Join the Soulful Charms Tribe

I feel like I know Laura Bucholtz, but we have never met.   I discovered her Soulful Charms, charm bracelets, when visiting a friend in San Diego.  I bought them and then had  to find out the whole story.   Soulful Charms are no ordinary charm bracelets. They hold special meaning and intention – spreading good luck, good health and good energy to all who wear them or give them as gifts.

Laura Bucholtz created Soulful Charms as a way for women to band together as a tribe of positivity, health and goodness to raise awareness and funds for breast cancer research. Inspired by the most courageous, amazing women – friends, loved ones, cancer survivors and the mighty souls who walked in the “Susan G. Komen 3 Day Walk,”

Bucholtz said, “Soulful Charms are dedicated to a tribe of special women who I hold close to my heart…” A friend who celebrated her 3 year anniversary as a breast cancer survivor during the 3 Day Walk in November 2008 and is now positively overcoming a secondary diagnosis of acute leukemia; a friend and neighbor who passed away on Christmas Eve 2008 after battling breast cancer for two years, leaving behind her husband and two young children; my sister-in-law Kim who lost her sister at age 34 to breast cancer and was survived by her husband and three young children; and my mom Lynne, who at age 16, lost her mother Lily to breast cancer.

Soulful Charms radiate positive, soulful energy for healing, friendships, gratitude and good luck. Every Soulful Charms bracelet is hand-made. The moment you purchase a set of Soulful Charms Bracelets, you become something bigger than yourself. Your act of kindness goes out to the universe carrying the positive energy you just created. And because it is in giving that we receive, you and your new charms also become positively charged with the energy from all the beautiful, fun and caring women who also wear these Soulful Charms.

Laura needed to raise funds for her 3-Day Walk and tapped into her family resources in Brazil.  Each of her bracelets is hand made and she chose her charms for their specific meanings, which you can read about on her site www.soulfulcharms.com.  I have a feeling that Laura’s entrepreneurial spirit is fueled by an inner energy and positive spirit that surrounds Laura.  Join her tribe by purchasing a set of bracelets for yourself or a friend.

Meal and Menu Planning for Busy Moms

For my first entrepreneurial women post I had to choose Dawn Billesbach.  Dawn is the mastermind behind menufortheweek.com.  What started as a posting of recipes and menus  for her family and friends, soon became an online business with subscribers from around the world.  Each week Dawn  puts together a menu and shopping list for her subscribers.  Every Friday morning I wake up to an e-mail that has a shopping list broken down into categories , fruit and vegetable, dairy, meat, etc. – (very efficient).  On the list is everything you will need for the week’s menu.  So meal-planning and shopping  literally take about one hour thanks to Dawn.

Adapting this plan into our lives, as a family, has made a big difference.  The most stressful part of getting dinner on the table is trying to figure out what to cook with what’s in the fridge and pantry.  This stress has been eliminated.

My first concern was whether or not my kids, who prefer plain food” that doesn’t touch anything else,” would eat the recipes that Dawn dishes out.  My favorite story is the one where my kids would go, “oh no, she’s cooking in the crockpot – Yuk.”  Now that yuk meal from the crockpot  has become a favorite .
Dawn’s weekly newsletters always impart some little piece of advice that I can really use – like throw at least one load of laundry in every day so you don’t have to spend one day every week doing laundry.  Yep, that works too!

Dawn has been featured on tv, radio stations and newspapers across the country.   So why was I so surprised that while on vacation I plopped down at the pool with a copy of Redbook, April and there she was, an article about Menufortheweek taking up most of page 132.

Dawn is a very busy Mom of two who works outside the home and inside the home, yet she still manages to put dinner on the table every night and photograph it so you and I can see the yummy food that she’s dishing up in her newsletters.  Dawn makes us realize that if we have a talent for putting something together, a weekly plan and menu, then you can take your talents and turn them into a business.  If you’ve heard, “you’re so good at this, you should start a business!”  Maybe you should!