Licenses you can get online

Thinking of changing your professional direction?  Need a new credential? Here's a few licenses you can get online (by the way: this post does not endorse the legality/credibility of these schools - do your research before you pay anyone anything!):

1) Sea captain
2) Bartender
3) Real estate
4) Insurance sales
5) Amateur radio operator
6) Ordained minister
7) Assisted living administrator

Starting Your Own Business

***Thanks for the guest post by Jo Levy***

Starting your own business is a lot of work – don’t every let anyone tell you anything different. I had to do all kinds of research on things like bank card processing and taxes and dealing with the press – I had no idea how to do anything but bake! But three years in my little bake shop is actually doing much better than I thought it would and you know, someday I’m going to look back on this time and laugh about how scared I was and how much I learned. I can’t believe that only a few years ago I was in college still trying to figure out if I wanted to go into accounting or real estate because now that I’m doing this I can’t imagine doing anything else. There’s only one thing to say for myself and that’s that I’m really proud of what I’ve accomplished in such a short time. Only a few years ago I was someone who had a hard time getting things done and look at me now!

Health insurnace vs. medical sharing plans

My employer notified us that our health insurance premiums will be rising (again) next year, costing me $1482 in premiums to cover just me (my son gets CHiP, thank G--), or $114 per month.

I did a search on healthinsurance.com and found a plan for $95 per month, which I've applied to. But I also decided to research some medical sharing plans too.

A medical sharing plan isn't traditional insurance - it's a group of people who pay monthly dues, and those dues are all invested in an interest-bearing account. When a member has eligible medical expenses, a portion of those expenses are covered by the pooled money.

"Eligible" is the key word here: members of Christian-based medical sharing plans, such as Medishare, must adhere to a lifestyle free of alcohol, tobacco and drug use, and only be sexually active within a legal marriage. While this drives down costs (you don't have to pay for Paris Hilton-ites to go through rehab for the eighth time), it also decreases the number of eligible applicants. If you can withstand such scrutiny, check them out at medishare.org.

Cleaning out my son's clothes w Thread Up

LOVE this new website to exchange kids' clothes, toys and books!  It's called Thread Up, and I completely love it!

I used to sell my son's old stuff on eBay, because he grows so fast that it's usually only lightly worn by the time he's outgrown it.  Two issue with eBay though: 1) buyers are extremely picky  they lose sight of the fast that they are paying pennies on the dollar for lightly-worn things 2) there's no real market for the cute-but-inexpensive things you get from Target or Kohl's.

I registered at Thread Up, and then posted a group of clothing items Will's outgrown. Once someone picks my box, I get $10 worth of credit to pick someone else's box!

Planning for a mostly-handmade holiday season

I really love the holidays, except for the horribly-commercialized angle of how-much-can-I-get. To me, the holidays are a time to show our gratitude to our Maker and love to our families and friends - the cost or extravagance of gifts should have nothing to do with this.

Pair this with the fact that I love to knit, and I've got a low-cost, handmade Christmas planned.  The exceptions to who gets handmade stuff are my 2nd grader (let's not have too-high an expectation) and my BF, because I have a really nice and really functional idea for him.

My sponsees (2) - hats
My parents - afghan
Scott's parents - afghan
Scott's kids - hats (2)
Scott - cell phone holder, probably from Orvis or Deluth Trading
My brother and his wife - afghan
Will's teachers - candles

Scouting blogs

Some of you know I'm a huge fan of scouting - it's been a godsend for me parenting a boy by myself! Here are some scouting blogs I;m going to be reading regularly ....

http://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/
http://www.fmaynard.com/scouting/
http://www.melrosetroop68.org/blog/
http://www.scoutmastercg.com
http://reverentscout.com/

PS - there are TONS of pack-specific blogs, but for right now I'm trying to keep them as general as possible for my own learning/ideas - if I find a pack specific site that's really helpful I'll post it ....

Mom's Chore Charts!

I love clothes. I have too many. I shouldn't love clothes, but I do.  Clothing never gets old to me.

Meanwhile, I really don't like housework. Left to my own devices, I will have a messy house with an overflowing closet. Once this gets crazy, it stresses me out - I get a case of Mommy Shame, along with symptoms of OMG-Who's-Clothing-Bill-Is-This.

It occurred to me while looking at my son's chore chart on the fridge the other day that I need a chore chart. If I complete 90% of my chores for the month, I get an article of clothing!

I looked around for pre-made chore charts, because I'm so not-good at housework that I don't know what I don't know.  My favorite by far is by Motivated Moms.

This has been a HUGE help to me - so far I've gotten daily chores done after work for over a week! I think this works for me because everything is written down, so even when I'm too tired to think, the sheet does the thinking for me.....