Before and After >> Office Picture Update after Redo

April 21, 2009 at 5:57 am · Filed under Daily Musings

I started this project last December when I decided that I really needed to have a prettier office. I thought that I could do it in a few weeks. Now it is 4 months later, and the beautification is finally done. My initial goal was to de-clutter the office, and make it a cheerful spot. The scope of the project grew quite a bit. Here are the before and after shots:

BEFORE (do you really need me to tell you that? LOL)

Before

AFTER:

After

It’s very cheerful and oh so pretty!

 My office mate, Aubrey (at 10 months old):

Office Mate

Funny thing, this sprucing up is contagious. I’ve just ordered new
bed coverings for the adjacent room!

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Our Puppy’s Famous “Uncle”

February 7, 2009 at 6:24 am · Filed under Daily Musings

Our puppy Aubrey (full name: Aubrey Maple Fudge McGee) is from Ginger’s Pet Rescue in Seattle. We adopted her in late July 2008. Turns out that one of her puppy-mates (brother) was adopted by Blake Lewis (American Idol Season 6, top 6).
Here’s a pic of cute Aubrey:

Aubrey Maple Fudge McGee

Her Mom was a Silky Terrier Mix. Her Dad must have been a Shih Tzu don’t you think?
At 8 months, she’s 14 pounds. Very loveable, and she makes us laugh every day!

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Finally, a carpet chair mat that I like, and it’s green!

January 25, 2009 at 1:14 am · Filed under Daily Musings

This is too exciting not to share. I’m not a fan of chair mats for my desk because they are spendy, and they don’t seem to last long. But you gotta have one, right, to protect the carpet, and so you can roll around.

I finally found one that I like, and it’s better for the environment than those other ones. Here’s where I got mine:

http://www.bellacor.com/productdetail/360134.htm

It’s harder plastic, so I don’t see this one cracking over time. And boy can I roll around. It’s big too so I can cover a lot of ground.

 

 

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You Can’t Do It All: How a Virtual Assistant Can Help

January 3, 2009 at 6:09 am · Filed under Quick Tips

The West Linn Chamber of Commerce was kind enough to ask me to speak before their Home Based Business Special Interest Group about virtual assistance. A large portion of the business licenses (nearly 50%) in West Linn are home based businesses. As the meet success and expand and grow, they need help getting their work done so that they can concentrate on their core business services.

Here are the details:

http://www.westlinnchamber.com/hbb.html

Title: You Can’t Do It All: How a Virtual Assistant Can Help

Speaker: Kristy Schnabel, It’s Virtually Done, LLC

When: Wednesday, January 14th 2009, 4:00 - 6:00 pm.

Where: Pacific West Bank, 2040 8th Avenue, West Linn,

Our speaker this month, Kristy Schnabel, will discuss what a Virtual Assistant (VA) is, and how this service can help your home-based business.

Having been a VA for over 5 years with clients all over the nation, Kristy will share how you know you need a VA, what they do, and how to figure out what they can do for you.

You’ll learn the different ways of finding a VA, the benefits of having one over an employee or a temporary worker, and discover if you are the right type of person for working with a VA. Find out about the different payment arrangements, where to find VAs, and how you might interview them to work with you. They’ll be time for questions after the talk.

 

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Creating a Virtual Office – Community College Course

January 3, 2009 at 6:07 am · Filed under The Virtual Edge

Interested in becoming a Virtual Assistant? Not sure where to start? Portland Community College (Oregon) will be offering a class on how to create a virtual office, specifically as a virtual assistant (VA). It’s the first class in a series to gain a Virtual Assistant Certificate. The course helps you determine if you have what it takes to start your own business, and then spends several weeks on developing your business plan including your marketing plan and financial statements.

OS-250 didn’t get enough enrollees for winter quarter, but look for it to appear next term. Oh, and by the way, I’ll be teaching the course.

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It All Started with a Hat Box!

January 3, 2009 at 5:56 am · Filed under Daily Musings

Months ago I decided that my home office wasn’t meeting my needs. I think it was about the time that we got puppy Aubrey. With her exercise pen and kennel and other paraphernalia took up about half the office. I was cramped! I didn’t have the time to deal with it, but I set an intention that I wanted to improve my surroundings!

Fast forward to my birthday in November. My very good friend, Susan Sullivan, sent me a delightful gift of gourmet English Muffins. They were delish! They came in the most exquisite hat box (okay, really a muffin box). I loved everything about this box: the size, the color, the shape, and the fabulous design.

After both these occurrences gelled in my mind for a few weeks, I had an epiphany. I was going to redo my office and create the space and colors to make it a cheerful place to be. I believe that colors can make the mood. How can someone not be cheerful staring at bright yellow or green?

This is a work in progress, but for now, I’ll share 2 things: 1) the hat box that started it all; and 2) the embarrassing *before* picture of my office with all its “cluttery” mess.

Colorful Hat Box

Cluttery Office

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh, and Susan, thanks so much for the box!

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Offering a class for Virtual Assistants

May 17, 2008 at 1:48 am · Filed under The Virtual Edge

Okay, so it HAS been awhile since I posted. What have I been up to? Work, work, work. My practice has been so busy that I haven’t had any openings in well over a year. I still have a steady stream of potential clients, but I refer them to fellow VAs. You know who else I seem to attract:  VA Wannabes, women who want to become VAs and are interested in learning more about the profession.

I’m happy to share information about being a VA. I’ve done a few speaking engagements around town about what it is like. And now, I’m moving into the role of teaching. My VA friend, Kathy Sparks (www.yourvirtualresource.com) has recently opened VA Technical School http://www.vatechnicalschool.com/. I’m honored that she asked me to be one of the instructors.

I have a class coming up soon! Here are the details:

Do you struggle to keep your VA practice full?
Do you wish that you had a more stable practice?
Would you rather spend time working for clients than working to get clients?

My VA friend Kathy Sparks and I have 13 years of VA experience between us. We turn away potential clients every day because our practices are full.

We thought we’d share some of our secrets in a class we’re offering: “10 Ways to BE the Virtual Assistant that Clients Brag About.” Discover how tried and true concepts applied to the virtual business world can enhance your virtual administrative business. We’ll provide lots of examples from our experience with clients.

Thursday, May 22, 8 pm Eastern
Using GotoMeeting, the class will be visual (PowerPoint) and on the phone.

Check out this class and other classes at the VA Technical School http://www.vatechnicalschool.com/.

You have nothing to lose, and everything to gain, like more clients!

If you’re a VA (or a VA wannabe), I hope that you’ll check it out. Or maybe you know someone who is thinking about becoming a VA? I hope you’ll pass this on.

Till Next Time!
Kristy

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Sure your email was received?

July 30, 2007 at 9:35 am · Filed under The Virtual Edge

One thing that I’ve learned from being online a lot over the last few years: emails don’t always get through to the recipient. I have about 10 email accounts. I troubleshoot email delivery issues for my clients who have tens of thousands of clients combined and broadcast several emails weekly. Emails do not always get through. 

Maybe I’m not telling you something that you already don’t know. But every day I hear from people that are surprised that they don’t get an email that they are expecting. And a few times a month, I don’t get emails that are sent to me. People prove this to me by forwarding the email that they sent to me that I didn’t receive. This used to surprise me. It doesn’t faze me any more. 

Where do all the emails go: spam filters, junk folders, cyperspace? All of the above. Websites go down and mail servers go down, and when they do, sometimes the emails get lost.  

Most ISPs (Internet Service Providers) use sophisticated software to make sure that junk email doesn’t make it into your email client (e.g., Outlook). Sometimes their software doesn’t get it quite right, and they screen good email that you want to get. It’s not just the large broadcasts that get blocked. 

With Comcast, my provider, I can view my screened mail via the web. It’s a hassle, and most of the screened mail is junk, but occasionally emails from friends are there and it is very frustrating that it doesn’t make it to me.  

We have the spammers to thank for all of this inconvenience. The lesson I learn from this is that if you don’t hear back from someone after a time, give people the benefit of the doubt: they may not have received your email, really.

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I Love Office 2007

July 30, 2007 at 9:33 am · Filed under The Virtual Edge

Have you made the conversion yet? I got a new computer, so I was very excited to add Office 2007. (By the way, I didn’t bundle it with my Dell computer order, instead I bought it separately, and saved quite a bit.)

It was quite a shock making the transition. Here’s an example. I needed to print something in Word. Easy, right? I couldn’t figure it out. That’s right! I was in a hurry and needed to do it fast. I accessed help, and figured it out easily after that, but I couldn’t have figured it out without using the online help.

What do I like? It’s beautiful, logical, and very icon driven. I look forward to figuring out all of the features.

There’s one feature that I’m still getting used to in Outlook, and that’s the preview pane. I’ve never used the preview pane before, but it is very convenient to know what the email is about ahead of time, particularly with the volume that I get. The problem with it though is that it “opens” the email, and so I think I’ve read it completely and dealt with it, although I haven’t. This is more my problem than Outlook’s — I’m just mentioning it.

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Marathon Computer Conversion Session

July 30, 2007 at 9:21 am · Filed under The Virtual Edge

It was time to get a new computer. Don’t deny the signs because you know what they are: 

  1. The computer is slower than it used to be.
  2. Programs get hung up and stop responding.
  3. You get the occasional blue screen of death.
  4. You find yourself restarting your computer, a lot.

I was ready and so I took the plunge, but I didn’t want to do this alone. Don’t get me wrong, I can plug in all the parts; that’s not the hard part. It’s all about the data. I wanted to have all of my data, and have room for lots more. But I didn’t want to just copy my old computer to my new one, because then I knew that I would bring all the problems with it.

So I asked my computer technician, (Albee of Faster Connections (www.fasterconnections.net) to help me do the conversion. Here was our strategy:

  1. Back up my old computer completely to my external hard drive.
  2. Buy a new computer, but wipe it clean of all the pre-installed software.
  3. Load the operating system (Windows XP, not Vista!) on the clean computer.
  4. Reinstall all the software that I use, and get all the software updates online.

Sounds simple enough, right? It took two of us 6 hours without breaks! In all fairness, there were two other computers involved and a wireless network connection between them all to sort out.

Boy was I glad that Albee guided the operations, and that I was there to answer all the questions, find software, and make decisions as they came up. I don’t regret for a second the money I spent for this. The result: a fast, clean, and efficiently operating new computer with all my old data intact. Computer nirvana!

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