It’s 4am on Tuesday morning.  This is the third morning in a row that I’ve been up at 4am.  Uff.

Can you guess what I’m doing and where I am.  In fact, guess what my whole day entails and what follows tomorrow.  Yep, my next 48 hours are interesting, challenging and exciting.  If you guess my next 48 hours correct, you get a choice of winning your own downloadable copy of our Award Winning, DVD Series, Refuse to Say Cheese and Beyond the Green Box, OR your choice of one either the Portrait 101 Kit: The Essentials to Starting a Portrait Business or the Wedding 101 Kit: All the Essentials to Starting a Wedding Business and/or Taking Your Business to the Next Level .  We have sold more of these 101 Kits and DVDs than I can count with so endless success stories.  Make a guess today, and if you’re right, I’ll give em to you!

If you do know the answer of where I am and what I’m doing for the next 48 hours, you can’t play.  (to the five of you )

And if you have a moment, give some blog love to Linda today on the SOAR! site.  She did her blog post after Fay’s heaving lifting, inspiring Business Coaching post yesterday.  If you could leave a comment of encouragement, that would be awesome.  These three SOAR! Recipients are working so hard.  Your words of “hang in there” or “great job” give more them more than you know!

So, what’s your guess?!

p.s.  Tomorrow is the LAST day to take advantage of the Early Bird Special, plus the Special Payment Plan for the upcoming, Mother’s Day, SEATTLE CONFIDENCE Workshop!  Grab your spot before midnight tomorrow!  FYI, the three SOAR! Recipient Ladies will be attending this workshop too!  It’s going to be a hoot!  CLICK HERE for details and to register!  CLICK HERE for details on other photography workshops happening this Spring!

To celebrate, we are offering these CRAZY!!

We’ll run these discounts until this Wed., December 3rd, midnight PST. If you’re planning on getting any of our products as gifts for Christmas, the next three days are the days to do it!

The Crazy Discounts are…drum roll….

DVDs (hard copies shipped to you) are 30% off! Coupon Code: thirty

DVDs that are the downloadable version are also 30% off! Coupon Code: download

All 101 Kits are 40% off! Coupon Code: forty

The upcoming Atlanta Workshop in January is 20% off! (We’re going to continue the Early Bird Registration Price until Wed, no coupon code needed!)

Enjoy! And thank you for making our first year of having the Refuse site so AWESOME!

Now, here’s some catching up we must do! You won’t believe our last seven days.

If you follow me on Facebook (MeRa Koh) or Twitter (merakoh), you’ve heard me mention our hardwood floors project this last week. Brian and I are home for five weeks straight! (YEAH!) We thought, ‘Hey, let’s get our hardwoods refinished on the whole main floor of our house! Why not! That will be a fun little project before the holidays start!’ Are we stupid or are we just STUPID putting “fun little project” with “refinishing hardwood floors” in the same thought?! Yes, the answer is we are STUPID!

We had no idea until 2-3 nights prior of all this starting that we would have to move every thing out of the main floor of the house. I mean that makes total sense, but for some reason it never occurred to us. The common sense of it all wasn’t there at ALL! We rented a Uhaul and moved everything into the Uhaul. Then we find out that we can’t stay at the house because of our dog and cat. We need to relocate for 7-8 days. I was totally stumped. But then my friend, Karen, says she is off to Cabo with her family the morning we have to move out. Talk about a total gift to us! We get to move into her place as they leave for Cabo, and in turn they have a house sitter for their dog.

Now let me ask you this. Who do you think had the best week of all? Us, the cat, or the dogs?

And who do you think had the worst week of all? If you guessed Prince Philip, the cat, you are right!!!

All in all, it’s been wonderful to be at Karen’s house. Aside from their dog having OCD and licking every inch of this house only to throw it up, and our dog having a bacterial infection in her colon that causes her to @#$% everywhere, it’s been so awesome (emphasis on “so”). I can’t imagine all this happening inside a hotel room. Wow, that would have been insane!

But today, today we get to start moving back in. I’ll try to post a photo of the NEW floors so you can get a peak of them! I can’t wait to slide across them in my socks!!!

How was your Thanksgiving week?

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Upcoming Blog Posts for This Week!

Do you know a Running on Empty Mom who lives in Seattle area? We’ve had such a crazy schedule that I forgot to post this nomination. If you have someone you know, that is local, we have saved a spot for her this coming weekend. Go ahead and nominate her in today’s comments.

If you attended the Chicago workshop, I’ll try and get that post up this week so you can see your shots and shooting conditions! And then everyone can sing your praises b/c of how amazing you all did!

We need to run a new Photo Contest. And yes, we need to post the Five Finalists for the Inspirational Object Contest. You are all so good to me for being patient. What do you think our new Photo Contest Theme should be?

Give you a hint…

There are three things total! And if you hit refresh, you can see each one!

It’s been a work in progress for a couple months.

We’re so excited to have them live! What do you think!!

Karen has been working with me for just over a year. She is based in San Francisco, and I am based in Seattle. Our sessions are all via phone and email. When we did our Sonoma workshop, Brian and I made sure to schedule a late flight home so we could meet Karen in person. I had to personally give this woman a hug for ALL the many things she has taught me and done for our business in the last year. Isn’t she beautiful–her wonderful spirit is right there.

The first thing Brian asked me when we got in the car after dinner was “What was it like to finally put a face to Karen?” Without hesitation I said, “It was like icing on the cake!” We had a wonderful dinner with Karen, so wonderful we almost missed our flight home.

One of the things we talked about was all of you! (This is where it gets fun for some of you! )

I told Karen about four emails I’d received regarding the Mom’s Survival 101 Kit.

Over the last few months of releasing the kit, we’ve had incredible emails/feedback on how much women love the kit, like the wonderful comment recently posted in the customer reviews on our Refuse site. BUT…but…these four random emails had been stirring inside me. All from different women, but all expressing a similar point.

Now before I share any more with you, let me just be candid for a minute. What I’m about to share makes me feel incredibly vulnerable, and I’ve thought a lot about whether or not to share any of this. I don’t know if my vulnerability in sharing comes from being a people pleaser, recovering perfectionist, who knows…but I value all of you so deeply, and I think I need to risk sharing. So that being said…

The four emails I received from different women who bought the Mom’s Survival 101 Kit expressed feelings over the price being to high for this particular kit because there are so many books on the market for moms these days. There was also expressed desire of wanting forms or spreadsheets on how to manage/balance their time in a “spreadsheet” fashion.

Before releasing the Mom’s Kit for sale I had gone back and forth with Brian and Karen on how to price the kit. Karen asked me a question that really hit home. It went something like this…Even though you aren’t giving legal forms in this kit, isn’t your experience, all the counseling, business coaching, etc hold just as much dollar value as the legal forms? I believe our life experiences have equal if not more value than the concrete linear things in life. This is why we all decided to price the kit as the same price as the others.

But I really sat on these four emails. I understood the point that if there is a saturated market of “survival type books for moms”, this decreases the value of the topic for everyone. I also heard these women feeling like their was definite Soul and Spirit in the Mom’s 101 Kit, but they wanted more Forms. I believe that Soul, Spirit and Form is a magical combination that must not be ignored. This felt like a valid request.

So Karen and I put our heads together on how we can remedy these requests. We decided to add more value to the Mom’s 101 Kit for those of you who have bought it as well as future moms who are going to buy it.

(Is this post getting to long, or are you still hanging in there with me? )

We are going to have a special, private forum on the new Refuse to Say Cheese Forum that will be only accessible to moms who have purchased the Mom’s Survival 101 Kit. On this private forum, Karen Buckley will be our guest columnist! Once a month she will join our community and assign exercises, forms, and practices to those of you surviving moms.

The objective will be to help us grow in our feminine wisdom, and go even deeper in the challenges we face. Some practices/exercises will be quite challenging and others will be simple in nature. But Karen Buckley (my business coach who specializes in coaching women CEO’s of Fortune 500 companies) is going to collaborate with me so we can continue to give to you once a month on the new forum! How is that for adding value and form to the Mom’s Survival 101 Kit!! (Are we moving in the right direction for those of you who purchased the kit?)

This private forum with Karen will have it’s own special name: Wise Woman 102: Beyond Survival into Thriving! Do you like the title? Karen’s idea, and I love it!

To be a part of Wise Woman 102, you have to first start by purchasing and reading the Mom’s Survival 101 Kit (which is 30% off for the next few days…fyi). Karen and I will be using the Mom’s Survival 101 Kit as the foundation for Wise Woman 102. If you’ve already bought the Mom’s Survival 101 Kit, you will soon be notified on how to gain access to this beautiful forum. We are still ironing out details, but keep an eye out in the next week or two for an email from us in regards to Karen!

Phew…do you know how much I treasure all of you?

xoxo, Me Ra

“When I started to pay close attention to how I felt throughout the day, I realized I felt one emotion more than any other–guilt. The better I did at our business the worse I felt as a mom. The better I felt as a mom, the more behind I felt in our business….in the end I felt such heavy guilt that if my kids were really important I should quit all this. But I knew I couldn’t quit because somehow having this business to build, this dream to chase, made me a better mom.”

Now to make all this work and love being a wife, a mom, and my work, while NOT being over shadowed by guilt…this journey is the heart of my Mom’s Survival 101 Kit.

I’m almost in tears as I type this because the Kit is done, live on the Refuse site, and ready for you to purchase!

For the next four days (ends Friday night at midnight), in celebration of this going live, we will be offering the Moms Survival 101 Kit and the Getting Published Kit (this ones new too! more on this later!) for 30% off the regular price. ($69 instead of $99, you save $30–Yippee!)

What’s inside the Mom’s Survival Kit?

Basically 30-40 pages of me sharing my heart with you.

This is made up of practical and heartfelt insight on setting boundaries, time management, breaking out of the cycle of guilt, overcoming common issues women struggle with in the business world, thought provoking questions from my business coach that have take me to new levels in my peace of mind and our business’s success, and ALL the many ways I’ve learned to take care of myself with the purpose of maintaining balance.

There is also a fun Appendix with samples of the Two Week Dinner Menus I make, some of my favorite recipes from these menus (everyone mom loves a new, easy recipe–Brian thought I was funny, but I had to include a couple! ) and a list of rich resources from other amazing mommy bloggers, to forums, to my business coach’s info and much more.

Is this Kit Only for Mom’s? What about Dad’s?

I’ve already been asked this question a lot since we first released it for sale at WPPI last week. Before this kit was finalized, I hand a handful of people read over it. A few of them were dads, and I’m thrilled to say they LOVED it. I have to tell you that I was totally blessed to hear their response. The dads feel like they also struggle with issues the kit addresses, and one even said he was excited to strategize and plan his upcoming year implementing the ideas I write about. So there you have it dads. Looks like the kit should be called Parent’s Survival 101 Kit, but since it’s to late…I hope you’ll forgive me and not feel excluded. I honestly didn’t expect dads to respond the way they did after reading it. (lesson learned! )

Is this Kit Only for Women Who Have Children?

While I speak directly to moms, I think a lot of women wrestle with the same struggles. A woman with three children may feel the pressures to different degrees than the single woman, but the principles of overcoming common issues woman struggle with in the business world or time management, or setting boundaries…they are universal issues. Enjoy all my single divas!

Raves!

Roxanne Benton wrote this wonderful rave after reading the Mom’s Survival Kit. I had to share it with you. But let me first tell you that Roxanne is a Co-Owner with her husband to a successful small business (Pixel2Canvas), she is a wife AND, AND mother of TWINS! My respect for her made her feedback even that much more meaningful. Roxanne writes;

“I am energized and empowered! To read this–coming from your heart Me Ra–and at times sharing WAY to much information (but that’s who you are–and why we all love you so) gives me such INSPIRATION!”

I do share it all friends. If you’ve been reading this blog for a few days, you know I have issues with self disclosure. That’s what twenty years of therapy gives you! But seriously, I do share from my heart all the good and bad because I want you to see that the journey is not easy, but it’s so worth it. Finding balance and pursuing my dreams while loving my family and homeschooling the kids, wow, it makes me tired if I think to much about it. Yet, I have learned such wonderful lessons along the way and love, love, love what I do and how I spend my time. It hasn’t been easy, but is anything you want or aspire to achieve ever easy?

Discount for the Next Four Days!

So yeah!! The kit is live at Refuse to Say Cheese. You can go there and purchase the download, and if you do so in the next three days you get 30% off the regular price of $99!

But here’s the cool part that I actually just noticed as I’m typing this blog post. Brian fixed a second discount so that for the next four days, you can take advantage of the Better Together deal and receive both the Mom’s Survival Kit and Portrait 101 Kit (the essentials to starting your own portrait side business) for $128. Scroll down this page and you’ll see it! Run into any problems, email Brian at brian@merakoh.com.

One more thing!

IF…IF…you are attending the San Diego or Sonoma workshop don’t buy the kits now. We always offer the best deals at our workshops or when we are speaking somewhere. You’ll save even more if you wait to get it at the workshops!

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Check out Refuse to Say Cheese for details on the rest of the 101 Kits!

Portrait 101 Kit

Wedding 101 Kit

Associates 101

and just released with the Mom’s, the Getting Published 101 Kit (more details later this week!)

But before I wrap this kit up, I’m wondering if you could tell me what you hope to find in this kit. When you think of buying a 101 Survival Kit for Moms, what information do you want to hear? I can only cover so much, but I’d love to hear what some of you are thinking.

The theme of the kit is “How to survive motherhood while pursuing your dream(s)”.

With that in mind, what would you want to know more about when you think of this theme?

Thanks for the feedback ladies!! I’m so excited to have this go live in less than two weeks!!!

Oh, and the finalist for the L-O-V-E photo contest will either be posted later today or tomorrow morning. There are a heck of a lot of votes to count! Awesome job voting friends!!

The winning finalist gets their own Adobe Lightroom software and the random voter winner gets a copy of DVD 2, Beyond the Green Box!

Okay, now leave me your comments on this kit. I’m wrapping it up by Friday at the latest!

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For more info or to purchase any of our other 101 Kits (Weddings 101, Portraits 101, Associate 101 and Getting Published 101), go to www.refusetosaycheese.com!