Essential Excellence on MSNBC!!

The previously mentioned article that first appeared on entrepreneur.com has now been picked up my MSNBC, the Washington Post and Fox Business! Check out the links!!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28735902/

http://www.foxbusiness.com/story/personal-finance/on-topic/small-business/real-world-cost-cutting-practices/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/19/AR2009011902970.html

http://biz.yahoo.com/entrepreneur/090113/199476_id.html?.v=1

YAY!!!

www.essentialexcellence.com

I'm in an article on entrepreneur.com!

About a month ago I was interviewed for an article about saving money on business expenses. The article recently posted and there is a section about Essential Excellence and my saving money tactics! Check out the article at http://www.entrepreneur.com/management/operations/article199476.html.

Website Remodel

So I decided that my website needed an updated layout- mostly because I had more pages to add and it wouldn't have worked well with my previous layout. Anyhow, redesigning the template wasn't too difficult, but there was one issue that kept coming up weird when I tried to preview the design in a browser. I use Dreamweaver and it's frustrating when the site looks one way in the design screen and different in a browser. It's even more frustrating when it looks right in one browser (like Firefox) and is wrong in another (Internet Explorer). As frustrating as it is, I can usually find a fix for it, which helps me if/when it happens in the future. Also, I was able to upload a recent Powerpoint presentation I created and put it on my front page. It took me a bit to figure it out, but I was able to find a great website that will host it for me and give me the code to embed it in my site. I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out :)

A new baby boy and some sun

Some friends of ours just had their first baby on Thursday- a little boy. It was exciting to go see the baby in the hospital- I couldn't believe how tiny he was! The baby actually came about 3 weeks early, so his nursery wasn't even ready for him! So another friend and I decided to paint and decorate their nursery as a surprise to the mom. Even though we were working on the room all day, it was actually a lot of fun! I felt like I was on an HGTV show. Here's what the nursery looked like when we were finished. And on another note, we finally had some sun the other day after many cloudy and snowy days. It was really funny because my dog took advantage of the little bit of sun coming through the window and decided to take a nap in it. The funny thing is that she never sleeps on the floor- only in her bed. But apparently she really needed some sun. Hope to see some more sun in the future! :)

My first presentation and my co-worker

Yesterday I got an e-mail informing me that I was selected to give a 5 minute presentation about my business at a home based business class I was scheduled to attend. Last time I was at the class, which was about a month ago, I decided that I needed to put together a brochure in case I got selected in the future. Well I didn't and here I was now scrambling to put something together. It's a good thing I work well under pressure. I was able to put together a Powerpoint presentation (which is one of my specialties) for the meeting within a couple hours. I gave the presentation and it went pretty well- I thought. Plus the nice thing is that I have it already done for future presentations. I am also going record a narration onto it and post it on my site so others can see it. My next step for marketing materials is to make a brochure. I wanted to introduce my co-worker, even though she doesn't so much work as she does sleep all day and occasionally whine at me to let her up on my lap. She is my beagle Abby. Sometimes she has doggie dreams and she woofs and moves her paws in her sleep. It's pretty funny! She keeps me entertained :) Here are a couple of pictures of her "work day" yesterday:

First workday of 2009

I'm back from Christmas break and I'm excited about getting back to work! I got a new desk for my office this past weekend and I'm so glad I actually have a decent workspace and some storage! And I got the desk off of craigslist for a great deal! Here's a peek at my home office and new desk: Also, I have discovered a wonderful way to keep myself from getting distracted and keeps me in my office- temperature. Let me explain. I have a small heater in my office that keeps it nice and warm in here. I shut the door and keep all the heat trapped in. Meanwhile, I turned the heat off in the rest of the house because there is no need to pay to heat rooms I won't be in. So right now it is 83 degrees in my office and 55 degrees in the rest of the house. Let's just say that my bathroom and snack breaks and QUICK! Meanwhile it's about 30 degrees outside and it's been snowing all morning. Boy I'm glad I work at home!!

Welcome to the Essential Excellence blog

This blog will give a glimpse into the life of a virtual assistant (me, Cortni Marrazzo) as well as give updates on the growth and development of Essential Excellence- my virtual assistance company. www.essentialexcellence.com