October 1st, 2008

Announcing an Amazing New Site (designed by me)

Intro­duc­ing Maisha Teacher

It’s time for some good news. Today marks the Grand Open­ing of MaishaTeacher​.com a brand new site that I just designed. Maisha is a free­lance hair styl­ist and make-up artist who will be offer­ing on her blog, radio show, and in her newslet­ter, amaz­ing tips for max­i­miz­ing your mojo and get­ting the best results for hair and makeup. She will also be offer­ing insider prod­uct rec­om­men­da­tions and more.

Her first post of her “Hair Break­age” series, Put a Stop to Hair Break­age, offers an insight­ful answer to the ques­tion, “Why the heck is my hair falling out”.  She tells you why you should stay away from at-home col­or­ing kits, the impor­tance of rins­ing you hair well after sham­poo­ing, and why hydrat­ing is nec­es­sary for your hair. In addi­tion, if you sign up for her monthly newslet­ter, you will be able to get more detailed tips and prod­uct suggestions.

So what are you wait­ing for? Head over there and leave a com­ment. And don’t for­get to tell me how beau­ti­ful the design looks.

TTFN!

September 5th, 2008

I’m a WHAM (Emphasis on the “Work”)

When we decided that it was worth it– me giv­ing the web design busi­ness a real shot– we also decided that it would behoove us if I did not work out­side of the home. After all, it was way too expen­sive to pay for child-care and my hubby under­stood that I was not happy under the circumstances.

The plan was as follows:

(1) I would work part-time (1 day a week) out­side of the home at my cur­rent place of employ­ment just to ensure a steady income on my part.

(2) I would bust my butt to build my business.

It was a sim­ple plan, right? But hubby and I recently had a lit­tle spat about the roles that we would now play. Specif­i­cally, th “you’re home now so you do the house­work,” com­ment sent this Mom on the Rise down a war-path.

After I man­aged to keep from rip­ping my hubby’s heart out, I decided to explain the dif­fer­ence between a WAHM and a SAHM.

“Let’s get this straight. A SAHM does not find ways to bring money into the house. She works with what the fam­ily has and takes care of the domes­tic duties. A WAHM can­not do both alone. She can­not focus on bring­ing money in AND take care of all the house­hold duties. It’s unfair to assume that would be the way things will work. We are both work­ing Par­ents and we are both respon­si­ble for the house­work. If you want me to do it all, that is fine– I will be a SAHM, but don’t look to me to being in any extra money– that is all on you.”

It did not sit to well with him, at least I don’t think it did. But what I know is that WAHM can­not and should not be expected to carry such a heavy load on their own. When we got mar­ried we both agreed that if we work then we would split the house­hold respon­si­bilites 50/50. Why should that change? Yes, I am home. But I am home try­ing to build a busi­ness while tak­ing care of a 29 month-old while he is at work. Is it too much to ask for him to help with the laun­dry? The bath­room? I think not.

August 26th, 2008

When Bartering Pisses on You

I have been try­ing to get my busi­ness of the ground for a while now. Back in Feb­ru­ary, when I first real­ized that I could actu­ally make money design­ing web sites, I offered my ser­vices to any­one who even appeared to need one. An acquain­tance is also self-employed and in a field that was very use­ful to me. He needed a web­site; I needed his ser­vices (and get your mind out of the gut­ter– I’m a mar­ried woman). We decided to exchange ser­vices. How­ever, I seemed to have got­ten the short end of the stick.

His ser­vices are only nec­es­sary every six months and do not cost nearly as much as I would charge for a web design. Once he com­pletes his ser­vices, I can­not go back and request changes. It is a done deal. And it only takes on day. Web Design, on the other hand, can be a very long and tedious process. And it’s hard to set lim­its when most peo­ple don’t under­stand the process.

So, the first site that I did was good. Despite the fact that I did not agree with some of the choices he made for the site, I com­plied because the cus­tomer is always right. There were some other minor issues in that he did not get infor­ma­tion to me in the alloted time­frame (very bad) and he is some­what of a know-it-all. But, alas we got things done and I was more than happy to add this job to my portfolio.

Over the course of this time I used his ser­vices twice. The first time I was very sat­is­fied. The sec­ond time, he kind of pushed me into a direc­tion that I was not 100% com­fort­able with, but I went with it and was sat­is­fied. The the third time never hap­pened for some rea­son. When I sug­gested that we give his site a makeover, he was all too excited to offer his ser­vices to me again. That was the first sign of trouble.

Over the next two months and a count­less exchange of emails, I real­ized that this per­son did not have any real respect for what web design entails. In fact, he was/is very self­ish and does not care that I am try­ing to build a busi­ness. I have to mar­ket and build some free tem­plates.  Did I men­tion that I have not used his ser­vices again because he keeps flak­ing out on me? In fact, he has told me that he was going to meet me and has not shown.

Well Mon­day was the final straw. I received an email ask­ing me to change and already approved site that has been coded, uploaded, and except for a few minor changes, com­pleted. I decided to let him know that I would not be mak­ing the changes he requested because he is tak­ing advan­tage of the sit­u­a­tion. What he is ask­ing me to do would be a com­plete makeover when, after ask­ing 10 times if he liked it, I was told 10 times that it was perfect.

I told him in not-so-nice terms what was on my mind.

Was i wrong?