About Me and My Candles!!!

So I have thought about this, and I have decided to close down my other blog, Freedom From Corporate. It was the blog that I did for my home based candle business. I think one blog is enough to keep me from going insane, or drive me insane, not sure which one yet...

My reasons for shutting it down and putting everything on one blog are this: I have always hated the split personalities of sales people. You walk into a store and they are on the phone blabbing to one of their friends, or talking to a co-worker, and they sound like a real person. Then they see you, suddenly there is a change. Out comes the sales pitch, and up comes my walls!!! I think it can be even worse online. You get all this hype and sales and you never get the real feel for the person behind the website.

That is why I decided what the heck, I am going to put it all together. Because the truth is, I decided to do this home based business to have more time at home, to be a mother, and a wife. To be me. So I think it is only fair that anyone else reading this gets to know the real me as well!

So below is a brief blurb taken from my "Freedom From Corporate" blog to tell you a little bit about what I do. I also have a business website that you can check out by clicking here -> The Best Candle Business

A year and a half ago,  In an attempt to have more time for the family, I have decided to give up the corporate world to find more time and freedom for my new family and life. I had a home based business that I had been dabbling in for a while and that provided the perfect opportunity to do something that would allow me the ability to focus more of my time and energy where it was truly needed, the kids.

After a long heartfelt talk with my husband and kids, it was decided, a home based business and network marketing really was the path to Freedom From the Corporate world! I decided I wanted to empower other women both personally and professionally and here I am.

I hope that I am able to inspire you to reach for your dreams and achieve them!!!

I would also like to invite you to click the link below to enter my weekly drawing to win a free candle! You can't win if you don't enter!!!

Enter Here To Win A Free Candle!



Anna Barnett

A Dog of His Own

Some days seem never seem to have enough time and others just drag on and on... This is one of those long days and I am sure both of my older dogs are in complete aggreeance with me.  You see, we just got a new puppy.  This puppy was my husband's early Christmas present.  My dogs are just that, mine.  As long as I am in the room, no one else exists to them. I am their world and the sun rises when I wake and sets when I go to bed in their eyes.  Well, my husband really tries hard with my dogs, but it just isn't the same, and I wanted him to have the same experience I have with my dogs with one of his own.  Of course I thought we would go to the pound a rescue a full grown dog.

Now let me state for record, we did try and rescue an adult dog, but my husband wanted a larger dog like an English Bulldog, or a Mastiff.  After reading about the bulldogs, we thought a little harder about Mastiffs. We even went to look at one.  I packed Elvis, my little Chihuahua/IG up in the car and took him with me to make sure it would be a good fit.  No such luck.  Elvis almost became dinner. To top that off, I could barely handle this dog, it was HUGE!!! Considering that I would be the one home most of the time taking care of the animals, since hubby is off flying to make a living, we decided to look at a breed that was smaller. 

We decided the Boxer was the perfect fit for our family.  They are good with kids, and other animals. They are eager to please and very smart.  They are a large dog, but not so big that I could not handle it by myself.  So I set out to do the responsible thing, I look for an older dog that needed to be rehomed.  Once again, Elvis was having nothing to do with that.  Now mind you this was all supposed to be a semi surprise for my husband...

Well, my husband has a way of trumping my super awesome gifts that I think up for him. The summer before last I came up with the idea of buying these golf clubs for him that he really wanted, but he ended up telling me he was wanting to buy them before I could do it.  This summer for his birthday, friends of ours told me about a Pittsburgh Steelers golf bag he was looking at and I was gonna get it for him, then he mentioned that to me.  I did a pretty good job of blowing that one off and he was pretty surprised when he got it for his birthday, but I suspect he knew.

So I don't know why I was surprised when one morning he starting researching breeders of boxer puppies.  Then he started emailing them.  We were still doing good, until one emailed us back.  I told him he did it to me again.  I explained to him that it had been my plan to give him a dog for Christmas.  We talked about it and decided that a puppy was probably the best way to go considering Elvis was getting quite cantankerous.  So it was decided, we would go look at this puppy a breeder had emailed us about.

We were only going to look, and maybe put a deposit down.  Needless to say, ninety minutes after walking in there, we were the proud new parents of a beautiful baby boxer girl.  Her name is Isabella.  It has been 14 years since I have had a puppy, and I had forgotten how much energy they have.  Nothing seems to slow her down, she has a continual need to experience everything with her mouth, and you can't turn your head for a second or she will be in the dirty clothes pile and no telling whose underwear will be in her mouth.

So like I said, today is one of those days when bed time seems to be a million miles away, with puppy barks and bites the whole way there...

Well it has been a long week. I got a call last Sunday night and found out my 20 year daughter, Chelsea was in the hospital and she was septic and not supposed to make it through the night. Then I was told there was more. She was pregnant. 5 months along. The baby, a boy did not make it. He was my first grandson. My husband and I got and the first flight down to Dallas to be with her. She was in a medically induced coma and it was all very scary. When we got there, I was trying to talk with Chelsea's step mom and her dad when suddenly some young blond bops on over to try and talk to me. Well as it turns out, this person is my daughter's, irresponsible boyfriend's, idiot dad's girlfriend. Who by the way has no kids of her own. Needless to say I asked her to leave.

Well somewhere between Monday when we got and Tuesday when she woke, I went down to see my grandson. My husband standing by my side the whole way. Then Tuesday night she was woken up. Now I will tell you. Her father and I do not get along at all. I feel like he has manipulated her for the last 18 years, and when she woke up, nothing changed. He proceeded to talked to her like she was stupid and use his brainwashing techniques on her. My husband witnessed this all.

While I was there she was loving to me, reached for my hand, told me she was happy to see me. She even said she had things she wanted to visit with me about and would consider coming to Ohio. The minute my husband and I had to leave, suddenly the doctors were told by her father not to talk to me and then Chelsea made herself a no-call patient.

I don't know what to think, I lost my grandson this week, and then I lost my daughter too. Then her step mom proceeded to call my husband to tell him all sorts of nasty lies about me. I have no words for that. Well, yes I do...

My husband knows who he married. He loves me with all his heart and knows that I have given everything that I have and everything that I am to this relationship and our family. I have known my husband for 30 years and there is nothing a person can say to us that would change any of this. Especially someone he only just met.

I am writing this blog as a start to my healing process and a way to deal with my losses. I know every day it will get a little better. I am grateful to have such a wonderful family to stand by me while I go through this, Thank You!

For Display Only

Just thought I would share this... My stepdaughter and I have a routine each day for getting ready. After she has eaten breakfast, chosen her outfit, gotten dressed, we then go into the bathroom to decide how we might do her hair for the day. 

So while I was doing Sydnee's hair this particular morning and I told her she looked like a million dollars, she then asked, is that what I'm worth if you sell me?  I told her she was not for sale. She then said, Oh, ok... so I'm for display only!!!

Gotta Love That!!!

The Bathroom Has Become Tiffany's

"You know those days when you get the mean reds? Not the blues,The blues are because you're getting fat, and maybe it's been raining too long. You're just sad, that's all. The mean reds are horrible. Suddenly you're afraid, and you don't know what you're afraid of. Do you ever get that feeling?"

That is Holly GoLightly explaining to Paul Varjak what the mean reds are. For those of you who know me, know that Breakfast at Tiffany's is my all time favorite movie. And when I was a single gal living in a hip flat in the cool city of Spokane, WA, I used to say that Williams and Sonoma was my Tiffany's.. Warning another movie quote:

"Well, when I get it (the mean reds) the only thing that does any good is to jump in a cab and go to Tiffany's. Calms me down right away. The quietness and the proud look of it; nothing very bad could happen to you there."

So I was saying when I was a single girl in the city, Williams and Sonoma was my Tiffany's. But now that I have fallen madly deeply in love the true love of my life, I have uprooted my nice, neat, tidy, little single gal life and trekked almost all the way across country to live in a town of 3000 people where we do not even live in town, with my man and his two babies, 6 and 8 years old who I love with all my heart.

But I must admit, it is not all butterflies, hearts, and fairytales. An 8 year old boy with some anger issues and a 6 year old girl going on 16 and you can bet there are going to be some meltdowns. And to top it off, when I got out there, it had been just the 3 of them for almost 4 years. You can imagine gals, a dad in charge!!! There was ball throwing in the house, golfing in the house, climbing on the counters and windowsills, and numerous other things that would make a mom cringe.

Needless to say the love of my life agreed with me that there needed to be some rules laid down and boundaries put in place. Let me tell you this did not go over well. And even now quite some time later we still have outbursts and of course there is the occasional hand to hand combat between sister and brother, so whenever I have a day where that tension is in the air, and the anxiety is coming on, and I get a case of the mean reds...

I disappear into the bathroom and say to myself, this is my Tiffany's and nothing very bad could happen to me there. After a few minutes, the reds fade to a sort of light pink, I walk out refresed ready to face the latest battle with everything I got. At the end of the day, I am rewarded with sweet kisses from the Sydnee the 6 year telling me she loves me with all her heart, and Brady the 8 year old throwing his arms around me saying I love you Anna. All while my man watches with tears welling up in his eyes because there is so much love in this house.

Anna, Just call me Holly GoLightly

The Shower is My Tardis

Every morning when I get up and get into the shower, I suddenly feel like I am Dr. Who and the shower has become magically become the Tardis, the Doctor's dimensionally transcendental time and space machine, but his is disguised as a Police Public Call Box and mine is decorated in a White cloth shower curtain with really great hair products. Without a doubt when I step out the trip of a lifetime is guaranteed!

What will today's episode be, I wonder to myself, I let the conditioner do it's job on my over-priced salon colored hair that I still insist on getting done, because I think I do deserve some small luxuries in life. Will it be the cybermen waiting to make us all become like them or delete us, or is it gonna be a 6 and 8 year old recently arrived from another planet come to take over my mind and and use me in a plot to rule the universe.

No matter where my tardis is called to and where I land, I am assured that no adventure will be the same and it will definitely be an experience to remember and one I will fashionably triumph over and it will most likely involve peanut butter and jelly!!!

ohhhh oh ohhhhh ohh

What's That Thing That Was Attached to My Ear?!?!?!?!

(Taken from my previous blog)
Now I know it's not me, I know this happens to every parent on the planet. It happened when I raised my 19 year old daughter Chelsea.

You see, I office from home and my job consists of calling clients on the, get this, PHONE!!! Now when I was raised, (here we go again, I am becoming my mother, AGAIN) but when I was raised, we were taught NEVER to interrupt someone while they are on the phone. Seems simple enough to me, how about you? It's not rocket science, shouldn't take more than twice, definitely not 3 times to learn this and most certainly not the 11,279 times it has been mentioned, said, whispered, mouthed, hand signed, written, and yelled in our house. So tell me then, why is it every time the kids are with me they can be minding their own business, playing games, watching TV, petting the dogs, picking their nose, you name it, but not talking to me, and the minute, no, the second I pick that black piece of plastic with a curly wire on it attached to the square thing that lights up, they are standing right next to me whispering, because they think that is more polite,(gotta give them credit for that one!) even waving me down for something they want or think they need.

Of course I frantically wave them off, mouth to them NOT RIGHT NOW, point to my ear the something is attached, they look at me blankly sit back on the couch and pout. I do all this in hopes that my client won't notice that I missed half the order he just placed and maybe he will repeat it for just for his own clarification and I will get off easy.

When I finally get off the phone I walk into the living room and ask "What did you need that was so important that it could not wait?" The answer I get is "I know how to spell Elvis." Elvis is our dog. And while I want to encourage spelling and reading I m now at my wits end. I ask, "Did you see that I was on the phone?" I get and "I didn't know" I am thinking, didn't know what??? What the phone is, or that I was on it, what???? So I ask again, "What are we suppose to do when someone is on the phone?" I get a sheepish "Don't talk" so I say "Give the girl a prize" Then I get "I didn't know you were on the phone" That's it, I just walk away wondering...
What's That Thing That Was Attached to My Ear?!?!?!?!

"Yes Sydnee Bleeding Out Your Lip Counts

(Taken from my previous blog)

So, I am finally getting some work done when I hear a blood curdling scream from the backyard, next I hear Sydnee's little flip flops come running up the side of the house with Adam, the friend in tow behind her. The door flies open and she yells "Does bleeding out your lip count?!?!?!?!?!" I just shake my head head grab a disposable ice pack and follow the two of them to the back yard where Brady is on the ground below the swing set grabbing his lip and screaming it hurts it hurts it hurts. And there is blood!!! He tried to jump from the top of the swing set. Why, you ask? Because it was there.

So I tell him to get up come in and sit on the couch. I look at it, check to make sure all teeth are in tact, no stitches are required, he can move arms, legs, nothing is broken, except the skin on his lip, hand him an ice pack and congratulate him on his first fat lip and ask him if he wants me to take a picture of it to commemorate the moment. I get a fat lip grin, and Sydnee asks, "so bleeding out your lip is ok too then?" I look at her and and try with a straight face to say "Yes Sydnee Bleeding out your lip counts too."

I need a vacation!!!

I Am My Mother's Daughter!!!!

(Taken from my previous blog)

That is it, I have done it. Today was the final straw and I have morphed into my mother. I realized this after Brady threw a temper tantrum today, recovered, his little friend came over, but his younger sister Sydnee had no one to play with so she decided to hang outside with them, the next thing I knew every 5 minutes WHILE I WAS WORKING and trying to make calls, one of them was telling on the other. I finally had enough, marched out into the yard, heard the debates on all sides and said "You play together or not at all. Do you want me to send Adam home? I don't want to hear another word, and do not yell my name again, " are you ready for this??? "UNLESS SOMEONE IS BLEEDING OUT THEIR EYES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

I think they were stunned and are now all 3 playing quietly in the grass outside my office window. Sydnee just came in and stood at the door. I asked over my shoulder, "Are you bleeding out your eyes?" she said no... She was hungry and wanted crackers, I handed her a box and sent her right back out the door and said share!

I am my mother's daughter!!!!