According to recent news reports, Global Payments, a third-party card processor for Visa, MasterCard, Discover and American Express, has suffered a data security breach. Hackers gained access to accounts of up to 1.5 million cardholders, stealing account numbers and other key information. The information could be used to create duplicate credit, debit and ATM cards.

MasterCard officials said a forensic review is being conducted by an “independent data security organization.”

Visa has more than 650 million U.S. credit, debit and prepaid cards, MasterCard 305 million, American Express and Discover over 50 million each. Banks say they will notify cardholders and reissue their cards if their information has been compromised.

If you think you are at risk take the following steps immediately.

Do not provide sensitive information in response to e-mails from your bank.
Even if an e-mail looks legitimate, do not provide sensitive information such as your credit card security code (the three digits on the back), or Social Security number to anyone claiming to be from your bank, Visa or MasterCard. If you are asked to provide sensitive information, call your bank to verify authenticity.•

Change your password.
To be on the safe side, change your online bank account password.•

Check your credit and debit card statement online daily.
Review online statements for all of your cards. If you notice suspicious activity, notify your bank immediately.

Times are tough. And I admire people who have that spark of “get up and go” and who will do whatever it takes to promote their small local business. However, if you don’t have the sense that God gave a goat and can’t properly answer your phone, all of that hard work will likely go straight out the window.

For instance, a local two man home improvement company owned and operated by two brothers came by my house this weekend and left their flyer on my door. Normally these get trashed but I was actually looking for somebody who can do many of the tasks that they listed. And they offered references. No website, but I was willing to at least talk to them.

The rest of the story details just HOW you answer your phone can either get you business or have the potential customer abruptly leaving the conversation. First impressions count!

There were two numbers on this (now shredded) flyer. I called the first one at 11am this morning and got a woman on a cell phone who clearly could not hear me at all and who kept hollering into the phone, “Hello? Hello?” “Oh (bad word here) I can’t hear them.” Once we finally established communication she tells me that her husband is at home (home??) and she had their only cell phone, but she can take a message. I was already so underwhelmed that I politely declined and called the second number. The other brother in fact. He immediately wanted to know who I was and what I wanted. All I had done was ask for David and this was his reaction. Clearly I had already decided not to hire these two jewels but just for the heck of it I told him that I was responding to his flyer to see if there would be an attitude adjustment and there was! After he tried to laugh it all off, I cordially informed him that I would look elsewhere and wished him a good day.

Now the sad thing is, they may well be phenomenal at what they do, but their initial “customer service” was so outrageously poor that I now have a mental image of 3 total boobs (I include the wife in this hapless group) wandering around and bumping into walls.

Answering their phones competently and professionally would have avoided this.

Just read something that reinforced what I already knew about my own body and energy levels. And that is to exercise at your own pace and intensity.

New research from Pennsylvania State University show that women who exercise at a moderate intensity are more likely to benefit in the long run, compared with other women in the study who struggled through vigorous sweat sessions. (I HATE those!) In fact, those women who, like me, work out according to their own body instincts were found to be twice as likely to feel energized and confident about exercising regularly.

I have a gym in my home and because it is so handy I can get in a quick stretch session, a quick rebounder session or even a full workout at at any point during the day or night and actually find that several 10 -15 minute sessions throughout my working day are extremely beneficial. Sitting in front of a computer monitor all day is very hard on the body so jumping up and heading into my little gym for even a few minutes now and then elevates my energy levels and just makes me feel better all around. I am then able to return to my office and clients with a refreshed and energized mind and body.

You don’t have to have a lot of gym equipment handy, or even a gym membership to get fit and healthy. Purchase some high quality resistance bands, go for a walk, play with the dog, dig holes in the yard and plant things! The trick is to get up and moving several times each day because the most effective workout is the one that you’ll do for the long haul because you enjoy it.

My friend Todd Durkin shared this with me a couple of days ago. He read it somewhere and shared it with his “tribe” and I wanted to share with mine!

Our lives are determined by how we choose to live our 525,000 minutes each year. Minutes spent stressed or worrying are wasted. Fear not only kills our dreams, it also diminishes our minutes without providing productive results. None of our unused minutes can be saved as “rollover” minutes for the next year. None can be given to others and unused ones will be lost forever. When we look at our minutes from this perspective, it helps us realize the gift we’ve been given.

Therefore, here are some words to remember as you enter into the New Year and start spending your 525,000 minutes.

Spend time with people you love. Cherish family and friends. When we look back at a year, the things that usually stand out are times spent with loved ones, and the moments of connection with one another.

If you’re not having fun, go do something that IS fun!!! Spend your time doing what you love and what brings joy into your life.

Let go of the past. Don’t waste a good minute worrying about a bad one. Know that everything is perfect exactly as it is. Trust that there is a reason, even when you can’t see it.

Be positive. Realize you do have a choice, and choose to be positive in your thoughts and your actions.

Take baby steps and don’t give up! Keep moving in the right direction. Trust yourself and your abilities. Just because something didn’t yet work out as planned, doesn’t mean it won’t work out. There is always a way and you can’t lose unless you give up.

Embrace change. Resisting change is like trying to swim upstream. Instead, embrace it and go with the flow.

Connect with Nature. Watch sunsets. Talk to a tree. Listen to the wind. Taste the sweetness of a fresh apple. Study a leaf. Play with a dog. In all things, find your connection to something bigger than you.

Love life! Do what you love and love what you do. Happiness comes from spending minutes doing things that bring you joy.

Laugh! Relax, be playful and remember, life is meant to be fun!

Expand your world. Learn about other cultures, celebrate our differences and find common ground.

Create a vision. Write down 100 things you want to accomplish this year and share it with someone you love. Create a vision board to keep your dream alive!

Dream BIG! Dream big dreams and trust that you’re on the right path to make them happen. You deserve the very best in life- claim it!

Listen to your inner voice. Many times, wisdom comes to us in silence.

Spread kindness. Connect with one another. Share a smile. Perform random acts of kindness. Choose love. Be love. In all things, love now.

Exercise your mind and your body. We only grow old when we’re stagnant. Move and grow.

Pause. Breathe. Take time for yourself. Know that you matter and remember, you must first fill your own cup before you can give to others.

Pass it on. Give. Share. Give away things you don’t need. Share love and resources with others, remembering that blessing flows more easily through a stream without a dam.

Pay attention to serendipity. Live connected to something greater than yourself. Open unto and into the possibility of life. Live with faith and hope as a part of your life instead of apart from them.

Be grateful. No matter where you are, express gratitude, knowing that what you focus on grows. If you’re going to create more of something, let it be gratitude.

Be conscious of your thoughts. Know that your thoughts hold the power to create tomorrow’s reality. So think good thoughts. Dream big dreams. Celebrate the moments of your life.

Be YOU! You are so very beautiful; so let your light shine. You are an unlimited being with infinite potential. You have no limitations except those that you place on yourself.

Today, in this very moment, you have the chance to start anew. Embrace the moment, be grateful for the opportunities and truly celebrate the moments of your life. A new year filled with more than 525,000 minutes is waiting for you. Invest them well. Make each one of them count, and have a blessed and very Happy New Year!

Many blessings—Happy New Year.  Let’s CREATE the BEST year YET!!!!

Somebody sent this to me in an email today and I wanted to share it.

I don’t think our kids know what an apron is. The principal use of Grandma’s apron was to protect the dress underneath because she only had a few and because it was easier to wash aprons than dresses and aprons required less material.  But along with that, it served as a potholder for  removing hot pans from the oven.

It was wonderful for drying children’s tears, and on occasion was even used for cleaning out dirty ears. From the chicken coop, the apron was used for carrying eggs, fussy chicks, and sometimes half-hatched eggs to be finished in the warming oven. When company came, those aprons were ideal hiding places for shy kids. And when the weather was cold, Grandma wrapped it around her arms.

Those big old aprons wiped many a perspiring brow, bent over the hot wood stove. Chips and kindling wood were brought into the kitchen in that apron. From the garden, it carried all sorts of vegetables. After the peas had been shelled, it carried out the hulls.

In the fall, the apron was used to bring in apples that had fallen from the trees.  When unexpected company drove up the road, it was surprising how much furniture that old apron could dust in a matter of seconds.

When dinner was ready, Grandma walked out onto the porch, waved her apron, and the men folk knew it was time to come in from the fields to dinner.

It will be a long time before someone invents something that will replace that ‘old-time apron’ that served so many purposes.

Remember,  Grandma used to set her hot baked apple pies on the window sill to cool.  Her granddaughters set theirs on the window sill to thaw. They would go crazy now trying to figure out how many germs were on that apron. I don’t think I ever caught anything from an apron – but love.

I just read today that the number one holiday cooking headache is synchronizing the meal so that all dishes are ready at the same time.

I absolutely love cooking Thanksgiving dinner and being a passionate and creative home cook I have never had any problems with that but I do love to hear the stories from family and friends who hit this wall every year. Some of the stories are quite frankly, too funny not to share, but in the interest of remaining on various Christmas card lists I will keep mum.

In my home on Thanksgiving day, we gather early in the morning for breakfast in our jammies, drink pumpkin spice coffee, watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade and play a board game or two. The women join me in the kitchen to help with the dinner prep and then everybody goes home to relax and comes back later for dinner. Or, they stay all day…. there are no set rules.

I just discovered this recipe for Cinnamon Coffee Cake from Michael and Bryan Voltaggio, of Bravo’s “Top Chef and will be serving it as part of Thanksgiving breakfast. Their recipe also calls for Bay Leaf ice cream which I will not be making but you can find the entire recipe here.

Enjoy!

Statement from Apple’s Board of Directors:

Apple has lost a visionary and creative genius, and the world has lost an amazing human being. Those of us who have been fortunate enough to know and work with Steve have lost a dear friend and an inspiring mentor. Steve leaves behind a company that only he could have built, and his spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple.

If you would like to share your thoughts, memories, and condolences, please email rememberingsteve@apple.com

We are deeply saddened to announce that Steve Jobs passed away today.

Steve’s brilliance, passion and energy were the source of countless innovations that enrich and improve all of our lives. The world is immeasurably better because of Steve.

His greatest love was for his wife, Laurene, and his family. Our hearts go out to them and to all who were touched by his extraordinary gifts.

Email Etiquette

Here is the thing about those tons of forwarded emails that we all get from well intentioned family, friends or co-workers. They are annoying. They are messy because of all the forwarding. Some of them are entirely inappropriate or politically or sexually charged. If you are forwarding something that is very political in nature, it is always a good idea to have some sense of whether the recipient will be appreciative. Forwarding pictures of naked women? Again, make darn sure that you are sending to somebody who will not be offended. Will I be ticked off if this garbage lands in my email box? Yes.

So here is the serious no no. And by that, I mean DO NOT do this! DO NOT forward emails to an entire group of people by adding their names and email addresses in the “to” field. The minute you hit send, you have effectively shared my name and private email address with everybody who received that email message. I don’t know any of these people and I absolutely do not want them forwarding my now no longer private email address to their group of friends, family and co-workers.

If you absolutely feel compelled to share something with your friends, there are a couple of options that will protect the recipients privacy and keep you from either getting blocked or having your email dumped willy nilly in a spam folder.

• There is a function in all email clients call “BCC”. Blind Carbon Copy. Use it! I suggest that you use the “TO” field to send the email to yourself and use the “BCC” field for all of the email addresses that you are sending to.

• You can also create a group of people that you regularly forward emails to and do it that way. Here are some instructions for Outlook. If you don’t know how to create group or distribution lists for your email client, just Google it.

Don’t Get Mad

If you are asked, politely of course, to please not be included in mass emails, don’t take it personally! Think of it this way. We unsubscribe from newsletters for all kinds of reasons. It is up to us to choose what we allow into our email box and it is not a personal attack to ask to be taken off a mass forwarding list.

Protect Yourself From Mass Emails

Your email account may have a feature that lets you dump all mail from the offending sender to one folder, so it never reaches your inbox. Periodically, you can visit the folder and delete messages. You identify these messages as spam. If it gets too bad, then block that email address if the sender will not accede to your request to be removed.

Keep Work at Bay While on Vacation

Like any other hardworking professional, you deserve to enjoy your downtime away from the your hectic working world. Being committed to providing your clients if you are self-employed, or your employer with excellence is certainly admirable. But everyone needs downtime away from work related activities. And your family deserves time with you without dueling for your attention.

If you have a vacation on the horizon, or even a “staycation”, make the conscious decision, today, to separate your vacation time from your professional pursuits. You deserve the time off, and you’ll return to work with a fresh perspective and renewed energy if you do.

Step away from the office and into your much-deserved vacation with these five tips:

# 1. Close all avenues of communication. Turn off your cell phone and refrain from checking email while on vacation. The messages will still be in your inbox when you get back from vacation. Enjoy your time on the beach while you can, and tend to work related tasks when you get back into the office.

• If you’re concerned about missing calls from family members and friends, make other arrangements. Purchase a prepaid cell phone specifically for your trip, and give the number only to loved ones. Or simply give them the hotel’s contact information.
• Remember to set up your automatic “on vacation” email responder before departing to your destination. It’ll instantly allow your contacts to see that you are unavailable until your return.

# 2. Set boundaries. Establish clear boundaries to protect your privacy throughout your vacation. Tell your employer, employees, and co-workers that you’re devoting 100% of your time to your family while on vacation. Therefore, you prefer to only be contacted in case of an emergency.

• You can, and should protect your vacation time with the same vigor that you protect your working hours. As an employee, you’re entitled to vacation time each year.  And, if your boss is a family oriented person, he will likely understand and respect your request. As an entrepreneur, you have definitely earned some much needed down time. Be good to yourself and take it!

# 3. Tie up loose ends. The month before your vacation, tie up all loose ends on outstanding projects. Plus, try to complete, or at least get a head start on, any deadlines that are looming shortly after your return to the office. Maximizing your workload before embarking on your trip allows you to actually enjoy your vacation and keep a peaceful mind. This certainly beats fretting over missed deadlines and scrambling to complete upcoming projects.

# 4. Answer questions. Before you leave for vacation, have a meeting with your boss or your clients and employees. Make sure that everybody knows you will be gone and for how long. Make sure that anything that was promised to be completed before you leave will actually be completed so you are not dealing with anger and hostility when you return.

#5. Plan ahead for others. If you’re responsible for handling your boss or clients personal affairs, preplan for any important dates while you’re away. Try to think about all the little things you’d normally be asked about if you were in the office during the time period of your vacation. A little time spent being proactive will ensure that the office runs smoothly while you’re gone.

You’ve worked all year to earn your vacation time. Live in the moment and enjoy the time with your loved ones. No matter what happens at the office, it can wait until you return. Return to work rejuvenated and excited instead of feeling like you spent your whole vacation working. You deserve the rest. Enjoy it!

I woke up this morning and had one of those “You have GOT to be kidding!” moments when I realized that Thanksgiving is just days away and Christmas is right around the bend. Time is short for a lot of people and given all that is going on with our economy, money is probably tight, but who says the holidays can’t be a source of joy no matter what is going on in your life right now?

Here are some money saving tips that will help you brighten the holidays for yourself, your family and friends:

1. Budget your money. By making a budget for holiday spending and STICKING to it, you will reduce strain on your wallet and quite possibly, your marriage. Make a firm decision to not go beyond what you said you would and walk away from little extra items that just are not on your list.
2. Set aside holiday money. If you haven’t already done so for this year, consider setting up an automatic deposit to a savings account or Christmas Club fund for next year.
3. Look for discounts. I don’t know about you, but I never pay full price for anything other than groceries. Shop local outlet malls, discount and dollar stores, and go online to look for really great holiday sales. Being an inveterate online shopper, (I hate to shop!) I use a nifty free little service called Ebates that gives me cash back when I shop online using their service. Registration is free and you get a check in the mail, deposited to your PayPal account or you can donate your savings to a charity of your choice.
4. Potluck! Rather than host the entire holiday dinner or Christmas party at your own expense, make the gathering a potluck. Have each guest bring a special dish, dessert or beverage and enjoy all of the various and varied offerings. You may well find some new holiday favorites.
5. Give from the heart. The most priceless gifts can be the least expensive. Consider videotaping a message of love, or make a CD of favorite songs. Do you scrapbook? Create a family photo album or scrapbook of special memories. A love letter to your husband or wife will be cherished forever.
6. Plan your holiday travel. Be sue to book those travel tickets, hotel rooms and rental cars well in advance whenever you can. Consider using online resources such as Travelocity or Priceline to get the prices you can afford. My husband and I use both of these services regularly and have been known to nab a 4 star hotel in San Francisco or Seattle for under $100 a night and in one notable instance for $50! You can’t chose the hotel you want in advance, but you can choose the desired area and it is always fun to see what you will get.
7. Pick your plastic. If you can’t pay cash for your holiday expenditures, try to limit the damage to just one card and then call the credit card company to see if you can negotiate a low interest rate on it if you are pretty sure you won’t be carrying a large balance on it for very long. This is not a good time to go further into debt.
8. Order early. If, like me, you prefer shopping from home instead of getting clobbered in a mall, do your shopping early. Many retailers are also offering free shipping if you order early. You don’t want to be in a position where you have to pay a premium for shipping.