It’s like climbing a mountain don’t you think? Now I know a thing or two about climbing mountains and asking YOU if you care enough about yourself is a valid question.

How often do you say to yourself and others, “I wish there were more time in the day!” I know you would be lying if you didn’t think this at least once a day. Correct me if I am wrong! Time is a very precious commodity that we never get back so use it wisely.

Being a work at home mum inevitably leads to being in the same surroundings day in and day out. Getting out of the house to work for me is a real treat and something I have scheduled in more often with my mobile broadband connection.

If you work from home, you can probably identify with this. The other issues are of course that there is always something to be done around the house and if you have young children, they need attention too. So how do we find the balance and care enough about ourselves to do something about it?

Here’s a question for you and I want you to say it out loud so it really resonates with you.

“How often do I spend time on myself?”

Is it an hour a day?

An hour or more a week?

An hour or more a month?

I think you get the idea. And by this, I mean time just for you and you alone. Whether it be taking a leisurely stroll, meditating, reading a book, listening to your favorite music or maybe sitting amongst nature and listening to the birds! Whatever it is that brings you peace of mind – spend time doing it.

Do you think about the food you eat and whether it is “good” or “bad” for your body? I use those words loosely as one person’s idea of good and bad can be different to the next person.

Do you exercise and stretch your body to keep it flexible and strong? Do you do Mentalrobics for the brain to keep it active? Is this too much of a list for you?

These are basic things we can do for ourselves in the quest to caring for ourselves. I know when I hit 40 I felt fabulous… now a few more years down the track… time seems to slip by me so fast that I can’t keep up with all I need to do!

Does it show to those around you?

Do you care enough about yourself that it shows to those around you? Do your friends comment on a great hairdo or a nice outfit you are wearing? Perhaps your skin always looks great and you receive compliments about this. Or perhaps you showed compassion to another and word got around. You may find that you have more respect than before. That’s not why you would it, it would be a consequence after the fact.

Now you might be asking “What does showing compassion to another have to do with caring about yourself?” Well if you didn’t care about yourself, you wouldn’t be showing compassion. By showing compassion to another, you would have put yourself in their shoes and whatever it was that prompted you to offer them help would have been something that happened to you in the past or to someone else you know and what they went through during that time. If you didn’t care enough about yourself, then how can you care for your fellow man?

Care Enough About Yourself

Some of the things you may want to take on if you care enough about yourself are things that you are passionate about and it really could be anything you find joy in doing and linking pleasure to doing it.

If the traditional way of exercising is not for you, think about taking a dance class like Salsa or Belly Dancing for instance. You will find muscles you never thought you had in those classes, or find someone that has group exercise classes outside of a gym if it’s the gym thing that doesn’t appeal. A simple brisk walk or light jog for 20 minutes everyday may do the trick too with stretching before and after the event.

When it comes to do the grocery shopping, do it after you have had a meal so that you are not tempted to buy extras that you don’t really need. Shopping on a full stomach will lessen the chance of buying something that may not be so good for you and your body.

Grooming is another thing to take note of. Having your hair tidy, makeup done (if you wear makeup that is) and clean well kept clothes also shows if you care enough about yourself. You don’t need to have the latest fashion as the latest fashion doesn’t suit every body or personality type. Wear what you feel comfortable in and remember to check your shoes too. These are things you may not consider on a daily basis and especially if you don’t have to leave the house to commute to work. It’s easy to become nonchalant in this situation and awareness of this is important… well to me anyway.

So do you care enough about yourself? If you don’t, then who will?

While you are considering this, here’s another dance you may be interested in and I look forward to your thoughts. Watch this video… um… you could get out of your chair and follow along… perhaps!

This is a list of some online free resources that I use which I mentioned in the interview:

StumbleUpon Toolbar for sending pages to my network of friends when I want to share something with them. Please note that you have to be registered with SU in order to use it. It is also available in IE browser here.

Strip Generator for creating comic strips which are fun to use to add into a post.

Thirty Day Challenge where I met George Kedourie and teaches about how to get free traffic to your blog.

TaggZilla dot com is a follow on from the Thirty Day Challenge and a fantastic resource site for support in with your Internet Marketing.

Off2Trade dot com is a site which you can surf to find free online resources to help your internet experience which have helped me streamline my time online.

HeadSpace2 is a great wordpress plugin for meta-tag generators making it easier to get search traffic for individual posts.

CommentLuv wordpress plugin as it parses the commenter’s latest post from their blog.

PodClass which is a Facebook application for running classes.

Camtasia Studio 3 free download to enable the making of tutorials or videos.

I Want Sandy is a virtual secretary.

Jott – I learned about this from Pearl over at Fresh Perspectives which sounds really great, however it is not available in Australia yet! I’m sure it will help some of you so I wanted to list it here.

I am sure you will all find something useful in this list so let me know what you think of them.

Thanks again to George Kedourie for suggesting this interview.

Seeing how special it was, I wanted to share some of it with you.  I put together this holiday video message for you with a special offer as my gift to you my readers.  All you need to do is leave me your contact details with an address to send the book to at no expense to you.  I will cover the costs involved and I will leave this offer is open until the 31st January, 2008.

Dedicated to Success

Here’s a short summary of that post:

• The only person that suffers from NOT forgiving the wrong-doer or forgiving yourself, is YOU.
• The practice of forgiveness is a simple process which can be done on a daily basis (as long as you are willing to let go of the thing that holds you back.)
• Forgiveness is an integral part of your Personal Development as without it, you cannot learn and move on with mastering your Emotional Intelligence.

Forgive and Forget

An interesting thought that came up in the responses from my friend George, is that as a child, he always heard the saying as it goes…

Forgive, but don’t Forget. It has it’s sense. Sometimes forgive AND forget is also a good idea as you clear out lot’s of stuff.

However, I feel that sometimes NOT forgetting in certain cases is a wise decision just so you don’t get caught a second or even a tenth time by the same story. Sort of like headlights that help you avoid big rocks in the road.

This is interesting because more often than not, we make up our own story about how someone treated us. Something I learned at the Landmark Forum is that we tend to, as humans do, drag the past around with us. Just imagine carrying around a suitcase everywhere we went.

I take George’s comment this way. By practicing forgiveness, it will certainly make you a stronger person. By not forgetting and using it as a warning to not get caught up again in that kind of a circumstance, it is useful. It reminds us NOT TO GO THERE AGAIN.

So to forgive and forget can give us freedom to go on and live a happy and fulfilling life. Create your day with your intentions clearly embedded in your mind before you even get out of bed. Practice forgiveness a little each day… the process gets easier the more you do and remember that attitude of gratitude leads to a life of abundance.

Dedicated to Success.

Meg uses three variables which are the Alexa ranking for Australia, the Alexa ranking for the US, and the Technorati ranking of a blog to determine the numbers. To learn more of how she does this, read it here.

Aside from this successful blog, Meg also facilitates the BUMPzee Australian Blogs Community and owns and runs dlook which is an Australian Online Business Directory, and from what I saw, there is also a dlook dating site if anyone is interested! Kudos to Meg for running such successful businesses.

Blogging is quite a community affair. I remember when I first started Buzzing with Ange and I used to wonder how to get people to read it. Twelve months later, I have made it into a Top 100 list. Not bad for a stay at home mother of two who has had quite a varied number of roles in her lifetime to date.

The social media has been a worthwhile area to be involved in with building a blogging community and learning how to drive traffic to my site. I must say that it has all been a very fun way of getting to know people too and the reasons why they blog.

Now it is really getting late here.

I will go to sleep smiling and grateful.

Dedicated to Success

I was out with the girls for dinner so he was left to his own devices, and he must have been missing me to do some reading. I received a text from him later into the night to say that what I wrote was really inspiring … and that’s coming from a man who normally reads the NBA news and results!

Today, I want to give you this inspiring story of life to pay it forward to your friends. Live your life and do the things you love before it’s too late. Show your enthusiasm for life so that others will be touched by what you do. Create your day from the moment you wake up and say I’m having a great day! The rest will follow.

I will leave you to enjoy this.

What I like about this particular one is that it’s All About Me which will give you some idea of my online habits and why I am here. Some of you may have read earlier posts where I refer to my presence on the web and for those that haven’t caught up with me yet, you will find the answers down below. So keep reading.

Here we go, questions and answers.

1. How long have you been blogging.

My blog is one year old and has come a long way since I first started it. It started as a wordpress blog and then I switched to my own domain just about 4 months back. It has had a few facelifts in that time, and will have another shortly, so look out!

2. What inspired you to start a blog and who are your mentors

I attended a seminar where I met a guy by the name of Jamie McIntyre. I have written about him before. It was an Internet and Business Mastery seminar and there were all sorts of Internet guru’s who were giving me plenty to think about. Ideas were flying around the room and when I got home, I immediately sat at my PC and I started surfing and typing and I have not looked back since.

Sean Rasmussen is my mentor. I met him through doing the seminars as well. Sean quickly got working on the Internet after attending the same seminar two years prior to me. He has taught me a lot about SEO and building sites, along with some great tips on how to live the life you love. Remember in school how we were told not to cheat, well now it’s called modeling. Jamie says to find someone who has already done what you want to do and model them. It works for me

3. Are you trying to make money online, or just doing it for fun

Yes I am making money working on the net, and I just love what I do. This blog gives me freedom of expression and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I don’t have to leave home every morning to go to a job so I am very blessed to be doing this.

4. What 3 things do you love about being online

a) I love that I have built up such a great community of friends. I belong to a vast number of communities and I love the fact that I get to meet bloggers and some non-bloggers from many resources.

b) I love that I can keep up-to-date with all that is going on through the various communities. Athough, there are times when there is so much going on that I can arrive a little late for the party That could also be due to the fact that I have branched out quite a bit.

c) I love that this really is FUN.

5. What 3 things do you struggle with online

a) There is just so much information and lots of great blogs to read that sometimes my work suffers. I am very social and love to keep up with all my contacts. When they email or message me, I have to know what is going on and give a reply… LOL… sometimes, that can take up quite a bit of time. So sleep IS over-rated. I will just have to sleep when I am dead which I don’t intend to be for quite a long time yet.

b) I sometimes get overwhelmed and have to re-center myself to focus on the job at hand. There will be some changes other than a face-lift here at Buzzing with Ange. I will be giving it some structure with regular features so you will know what to expect from me in the future. This is one thing that I have dismissed in the past and now I believe it is time to smarten things up a bit.

c) I am still learning a lot of the technical side of things and how they work and sometimes, I don’t get it right and I have had instances of my blog disappearing from cyberspace. Yikes!! I am so grateful to have my tech guy, who is not always available, but really helpful when I do get hold of him. He does some really great work and has built some amazing sites.

Enough of the Q. & A. now I am going to introduce you to some of my community from BlogCatalog who have a variety of sites I know you will enjoy. This is how the meme works as it keeps going and going and going.

Diane from Dorset with her blog Much of a Muchness with some random thoughts and musings that turned into a blog, and she also has some lovely notebooks she has handmade herself on show.
Mike who is a book lover at The View from Here. Mike is also writing his own book and is looking for a publisher so if you can help, that would be great.

Megan from Imaginif Child Protection Became a Serious Business. Megan has devoted her life to the protection of children. A very worthy cause.

Derek from Derek Semmler Dot Com who I met through stumbling on StumbleUpon. Now Derek does talk about his online earnings and is a great blog to get some tips from if you are one of those bloggers who are keen on making money online.

Chessnoid from TotalNoid who also writes about the things he loves and is passionate about. It’s great to read what gets people moving forward in life.

Chris from Self Improvement Journal which is something I have a kindred spirit for. I get a lot of inspiration reading Chris’ blog and we have also both attended the Landmark Forum so we are on the same page when he writes about it.

Carole from The Healthy Living Lounge is very keen on yoga and has some great tips on living a healthy lifestyle.

MidgetManOfSteel from Mental Poo just for something completely different. I don’t know his real name. A word of warning though, this bog contains random thoughts and comments that tend to flow from his head with little advance warning which he calls…. mental poo… so be careful, it could get quite messy in there. Enter at your own risk.

Hmmmmm……. something to think about. Enjoy visiting these great bloggers who have made a difference in the blogosphere. Get connected with them if you are in the realm of blogging. Have fun and all that.

We all know the benefits of regular exercise and that it does give you more energy to carry on through your day than if you don’t do any at all. Being fit is something that will keep you young not just physically, but also mentally. Having a fit and healthy body is beneficial to you and those around you as it makes you feel stronger, it keeps the blood flowing through your veins, and just makes you feel better generally.

The reason I bring this up is because I ran into a friend of mine last week who is a personal trainer and he invited me to join in on a Saturday morning gym group that he runs down at our local beach. This morning was a particularly glorious day so I walked to the location which overlooks the Sandringham Yacht Club, which is beautiful in itself, and joined Marc’s group.

There would have been around twenty people in all and I wasn’t sure what I was in for, but it was fun. Marc had us warm up by breaking into four groups, two groups opposite the other, and we had to run at each other and throw a ball as we crossed the other person. If you happened to drop the ball, everyone had to drop and do ten push-ups!! I dropped the ball twice so I wasn’t very popular

Then we had a set of exercises to do at our own pace and we would come back together at the end of the hour session for some stretching. Needless to say that my poor body is aching all over now and is in great need of a massage and some more stretching.

While we were going through our routines on the foreshore, there was another group of more mature people that gathered for what seemed like some kind of meeting until they started walking around in a circle and greeting each other with curious sounds and lots of laughter. I have heard of laughter therapy before but had never seen any group making each other laugh in a public place and I thought to myself… how cool is that! Here were a bunch of 60+ year olds laughing and dancing and roaring at each other on the Sandringham foreshore! I felt like graduating over to their group just to get in on the laughter.

Reward Yourself

I bring this up because we all know the benefits of a regular exercise routine so I won’t go into that. What I do want to say is that you also don’t need to beat yourself up if you don’t keep up with something regular. When choosing to take some kind of class or going for a walk, reward yourself by taking your iPod with your favorite music, audiobook or some thing that you are researching to listen to while you are doing your exercise as you can kill two birds with one stone and you don’t have to feel guilty that you are not at home doing housework or that you are missing out on some work that needs doing.

Some of you may choose to walk to the shops rather than drive, as not only is it exercise, but it is also good for the environment. Others may choose to just run around the block first thing every morning and that is all you need. You may even have a mini-tramp that is handy to take a break throughout your day and just jump for 5 or 10 minutes at different intervals when you get writers block or get distracted and need to get focused again.

Whatever you choose is great for you. If you have a regular routine, I take my hat off to you and if you don’t, just start slowly and get going with something that you can build on. There is no right or wrong way to do this as we each have our own set of circumstances and likes and dislikes. The best thing you can do is find a way to reward yourself for having taken something on that doesn’t have to cost anything like a bubble bath or just time out for you doing your favorite thing. A massage at least once a month is a good idea though if you are going to be engaging your body in some physical routine that it is not used to.

Take care of your body because it is the only one you get in this lifetime. Take time out to laugh and play everyday. Happy exercising and have fun with it

About one month ago, I came across Marty Weintraub over at Aim Clear who recently wrote a very endearing post telling us how he had been diagnosed with stage 3b Lymphoma. As he said, even today, to hear those words is like an eerie insight as to what it’s like to receive the heartbreaking Lymphoma diagnosis. I couldn’t even begin to imagine what those words would sound like to me. Marty is now in recovery with “first partial remission” and a good prognosis for long term survival and wants his friends to highlight an upcoming event to help raise funds for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

Internet Marketers of New York

I would like to bring to your attention this event which will be held in NY on Monday, 15th October 2007. It is being held the evening before the SMX Social Media which is a two-day show where marketers will learn to harness the power of consumer engagement. If you happen to be in the area, it would be great of you to support the event by attending. You can find all the details here at http://www.im-ny.org/events.html

If you are not in the vicinity, there are other ways to help if you feel a need to do so. One of those ways is to write about the event in you own blog and pass on the awareness so that the news reaches as many people as possible. For this purpose, I will be tagging Sandra, Chris, Jim and Emma, Yogi, and Karla.

Raise awareness anyway you can and let’s make a difference to the those who suffer with this kind of dis-ease.

May You Be Blessed

Ange