I love working at home. The flexibility is a delight, and even the rough times are pretty good. But it is most definitely not for everyone, not even for all the people who think they want to work from home.

The single biggest challenge for many people is how easy it is to procrastinate. Even people who have been working at home for years can suddenly find it hard to resist this urge. If you aren’t going to be serious about your work, however, you aren’t going to make it in the work at home world.

How do you know if you have a chance?

Success rarely comes easily to those who work at home. It is, after all, work. Often hard work. So start out by thinking about how well you work without someone watching over you. Are you self motivated or do you need someone telling you to get to work?

An early test is how you do when figuring out what it is you want to do to earn money from home. Commit yourself to a schedule for that and see how it goes. The more serious you are about figuring out what it is you want to do from home, the more time it may take you to investigate your options properly… unless you already know what you’re going to do of course.

If you find yourself procrastinating from the start, work hard on breaking that habit immediately. It slows down your path to success, and can keep you from succeeding at all.

Have you talked to your family about it?

Working from home without family support makes succeeding even more difficult. The trouble is that most people know about all the scams associated with it, not about the many very real possibilities to earn a decent amount of money. Then again, sometimes family members just resent the time it takes.

It’s not just the family members in your household that can be at issue. Parents, in-laws, siblings and so forth can be just as unsupportive and make you question what you are doing. While the support of those you actually live with is most important, other opinions can drag you down.

It’s important that you talk about expectations for your efforts with those who are most impacted by what you are doing. If you’re going to be staying up late or getting up early to get work done, your family needs to understand. If you’re going to need quiet time at other hours, once again you will need them to understand. If it’s going to take away from your former free time, the reasons once again will need to be discussed.

While some people do succeed despite others in their family insisting that they’re going to fail or just generally being unsupportive, it is much more difficult. If you want to work from home you should make an effort to get that support.

What are your expectations?

The prospect of working from home seems to fire up all kinds of dreams in people. Some think they ought to be earning $1000/day almost right from the start. I blame the many work at home scams plus the hype from those who do enjoy such wild successes for that.

Thank goodness many people have much more realistic expectations than that.

Your earning potential depends on many factors. The kind of work you will be doing. The effort you put into it. Sometimes even random luck plays a role. Some people chance upon that perfect niche right from the start while others search for years.

The trouble with expecting instant success isn’t just that it puts your expectations too high. It also encourages people to bounce from opportunity to opportunity, without ever really giving things a fair chance to work out. How can you expect to succeed when you don’t give yourself the time to do so?

Excessively high earnings expectations can lead you wide open to flat out scams or merely paying out too much money for information. It’s easy to spend a lot of money on resources that will teach you many of the secrets, but if you’re too eager for immediate success you’re probably not going to take enough time to figure out which ones are legitimate or provide quality information, never mind actually putting the information to good use.

Taking the time to think before you start working at home can really improve your chances of success. There’s no one right way to go about it, but there are many things to be wary of. If you take your time to find the right opportunity and to talk things over with family, you may find that you enjoy what you do tremendously for many years.

When I got my copy of Please Don’t Label My Child, I figured it for a fairly interesting read. While no one professional has tried to tell me either of my kids might have Attention Deficit Disorder or something like it, my inlaws have raised the possibility. I don’t consider it a possibility myself. She’s not the most focused child, but she’s also just 5. I think she just needs time to figure out how to behave at school.

But the more of it I read, the more interested I got. The author included a lot of individual examples where children who others considered to be ADHD or to have other emotional health problems were helped without medications. Should I ever face that kind of thing with my own kids, that’s exactly how I’d want to handle it too.

It’s horrifying when you read about how many kids are being given medications for various behavioral issues. This is an issue that people have been aware of for years, yet too many are willing to just follow a doctor’s advice and use the medications. It’s easier, after all, even though some medications have serious potential side effects. I found this article on it from 2004, in which the spending on behavior modifying drugs had outpaced spending on antibiotics and asthma medications.

That’s just depressing to me.

Please Don’t Label My Child gives some wonderful tips on what else can be done. Consider the circumstances, for example. Of course a child will misbehave if there are current or past problems in his or her life that are not being properly addressed.

Probably my favorite section was on bullying. My daughter had to deal with a classmate who she found rather challenging. She has an active fantasy life while he takes everything seriously and wanted her to do likewise. Just a few words from him and she’d just droop.

Not quite bullying, in my mind, or at least I don’t feel he meant it that way, but it certainly had an impact on her until she learned how to cope with it. This book did help me to think on her reactions to it and how to help her a little.

If you’re a parent, I do very much so recommend this book. You may never face the situation of having someone recommend one of these medications for your child, but why not be prepared for it, in case? You’ll find the insights in general quite interesting.

Destroyer of worlds, hider of eggs. Sometimes it’s hard to go wordless.

Easter isn’t a hectic holiday for all families, but this year it was for mine. My side of the family got together on Saturday at my house. My daughter had a friend’s birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese that she attended on Saturday night. Then we spent Easter itself with my husband’s parents.

Yep. I’m tired.

And of course, there’s all the Easter candy. The kids got the big chocolate bunnies from my mom, small ones from my husband and I, and small ones from my husband’s parents. Suffice it to say they have more than plenty of chocolate.

So now we’re off to try and recover from all the craziness.

One of the basic rules we have is that each kid can keep their candy separate a few days. After that, it all goes in one bag. They’re actually looking forward to this, since I told them they could smash the big bunnies into pieces at that time. What child doesn’t love destruction? I just have to figure out how to keep it from making a mess all around. Probably have to break them a little myself and throw into a Ziploc first.

There’s a trick to coping with the excess of Easter candy afterward. A couple tricks, I suppose really, and it just depends on what works for your family.

For my kids, they get some candy each day, but still pretty limited. Just less of a limit than usual. The further we get from the holiday, the closer our control of their candy consumption gets to the usual limits.

The candy usually lasts us a few months, especially the chocolate, which ends up in the freezer after being broken into pieces.

Then there’s the real trick… winding the kids back down.

I think it generally works pretty well to get things back onto a normal track as soon as possible after a holiday. The kids are all wound up from the change in routine, and getting them back on routine quickly really seems to help matters most holidays.

This time some of that is pretty easy. My daughter’s school has spring break starting in about 2 weeks, and school does mean some sort of routine is being established for her. I know a lot of schools are doing spring break this week, which of course means more challenges for parents dealing with that.

Today’s routine is pretty much one of relaxation. No friends over today, since there was plenty of social time all weekend for the kids. I might end up watching a friend’s son a few days this week, which will mean changes in our schedule, but since he has a leg injury, the kids won’t be allowed to get too wild around him. I’ve found that a single, really relaxing day does a lot for winding the kids down from an excess of excitement, especially if I also rebuild their routine.

We got our Easter eggs dyed yesterday. I tried the crayon shavings bit just to see how it would go, and it produces decent looking eggs. But I like another method better, that we also tried for the first time this year. It also produces a sort of tie dye effect.

Boil the eggs (of course) and let them cool. Then put a few in a colander and pour a little white vinegar over them. Then get some food coloring and put a drop of one color on each egg.

Roll the eggs around in the colander to spread the color. Allow to set for 30 seconds. Repeat with a second color. Then rinse the excess color off with a little water and put someplace safe to dry.

Two colors is about the most you should do per egg, and I found this to be easier than any egg kit I’ve ever bought. The colors came out more vibrant than I usually get with less effort too. I don’t think I will ever buy an egg dyeing kit again. No point to it.

You can see both types of eggs in the image below. The crayon ones do have nice, bright colors, but I don’t think they turned out nearly so pretty, and they took much more effort.

As a parent, it can be very challenging to get the kids to do what you want them to do. It’s very easy to just start telling them over and over what you expect them to do, until they finally, slowly do it.

But sometimes telling them over and over is not the way to handle it.

We’ve been dealing with this with my 5 year old. She’s quite the feisty young lady at times, and often getting her ready for school in the morning is a stream of reminders to not dawdle, to keep eating her breakfast, not play with her toothbrush, etc.

This week we started something different. We told her that there would be no reminders. She would get up and get ready on her own. If she didn’t, we would do the minimum to make her presentable for school, and take her there.

She’s doing very well on her own now, and is speeding up in other areas that she tended to go slowly on.

Of course, it’s only been a few days, so this may not last, but I’ve generally found the more we expect of our kids, the better they perform, within reason for their ages. Nagging or doing the work for them just makes them slow down more.

This can feel very contrary to what you might expect to work. When you have a child who doesn’t work hard on something it’s easy to feel like you have to keep pushing to get things done. But sometimes that is counterproductive.

We had a discussion with our daughter before doing this, and she liked the idea. Nagging often does little more than frustrate everyone. It creates stress, and many kids react to that by slowing down still more.

But we expressed this new rule as confidence in her ability to handle things on her own, rather than as a consequence. It has consequences for not getting ready fast enough, but she feels more like we believe in her than when we keep reminding her to get moving. It’s a much more positive experience for everyone.

Easter eggs don’t all have to be dyed using those store bought kits. One of the things I want to try this year is a tie dye appearance for our eggs. I found these instructions for them on another site. We have some crayon shavings already, which I think we’ll use. They were going to be for a project making new crayons until I remembered this.

Boil the eggs as usual. As they boil, get out several paper plates (no plastic or styrofoam). Spread out the crayon shavings, with just a couple colors for each plate, according to the combinations you want on the eggs.

Do not cool the eggs. Instead, roll them in the crayon shavings and put back into the egg cartons to dry.

I love this idea since it means no need to buy an egg dye kit. The kids love to sharpen crayons, so crayon shavings are something we have plenty of. Obviously, you want the crayons to be of the non-toxic variety, which I think they generally are anyhow, if your kids will want to eat the eggs.

My poor daughter. She’s sick yet again. Poor kid threw up in the car last night.

We’ve decided that it must have to do with holidays. She was sick on Valentine’s Day too. Sick around Christmas, two different years.

Fortunately, she is getting better and the day is warm so we’re encouraging her to play just a little outside. The appetite is still way, way down so I know she isn’t well yet, but she’s doing better.

Easter is coming up really soon here, and with my husband still out of work, obviously we’re going to be pretty reluctant to spend a lot of money on fun stuff for the kids’ Easter baskets. Which will no doubt disappoint my daughter, as she already is talking about what she wants in it.

Candy, candy, candy, of course. Some things are just obvious.

I haven’t done my buying for them yet, but I have been out looking at prices and figuring out what we can do for cheap.

To start out with, save the baskets from year to year, somewhere that the kids can’t get them out and play with them. My kids’ Easter baskets are pretty sturdy, so they should keep going for a long time.

If you use the plastic grass, try to keep that from year to year too. I’m thinking that shredded paper could be an alternative to buying if you don’t have it – not as pretty, but if you have a shredder and lots of junk mail, well, that junk mail could finally come in handy.

One nice thing about little kids – they don’t care about the quality of the candy you buy for them. I can’t stand the taste of cheap chocolate, and to be Easter-specific, I loathe Palmer’s chocolates, but kids really don’t care. Jelly beans go over well, and you can get them pretty cheaply.

More ideas:

Use Plastic Eggs

Those plastic eggs you can get this time of year can be a pain, but if you want the basket to look like it has more than it does, put the candy and other small items in the eggs, and reuse them from year to year. I can tell you from experience that the eggs can be hard to reclaim after the holiday, but do your best. Better to reuse them than to have them end up broken in the trash after just one use.

Fresh Fruits

I buy fresh fruit for the kids anyhow, and switching some of the candy out for fruit means the basket is healthier and really contains things I would have bought holiday or no holiday. Just pay attention to each child’s favorite fruits, and this could be a hit.

Compare Prices

For some people, those preassembled Easter baskets can be a good deal. For others, they cost too much for what you’d get.

Take a calculator and figure out the total cost to buy everything you’d put in an Easter basket on your own. Then compare it to the preassembled ones and decide which way it makes the most sense to go. The preassembled ones can be in the $15 and up range in a lot of cases, which really adds up when you are buying for more than one child!

Toys That Will Actually Be Used

A couple toys can be nice, even on a budget, provided they aren’t the kind of thing that your child will be ignoring the next day.

Cheap toys can include sand toys for the kids still young enough to play with them, crayons, toy cars and so forth. Dollar stores can have some great finds if you get shopping early enough, but I always try to stick with the principle of “will it really be played with? Tomorrow? After that?”

You can also make play dough, slime and other fun things for the kids and put them in the Easter basket. Little kids of course love bubbles, and if you have old bubble wands around the house it’s pretty easy to make your own bubble mix from water and liquid dish soap.

Encourage Their Hobbies

Think about cheap art supplies, seeds and pots for a garden, and so forth. I love it when I can give my kids things that encourage them to follow their own interests.

Books

Always a good idea to encourage kids to read. It’s pretty easy to find books in the dollar range for younger children, but this does get more challenging as the kids get older.

Mmm… probably, yes. It is likely to be in trouble, especially if the current budget goes through.

California schools have frankly been facing some issues for a while. Despite that we used to have a great school system, according to a letter I got from my daughter’s school today, California currently spends about $1900 less per student than the national average, and they’re talking about a cut that would mean another $800 per student less.

Insanity! How do they expect teachers to work with so little?

My husband and I call it the continuing war against education in this state, because that’s what it feels like at times. We were both in college when huge cuts were made for the California State University system. One of my sisters had her entire major cut at the college she was at. And now things are looking that bad for our public schools too.

They’re talking 30 kids to one teacher in kindergarten classrooms, here. Up from 20:1.

If you’re a parent in California, or if something similar is happening in your own state, don’t just sit there and watch! The economy is rough all over, but there must be better ways for governments to handle their budget problems than this. Contact your State Senate and Assembly representatives, and let them know what you think.

And for those who say “Well, time to homeschool!” just remember that what happens to the public schools still matters. And if a recent court decision holds, homeschooling in California could be much harder to do anyhow. I don’t expect it to hold, especially since our governor is not so foolish as to agree with the judge, but it is a potential issue.

I love the school district we’re in now. It’s the best rated in the area, and my daughter has a wonderful teacher. But I don’t see how her school can keep up all the wonderful programs they have if this keeps up.

There’s still time for the state to work on this budget. Frankly, if they follow what is practically a California tradition, they’ll finish it late anyhow. But there needs to be better than this in it.