THIRTY-ONE'S NEW CATALOG . . .

The new Spring Catalog came out on Wednesday.  Want to see my new favorite print?

And if you don't know why this is my favorite print, then you haven't been reading my blog very long!  :)  I love butterflies.  Like, LOVE them.  

You see, my favorite person in the world was my Grandma.  And she died over 13 years ago.  At her funeral the priest was talking about how much she liked butterflies, and how much SHE was like a butterfly.  (So true).  From that moment on, butterflies just became the "thing" in my family.  You're having a tough time and you see a butterfly?  Everything's going to be okay, because Grandma came to check on you.  THAT'S how it makes me feel.  So anytime I see something with butterflies, I just HAVE to have it.  Sarah's room?  Pink and green with butterflies.  Our master bathroom and 1/2 bath downstairs?  Butterflies.  Our bedroom set?  Butterflies.  I have pictures of butterflies, butterfly earrings, necklaces, bracelets, and rings.  You get the picture-I LOVE butterflies!

So you can imagine how THRILLED I was when I saw the new print.  Now I want everything they have in the butterfly print.  Like I don't have enough stuff already.  REALLY?  

Anyway, if YOU can't live without the butterflies either, or you just want to check out the new catalog, you can go HERE.

GOALS UPDATE: WEEK 4:

I did make a FEW of my goals this week, so I guess that's better than last week!

TO LOSE WEIGHT: I told you I gained 1 lb last week.  THIS week I LOST 1 1/2 lbs, so now I'm down 11 1/2 total.  I sure wish the next 11 lbs would come off as fast as the first 11!  :(  Oh well.  I only exercised once this week, so I need to up that for next week.  Of course, that's what I said LAST week!  But I did have a MAJOR migraine last week.  For 5 days.  It pretty much sucked.  I know that's not a real excuse, but it's the only one I have today!  Also, I didn't drink my water.  So I need to do that as well.  So far, I'm not doing too hot in sticking to this goal.  I need to get much better.

TO BE MORE ORGANIZED:  I've still been using my calendar, but I'm not NEAR as organized with things as I should be.  If I had my Semonin and Thirty-One stuff more organized, it would be easier to keep up with things.  I've started organizing my stuff, and I plan on finishing up the organizing this week.  I don't think I'll EVER be organized around the house, but oh well.  Baby steps, Michelle.  Baby steps!

TO WRITE MORE:  This is my 4th post for this week, so that's good.  My goal for next week is 4 posts as well.  I think that's a good number.  That's about every other day.  Some people I know write every single day, but I don't think I'm there yet.  So I'll stick with 4 posts a week for awhile.  I made it this week.  Let's see if I can do it 2 weeks in a row!

TO DO BETTER IN MY BUSINESS:  Real Estate:  I told you last week that I signed up for 4 Service Desk time slots for the month of February.  I have 2 of those this week.  One tomorrow, and one on Wednesday.  I also have my "goal" meeting with my Broker on Friday.  I'll let you know what happens next week. I also told you I ordered some pens.  I'm REALLY glad I asked to see a proof, because they put the wrong logo on there!  They had the 31 logo on both sets of pens.  The 2nd proof they sent me was right, so they should be shipped this week or next week.  I expect they will come later than the 31 pens since they took longer to get right, but I could be wrong.  I'll let you know when they get here.  And I'll be passing them out everywhere I go!

Thirty-One:  I told you the pens haven't come in yet, but I'm hoping they'll be here this week.  I am also going to do a giveaway on a site that promotes WAHM.  I'm actually doing 2 different things.  One is a lifetime "membership" promotion for $5.  The other is a giveaway.  I agree to give away an item, and then she promotes it on about 20-25 sites that she owns or works on.  Not a bad deal.  So I am going to work on that this week to get that started.  I also ordered a few other things off VistaPrint.  Gotta LOVE VistaPrint.  If you're not familiar with it, you should check it out.  You can get some pretty good deals on promotional items there.  I ordered my old business cards, which I didn't like, and my NEW business cards, which I LOVE.  Anyone that knows me well knows that Butterflies are my "thing."  So I decided to go with a butterfly "theme."  Let me know what you think.  

This is the front: 

 And this is the back:

I REALLY like them!  I also ordered some postcards, notepads, thank you cards, and a few other things that were either FREE (my favorite word), or on special.  And they've all got the same "theme", which is kind of cool.

Well, I guess that's it for this week.  I'll update you again next week.

GOALS UPDATE . . .

Okay, so this week pretty much sucked!  I didn't make ANY of my goals this week.

TO LOSE WEIGHT:  I gained 1 lb this week.   This week was a pretty tough week for me.  I was in a cruddy mood all week.  I think it's the dieting, plus the FREEZING COLD TEMPERATURES and not being able to go out.  And if you knew me, you'd know that I am NOT a home body.  I get cabin fever very easily.  But I also HATE the cold weather.  So if I don't have to go out in it, I won't.  That's not a good combination for someone that doesn't like to be home all of the time.  Plus, I didn't drink my water this week AT ALL.  I only went to the gym one day.  So my goal for next week?  To drink at least 3 glasses of water a day - already had 2 so far today; and to go to the gym at least TWICE next week, since I only went once LAST week.  So now I have to lose 4 lbs to reach the Weight Watchers initial goal of 14 lbs.  That really sucks.  But oh well, it is what it is.  Time to put that behind me and start over this week.  Wish me luck!  Sounds like I'm going to need it!

TO BE MORE ORGANIZED: I've been writing everything down again in my calendar.  I also switched purses, (a Thirty-One Purse, of course!), so now I can carry my calendar with me in my purse.  The other purse I was carrying, as much as I LOVED it, it wasn't big enough for my calendar.  Now this one is, plus it's one of the new styles, and I like it very much.  So I've been keeping my calendar up to date.  That's at least something I did right last week!

TO WRITE MORE: Again, this is my 3rd post for last week, so I didn't get to the 4 posts like I wanted to.  I'll try to make it this week.  

TO DO BETTER IN MY BUSINESS:  Real Estate:  So last week at our Office Meeting I signed up for 4 Service Desks for February.  What that means is you go in the office for 3 hours at a time and answer the phones or meet with anyone that comes in during your time.  In all of the years I've done them, I've only gotten 2 clients off of it, but I like doing them because it makes me go into the office and concentrate on work for at least those 3 hours.  Plus, I never really did it very religiously in the past anyway.  But we can sign up for 4 of them a month, so I plan on doing 4 EVERY SINGLE MONTH.  I also signed up for my Business Planning Session with my Broker.  That means that we sit down and talk about my plans for this year and what I'm going to do to accomplish them.  So that's set for 2/11 at 10:30 am.  That means between now and then I have to print out the Business Plan Form and really sit down and work on it and come up with some ideas to help me meet my goals for this year.  I also ordered some pens with our name and logo on them.  They should be here in the next week or two.  Once they get here, I ordered 500, I will plan on passing them out as much as possible.  The last thing I did is agree to make a donation for our Silent Auction at Andrew's school.  It's a big thing we do every year, The Winter Festival.  This year's theme is HOLLYWOOD.  I will donate a gift certificate for the Silent Auction.  I'll also include some business cards and the new pens I just bought!  That's not until 2/25, but they'll advertise in the school newspaper that I made a donation, so that'll get my name and information out there.

Thirty-One:   One of the people I talked to last week about having a party scheduled one for 2/20.  So I'll get her packet together this week and give it to her to help her get ready for it.  I'm excited about it.  The new catalog comes out 2/1 and there are a lot of new items and prints.  Plus, a lot of them are very "springy" and you all know I'm ready for Spring!  I also talked to 3 other people about having a party.  So hopefully at least 1 of them will have one.  I am going to make a 31 donation to the Silent Auction too for school.  I purchased 31 pens when I ordered the Semonin pens, so that'll be included in the donation as well.  One last thing I'm considering:  I'm thinking about having an Open House later in the month.  One of my friends sells candles, and they're AWESOME.  Another one of my friends sells Tupperware and Avon.  So I'm thinking maybe if I have an Open House with all 3 of us, then maybe we'll get more people to come because they can check them all out at one place.  What do you think?  Do you think that's a good idea, or should I just scrap it?  

So that's the update for last week.  Hopefully this week will be better.

I WISH I WAS ANONYMOUS PART 2 . . .

This is another one of those "I wish I was anonymous" posts.  This has been bothering me for awhile now, so I guess it's time to get it out there and off my chest.  Here's the deal.  Many of you know I joined a new company in October.  It's called Thirty One Gifts.  You can read more about it HERE.  I've let everyone in my family, my husband's family, and all of my friends know about it.   Heck, I've even let YOU GUYS know about it! I know it's a hard time for everyone and everyone is cutting back, but I figure if they're going to buy from 31, they might as well buy from me.  Right?

So I was talking to a family member about having a party and she told me that she is having one for a friend.  Maybe I shouldn't be, but I've been really upset about it.  I've heard this same person say, on more than one occasion, that "we're family" when she wants or needs something.  But I guess that only applies to her.  I keep thinking, how would she feel if she was doing something like this and I did the same thing to her?  I think she'd be really upset.  And I also think she'd make sure that pretty everyone knew that I wasn't supporting her. So why are the rules different for her?  

I don't know.  Maybe I'm just being selfish.  What do you think?  How would you feel?  Am I overreacting?