring until well combined.
Add the soup and ground beef mixture into a casserole dish.
Add half the bag of your cheese to the top of the ground beef.
Add the frozen tater tots on top. Place in 350 degree oven for approximately 20 minutes.
Add remaining cheese on top of tots and place back in the oven to melt.
With the casserole, I prepared a garden salad with bell peppers, slided almonds, strawberries, onions and cheese.
Enjoy!
~ Lisa
Adventures of my Week in Review (May 20th-26th)
Not a busy week for me, so I thought this would be a great time to start a new segment of my blog that recaps my week. Most of this past week was dedicated to our children since Friday was their last day of school. The kids could not be more excited, as for my husband and I…not so much. As I’ve stated before, I have two kids still at home, a 17 year old – who is officially a senior and an 11 year old is is officially a 6th grader. The kids have busy, fun summers ahead of them and I’m expecting great things to be learned and experienced by them both. On Tuesday, Jada (our 11 year old) was not happy to have to get two cavities filled. She did well even when she had to get the shot to deaden the area, I was so proud of her. I think she held all her tears until she got in the car – and she sobbed all the way home. She promised to brush her teeth twice a day for the rest of her life. Wednesday, Jada graduated from 5th grade – no more elementary school. The ceremony was very nice and it was great to see Jada being honored for her achievements. We celebrated by taking Jada to her favorite place to eat…IHop for pancakes (at 8pm).
Saturday my family and I spent the day with my older sister to celebrating her birthday. We ate at Pappy’s Barbecue in St. Louis. I had never been before, however it is very tasty and pretty cool atmosphere (down home southern style) – well worth the fifty minute drive from my home.
As I stated, not a busy week, but it was fun to be around family and friends.
~Lisa
Thankful Thursday #4
Yesterday, my daughter graduated from 5th grade. As I sat in my chair, inside the gymnasium at our local high school, waiting for my daughter to walk in with her classmates to Pomp and Circumstance, I realized…that I will never sit in these chairs again for a 5th grade graduation for one of my children, she is the last one. As pictures of my daughter dashed across the screen of her kindergarten graduation and fun times with her classmates through their 6 years at the school, I began to think that just as quick as these first 6 years went, the last six will go even faster. I thought about how next year, my my second son will be graduating from the very school we are sitting in, and how my first son just completed 2 years of college – life is but a turn of a page.
So this Thursday, I’m thankful for new beginnings in my children and my life.
Congrats to the future class of 2020!
Thankful
~ Lisa
Thankful Thursday #3
Hope you all have had a productive week so far and looking forward to the upcoming weekend. As always, I am thankful everyday and I deliberately try to make the best of everyday I am given. I love the simple things, things that don’t always cost money but are just as valuable, so that leads me to my third segment of Thankful Thursday. Today, I am thankful for the beautiful spring-time days. I love being able to get outside and work in my yard or just sit in my back yard and read a good book or hang out with my family. I love the coolness of the mornings and evenings and the not-so-hot heat in the afternoon. I’m thankful for being able to see all my flowers burst into their beautiful springtime colors and greet me with such aromatic fragrances. I love being able to use my grill more to prepare simple dinners for my family (on paper plates : ). Spring and Fall are my two favorite seasons, I love the renewing and revitalizing of spring and I love the colors and weather of fall. Looking forward to getting together with my family and friends to enjoy this beautiful weather before it gets too hot.
So there you have it!
Thankful,
~ Lisa
Keeping It Real…Clean!
I love spending time at home with my family, but one thing I don’t love is a dirty home. I cannot function when there is mess or dirt so I have a daily schedule that has worked for me for many years. I purpose to do these tasks while on my two 15 minute breaks or my lunch break from my job (I work from home).
Monday:
- Laundry (clothes) – I start the day off putting a load in before I start working and from there I consistently wash and dry until I am done.
- Clean Master Bath & First Floor Restroom – Since I have children who are responsible for cleaning their own bathroom, I clean mine and the first floor restroom. This includes the tubs, toilets, floors, sinks and baseboards.
- Clean Dish Washer – After the dish washer has been emptied from Sunday night, I mix 1 cup of vinegar and 2 tablespoons of salt, then I pour the mixture into a short wash cycle. Vinegar is a wonderful household staple for so many reasons. I will write a separate post on all the ways I use vinegar in my home.
Tuesday:
- Laundry (towels & sheets) – Once everyone is gone from the house that morning, I remove all towels and sheets from every room and bathroom. Once a month, I take our comforters to be professionally cleaned and I wash our mattress and pillow protectors.
Wednesday:
- Surface Cleaning – My eleven year old is responsible for a portion of this, mainly our upstairs so I normally do the downstairs. This is surfaces that can be cleaned by dusting, mopping, vacuuming or wiping. Windows, floors, furniture, baseboards, etc. This process takes a little longer so I do this in stages throughout the day.
Thursday:
- De-clutter – I file, sort and discard. I also use this day to straighten up things like underneath the sinks, closets, etc. Take up the 20 pairs of shoes and gym bags that have been thrown in the hall closet by my awesome off-springs. Truthfully, this is not a lot because I do try to do this daily.
Friday:
- Surface Cleaning & Dusting – I go through the house with my swifter and damp towel and dust TV’s, furniture, pictures, anything that dirt could have accumulated on since Wednesday. This is normally something I can do fairly quickly.
There are certain things that happen everyday in our home that I did not want to duplicate on the schedule, but I have added them below:
- Make bed (the kids make their own bed…sometime) – there is nothing like getting in a fresh-made bed every night.
- Clean Kitchen – no dish left in the sink overnight is my motto. This includes dinner table cleared and cleaned off, and kitchen floor swept. I do the dishes because I know they will be clean and put up the way I want them. Everything else in the kitchen is handled by the kids.
So that’s it! I try my hardest to stick with this schedule, however there are times when my work, business and/or personal schedule will not allow me to, and that’s OK. I start where I left off and on some days when time allows me to do multiple tasks, I do it. Also, I have older children who contribute to house cleaning as well, so that makes life a little easier for me.
Clean life, happy wife!
~ Lisa
Thankful Thursday #2
Just when you think there are no honest companies in the world anymore, something happened this week that made me reconsider my view. Back in March while on a road trip to visit our son in college, we rented a vehicle (long story about why we had to rent a vehicle, that’s a whole new post at some point) from Enterprise in a small town about 2 hours from our home. The people there were very nice and took very good care of us. The trip was great, we visited with our son, we get the vehicle back to Enterprise, we get back home and my 11 year old daughter realizes she left her mint condition Nintendo DS in the back of the vehicle. We call immediately the next business day to only find out the vehicle had been shipped to another location. The young lady I spoke with promised to help me and if she would find the game system she would contact us. My husband and I and I both knew we were not going to get another call. Weeks passed, no call, a month passed, no call. This is now the sixth week and my husband gets a call on Monday from the young lady at Enterprise who said they found our daughter’s Nintendo DS and she would over-night it to us. We received it Tuesday, in perfect condition. Wow, this blew me away – what awesome customer service that was!
In reality, I could write post after post about people and things I am thankful for. Being thankful is something I do not take for granted.
Thankful ~ Lisa
The Aspiring Green Thumb
As a kid, I loved helping my dad in the garden and watching plants and veggies start from seeds into something so beautiful and delicious. I always wanted a garden of my own, however since the lot we built our home on is just not big enough to have all the things I wanted, I had to compromise. My husband found a large planter box called a Veggie Trug that we placed on the side of our home where we get the most sun. The family goal is to grow things we will eat, so if you have kids, you know what type of conversation that was. After several long, drawn-out family conversations we finally came to a consensus (it really wasn’t, but for sake of keeping this post short, let’s go with that) to plant onions, broccoli, spinach, lettuce, carrots and tomatos. We planted the carrots, spiniach and lettuce from seed and the rest from plants. We are so excited and looking forward to eating our crops soon!
This is our second season planting a garden and I’ve discovered you don’t need a lot of space to do it. Grow things you will eat and enjoy and get to planting!
Lisa ~ Aspiring Green Thumb
Recent Comments