Welcome to April!

We're starting to see a marked difference in the amount of daylight hours that we have. For me, that means I'm bursting with ideas and spending more time implementing them.

Enjoy these brief articles and don't forget to subscribe to the blog!

For complete articles and past articles, you can always find them at my website www.RoomToBreathe.org

Jessica Chapman
Chief A-to-B Gal

Accountability Check-in:

How are you doing on those goals you set at the beginning of the year? Send me your story for an opportunity to win a gift certificate for Cheffrey's : An American Bistro Restaurant.

Entries will be judged on:

• Storytelling creativity
• Type of goal
• Evidence of the goal being S.M.A.R.T. (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Timely)
• Where you are at in the process.
• How you've overcome obstacles to reaching the goal.

Deadline is May 1st at 5:00pm for entries! The winner will be announced in May's newsletter.

Going to a Tradeshow?
You don't have to take the tchotchkes home with you

We've all done it. We walked into the convention center and as we entered the main room we're handed "The Bag." Some would say it's really great that the organizers provide a bag that we can carry around the tradeshow floor with us. What a great way for us to take away those important leads and papers!

Where is that bag now? I'm going to bet that for many, it's been a year and "The Bag" from 2007's conference is sitting underneath a desk or in between the desk and the filing cabinet, with all of the "important leads and papers" still nicely nestled in it.

I'm all for tchotchkes, leads and important papers – if you are actually going to use them. Otherwise you're just taking up space in your suitcase and office for stuff that is going to sit under your desk until next year.

What would happen if you didn't take the bag in the first place?
What would happen if you brought your own bag?

Tradeshows are full of excitement and promise. Before walking the room ask yourself these questions:

• What do I plan on getting out of walking the floor?
• What leads am I looking for?
• What vendor services do I need?

When you're on the floor ask yourself these questions when you're about to pick up the squishy cell phone chair holder (or enter other tchotchke here – ruler, pens, measuring tape, keychain etc.):

• Is this something that will clutter my desk or space?
• Do I really need this (thing or flyer)?
• Do I have this at my office/home already?
• Will I really look at this to remember this person's company and contact information.

Have a plan when you go to a tradeshow. You'll get more out of it than just leads and papers!

Results are in! 3:08:39 and 94 years old and still counting.

I did it! I finished the Shamrock Half Marathon in just over 3 hours. My pace was an average 14½ minute mile. I feel overwhelmingly proud that I finished. You should have see me at mile 11. Thank goodness my friend Stacey came to do the last 3 miles with me. I am eternally grateful to her.

I look forward to the next half marathon. I'm planning on running another one later in the year and to shave those 8 minutes off to do it in under 3 hours. Anyone want to join me?

One of my most important motivators to exercise is my Grandmother. She has given me an amazing amount of fantastic advice over the years. She and I have a special bond as I lived with her during college in Connecticut; more like roommates than traditional Grandma and Grandkid. This year she turns 94 on April 5th. She is a delight and I'll be with her to celebrate her birthday. Here are some words I live by that have come out of her mouth at one point or another:

"Move it or lose it."
"Take what you need and leave the rest."
"It's New England, give it 5 minutes and the weather will change." (Okay, not too applicable in Sacramento, but it's still a great principle that change is always around us.)
"Do puzzles."
"God wouldn't give you anything you couldn't handle."
And finally, "Whatever." (Said with a magic wave of the hand).

Happy Birthday, Julia!

Sexy Cool Product you need to know about!

Emailing huge files is hard. Trying to send them clogs up my email and my internet service provider sometimes kicks back emails for being too big. For those of us less technically inclined, here is an FTP site to make it easier!

YouSendIt.com is a great way to send large files like powerpoint presentations or pictures to people.

FTP or File Transfer Protocol, according to Wikipedia, is a network protocol used to transfer data from one computer to another through a network, such as over the Internet.

YouSendIt.com provides a free platform to send files. How it works: You upload your file, enter in the email address of the recipient, they keep the file on their server for 7 days and send an email to the recipient with a link for them to pick up the file.

They make money when customers want to send multiple files at once or the files exceed a certain amount or you want a super ultra secure service. Even then, it's totally affordable.

Check it out!