Give your children the opportunity to speak openly and freely about their concerns and troubles. This is a sure-fire way to increase your family’s closeness. Maintain honesty and you will find that problems get solved quickly and easily. Instilling open communication in your children will also help them in all aspects of their lives later on. “Listen” with an open heart and a willing spirit. Don’t judge the thoughts and feelings of other family members. Instead, try to understand where they are coming from and figure out solutions to ease their problems.

Spend quality time together each week. Many parents have full-time jobs and it’s difficult to fit in time for relaxation and leisure, however, it’s very important you make time for your family. It can be as simple as doing a family project together. Doing fun things together brings family closer. Perhaps go shop for barnwood furniture together or organize a family BBQ with friends. Discuss what things the family would like to do together. Try to pick activities that encourage talking and interaction like bowling for example will enhance relations better than silently watching a movie in a theater. Try to keep the activity lighthearted and fun. Laughter bonds better than anything and its affects will ripple throughout your life.

I love the fact that my home office has a nice window that allows me to look out whenever I need an eye break. I have been doing the usual stuff online and somehow, I find myself needing a new direction in my internet business for this year. Hubby is much better with visions and setting new directions for our online business and lately, he’s been talking about buying virtual real estate for our portfolio. It is hard to grasp for many but if you have been in internet marketing, investing in virtual real estate is common and in fact, it’s better than starting up a new traditional business! At the point of writing this post, my beloved just bought our first ‘virtual real estate’ and yes, we will be managing this from our home office. See, the thing with buying an existing profitable online business is that you can earn your first dollar the minute the transaction takes place. You don’t need to wait for a month, three months or even one year or more like most offline businesses. It is hard to grasp it but think about it… how many businesses allow you to make money the first day you place your investment on it? In fact, there are many website and online businesses out for sale with niches from football to self help books to plantation shutter niches.

Well, the best is, we can do this from home and hubby has plans to invest more of these in the next few months. In no time, we will be managing a portfolio of virtual real estates… or websites, simply put.

Few weeks ago, our internet line was giving us problems and we could hardly get our online work done. It’s frustrating when you are working from home and the connection is out. The upsetting part was that, it would come on after seven and that would be family time and I had to spend those hours cooking, preparing my child to bed…etc. It was silly that they were working at their convenience and the consumers like us had to suffer. I aired my concerns and demanded for a credit during the few days of outage. They were reluctant but they did it in the end.

I’m quite simple person when it comes to home entertainment but my work at home dad isn’t quite the same. Because we spend our time at home for work and relaxation, he makes sure that he gets a good enough home theatre system wireless device for himself. Sometimes he would leave it on the whole time and I had to remind him that we have a home office!

It can be hard drawing a line between work and play when you are working from home. But if you stay focused, this is definitely possible with a little practice.

Well, my son has been very blessed indeed and I hope he grows up to remember that. I was able to work on the presentation with him sitting next to me and it wasn’t my favourite part of the week. Sometimes I try to get creative and offer a few ideas but I have forgotten that he is still a young boy. I’m glad term one is almost over and I trust that he’s enjoyed it so far. I felt emotional when he didn’t have a good day with his teachers or friends and often pray that they will appreciate him more and accept him for who he is. I myself have so much to learn in the area of acceptance. I’m always reminded by friends that our children grow up very fast and it will be no time that they will be sending out graduation announcements and we will look back and smile at the journey.

I’m always so thankful that I can walk this journey as I work from home. It has been made possible because of today’s powerful technology. With that, I will tap the resources out there and maximize my parenting time with him.

It’s a busy one for us today as we invited few relatives for a little house warming in our new home. They were impressed with our little home office and still couldn’t understand how we could make money from home. We cook a simple lunch for the group and I must say that the fellowship was better than all the food we had! They love to hear stories about our internet marketing experiences and we love to gather tips from these veterans about where to find the best food in the area! Food has a way to bring people together and they taste better when sharing is involved! Know what I mean?

It’s about quarter to eleven and my boys are asleep. I try to stay away from the home office on the weekends except for reading emails and otherwise, I’ll be doing some online shopping! I promise to search for some bridesmaid dresses for a friend who is getting married end of the year. Once that’s done, I’ll be taking a break from the home office and getting some early sleep and be well rested for tomorrow. It’s good to be all rested before the new week began… and I do hope you have a good one too!