Making Progress

Hey folks! Good news--progress is being made with the new shopping cart. You can now shop through the regular store!

A few little issues:

The store doesn't look quite like it will when it's all done.

Ebooks and the class aren't working to not charge shipping, so for now they are not being shown on the site.

Coupon codes are not working yet. Still having some technical problems with these. If you have a discount coupon you want to use, just leave me a note with your order or send an email to me at supermom@supermomshealthandwellness.com and I will take care of it for you.

It will help me a lot if some of you brave folks will start using the new cart so we can make sure everything is working. If you find that something does not work properly, seems weird, whatever, it would be a big help to me for you to let me know so that I can figure out how to fix it. :)

Vitamin Commercial, Take Two

Here is my second attempt to document how well the kids like their vitamins. I hope you get a kick out of the extremely authentic dirty dishes, dishwasher waiting to be loaded, and kids dressed in costumes.:)

Vitamin Commercial, Take One

For awhile now I've been thinking that I should interview my kiddos while they take their Bone Ami and SuperKids vitamins. They love both products and are great about reminding me to make sure they get some each day. Here is a little video of a few of my children. Sorry that it's so dark. (come back tomorrow for another one)

Making Juice (and applesauce!) at Home

When you have three trees full of ripe apples in the back yard...

And a whole bunch of ripe grapes, too...

It's time to get to work picking! Thankfully, our trees are pretty small, so there are tons of apples that our kids can pick without any trouble at all.

It only takes a few pleasant minutes of picking in order to get bags full of apples!

First you toss those apples into the sink and wash 'em. Ours are never sprayed with any pesticides, so we're pretty much cleaning off bird doo and spider webs. :)


You don't technically *have to* take the grapes off their stems, but I do. Otherwise, the grape juice turns out really bitter.

This is my steam juicer. It's really cool. The bottom pan holds water. The second pan is like a bundt cake pan, with a cone in the center that goes upward. This allows the steam from the heated water to travel upwards to the third level, which is a colander where the fruit sits.
You just load up the colander with fruit, put on the top, and heat up the bottom, and leave it for awhile. (apples take 90 minutes or so, grapes only 60 minutes) After that you unclamp the little tube that comes out from the side of the second pan, and out comes juice!
Here you can see some pitchers and a jar of finished juice. Although we make the apple and grape juice separately, we combine them in the pitchers to make apple-grape juice. We find that the taste isn't that great unless a sweetener is added. I use some plain liquid stevia (about 3-4 droppers full per 2-qt. pitcher) and that makes it taste really great without adding any calories OR any sugar. Just wonderful, organic, homemade juice!

At this point you can choose to can jars of juice if you want to, or you can freeze it, or just store it in the fridge and drink it right away. I don't really have the wherewithall to get into the canning right now so we've just made juice a couple of times a week and had it to drink at breakfast. We've also enjoyed giving some to friends. :)

Now, what's left in the colander at the top of the steam juicer is a bunch of cooked-down, miserable-looking apples. Good news: You don't have to waste it! Just turn it into applesauce!
We use our food mill to make quick work of this. You just pour the mushy apples into the top funnel of this gizmo, turn the crank (easily kid-powered) and out one side comes nice, fresh applesauce, and out the other side comes all of the skin, seeds, and stems. We used plastic containers to freeze our applesauce, and took the other stuff to the compost pile. Easy!

One steam juicer colander-full of apples makes about 2-3 quarts of juice plus a 9x13 pan of applesauce. not bad, eh?

The applesauce also benefits from some liquid stevia being mixed in, so again you can enjoy a sweet treat without sugar! You can make popsicles with the apple sauce, use applesauce in place of some oil in certain kinds of baking, or make applesauce bread, which is one of the things I did. Mmmmmmm mmmmmmm good!

We're out of juice again, so I'll be starting this process again later today. Wish me luck! :)

I'm Still Alive!

I just wanted to pop in quickly tonite to let you dear people know that I'm still here, still struggling away to get things fixed and running in a normal manner. As I wrote elsewhere over a week ago:

I do not exaggerate one single tiny iota when I tell you that literally every. stinkin. little. thing. that needs to happen in order for my businesses to get up and running again is taking way, way, waaaaaaaay, way more time, energy, learning curve, and frustration than I ever could have imagined.

If a malfunction could occur, it has.

If a server could go down, it did.

If a weird setting could be in place to cause extra trouble, you can bet your bippy it was there.

If I needed help, you can believe that it was nearly impossible for me to find in a timely manner.

If emails could get lost in cyberspace, mine did.

If I could possibly waste money on solutions that turned out to not be, I did.

If a computer, printer, or other piece of technology could refuse to work, break down, go slow, crash, malfunction, disconnect, or otherwise not do what I needed it to do, that happened as well.

And THAT rosie missive was written before my computer virus resulted in a total crash, which meant that I lost ALL of the files on my computer, which included several mostly-written books, tons of photos, all of the already-downloaded and organized and resized pictures needed for both of my web sites, and much more. (Helpful Hint for Hopeful Heroes: Get an external hard drive and save all of your files. TODAY! Do not be like me when your husband calls to ask if you want him to buy one of these gadgets and say, "Well....how about if we wait until I have a chance to do a little more research on which one to buy?....." NO WAITING! Learn from my mistake, mmm-kay?)

And then my modem decided to quit, leaving us without internet service for several days.

And I've been treated to an in-depth look at how many layers of possible problems exist in a web site. You think onions have a lot of layers? Onions got nothin' on web sites, baby! ;) I am amazed at how many settings could be messed up, directories could elude us, and so on. Just about every day I sit down to get something done, and within minutes I've hit another wall and have to wait for someone else to help me fix the problem. (Thank the Lord for good tech support! I now have an amazing web hosting company that provides me with 24 hour a day PHONE tech support, which is worth a million dollars to me these days!!)

I tell ya...I've wondered more than a few times what on EARTH is going on here. I've prayed. I've wished that it would be clear to me what to do. And every time I get right down to it, the answer I come back to is that this business has been growing and blessed from the get-go, and my family and I have invested a ton of time and effort into it, and I am not going to let this tricky situation keep me down! Somehow, someday, the web sites are going to be working again, and we're going to be back in the saddle.

I don't dare predict a date for all of this to be resolved, but I do want you to know that I am actively working on it and have not given up! You can still order through the sidebar, or of course you can call or email. Lots of you are still ordering and I appreciate you so much! Unfortunately, all of this fixing is very expensive, so your support means a whole LOT to me!!

I CAN tell you that I am already planning some fun sales, special deals and goodies and MORE to celebrate when we get back up and running. You will NOT want to miss it, so if you aren't already subscribed to the newsletter, DO IT NOW so you won't miss a thing. (sign up box is on the top left sidebar on this page)

I do have some fun stuff coming up here on the blog in the next couple of days, so check back with me soon, ok?

Great Deal for Homeschool Families!

If you're like most of us, you're usually on the lookout for ways to help your home and homeschool run smoothly. You want suggestions, encouragement, and practical how-to information. You need a storehouse of helpful articles for those days when you yearn for a fresh idea, a little boost, or facts to share with potential critics – all from a solid Christian perspective. That's where The Old Schoolhouse Magazine comes in.

The Old Schoolhouse Magazine has just launched their fabulous Fall Special for new U.S. subscribers and you'll want to respond early. It's a 50% savings off of cover price and they even have a homeschooling tote bag for the first 1000 to respond!

Right now, during their Fall Special you can subscribe for only $39! You’ll receive 2 years of The Old Schoolhouse Magazine (8 large quarterly issues), the current issue (so you get a quick jump start!), and 6 fabulous Bonus Gifts (for the first 3000). PLUS, the first 1,000 new subscribers will also receive their Homeschooling with Heart tote bag!
View the full details and subscribe online here.

Update #1

So, I got into the new shopping cart and it's clear to me that it is far more complicated than anything I can manage myself. So I've been searching high and low for someone to hire. You would be amazed at how difficult that is!

In the meantime, I had the idea to add products to the sidebar with Add to Cart buttons. I'll be working on this until I have our most popular products available there. You'll have the option to checkout with paypal, or you can use a credit card through paypal even if you don't have a paypal account. This is just a stop-gap measure to allow you regular customers to still do your shopping while we're under construction. I hope it helps!

Web Site is Temporarily Down

Supermom's Health and Wellness will temporarily be under construction starting Thursday, Aug, 28, 2008. We will be getting the site back up and running as soon as possible. If you need to place an order, please email us at Supermom@SupermomsHealthAndWellness.com or give Erica a call at 859-339-9417. We still have all of our products in stock and would be happy to ship things out to you!

Thank you for your support and patience as we go through this crazy transition. Keep visiting us here at the blog for the latest information, or join our email newsletter. We will be sure to let you know as soon as we are open for business again. :)

Hello from a very stressed out Supermom

If you've been to the store yesterday or today you may have noticed that it's impossible to place an order. Unfortunately, that is because my web hosting service has violated their terms of service, gone out of business, become incommunicado, and now I am scrambling to fix not just one but TWO web sites where nobody can shop.

This involves me having to move to new hosting (done!), needing to move two web sites to completely new shopping carts (not done! will take much time! Not a good thing!), and much, much technical stress, strain, and chaos in between where I would normally be, and where I'm going (kicking and screaming all along the way). The good news is that once all of this gets resolved, Supermom's Health and Wellness is going to be better than ever and in a much more secure situation as far as hosting goes. So, it's a good thing, just a hard way to have to get there.

I plan to delight and amazed you (ha!) with the Long Version of this terrible tale once I get to the other side of it. In the mean time, here are some things for you to know:

If you want to place an order soon, please just go ahead and call or email me. The checkout will not work, and I am not sure how long it will take to get it working. It looks like I may be stuck with non-working web sites for a few days or maybe even a week or more. (don't get me started crying--I may not be able to stop!) I still have all the products here and would be very happy to take your call and send you what you need in record time, as usual. :)

My phone number is 859-339-9417. The best times to get a real, live ME answering is from 8am-10pm Eastern time. (BUT, after 1pm is better because in the mornings I'm normally doing school with 5 kiddos.) If I don't answer, just leave a message. I really will call you back! It's just that sometimes I have to take showers, eat dinner, and wipe the stress tears from my eyes as I try to get this business back up and running properly.

My email address is supermom (at) supermomshealthandwellness.com

When you email me to place your order just let me know if you would like to pay by credit card (I will call you for that--don't put it in an email. I want your info to be safe!) or paypal. If paypal, let me know your paypal address and I can send you an invoice once I tally up your order.

To thank you all for supporting me through this really tough situation, I will be including a free little giftie with every order. I just love my customers and it really upsets me when things like this happen. I appreciate your kind comments and calls--just a few minutes ago I had the pleasure of talking to one wonderful customer for a few minutes, and it gave me a nice boost in the middle of a distressing day.

I'll be updating here and with regular newsletters as I have updates. I would appreciate your prayers as I juggle the responsibilities of home, family, and business during this Code Red situation on the business front. :)

Thanks again,
Erica

Giveaway!

I bet that a lot of you would enjoy checking out the Lunch Tote giveaway that I've got going on over at The Baby Boutique Blog this week. Hurry! It ends Saturday morning!

A customer writes about the lemonade

I thought this was a fun little "testimonial" from one of my new customers:

I recently bought some lemon stevia from you, and now I am addicted to your healthy lemonade!!
My kids are so picky and they all just love it, hubby likes it also.
Just wanted to share, I like to put a couple of cherries in the bottom and let the flavors mix. Very tasty and gives the little ones something to look foward to at the bottom.
You may be able to find some healthier ones at a health food store,not for sure.
Just thought I would share.

Laura

Hey everybody,
You will definitely want to check out this report about the dangerous endocrine-disrupting hormone BPA that is often found in children's feeding products. It'll only take a few minutes to become better-informed and able to protect your children.

Question: Would you like to see Supermom's offering BPA-free bottles, sippy cups, and so on? Which ones interest you the most.

Comment from a recent customer:

Your company is great! You offer what most people lack........service!

Service is HUGE to me. I am always so disappointed when I shop somewhere and it is apparent that my purchases there mean nothing. My goal is to get orders out the same day when possible, and the next day without exception. I love to pack up your orders and get them on their way to you speedily. :) I think of how delighted you will be when the package arrives and you say, "Wow! That was fast!" :)

Thanks for your support of my little home business!

Getting Organized for the New School Year

I know that not everybody visiting me here is a homeschool parent, but a large number of you are. So every now and then I have some homeschool-related goodie to pass along to you.

First of all, I have the brand new edition of The Old Schoolhouse magazine here and can add one in with your next order FREE! Just leave me a note in the comments section of your order and I'll take care of it. :)

Secondly, I just found out about a wonderful set of resources from Cindy Rushton that is designed to help homeschool moms get organized and be prepared for the upcoming school year. The set includes:
Full Ebook library
Mp3 Downloads for all audios (over $700 in workshops!)
Organization 911 Seminar Set
Let's Get Organized Seminar Set
Free Gifts
Printable Planning Pages

You can check it out here.

There are always things to get for the kids at this time of year, but it's important to remember that moms need refreshment and resources to help them do their job, too! Please be sure to take good care of yourselves, ladies. Burn out is no fun.

Hugs to you ladies!

Free Stress Relief for Moms!

A lot of moms are needing a fresh burst of inspiration these days, and I've got just the thing! Check out this page with great ideas for:

summer activities for kids

family-friendly summer recipes

summer exercise ideas for moms

and more!

It's all here, and it's all free. Enjoy!