Category Archives: Uncategorized

January 9, 2012

I Never Hated Tim Tebow

But I also don’t associate his success with my religious beliefs, ya know? Nice game yesterday young man. Had to get that out…and I have so much more to talk about. Like how grateful I am to all of my friends and customers for the phenomenal success my online shops and my offline sales had this past holiday season. And how my first Jamila Henna experience went ( I love it BTW). And of course there will be a rah rah lets get this 2012 party started right post. But all that will be after I finally finish telling you why I quit network marketing, and why I will probably never go back, and also why that shouldn’t affect your decision one way or the other.

Unfortunately before I can get to writing blog posts I have to make some more character hats for the Homegrown Decatur store (it’s at 100 Church Street in Decatur Ga, right next to the Marta station) and finish working on the latest additions to my womens (and sometimes mens) felted hats collections.

While you are waiting pop over to niseylee.etsy.com and take 20% off any item (even if it’s already on sale) with coupon code FBFRIENDS.

Busy is good!

November 29, 2011

Here’s What You Should Do

Why is it that people who have no business, are not successful in business, and/or don’t know anything about your business, why is it that these people feel that they are qualified to tell you what you “should” do?
They make me so mad that I take some of their advice and it sometimes works.

November 2, 2011

What’s The Rush? We’re All Going To Die

It seems as if I am always busy. I mean my entire life I’ve spent running and gunning, setting goals and trying to achieve them. I’m so much of…something…that I can’t even enjoy a vacation properly because I am always certain that there is some place else I ought to be or something else that needs doing.
The past five years have been financially sobering. But the past 10 days…well they’ve been a wake-up call.
Ok, this is not a gloom and doom post it’s only a pause at Reality Checkpoint Charlie. It’s me telling you to slow your roll. Life is for the living, and we don’t all get to do that forever

October 24, 2011

She’s Got Bette Davis Eyes…..

Purple Fedora & Purple/Blue "Caroline"Growing up in the 60s and 70s wasn’t all psychedelia, granny dresses and barefoot hippies in torn jeans. We also had something that’s sadly missing today (and that’s just my opinion feel free to disagree), we had real glamor. Like women who wore high heels while they did the dishes glamor, long silk dressing gowns and perfectly coiffed hair in the morning glamor. Pencil thin skirts and low cut blouses, gloves and hats whenever you leave the house, and those wide-legged pants/skirt outfits. Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Crawford, and Bette Davis – yea I like old movies sue me.

In high school we used to buy our hats at the little Chinese stores in Brooklyn where we bought our slippers. We thought we were really mysterious and sexy in our cloches and fedoras. I love hats still – even though the temperatures here in Georgia are not conducive to year round hat wearing.

I do love buttons this year!I started working on felted hats in 2010 – after I realized that my crocheted fedoras just weren’t holding up like I wanted them to. The felted cloches and fedoras sold well enough last year, but as my skills improve so do my sensibilities and I just want my hats to stand out in a crowd. I am inspired by the fully clothed but sexy and mysterious as hell women of yesteryear.

I have named this collection “Bette Davis Eyes” simply because it’s the song I that I hum as I work on my hats (only when I work on these hats, weird huh?).  And anyway, I do believe that it’s all in the eyes ladies…

Green Cloche with gold trim and flowerThese will be available on my Etsy and artfire sites as soon as I stop crocheting and start posting:)

October 6, 2011

Hair – it’s more than a musical

Understand that I am not my hair, I know that I’m so much more than that.

But let’s face it, my  hair precedes me, it’s what you can’t help but see when you look at me.

Hair is supposedly a woman’s crowning glory  and mine has tried to live up to that. The problem is I’ve never really been into the whole pamper thyself thing. I get my nails done once or twice every summer. I succumb to sporadic bouts of “must get to the beauty salon every Saturday”. And every once in a while I wear makeup.

Sometime within the past year I decided (once again) that I was going to stop putting relaxer in my hair. I used relaxers to …well, relax the curl in my hair so that I could do my wet and go thing that I’ve been doing for about 25 years now. My hair had started to do weird thing though, each day there seemed to me that there was as much of my hair on the shower floor and in my comb as there was remaining on my head. So I quit cold turkey, no winding down, no one last time for old times sake, I just stopped.

I’ve survived for almost a year now with no chemicals , but (since my hair is the first thing people see) I think my first impressions haven’t been all that great lately.  I’ve been discussing the whole natural hair thing with the girls at work, and we’ve been swapping products (which weigh my hair down or just feel kinda icky) and I see people online talking about twisting and pinning your hair at night so that you can have curly hair in the morning (which is too much work as far as I’m concerned), or buying expensive products that  will enhance one’s natural wave pattern.

If you are serious about going natural check out curlynikki.com, hairmilk.com, motowngirl.com, nappturality.com and youtube, there are a ton of videos there that will teach you everything you never wanted to know about going natural.

Anyway, one day  my co-worker said to me (for like the 3rd or 4th time) “if I had hair like yours…” and that’s when I realized I just need to  to love the hair that God gave me, take care of it  and let it do whatever it wants to do on any given day.

Howz your head?  I’d especially love to hear from you if you’ve done the natural hair thing . And if you are very good, tomorrow I’ll give a free pattern for wide headband  (at least it will hide the gray)

Oh, I did dye my gray though , cause that just got to be really annoying. Next i’m going to try henna

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September 13, 2009

What is Identity Theft?

Credit Card Theft
Image by Don Hankins via Flickr

Usually “identity theft” means that someone is using your name, Social Security number, or credit card information without your permission. It could also mean that they are using your driver license or medical records. There was a recent case where a man struggled for 35 years because someone he knew had taken his personal information. This person moved to another city, got a job, got sick and created medical records and doctor bills, and did not bother to pay his taxes – all in this man’s name!  The victim tried to get help , but it took THIRTY FIVE years before anyone listened to him, can you imagine?

According to the Federal Trade Commission the number of Americans who fall victim to identity theft each year is 9 million and growing! I have been a victim three times, twice someone began using my credit card while I was out of the country, and once I didn’t even know about until I received a notice from the government that the person had been caught. Fortunately, I was able to take care of my issues quickly and easily. The first time I was on a cruise for 7 days and the bank noticed the strange activity and called my home; the second time I was in Europe, when I got home and started working on my expense reports, I  noticed purchases that were definitely not mine. In both cases the cards were canceled immediately and new cards were issued. What was scary is how easy it was for someone to be me, and purchase items, gamble in online casinos etc.

Chances are that you, a close friend, or a relative have been victimized in the past. Due to the state of the economy, the instances of identity theft are actually on the rise. Crimes utilizing your identity range from using your name to acquire housing or purchase an iPhone and create a new AT&T account , to getting a new drivers license and clean driving record.   Identity Theft is not always about your credit card (not at first anyway), this is a fairly common misconception.  Identity theft more commonly occurs because:

  1. The thief has lost their own drivers license (suspension, DUI, too many traffic violations) and uses yours to start over in  another state
  2. The thief is unable to get an apartment because they have a bad rental history
  3. The thief cannot get a new cell phone plan with their bad credit, so they use your name and information instead

Once the identity thief is comfortable using your information, it’s no stretch for them to really dig in and get a job, open credit accounts, get medical care, and basically create a shadow life to the one you are living. Scary isn’t it?   And what’s even more scary is that this could very well be someone that is known to you or to your friends or to your relatives. Someone who got close enough to get just  enough of your information to be dangerous.

Identity theft is not a joke and it’s not some crime that companies make up to get you to buy their ID protection  product. What’s even scarier is the impact identity theft can have on your life:

  • You could lose out on a new job
  • Your child may not be able to get a loan for college
  • Your cars could be repossessed or you may be unable to purchase a car
  • You could be arrested and jailed because of someone else’s mishandling of your identity

Have any identity theft horror stories? Feel free to share.

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August 18, 2009

Why Don’t We Need Health Care Reform?

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www.everyonebenefits.com/porter

Lately there has been a very loud and unhealthy discussion about health insurance in this country. I say unhealthy because the discussion very rarely focuses on the facts and no one walks away from the fight feeling good about it. In my discussion on the subject I would like to remove the political component:

  1. Forget about what side of the aisle the people that you voted for sit – chances are they don’t have any of your interests at heart anyway
  2. Forget about the color of our President and whether or not he has all the qualities of the antichrist as stated in the Bible – that’s just the arrogance of every generation thinking that we are so important that the world will end on our watch and in our lifetime
  3. Forget about what you have heard on TV the radio or from newspaper articles and editorials – it’s all spin since everyone has an angle on this thing and anyway for the most part those guys have good insurance that they can afford

Instead let’s talk about you and me and our experience with the health care system. If you currently:

  • pay less than $100 per month for insurance or have in the past
  • and have never paid more than $10-$40 out of pocket for medical, dental, vision, prescription or a visit to the chiropractor
  • and this is not Medicare or Medicaid

I would understand if you  drop out of the discussion at this point as it is probably difficult, if not impossible for you to understand what all the fuss is about.  But I suggest you stick around so that you can understand what others have experienced or are experiencing.

If you are on Medicaid or Medicare, or have a child enrolled in a federal or state run health plan,  then I definitely want you to stay and give us some insight on what a “government run” health care system is like. For example:

  1. What does it cost you monthly?
  2. How much do you pay for prescriptions?
  3. Have you ever been denied care because you are on “the dole” so to speak?
  4. Do you feel that you receive inferior care because you are on Medicaid or Medicare?

For those of us who fit into none of the above . Those of us who pay anywhere from $200 to $600 plus per month for health insurance. Those of us who have paid additional  health care bills of  anywhere from  $300 to $300K  over and above what we paid for health insurance. I have to ask, what are we doing? Why are we fighting each other? What are we seriously fighting for ?

Last year I wrote an article about consumer driven health care and I told the story of a woman who paid over $300 per month to insure herself and her teenaged child. She required dental surgery that would take several iterations, but was not able to finish the process because she could not pay the $3000.00 bill.  So the world turned and a year later she finds herself working for this very same insurance company, and guess what? She only pays $20 a month for her coverage.  There is a saying that came to mind when I heard about that “somebody is buying you wholesale and selling you retail”.  I mean seriously people, if the insurance company employees can pay only $20 per month for coverage, why are you and I paying upwards of $300.00? What the heck are we paying for exactly?

I’ve had a discount plan for almost three years now (read why here), even though I work full time and my job offers benefits I declined them – do you want to know why? Because my discount plan costs $360 per year, I pay a discounted fee at the doctor, the dentist, the drug store, and even when I get glasses – and I am still spending less than the $10,000 plus  per year that I invested back when I had employer sponsored health care.

When I had insurance I had to get an HSA to cover those extras that my insurance did not cover. I breezed through a $2000 HSA easily. Why is that? Why do we pay so much for something that does not do the job? And why are we letting the insurance companies spend our money on lobbyists and bad advertising? Why aren’t we mad about this? Talk to me, I’m listening…

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March 7, 2009

The Slight Edge | Don’t Despise Your Day Of Small Beginnings

money comes quickly and easilyWhy Do Network Marketers Fail?
Is it because they aren’t committed?
Or perhaps they lack the skills due to poor training?
Or maybe they don’t have the time or money to do their business the way that they want/need to?

OR

Maybe  network marketers don’t fail, maybe they expect a big breakthrough and when it doesn’t come they just give up.

Why do they give up? They give up because their expectations are out of proportion to their ability to deliver the goods. What the heck does that mean anyway? It means that we all have a  “big break” mentality, rather than a slow growth mentality. We fully expect all of our dreams to come true right now, and when that does not happen, we move on to a new job, new team, or new  dream rather than try again.

I bet that you look at the success of others and say “Why can’t that be me?” or worse yet “that will never be me”. Think about it even if Eben Pagan, Mike Dillard, Ellie Drake, Stephen Pierce and Dani Johnson came to your house, sat down with you, showed you what they did to be successful, and left you with the caveat “remember, it’s not an overnight thing” – only 1 out of 5 of you would actually get it. There will be four who wake up the next day (the next week, the next month, the next year) still wondering why their proximity to such successful people did not breed success for them.

The one person who did “get it” will :

  1. stay up late that night writing down her definite purpose
  2. wake up on day two or three or four with  a plan to achieve those goals
  3. implement the plan immediately based on what she learned from the “gurus”
  4. do little things every day that moves her closer to her definite purpose
  5. one day discover that people consider her to be  ” very successful”

Are these steps  pretty easy to do? Yes, she’s barely going to break a sweat at this pace.
Are these steps also pretty easy not to do?  Absolutely, she could watch 3 hours of  TV, go to bed early and wake up late. And she won’t even know that her life could be any different.

So, if she follows these steps will she wake up as a successful and rich network or internet marketer within a couple of weeks? Sorry, she probably  will not/

But  she’ll  keep on doing these minor little things that are just as easy not to do as they are to do, and then somewhere in month 6 sh ewill start to notice that her life has changed. Maybe she’s finally fitting into her skinny jeans, or she is getting a decent residual income check every month like clockwork, or people are falling all over themselves trying to get into her business, or buy her product, or just ask her what she knows that they don’t.

And all this because she used the slight edge principle of “small things compounded daily”, and there she is  riding up the success curve, while the other four people who got the same knowledge that she did from the “gurus” are still struggling, or have already given up, or are seeking advice from yet another guru.

Let me put this another way, you want to lose weight but you love to eat and you dislike exercise. Instead of trying to lose 20 pounds in 60 days, what if you decided to be thinner and healthier by this time next year. That’s 365 days – so if you cut just 10 calories from your diet each and every day for the next 365 days, by this time next month you’ll be eating 350 fewer calories per day. At that point you can decide to start with 10 minutes of walking and add one minute to your walk every day that you exercise, just one minute, a total no brainer.
Notice that I did not tell you to eliminate 350 or 3500 calories on day one, nor did I say do 45 minutes of exercise 5 days a week. Loving to eat and hating exercise, you’d do that for a week or two and then eat a box of oreos with ice cream and kick your treadmill to the curb. But those small daily /monthly totally not noticeable changes will find you thinner, healthier and at your goal in 365 days or less!

The same thing goes for building a retirement income, or getting to an income where you can quit your job via your business. Forget massive action if that’s not  what you are into, instead do one small thing every day that will build some momentum in your business:

Coach John Wooden says “little things make big things happen”, do you agree?  What small things are you doing each day to get to your definite purpose?

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December 27, 2008

Why Are You Still Looking For Medical And Dental Insurance?

While I recover from Christmas, I thought I  would re-post this article on the high (and hidden) cost of health care. Until December 31st you can take our discount plan for a spin for only $20! Or you can try our prescription card for free.
banner_benefitbuttonI understand that you want some level of security for your family and believe that a standard insurance plan is the only way to achieve that. I am a mother to 3 and grandmother to 3, and I know how important it is to be covered. But let’s face it, the insurance companies have pulled the wool over our eyes big time.

I calculate that in my working life I have spent anywhere from $3000 to $9000 per year on medical and dental insurance. This does not include my co-pays, which is what you pay out of pocket when you go to the doctor or dentist; as well as the amount you pay for covered prescriptions. Additionally, eye exams and prescription glasses for myself and my son are not fully covered, so that’s a yearly out of pocket of anywhere from $200 to $600 depending on whether or not we indulged in some high end designer glasses.

Not all plans cover every drug so I have at times been surprised at the pharmacy with an unexpected bill for a prescription written by my doctor. Not all procedures are covered either. My gynecologist recommended an outpatient surgical procedure the cost of which put me in debt collection  because my insurance company would not cover it!  The birth of my 3rd child was a C-Section, and although I had both primary and secondary insurance I still ended up with a $3000 bill for anesthesia because the insurance companies only covered 50% of the total cost.

I have a business partner who had a plan through her company that cost $160.00 every two weeks. Her dental plan required a co-pay of $25 and had a deductible of $500. That means that she needed to pay $500.00 out of pocket every year before her insurance company would pay for anything. On top of that there was a limit on what the insurance company would pay for dental procedures. She did not discover all of this until her bridge and partial needed to be replaced and the insurance company said “No” after the work was partially done.

So an individual can pay anywhere from $1000 to $10,000 per year in insurance premiums and still have to come out of pocket when major events occur?

I challenge you to look back over the course of your working life and determine how much you have paid into your insurance versus how much you have gotten out of it. If you discover that you have paid in more than you’ve gotten back, then I have to ask again “Why are you still looking for medical and dental insurance?”

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November 22, 2008

6 Reasons To Purchase an Ameriplan Discount Benefits Plan Before 12/31

I don’t want this blog to become a huge advertisement for my business, but…recognizing that at least one-third of the American population is uninsured and a percentage of the rest are underinsured002

I did feel a need to at least let my readers know what we offer to alleviate these issues and about our special promotion in the month of December.

  1. Dental, Vision, and Prescription are often offered separately from medical at an additional cost to you. Ameriplan offers a plan which includes all of these as well as chiropractic (which is often not covered by insurance at all) for only $14.95 for an individual or $19.95 for a family of up to 20 people
  2. Discount Plans do not have any exclusions – you can be 1 or 100, healthy or sick, having your baby at home or in a hospital- no problem.
  3. If you are on maintenance medications or are spending more than $100 per month on prescriptions our prescription Advocacy Program allows you to spend only $82 per month and receive all of your meds for FREE!
  4. Our hospital advocacy program has helped many of our members to reduce or eliminate their medical.
  5. If you have insurance, many of our providers will use our plan to discount your bill first and then bill the insurance company the remainder. This means less out of pocket for you.
  6. And last but not least , you can purchase any one of our plans for only $20 until 12/31/2008

There you are short and sweet, so:

  • if you’ve been overdosing on aspirin because you can’t afford to go to the dentist
  • or haven’t had a mammogram or check-up in years
  • or are just tired of paying for insurance and then still having to come out of pocket for what your insurance does not cover
      Click here to learn more or sign up.

      P.S. Did I mention the 30 day money back guarantee? The $300 Gas Card? The Vacation for 2 with airfare? The Cash Back program for online purchases?

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