Stephanie Stebbins, Author
Monday, January 11, 2021
Why You Should Learn The Piano As An Adult
Monday, December 28, 2020
My Top 5 Favorite Products Recommended by Amanda Jo of Organic Bunny
Saturday, December 5, 2020
3 Things To Know Before You Rent
Finding and deciding on a place to rent can be a daunting task. There are so many "what if?" questions that can arise that it can be difficult to know where to begin. After twenty years of renting, I think I have encountered every single one of the possibilities that can come up! Luckily I am here to give you answers to those what if questions and see if I can help you avoid a few catastrophes.
Compare Prices In A Larger Rental Area
I love that there is an app for everything these days. Every time we would have to move, I immediately began searching all of the apps for the area we were going to next. I am originally from the Hampton Roads area of Virginia, which is coastal Virginia chopped up into seven cities. The seven cities are Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Chesapeake, Suffolk, Hampton, and Newport News. If you are in any one of those cities, you can live in any other of those cities and only be 45 minutes away at the most (unless the bridge is jammed, but that's a story for another day). So, if I were moving to Norfolk, I could search for Norfolk, VA rent prices as well as any of the seven cities of the Hampton Roads area to find the best price and area. Apps like Zumper make it easy to see what schools are like in your area, what the median rent is, and you can even see satellite photos of the area. Always remember to look at the surrounding areas of where you're moving, you might be surprised with what you find!
Invest In Renter's Insurance
Someone once told me with a straight face that buying renter's insurance was asking for something bad to happen. Here's some breaking news: bad things happen regardless. No one thinks they need insurance until they do and they don't have it. No one likes to learn this lesson by losing everything they own in a fire that wasn't even their fault, and you shouldn't either. Buy the insurance, if anything, for peace of mind.
You Have Options For How Long You Rent
I thought that all rental leases were for a year for far too long. You actually do have options to rent by the month, 6 months, or even longer than a year. In some places, it is actually cheaper by the month if you sign the lease for longer than a year. Everyone likes to save on rent so don't forget to explore those options when looking for your next rental!
Do you have any tips to add?
Wednesday, November 25, 2020
How To Stay Motivated To Learn A New Musical Instrument
When it comes to interests and hobbies, learning an instrument seems to be one of the most popular options available. Having a musical hobby opens up a lot of unique opportunities and experiences. Whether you just play it at home in your spare time as a relaxing activity, or if you’re interested in joining a band or an orchestra, it can actually be difficult to stick to an instrument for a long time. So in this post, we’ll be looking at some practical tips to help you stay motivated when learning an instrument.
Ask yourself why you want to learn an instrument
First, ask yourself why you want to learn an instrument. Is it because you find it cool? Is it because you’ve always wanted to play it? Is it because your favorite song has the instrument playing in it? There are lots of reasons why you might want to start learning an instrument and it doesn’t need to be for serious reasons either. It could just be because you wanted a productive hobby!
Don’t buy an expensive instrument to force yourself to play it
One of the more questionable things that people do is buy an expensive instrument to try and force themselves to play it. If they don’t play it, then they can feel like it’s a waste of money. That’s the sort of mentality that they’re aiming for. It helps to push them to play the instrument so they don’t waste their money. Unfortunately, this is a bad way to encourage yourself to play an instrument and should be avoided.
Try to learn simple songs at first
Don’t get too ahead of yourself! Look for simple and easy songs and use them to practice. You can practice reading tabs or sheet music, or you could look up tutorial guides on how to play specific songs. This will help encourage you to play since it’s a song that is familiar to you.
Learn songs that you want to
Once you’ve made it past the simple songs, you can then start moving to more advanced or complicated pieces. You can make this easier by getting a hold of the sheet music or books with the scores. You could even purchase the pieces individually. For instance, you can find items like the Clair de Lune sheet music online for a fraction of the price of a book. It’s a fantastic way to motivate yourself and it can also be used to track your progress at learning a song.
Get started with whatever you have to try and learn more about your instrument of choice
There are lots of different musical instrument apps that you can play around with on your phone, tablet or even your PC. These are excellent for trying out different instruments to see what they sound like. It also gives you an idea on how to learn the instrument, especially if it’s something like a keyboard or piano.
With these simple tips, you should be playing in no time! Do you have any tips to add?
Sunday, October 4, 2020
4 Tips For Selling Your Book
You’ve written a book. That’s incredible! Not many people can say they’ve poured all that time and energy into writing and finishing their own novel. Regardless of how long it is or what genre, it’s important to do what you can in trying to sell it. It might not be something you’ve thought of doing, but it’s a great way to be rewarded for your achievement. Here are four tips for selling your book.
Take Care In The Design
First, take care in the design of your book. This is an important element because a book is something that is enjoyed visibly. Whether it’s a digital one or physical, it’s going to be on display, and so you want an eye-catching cover. Think about what you want to achieve in the book art and whether you’re going to do it yourself or get someone to do it for you. There are lots of options out there when it comes to book design services, and it can be a great opportunity to get an eye-catching design that many book lovers will at least want to pick up and take a look at. You might want to look at previous designs of authors you aspire to be like or are similar in the genre of book you’re selling. Inspiration is a great source of creativity.
Approach Publishers
When selling your book, it’s a good idea to look at all the publishing houses available and to pitch to as many as you can. There’s a lot of competition that comes with publishing houses, and so you might be up against it when it comes to being picked over another author. However, publishing houses hold a lot of reputation in the industry, and having a certain publishing house that prints your book can end up giving you thousands more in sales if you’re lucky.
Consider Self-Publishing
Self-publishing is an avenue that you might want to go down if you find that going to a publishing house isn’t successful. It doesn’t by any means, indicate that your book isn’t good enough. In fact, it might be that the right people didn’t read it and you’ve still got a book that will sell to an audience. The internet is large and vast, which offers great opportunities for those wanting to sell online. Self-publishing is certainly something worth trying if you’ve done your research and believe it’s worth a try.
Advertise & Promote
Even though publishing houses will have their own marketing and advertising departments, you should be advertising and promoting your book regardless. If you’re self-publishing, this is even more important, and you might want to think about pulling together a budget that will help invest in your career as an author. Don’t be ashamed of plugging your book at every opportunity, otherwise, how do you expect your hard work to sell?
Wednesday, September 30, 2020
Little Money Solutions For Home Ownership
- You served either 90 days active duty during wartime or 181 days active duty during peacetime.
- If you’re a member of the national guard or a reservist, you must have served for at least six years.
- Qualifying as the surviving spouse of a service member, must have passed away while in the line of duty or from a service-related disability.
Wednesday, August 12, 2020
The Top 5 TV Shows Set In The South
Having grown up in Virginia and North Carolina, I always have a healthy appreciation for when television gets the setting of the Southern United States correctly. I'm not kidding when I tell you that the humidity is a living, breathing organism down here. June, July, and August just sits directly on your shoulders, laughing as it whispers the cooling thoughts of September, October, and November directly into your ear. We have beautiful coastlines that welcome visitors to share our sea feasts and our trees, mountains, hollows, and fields are a green majesty to behold. Who could ask for a more beautiful setting? These are the five shows set in the south that definitely get it right:
It's no secret that I am a huge fan of The Walking Dead. Everyone in our family loves horror so we were always on the lookout for good horror movies and shows. My daughter had read the graphic novel when she was a teen and could NOT wait for the show to come out. We watched it from the very beginning and still do today! I love that the show moved between Georgia to Virginia so seamlessly and I was completely immersed into the world because the setting was so spot on. The characters are incredibly well-written and I have loved watching them evolve and change over the years. I am still sad about characters we have lost but still excited about the new ones we meet.
I was a teen in the 90's and one of the most popular shows at the time was A Different World. It tells the story of Denise Huxtable from The Cosby Show and her time at Hillman College. We never missed The Cosby Show in my house as I was growing up and I couldn't wait to see Denise Huxtable take on college as I was planning to go soon. That show gave me so many laughs and insight about what I might soon face in the future. It still holds a special place in my heart today. I loved seeing a lot of characters who seemed like they were taken right from my part of the world displayed on screen.
The country music fan in my house growing up was my mother. I am one of the anomalies of the south that does not enjoy country music. While it isn't my favorite, my mother and aunts made sure I got comfortable with what they considered the good ones: Patsy Cline, Reba McEntire, Dolly Parton, Mary Chapin Carpenter, to name just a few. The Reba show became a constant in my own family home during its run. My husband, son, daughter, and I watched it together and laughed and laughed. I loved how they made having a blended family so realistic and so funny at the same time. We lived in Texas during this time so the setting was exactly like what we saw around us every day. It was a great show with great laughs and all four of us make endless references to it in conversation still today.
When I was young, The Golden Girls was my grandmother's absolute favorite show on television. She did not watch a lot of TV but every time we went down to visit, we definitely watched The Golden Girls. I didn't get everything that was funny about it until later in life, but the things I did get made me laugh with her. It was absolutely true to form as to the different types of personalities you meet down in Florida! The good memories of my grandmother's enjoyment of the show along with the jokes that I did get when I got older makes this one of the best shows set in the south.
Since we are talking about good grandmother memories, I want to give an honorable mention to the series, Dolly Parton's Heartstrings, produced by Sam Haskell, executive producer of Mississippi Rising, The Concert in Support of the Hurricane Katrina Recovery Efforts. Dolly Parton stars in a Netflix mini-series that tells the stories of her life, from her humble beginnings to her greatest successes! My grandmother told me a lot of the stories about her when I was younger, but it was great to see Dolly star in her own show and tell her own stories!
This is my number one choice for so many reasons. I have loved American Horror Story since the very first episode. While American Horror Story: Coven absolutely nailed Louisiana, I actually think they got it the best for American Horror Story: Roanoke. When you are from Virginia and North Carolina, everyone has a theory about The Lost Colony. It is the biggest mystery in our area and I think everyone will endlessly wonder what happened to them. I was immediately struck by how much history and folklore they could jam into the show while getting the mood of this area perfectly!
Monday, August 3, 2020
5 Easy Ways To Begin Investing In Real Estate
In the tiny town we now live in, there is a small commercial garage that is up for sale and I can't stop my husband from talking about that every. single. day. He could put all of his cars there, it's in a very convenient spot to have a tower/wrecker, and he could finally finish his 394854757 projects in a dedicated space and not the driveway.
That last point is what sold me.
I began to research how to begin a commercial property purchase and fell down a rabbithole of the pros and cons of both residential and commercial real estate. I learned that there are five simple ways to get started investing in real estate:
This doesn't quite seem like investing in real estate at first, but what it does is teach you about paperwork and what is required of you as a property owner. There is a lot of paperwork involved in real estate and it's in your best interest to know all of the laws/requirements of owning property. Renting out a room is what a lot of people start with instead of jumping into owning a rental property. However, many people do choose to begin with investing in a rental property.
This is where many people's real estate investing journey actually begins. Whether you purchase the property or you are gifted the property, owning a rental property is a huge step. It's definitely exciting! I haven't taken that leap yet, but have considered it as an option in the future. You should definitely familiarize yourself with A Beginner's Guide To Real Estate Investing. It's available online here!
This is what drove me to seriously consider the commercial property purchase. If anything, after fixing it up, we can always flip it. It really is a great property for a garage so it seems like a great investment, either way! There is information everywhere on Google but I found the best tips on how to begin through the connected investors review here.
Real Estate Auctions can be found all over America. I had attended vehicle auctions before but had not attended one for real estate. It always surprises me the deals you can find here and the cheapskate coupon mom in me LOVES the bargains. It's definitely one of the best places to find your first property!
Use the resources you have at your disposal and read, read, and read even more to learn everything you can.
Now that I think about it, this is my advice for everything in life!
Monday, June 29, 2020
The Hollow
hollow
of your elbow
I bend
to
your will
In the
hollow
of the valley
I follow
the
wind to the
hollow
of your cheek
and lay
silently so I may catch every
hollow
word
that spills from your lips.
Wednesday, June 24, 2020
Always Eat After 7PM - Final Thoughts
This post is sponsored by Always Eat After 7PM: The Revolutionary Rule-Breaking Diet That Lets You Enjoy Huge Dinners, Desserts, and Indulgent Snacks-While Burning Fat Overnight by Joel Marion. All opinions expressed are my own. Click here for full disclosure.
I have come to the end of my review of Always Eat After 7PM: The Revolutionary Rule-Breaking Diet That Lets You Enjoy Huge Dinners, Desserts, and Indulgent Snacks-While Burning Fat Overnight by Joel Marion and I am incredibly happy with the results! (Click here for part one, part two, and part three)
Sunday, June 21, 2020
Always Eat After 7PM - Update
This post is sponsored by Always Eat After 7PM: The Revolutionary Rule-Breaking Diet That Lets You Enjoy Huge Dinners, Desserts, and Indulgent Snacks-While Burning Fat Overnight by Joel Marion. All opinions expressed are my own. Click here for full disclosure.
It's been an interesting month, that's for sure. I have really enjoyed trying the Always Eat After 7PM diet program and I am amazed at the results I have seen! Most of all, I can't believe how delicious the recipes turned out to be!
Friday, June 12, 2020
Traffic Secrets By Russell Brunson Is Perfect For Your Ecommerce Goals
This is a sponsored post on behalf of Traffic Secrets: The Underground Playbook for Filling Your Websites and Funnels with Your Dream Customers. For full disclosure, please click here.
The world of ecommerce is highly competitive. Many business owners have their work cut out for them on the world wide web. The easiest part of a business these days is thinking of your product and getting it manufactured. The hardest part is making your presence known on the web. Every year, tens of thousands of businesses start and fail because the entrepreneurs don’t understand one essential skill: the art and science of getting consumers to find you.
I will say that again: the hardest part of getting your product out to the public is making your presence known on the web.
As a blogger, I have seen this for myself. There are millions of guides out there that will walk you through how to bring more traffic to your blog/website. I have read quite a few of them but wondered how Traffic Secrets could work for my blog. I decided to try it out and see!
In Traffic Secrets: The Underground Playbook for Filling Your Websites and Funnels with Your Dream Customers, entrepreneur Russell Brunson reveals the classic foundational direct marketing techniques that will allow you to be the first to recognize new trends and see the opportunities that are invisible to everyone else. This guide shows how to master traffic strategies in order to fill your website and funnels with your dream customers. By completing the 30-day challenge, you'll learn key strategies to increase your site traffic. I began the 30 day challenge at the end of May and am just about done. I cannot even begin to tell you every single thing I have learned because we will be here all day. Even for blog traffic alone, it has been invaluable to me so I can only imagine how useful it can be to those beginning their ecommerce journey!
The chapters I found to be most useful were in Section II of the book, which goes into Facebook, Instagram, Google, and YouTube traffic secrets. I really started to see progress in those places, minus YouTube as I am not a vlogger, just a blogger. However, even those YouTube tips proved helpful in surprising ways for me and I have been able to implement them as well!
- Start with identifying your dream customers
- Focus on where your dream customers are congregating online
- Learn how to "work" your way in
- Understand how to "buy" your way in
- Create your own publishing platform
- Build your own distribution lists
This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Traffic Secrets: The Underground Playbook for Filling Your Websites and Funnels with Your Dream Customers. For full disclosure, please click here.
Monday, June 8, 2020
Always Eat After 7PM - Author Interview
This post is sponsored by Always Eat After 7PM: The Revolutionary Rule-Breaking Diet That Lets You Enjoy Huge Dinners, Desserts, and Indulgent Snacks-While Burning Fat Overnight by Joel Marion. All opinions expressed are my own. Click here for full disclosure.
It's been a couple weeks now and I am off to a great start with the Always Eat After 7PM diet. (For my first post in this series, please click here). Everything is going pretty well, I'm enjoying the recipes and doing much better at adding more exercise in different ways to my daily goals. I am happy to report that I have lost 7 pounds! I wasn't expecting to lose anything as I hit the dreaded plateau months ago. I tried everything I could think of and still wasn't able to get past it. I had almost given up but was content with the weight loss I had achieved anyway. This program, however, has given me new hope. I think I will FINALLY hit my weight loss goal. I'm still motivated for a few reasons. The most important reason: I am pretty sure that this diet might even finally teach me how to cook.
I was able to interview the best selling author, Joel Marion, who is a fitness expert and nutritionist debunking the myths underlying traditional dieting while offering a simple, highly effective weight loss program. Joel Marion’s Always Eat After 7PM program makes dieting easy and eliminates 90% of reasons for resistance. It was really interesting to learn more about the book and program so I am ecstatic to share this interview with you today!
It actually took several years of researching for me to discover the real science of eating late night. After a few years of tweaking and refining, I finally came up with a rapid fat loss solution that overcomes all the pitfalls of traditional diets.
I hope you enjoyed this interview. I'll be back next week with another update 💖
Always Eat After 7 PM: The Revolutionary Rule-Breaking Diet That Lets You Enjoy Huge Dinners, Desserts, and Indulgent Snacks—While Burning Fat Overnight by Joel Marion is now available to purchase. Learn more about the book and how to purchase here.
Monday, June 1, 2020
Turning Your Blog Writing Into A Professional Career
Wednesday, May 27, 2020
Always Eat After 7PM: Challenge Accepted
This post is sponsored by Always Eat After 7PM: The Revolutionary Rule-Breaking Diet That Lets You Enjoy Huge Dinners, Desserts, and Indulgent Snacks-While Burning Fat Overnight by Joel Marion. All opinions expressed are my own. Click here for full disclosure.
For the past few years (ok, my entire life), I have been on a mission to get healthy. I say "get healthy" instead of lose weight because while losing weight is always the best part, I started to have too many health scares pile up that I began to get concerned. My husband suffered a non-fatal heart attack a few years ago at just 36 and it ramped up my resolve to get better.
I began fairly simply and made a few small changes that ended up being the biggest changes. I decided that I was going to stop being my couch's best friend and get up and move more and I was only going to drink diet soda, if I drank any at all. THAT was hard only because I think I have more soda running through my veins than actual blood. I fully admit to being a full blown sodaholic. Since those seemed like the biggest hurdles to overtake, I wanted to start with them. That first month, just by doing that alone, I dropped 14 pounds!
As you can imagine, this rocketed my motivation straight up into deepest space and I can not even begin to tell you the new life it breathed into my soul! I began to really look into different diets and fitness routines and successfully shed 68 pounds. Not only did I lose that weight, I've kept it off for three years now.
Now that I am stuck just 20 pounds from my goal weight, I wanted to get a little tougher and push myself a little further and see if I can accomplish that goal I set for myself three years ago. I began looking into all sorts of different ways to do that and happened to come across the book Always Eat After 7PM: The Revolutionary Rule-Breaking Diet That Lets You Enjoy Huge Dinners, Desserts, And Indulgent Snacks-While Burning Fat Overnight by Joel Marion.
Always Eat After 7 PM: The Revolutionary Rule-Breaking Diet That Lets You Enjoy Huge Dinners, Desserts, and Indulgent Snacks—While Burning Fat Overnight by Joel Marion is now available to purchase.