Vegan Momma

I updated my WordPress theme a few moments ago. I was growing tired of the old theme here on vegan momma (had it for almost a year) and have decided on something different. I still have things I need to add and take away from this theme but I like it. It’s a lot cleaner than my previous theme. I’m not sure how long I’ll keep this one but for now it’ll do.

I’ve been eating a lot of greens lately, something I do every day, but recently it has been more than normal so I’ll be sharing a few pictures here over the next few days and sending people to my vegan recipe website to pick up the recipe.

Purple Zoe of Ultraviolet Underground made me realize that I hadn’t posted a green smoothie recipe in a while, so yesterday I made another super green smoothie recipe. The results were deliciously sweet beverage and so good for you. I added fresh pineapple to the smoothie which made it incredibly delicious.

If you haven’t checked out Purple Zoe’s spot give it a visit it’s one of my favorite hangouts and I’m always checking to see what’s new, and going back to old and some of my new favorites, via my RSS feed. You can also check out Ultraviolet Underground’s book Maji written by Dazjae Zoem on Amazon.

I pulled this excerpt from Amazon.

A timid girl who otherwise resigned to blend into the background opens the door to the Phupha (Faerie), becoming more prominent in their world than she could have anticipated; influencing an alliance between dreamers and Fae that would determine the fate of their realms. This Omnibus contains the three volumes originally published as separate volumes in 2006 when ‘Black Faerie’ first emerged. The epic poem Metaheart and related shorts are also included as extras in this Alpha Edition. More shorts and activities maybe added to future editions. E-versions available through UltravioletUnderground.com

I’ll be ordering my copy and reading it when I’m on vacation the first week in July. Funny thing is I’ve seen the picture on the website and never knew it was a book. I love the picture the girl makes me want to give her a big hug. What a beautiful girl. You can read more about the book by checking out the post about Maji also check out the videos. Aiyana and I watched all of them and we really enjoyed them. The author has a lot of positive energy.

There are very few blogs that I have told my mentees to read because they aren’t suitable for children; however, Ultraviolet Underground was the top on my list along with Faith in Action because of their positive message and it showed them positive black role models. Something my mentees really needed to see. They definitely weren’t getting that in the media. My mentees, from last school year, were Black living in a high crime area they didn’t always see positive images of themselves.

Originally they had a hard time believing that I, as a Black woman, ran my own business, and was actually supporting my family. In their minds Blacks weren’t able to do that. It’s time to break through the myths. I’ll definitely do my part.

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I guess you could say that animals have a prominent spot in my world. We have two dogs and four ferrets in our household. Even as a child I cannot remember to many times when we had animals sharing up residence indoors and outdoors. When I was a child we had what most think of as “farm animals.” I don’t think I thought of them that way. I played with them like any other animals so for me they were my friends. Some of them happened to live outside of our homes and in their own tiny homes. It definitely didn’t stop me from visiting them. I would greet my feathered and furry friends every morning before I went to school and upon my return. They all received lots of attention.

I cannot physically visit Chloe at VitaminStuff but I do make a point to see what is going on in her world. Many thanks to Tim, the site owner for sharing some of her adorable fuzzbutt antics with the rest of the virtual community.

I believe I virtually met the owner, Tim, early last year. He was at another website and I was a frequent visitor. To say I was disappointed when he took a blog break would be an understatement. Many of his posts made me think and at times view things from a different perspective. Not everyone challenges me to do that. Check out his post on Ferrets and Sleeping can you find Chloe? Do ferrets listen well? Check out this post to find out. Chloe resembles my ferret Kali. Kali is a chocolate Sable ferret and her personality seems to match Chole’s. If you are interested in vitamins and, the stuff that goes along with it dig into Tim’s virtual library he has a lot of information about vitamins and alternative medicine. If you closely look, you might find a few articles written by myself. Yes, this is one of the places where I write.

In other news…
My exercise workouts are still going well and hopefully I’ll be able to post some of my workouts over the next week. Friday is my late day at the gym. In the morning I take my daughter, Aiyana, to a children’s reading group. She has a blast after that time, I head on to the gym.

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We’ve all made excuses at some point in our lives, right? What are you doing to change them?

In my last post What’s Holding You Back: Why Aren’t you Achieving Your Goals? I wrote about excuses and how much I hate hearing them. Guess what? As much as I cannot stand excuses there are times when I have made them myself. I’m going to go over the ridiculous excuses I’ve made in the past and what I’m doing to change them.

1. Freelance Writing
Excuse: I don’t have time to learn the “rules” of freelance writing.
Now this one is hilarious mainly because I write every single day! Realizing how silly it was for me to say something like this. I stopped making excuses and just did it.

Within my first three weeks, as a freelance writer I made a little over 2k. I worked my tail off, but I did it. For those who think it can’t be done or think that I cannot possibly be telling the truth well you don’t know me too well. In whatever I do put a lot of time and energy into making things happen. I thoroughly research whatever I’m interested in. Why? It would be foolish to rush into something without a well thought out plan. I will make sacrifices to achieve what I want. That is what separates me from many.

Freelance Writing: What Has Helped Me

• I visited websites that wrote about freelance writing. I realized it wasn’t as hard as I was making it out to be.
• Research
• I purchased freelance writing books
• Just doing it

What Freelance Writing Books Did I Purchase?

1. The Copywriters Handbook, Third Edition: A Step By Step Guide To Writing Copy That Sells
2. Writing White Papers: How To Capture Readers And Keep Them Engaged
3. Starting Your Career As A Freelance Writer
4. Too Lazy To Work Too Nervous To Steal: How To Have A Great Life As A Freelance Writer
5. The Renegade Writers Query Letters That Rock: The Freelance Writers Guide To Selling More Work Faster
6. Writer Mama: How To Raise A Writing Career Alongside Your Kids
7. Feminine Wiles: Creative Techniques For Writing Womens Feature Stories That Sell
   
8. Writers Market 2008

How did I select the above books? I relied on reviews and suggestions from other freelance writers. I’m very happy with my purchases.

Freelance Writing: How Did I Land My Clients?

I did a lot of marketing to make that happen and I wrote articles. I did a small amount of marketing on vegan momma also and I hit my business. Freelance writing is yet another way you can make money online. I’m not dependent on Google to make money from writing. Eight days ago I created a website that focuses solely on freelance writing. The site was indexed within 24 hours. Since I haven’t written to many places the samples I’ll be including will be from my other websites. I have written numerous articles the ones that do well are those related to health/nutrition.

My Freelance Writing Website Received It’s First Amazon Sale Within Three Days!

Guess what? Within my first three days, I received an Amazon sale on my new website. It wasn’t much it amounted to a little over $5, but it tells you whether you market yourself correctly yes you can make money. How did I market myself? I left informative comments on other freelance writers websites. I’m new to the game, but even I have something to share mainly from a marketing standpoint. I was only receiving 11 visitors daily to my website at the time. Now, on the 8th day I’m averaging 25 unique visitors daily. When I make the time to market that effectively I will do better.

2. Figure Competition

Excuse: I don’t have the time to focus on competition
I’ve been singing the same tune for a few years! Guess what? It’s old. I have a workout buddy now so there is no reason why I cannot make this happen. I’ve changed my attitude. When I go into the gym my focus instead of thinking about the benefits of my workout I think, “What can I do to get into competition form?” That has made all the difference.

Veggies, Yarns, & Tails left a great comment in my last post and I thought I would share it here….

This is something I practice often. Statistics show when people write down their goals they are more inclined to turn those into a reality. Besides it’s hard to “forget” to do something when you it’s in your face. ;-) If you haven’t visited Veggies, Crafts, & Tails please stop by and say hello. She regularly posts pictures about the dishes she has created. She’s an author of a cookbook titled Not Just for Vegetarians, Delicious Homestyle Cooking, the Meatless Way. She’s vegetarian and has created some tantalizing recipes. You can also catch pictures of her lovely cat, The Mitz. I’ve been reading her website for over a year.

3. Changes To Vegan Momma
Excuse: I don’t want to come off as “preachy” by changing my vision

Those who’ve been reading my website for any length of time know I’m passionate about total body wellness. I write and talk about it daily. Why in the world wasn’t I doing it more on Vegan Momma? A lot of that was due to the fact that I didn’t want to come off as being “preachy”. I stopped focusing on that and started writing what matters to me total body wellness. Guess what? My numbers have jumped up by over 100 readers daily. That’ s not what has excited me about it but what have pulled them to my site is what makes me happy. My stats show what is bringing most of them to my website is because I’m writing about what I love; health, nutrition, & fitness.

Thought of the Day: Think of ways you can turn I can’t into I can. Make it happen!

[tags]freelance writing, positive reinforcement, Feminine Wiles: Creative Techniques For Writing Womens, health, positive reinforcement, Starting Your Career As A Freelance Writer, The Copywriters Handbook, The Renegade Writers Query Letters That Rock, Too Lazy To Work Too Nervous To Steal, vegan momma, Writer Mama: How To Raise A Writing Career Alongside Your Kids, Feminine Wiles: Creative Techniques For Writing Womens Feature Stories That Sell, Writers Market 2008, Writing White Papers [/tags]

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I submitted my guest post to Face-Natural earlier today. I had about a week to think about the question, and as I tossed the question over in my mind I thought about the appropriate message for her audience, my readers, and what new people coming to her website might like to read. If you take the time look through Face-Natural there is information that can be used by everyone.

I thought about this and this morning as I sat in the sauna (great detoxifier and good for your skin) I knew what I wanted to write about and guess what I even included a recipe that you can create at home so check out my guest post at Face Natural and read about my New Years Resolution: Eating For Beauty.

[tags]Face-Natural, guest posting[/tags]

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Thomas - Technical Blogger included the second part of my interview over at his lovely virtual home. He asked me a question…

5 - You receive quite a bit of positive feedback concerning your blogs, what suggestions do you have for other bloggers?

And I answered him it was a long answer and to be truthful I deleted some of what I had written simply because it was so long but if you think about it there are many ways that you can make your website a positive experience to your readers, and I’m always finding ways that I can improve so I imagine if someone would ask me that later on I would have added things to say. You can find the first part of the interview over at his website. What was the occasion I was the 1,000th Commenter.

In Other News…

Whew! I finally have a few seconds to breathe. I’m amazed that it will soon be Christmas. The time has flown by, hasn’t it? I’ll be taking a tiny break tomorrow to hang out with my brother, sister-in-law, and nine-month nephew. Of course I’ll be hanging out with my daughter. also. You know what? I still need to pick up something for my nephew since I know he has everything under the soon I will be buying a gift card for him. They can get what is best for him.

The holiday has been a great season for my business, and I’ve been busier than ever, receiving orders, creating products, and shipping them out. My MacBook Pro will be accompanying me tomorrow. As a business owner I always keep the lines of communication open so yes that means that my work extends well past the typical 9 to 5 and yes I do work on holidays. I work more now than I ever did in the corporate setting and you know what? It’s ok. I can work from home and I’m working for myself. I love it.

Recently with the freelance writing projects I’ve acquired I realized (even more) the importance of always being able to connect with people if possible sure I have my backup plan modem (I use DSL) but what if that fails? Well, I had that happen for a few hours this past week which caused a delay of my submitting articles by about eight hours. I don’t like delays. I’ve been holding off purchasing the Verizon wireless card but I’m not doing that anymore. I’ll be adding that this coming week. I won’t need it a lot but if I do it’s there.

Question: Any plans for Christmas Eve?

[tags]Thomas - Technical Blogger, freelance writing[/tags]

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