Its Halloween and no Tinkle Bell costume tonight!

I was so excited to dress up my little girl for Halloween.  Earlier today I sang at a home going celebration for my friend’s mom.  My friend had come to me at the beginning of the week and asked me to sing “If I Could”, a new song for me, but I wanted to sing that song for her.  So I did that earlier today and had planned to get home, get the baby dressed and take her trick or treating.  Whoooaaaa! She was not haven’ it.  I dressed her in her costume, and needed to pin up the shoulders so it would hang so low.  I tried to pick er up and flapped down like a mermaid out of water.  Every time I tried to pick her up she did the same thing.  Then she ran to ther room crying, and grabbed one of her blankets.   She brought her blanket to me and she looked at me like “sleep”.

Ok.  So my hubby and I stayed home with the baby, which is what she really wanted.  I think she thought I was getting her dressed to drop her off with her grandparents.  She just wanted to be with her mommy and daddy.  So, tonight was still wonderful.

I’m almost to my 60th day of my challenge!

The 60th day of my challenge gives me a lot of things to think about and reflect.  One of the things I realized is that I am really good for staying dedicated to the challenge for thr first 30 days.  Then, life just start to get in the way.  Eventhough, I rededicate myself, some of things fall to wayside.  What I think I need to do is hire a coach or personal trainer to keep me ontop of things when I get tot ht 30 day mark…something I do at the start of the challenge.   Another thing that I really still do believe, is that just being in it to win it, is definitely life changing.  Your focus, although it may get a little swayed at times, comes right bak around and keeps you committed to your dreams.  I have still moved forward, although a little slower, during the second thirty days.

Clearing the Clutter

I was reading an article online about how to move mountains.  Of course not, literally, but how to move the obstacles in your ways in life that block you from your greatness.  One of the first things it pointed to was how much more productive you are when you clear the clutter from your life.  I’m talking about the piles of paper on your desk.  The unopened mail, the clothes you haven;t worn in the past 3 years and are probably not going to wear again.

Well, tonight I cleared the clutter off of my desk.  It had been piling up for months.  Especially since my desk is enclosed by some great looking mirrored doors, I just let is go and grow and grow.  I had so much junk mail piled up that I almost couldn’t see my monitor,in order to type on the computer or check my email, much less feel good enough to shoot a video blog.

I know you can’t believe that it detered my from my pursuits but it sorta did.  I was avoiding coming into my office like the plague, so instead I would sit in my living room typing on my lap top instead.  It was way more peaceful than seeing all of the clutter on my desk.  I know you can relate if you believe that clutter is stressful to look at and gives you the feeling of overwhelmed and not know where to start.

Well, here are a few tips on getting rid of the clutter fast.  First, if you can, just start putting things in piles…wait, wait…make sure their is a method to your madness.  Makes sure you have labeled your piles.  You should have a keep, give-away, sell, and throw away pile, especially if you have things likes clothes and other nick-naks piling up.  If you haven’t worn or used something in a year and half, get rid of it.

But if you are like me with the mail and bills piling up (I pay my bills, but mostly online and over the phone) , throw everything in a big bag, then start sorting things out.  You should have ajunkk pile that goes straight into the trash, a file away pile, a pay pile and a shred file.  If you don’t get to everything at least that big pile of everything else is in a bag that you can get to later…but make sure its sooner than later.

Back To The Grind

Sometimes I feel like I totally go off course and that I’ve been off course for a long time.  Thank God I am writing these blogs because it just proves to me that my little detours have only been for short periods as opposed to lifetimes.  I have so many things that I want to accomplish that I am not finding the time for and also getting held up in road blocks.  A couple of days ago I talked about not being able to actually upload my video content and not really knowing how to insert video from other sites…videos that I really liked and would recommend seeing.  So I need to give myself a little pat on the back for actually getting that help that I needed to be able to move forward. 

I have got to admit that that road block also transferred to my exercise time and my practice.  Its been about a week and half since I have a really good workout, a really good singing practice, and a guitar practice.  I wonder if the crazy weather attributed to it.   I know that the traffic to the city has been wearing me out, so I have made  a point to try and take the train a couple of time per week.  It is so much better for me stress wise.  I am not freaking out in traffic for and hour and half to go a distance that would regularly take me 20 minutes if there was no traffic at all.  AAAArrrggg!  It is so frustrating.

For a moment, my mind veared away from my singing and thoughts of another passion of mine, helping and motivating other women to live their dreams too, creeped in and took over for while.  I am formulating my plans to share with other women business owners how to utitlize the internet to take their dream business to the next level, especially mom’s, who feel like there is not enough time in the day for themselves nor their dreams.  I am going to keep developing on that plan but stay the course as far as my plans for my music career.

Ooooops! I did it again.

Ok. Nichole Ayanna here.  I disappeared again for about a week again.  I feel like I am really back on track though.  I had a lot of things to think about over the past week that I think, really took up my creative space.

I finally got some more training on actually doing my website.  There was a little learning curve…a little hurdle that I had to get over.  I couldn’t figure out how in the world to get my videos loaded into the website.  I thought I knew how to do it, but I was sooooo wrong.  I also needed to figure out how to load my Amazon.com recommendations.  This way I can share with you my favorite books, music, and other great trinkets,like the Flip video camera.  I got mine from Amazon at a great price and I love, so why not pass that bit of information on to you.  I also couldn’t figure out why, when you clicked over into my CDbaby.com website, that it did not allow my visitors to buy and download each song from my the Nik-Tash’Ta CD individually.  Finally, after about a month after I sent a “help me” email to CDBaby.com they responded, and told me what was wrong.  I had included our publishing company as the publisher of one the songs that we did on the album that was a remake.  I had to upload the correct publisher for the downloads to work properly.

That was a lot, right?  There are so many things that go into operating this website.  You’ve gotta remember, we just launched ion July, so this is all fairly new to me.  But, stay with me as I grow it and it becomes more full of wondreful music and videos, and other things that I love.  Let me know what you would like to see more of on my website.  I know I need to get the videos up.  As you see, that’s what I’ve been working on… More music and more photos are coming too…anything else?