About Me, How I Went From Being
Computer Illiterate...

...to Being the Webmaster of Tea Party Guide

Hello and welcome to my about me page! I am Sheila, a stay-at-home-Mom of three daughters and wife to one wonderful hubby!

Thank you for taking the time to find out a little about me and my helpers (my family), and what made me start a website about tea parties with no knowledge of HTML and very little knowledge of computers. In fact, I basically knew how to email, type a text document and had just recently learned how to get pictures off of our digital camera (but to do anything with them in the computer always confused me!)

Well, with three girls, you know we/they play(ed) lots of dress-up games! Especially when they were younger, I felt like I was always zipping someone up, tying this or that or helping someone wiggle out of their fancy dress. Now, as they get older, I am not so much the 'Keeper of the Couture Closet' as I am the 'Head Honcho of the Dust Bunny Herd' and 'Disaster Relief Supervisor' when the house looks like a tornado went through, which is frequent!

What concerned me, and at the same time frustrated me, was the fact that the 'niceties of society' seemed to be nowhere in sight, and my daughters weren't getting any positive re-enforcements from third party sources of things I was trying to instill in them like manners, etiquette (yes, they are two different things), and good principles that would make them strong ladies, not easily swayed by the whims of a society that places little value on dignity, veracity and decorum.

My solution?
Try to find out what all our parents and grandparents were taught in the everyday situations of life. I am thankful that my parents relayed a lot of this to us growing up, but to recognize it and affirm it was now my duty to my children so they could now 'practice what we were preaching'! ;-) So, through the years with my acquired knowledge, I tried to implement these findings in my daily duties to my children and in instructing/correcting them and encouraging them when their manners and behavior were commendable.

How to do this?
Everyone knows that to be drilled on something or corrected for something all the time can be mundane. How many of us still roll our eyes or think 'oh, boy, here we go again!' when we hear someone say: 'elbows off the table', or 'stand up straight'?

Well, its in trying to avoid this exasperation in my children that I have wanted a nice fun way to instill some of these principles. Have I succeeded? I'm not sure on some days ;-), but most people will compliment us on our childrens' behavior especially in public places like stores, restaurants, and doctor offices. '

This is a great consolation to us, but makes me sad for the secretaries/receptionists who have to put up with uncontrolled children running around a doctor's office, (remember the old days, when everyone, even children knew you should be still and quiet in such a place?) or youngsters who don't know how to behave at a table in a restaurant? (How many times has your meal been interrupted by a family who thinks their loud unruly children are cute or funny?)

And, just to make sure no one misunderstands me, I am NOT advocating a "Children should be seen and not heard" mentality. Some take this to such an extreme, that the children, although they can be quiet, STILL do not know how to behave in public and have almost no concept of common courtesies that they should have been taught from a young age.

So, to help others in an UN-mundane way help their children and friends (and ourselves) learn the 'niceties of society' and proper manners, I thought a website about something fun, that uses proper manners, and helps teach etiquette in an enjoyable way would be beneficial to other parents. So the idea of Tea Party Guide was born!

Now, you might ask 'Why a website when you could just write a book or write articles for other large article sites like E-zine articles and Hubpages?' (I have written articles, but no book :-) ) Well, the main reason is that I am learning that websites are fast becoming the 'go-to' source for everything. Even for myself who isn't a 'techie'.

~Do I ever pull out a cookbook now-a-days? Rarely! I run to the computer and search for what I want to make.

~An encyclopedia? We don't even own a set!

So, A website it is...

My husband and I have a goal of retiring within 10 years. I wanted something that could help us toward that goal but I didn't want something I would be tied too, having to meet deadlines, or ship out products. I didn't want to have to be tied to the computer 8 hours a day or not be able to work just when I wanted or had time to.

So I knew that freelance work, medical transcriptionist and the likes wouldn't be for me, and writing and publishing a book can be expensive. I also knew that I didn't want the drudgery of online auctions, having to list products, re-list if they didn't sell and then ship stuff out when they did sell.

Working for me wasn't a necessity, in fact, when I do work, it is very part-time and just helps to cover the tuition at the girls' school. I had helped out at the school where our children go, teaching a couple classes for three years, to help with the expense of private education, but if the kids were sick or I was sick, I felt like I wasn't fulfilling my duty first of all to my family if I went in to work and second of all to my employer if I stayed home, which of course is what you do when the kids are sick.

So, we decided no more working outside the home for me. I only worked at the school, so I would be home for school breaks and such, so it's not like I gave up some fabulous career or a large income, :-) but it meant we now were back the added expense of paying tuition...

Thankfully, my husband has a good enough job that allows me to be at home. Things are tighter, but we do manage.

Last school year in the winter of 2007-8, I knew I wasn't going to teach any more, so I started looking more seriously at trying to find something to do from home. Like I said above, I didn't want definite commitments that would still be like I wasn't here for my kids. I needed something that I could do working from home but be able to start and stop when I wanted, or when the kids needed me. I needed something that if I didn't do anything for a day or two it wouldn't be the end of the world (or my job).

I had looked for several years for something I could do with my very limited talent. I'm a sloooow typist, not properly trained at secretarial skills, and I have no other real talent that I thought would help me earn an income. Or so I thought...

I was very leery of anything promising the sky. You know those sites that say 'sign up today at our special rate'... with a higher amount crossed out and a half price amount in bold red? They also usually have an expiration clock running. I got wise to that one when I bookmarked one I was interested in to show my hubby. A couple days later I showed it to him and of course, it had a new date/day showing, and another count-down clock running! HMMMMMMM!

So whenever I found one I was interested in, I started doing searches for 'xyz review' or 'xyz scam'. This helped immensely, because it just automatically changed my mind when I read about all the difficulties people had with not being able to contact a real person, not able to get their credit card refunded, or even worse recurring charges that they couldn't get stopped without filing a complaint and/or stop charges through their credit card company.

In the midst of all this I came across Site Build It! and was very impressed, but I thought it was too good to be true. No company would give all they say they would give for $299. My initial thought was there must be recurring monthly charges on top of that, so I left it. I had gotten so disgusted with trying to sort through all the bologna, I kind of gave up for awhile.

Then early in the Spring of 2008 I came across Site Build It! again, this time through an actual site I was looking at and I happened to read their 'about me' page. I thought to myself, WOW, this person is really building a site and is saying SBI is all it says it is and MORE! That really got me interested and motivated.

With our investments dropping due to the recession and no security in Social Security, I really wanted to find something that would be recession proof. Right now, as I write this it's the Spring of 2009 and we are in a recession. This makes our goal of retiring seem impractical right now, but we are still plugging toward our goal, sooo...

My husband said, 'You can try it and if you can make it pay for itself in the first year, you can continue on.

Long story short:
We are celebrating our first year of being online today, (yes, April Fools Day, but this is no joke) and we would like to take this time to thank each of you for your support over the last 12 months. When I started Tea Party Guide, I had my doubts, (and so did others) if I could do it or not, but lo and behold, one year later I have a thriving website that will be paying for itself and then some!

I Ignored the Nay-sayers!
I had "helpful" friends and extended family that were sooo encouraging. When I would mention I was building a website, they would look surprised and say, 'Really? You?'

Then, trying to be polite they would ask, 'So, what are you building a site about?'

When I would respond 'Tea Parties' the doubt in their eyes and voices was unmistakable!

BUT I didn't really blame them. I truly had no computer skill to brag about. I knew how to email and make a text document in notepad, but that was about it!!!

I had no prior knowledge of how to build a website, but thanks to SBI, I have been able to become a successful 'info-publisher' and to start slowly but surely to make an income online.

If you have a hobby, something fun you like to do like sailing, golf, crafts..., or have a passion for traveling, gardening or just about anything you can imagine, you can do this too.

See for yourself the wide variety of ideas that can be used to create successful websites, and then compare the costs of 'cheaper web-hosting' to the cost of SBI!, and know with certainty that you are getting a unique value for your money!

Start today to take your future securely into your hands, watch this video tour and know that you are making a difference first of all to your family and secondly to the world, offering them your unique knowledge of your passion.

Sheila,
Your Tea Party Guide

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