Our electricity bill came the other day.

Yikes!

We’ve had a somewhat warmer summer here than last year. Not nearly as hot as the Summer of 2007….how I remember that well since I was pregnant with kiddo at the time!

Our kilowatt hour meter reading was off the charts for us this month: 880 kwh which is about double what it was in 2006. I remember because our bill would nearly always be about 450 kwh and it rarely varied from that except during the summer months. I’m not a huge fan of air conditioning, but since our son was born we try to adjust the temperature to suit him rather than what we really want. As a result, our bill has creeped up little by little every year.

We decided to try to trim our energy usage from other areas to help compensate for our air conditioning use. In fact, we’ve set on a challenge for this month: our next bill will not be for more than 750 kwh’s despite the fact we’re headed into August shortly. We’re making some changes!

Now, the bill we just received was still only about $100. We belong to a fabulous electricty co-op and our bill is actually quite low compared to other people we know. But we’re also trying to make some changes from an environmental standpoint as well. Do we NEED to have fans going in rooms we’re not using? Do I NEED to dry every load of laundry using the energy-hog dryer we have? Do we NEED to turn the air conditioner on at 9am even on a moderately warm day?

So our goal for our next bill is 750 kwh. To that end, I’m writing this post on battery power, in the dark without the television on! I figured I’d better put my money, or intention, where my mouth is at least while I’m writing about it!

This is a mini-review of a WordPress plugin (that actually works without WordPress too…more on that later) called OIO Publisher. It’s a mini-review because it’s the end of the month and I have just enough time to give you an overview of the plug-in for now and share a coupon that’s expiring soon.

What is OIO Publisher?

As I mentioned, it’s a WordPress plug-in for ad management, but it can also work as a standalone solution if you aren’t using WordPress. Flexible, huh?

It allows you to sell ads directly to your customers and automates nearly the entire process. Just define areas on your site that are available “for sale” and OIO Publisher will take the order from the customer, upload the ad, process the payment and display the ads in the proper places! All you need to do, if you’ve selected it as a requirement before publishing, is to approve the ad in your dashboard!

You can even run an affiliate program! Yes! Tell your readers that if they refer a new advertiser to you that you’ll pay them an affiliate commission for ads placed! Now you don’t even need to find advertisers on your own.

Since this is a mini-review, I won’t give you all the details….I’ll save that for another post. But I should mention that OIO Publisher is really feature-filled. You can designate that ads be shown to people based on where they live (geolocation) and you can even use OIO Publisher to sell digital products other than ads!

Best of all, OIO Publisher is affordable. It’s a one-time payment of only $47 and the developers are always available in the support forum ready to help you customize it to your needs.

I have a coupon for you too! The coupon SOLAR-PROMO will save you $10 but it expires Saturday, July 31st!

Visit OIO Publisher

(If you’re reading this post after July 31, 2010 just visit my Support Desk and submit a ticket asking is a new coupon is available and I’ll send you details!)

I’m making pizza dough today and thought I’d share my recipe! I make mine in a bread machine because I’m a “set it and forget it” kinda girl (hence, the reason for this site) so this is a super easy pizza dough. Make it in just minutes and then take off for the park or run some errands while it does it’s thing!

There are two sizes for this recipe. I personally make the larger recipe because I like to make big pizzas. If you’re short on ingredients, the smaller recipe works in a pinch. I’ve used this recipe for years and love it!

Be sure to add the ingredients to your bread machine bowl in the order they’re listed!

Large Pizza Dough Recipe:

1.5 cups Water

2 Tbsp. Olive Oil

2 tsp. Salt

2 tsp. Sugar

4 cups All-purpose flour

4 tsp. Bread machine yeast or quick-rise yeast

Small Pizza Dough Recipe:  Just halve all of the ingredients above!

**I also add a pinch of Italian Seasoning or oregano, dried minced onion, garlic powder and a bit of basil to the ingredients before it mixes in the machine so that the flavor goes through the dough. For a spicier crust, add some crushed red pepper flakes too! These seasonings are totally optional though.

Set the machine to the “dough” cycle and let it go through it’s paces. When the machine is finished, drop dough either on to a floured surface and then cover with plastic wrap or put into a lightly oiled bowl with plastic wrap. I personally use the bowl method. Let it sit, undisturbed for about 5-7 minutes. If you’d like to get a thicker crust, let the dough rise longer….up to 30 minutes before shaping.

You can spread the dough out onto a sprayed pizza pan or use cornmeal to keep it from sticking. Top with sauce and favorite toppings and bake at 425 degrees for 2-30 minutes (depending on thickness) or until the bottom is crispy and browned to your liking. I like to put the oven on “broil” the last 2 minutes to really brown the cheese.

This dough can also be used to make breadsticks or extra thin and crispy pizzas which can be sliced and served as appetizers.

You may have seen Kyle’s face in my sidebar….he’s the cherished angel and son of a friend and fellow Mom Masterminds member, Melissa Ingold.

On June 19, 2010 Kyle passed away in his sleep. He was just a few days from his 2nd birthday.

As you can imagine Melissa and her family are devastated, as are all of her online friends. Many of these friendships were born in the forums of Mom Masterminds, an online mastermind group of women who have created businesses we run from home. I actually joined Mom Masterminds before I was even married and over a year before I became a Mom because I just couldn’t wait to join them! It’s a powerful, supportive group and we help each other, learn from each other, and in times like this….lean on each other.

The owner of Mom Masterminds, Kelly McCausey, is offering a very special discount to new and even former Mom Masterminds members who may not have finished out their membership requirement previously. She’s offering a full, lifetime Mom Masterminds membership for only $100 which is an 80% discount off the regular price.

EVERY CENT of that $100 is going to Melissa’s family to help pay for funeral and burial costs for little Kyle.

Won’t you help a young family pay for this awful expense? Forget about the membership for a second, and think of how you might come up with money for the most awful surprise expense of all. Could you do it? Could you lean on people to help you? Thanks to Mom Masterminds, Melissa has all of us and we are lucky to have her as well.

You would be helping a family who is in desperate need to move forward. In return, you get a family…a family of women who have been in business for years, and some who may be just starting out. No matter the stage of your business, we’re there. From the monthly resources, to the extensive training archives, to the vibrant forum. It’s really been the jumping-off place for so many successful women you may follow on Twitter or whose blogs you read.

This special offer of only $100 for a LIFETIME membership is an amazing price and it’s for an amazing cause! All of the Mom Masterminds members who are promoting this discount are foregoing our regular 40% affiliate commission so every penny can go to Melissa.

To find out more, visit this link and read more about Melissa, Kyle and Mom Masterminds. Thank you in advance for your help, and I can’t wait to meet you inside Mom Masterminds!

http://www.wahmtalkradio.com/fundraiser-please-help-out-a-wahm-her-family/

…and please….pass this on! Once you’re a member, please pay this forward and tweet and post this as well! Even if you can’t join for some reason now, please pass this link on to anyone who you think might want to join and help little Kyle’s family!

THANK YOU!

Edited to add:Another way you can help Melissa while getting something else in exchange is to become her customer! All of the links below are direct links. I’m an affiliate but I’m stripping my affiliate link from them so every cent goes to Melissa.

Here’s a sampling of what she has to offer!

Online Marketer Sweetie course! Huge course full of information on how to effectively market your products and services online. This course is gigantic and only $47! You also get one free month of Melissa’s Special Report Club membership as a bonus.

More items are listed at InternetMarketingSweetie.com

I’ve been away from AutomaticMoms for quite some time as I work on a new project that has many (many!) moving parts….it’s been a tough struggle to get it up and running and working the way I want to. The optimistic side of me wants to say it will be ready a week from today….the realistic side says it might be a couple of weeks.

Either way, I’d love to beat both those estimates and have it up and running for everyone…it’s a mom-centric project that I hope you’ll like. A great deal of work, research and effort went into making it work (so far!) so I’m feeling a little stressed hoping I can push through and get it up and alive!

I was reminded the other day of a poem that I used to have hanging on my office wall before my office became the kiddo’s room. I’d put the poster away because I just didn’t have room for it. Well, today as I was pushing toward the finish line on this project only to find another obstacle had popped up, I had the words, “rest if you must, but don’t you quit” running through my mind. These are words from this poem, a poem I hadn’t heard or read in years! What a strange coincidence that it should just pop into my head today of all days.

Anyway, I thought I’d republish it here for everyone else’s reading pleasure. The author is unknown so I wish I could credit it to someone specifically because he or she really has a way with words to keep you motivated!

Don’t Quit

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you’re trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit
Rest if you must, but don’t you quit.

Life is queer with its twists and its turns,
As everyone of us sometimes learns,
And many a failure turns about
When they might have won, had they stuck it out.
Don’t give up though the pace seems slow,
You may succeed with another blow.

Often the struggler has given up
When he might have captured the victor’s cup;
And he learned too late when the night came down,
How close he was to the golden crown.

Success is failure turned inside out
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt
And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems so far;
So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit,
It’s when things seem worst that you must not quit!

I’d love to hear what you think of this poem in the comments! What do you do to push yourself to get things done? How do you keep your goals in sight even when things aren’t going as planned?

Did you know that we are nearly half-way through 2010? Yep…the half-year mark is just about a month and half a way already. Did you make any New Year’s resolutions? I usually don’t make any formal ones if I can help it. I’m not so great at thinking clearly in the middle of a dark Minnesota winter!

But I’ve been thinking about doing “Half-Year Resolutions” instead mostly because the weather is nicer and I feel more inspired, but also because sometimes having a deadline to work with is easier for me to help stay motivated.

So my “Half-Year Resolution” is a strange one:

My Half-Year Resolution is to be more selfish and vain. Yep, I’m going all “the witch in Sleeping Beauty”! =)

Let’s think about this. The witch in Sleeping Beauty surely wasn’t a nice person. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t plan on becoming mean and vindictive. But…she had a point. She looked in that mirror every day and she asked it, “who’s the most beautiful of them all?” and she always got the answer she wanted. Well, until that last time anyway!

But the point is that I haven’t asked myself that question in, oh…about three years…which just coincidentally is almost how long it’s been since I became a mom. I’ve been in “mom mode” to almost an extreme. I haven’t been spending any money on myself (except for my business),  I rarely treat myself to a beauty treatment or some pampering, and I just have in general, put myself so far on the back burner that I’m nearly falling off the stove!

In short, I’ve let myself go. When I go shopping, even if I have the intention to buy myself something, I spend my time looking at stuff for my son instead. My time in stores is short, so I tend to just say, “Oh, next time I’m here I’ll look for myself” and more often than not, that doesn’t happen for weeks and weeks.

So yesterday I took two department store gift cards that I’d been hanging on to (mostly because we don’t have a location really close to us, and recently I also learned the darned store doesn’t take it’s own gift cards online) and I shopped until every penny was spent.

AND I SPENT EVERY PENNY ON MYSELF.

At first, I felt a little guilty, but it did feel good to come home with stuff for myself for a change. Not to mention that my kiddo is like the Imelda Marcos of clothes for boys….he has plenty!

Then, after the kiddo went to bed, I slathered on a coat of my favorite mask and did a mini-facial. I went to bed recharged, refreshed and ready to do it again. Soon!

So my half-year resolution is to start taking care of myself better. If I don’t, who will? Now, I’m kidding when I say I plan to be “selfish and vain”, but that’s what indulging myself felt like since becoming a Mom. Like maybe I was out of line spending time and money on myself. I realize now, that it’s not…it’s necessary!

Do you take time for yourself like that? If not, what stops you? If you do, share your favorite way of taking care of yourself! I need ideas, I’m out of practice!! =)

Just a heads up that this weekend this site is going to be under some moderate to severe construction as I add things, reconfigure stuff and basically mess with it until it breaks.

If you’re new here this weekend (May 1-3) don’t think it always looks this wonky ok?