I'm now selling incredible make-up, and you can get points for buying!

Motives - Incredible Cosmetics

In this economy (which I don't have to explain to anyone), it seems that finally some of the big companies are figuring out that what we want is something we can afford . . . we want discounts, we want money back, we want rewards programs that actually mean something - such as, giving us points for things we actually plan to buy, therefore, getting something for free that we would have spent money on anyway.

I became a Market America Distributor last March, and I love the company. The products and systems have helped me lose 40 pounds and keep it off, have helped me GAIN BACK HEALTH in so many ways (more on all this later), and now they've energized their rewards program across the board so that when you go online to buy ANYTHING through my web portal you get points that you can turn into real merchandise. The stores you can purchase from to get these points run from Best Buy to Barnes and Noble to baby clothing stores, Travelocity, and much, much much much more. I love it! They've introduced a price comparison feature, customer reviews, and coming soon is the "unicart," a single shopping cart and one-time check-out that will handle your stuff from over 1,000 stores in ONE CART with one payment - and you can ship it to multiple addresses.

As of this posting, the products you can get for free for shopping in a variety of stores all come from the FEATURED BRANDS section of this page. Over the next few months, the products you can get will also come from the 1000+ Partner Stores, which are linked from the same page. The featured brands include some totally awesome health products that really work, such as the world-class OPC-3, an incredibly effective antioxidant and anti-inflammatory. I'll be talking about more supplements and products later, because they've helped me and people close to me so much. Since taking OPC-3, I no longer have the symptoms of fibromyalgia that plagued my life for maybe 20 years. If you think that doesn't make a huge difference in my life, just ask me! There are also anti-aging products, car care, pet care, and the wonderful high-quality Motives brand of make-up linked at the top of this page on my Motives Mini Web Site. Or you can see the Motives makeup display on my regular web portal.

If you find all of this intriguing and want a bigger piece of the action, just give me a call. Or if I've been obtuse and you'd like a better explanation of how to use the web site, I'd love to talk to you! I'm in Oregon: (503) 338-8646.

~ Sheryl

The wreck of the Peter Iredale on the beach in Warrenton, Oregon

I took this photo on July 23, although I'll use it for today's post. It's a nice one! I didn't mess with the color or any of the settings in photoshop. All I did was re-size it. It's been a cool year at the beach - cool as in almost cold. My Astoria dress code this year is a jacket and shorts.

I've been working a lot on our new web site. It has the awkward name of TPF's Animal Jewelry ~ Hand-Painted Animal Pins, at least for now. I launched it last week and I'm trying to raise its rank in the searches. Actually, for certain targeted searches, it's already coming up very well. It's been fun to do. It's a new format for me, with a data-driven system which makes uploading products a lot faster than in the existing gift shop. We have so many of these beautiful pins that I wanted to get them ALL online, not just a fraction of the inventory, and this is working. I still have a couple hundred (?) to do, and it's going well. I bought the site from myself in my new Market America venture, so it was also inexpensive - a big plus!

It seems there's been a lot of time spent on the phone with technical support and big companies for various reasons lately, and it's eaten up the time that I usually spend working on the web sites and blogs. I've been taking a lot of photos, as always, but not posting them. The great thing about digital photos is, I can store them on my hard drive and go back and find the date of the ones I want to post. I still intend to keep this particular blog as my journal, and I'll continue to update and back date as I can. Along with my my web site, it's becoming my home on the web. The blog is faster and more spontaneous. I still love the web site and feel that I have about the right balance between that and the blogs. Of course, I have the tapirs and gift shop on the web site, but I'll keep developing pages such as my photos section. Regarding blogs, I started too many of them when I was getting started, and pared them down in number with experience. I think it's about right now.

Yesterday I started something new. I had not wanted to take the time to get into social networking, although I knew it would be fun, but when my friend and tapir colleague, Sergio, invited me into Facebook, I got hooked. I found more tapir friends and colleagues there, and a few of non-tapir friends. I can see where this could take up a lot of time, but it's fun. I just took a movie quiz. Wish they would list more that I was interested in!

And one more thing. Soon the Transitions class that Sue and I are teaching will be completed. It's our first and we're looking forward to starting our next. We're just getting the flyers together and will start planning the class. It's been rewarding for sure, both taking and teaching, watching ourselves and other people begin to feel better than we have in years! I'll try to keep updating here!

One MORE thing. I finally downloaded IE 7 and am getting used to it. So, why am I not using Firefox? I can't seem to integrate Notepad for editing HTML for one thing, and for another thing, QuickBooks has to have IE in order to work. Who knew??? So that's more of my techno-time taken up this week. IE 6 finally crashed and I couldn't bring it all the way back up to speed. The blog spacing works differently in IE7, so let's see what I have to do to fix it.

Transitions Lifestyle Systems for weight loss and improved health

Click the link below for a

Downloadable Transitions Powerpoint Presentation

Call toll-free for info: (888) 325-3179
Ask for Sue or Sheryl

Once the PowerPoint downloads to your computer, just double-click the file and you can page through the presentation. It's fascinating and loaded with interesting info.

This powerpoint presentation explains the program and why it works where diets often fail, especially as we get older and become "metabolically challenged." The file is large, so please allow several minutes for download. The wait will be worth it! Find out why "diets aren't the solution - they are part of the problem!"

This program was created by Dr. Shari Lieberman. I didn't create this powerpoint, but I did lose 40 pounds using the Transitions system. It was a lot easier than I could have imagined, and it happened when I thought I simply could not lose the extra weight I'd gained no matter what I did! Transitions classes are highly recommended to learn and apply the system in a supportive environment. The accountability of being in a group is also very helpful. I took the class twice, and now Sue and I are teaching Transitions classes in Astoria.

If you have any questions, please send e-mail. No, I'm not ready to put my "before" pix online yet, but if you really want to see them, let me know. Maybe someday I'll have the courage. For now, I'm enjoying the results! Actually, my "part way through the class" "before" picture is in the powerpoint presentation along with an "after" photo. You'll have to download the powerpoint to see it! You can see how much my attitude about my looks changed as well.

I've also made a blog with some recipes you can use on this eating plan.

One of the biggest challenges for me with this system was not losing the 40 pounds, but parting with some of my favorite BIG t-shirts!

I was so affected by the Transitions system and the supplements available from Market America, that I am now a Market America Independent Distributor. Here's a link to my Market America web portal:

Accrue credits for shopping online!

Buy just about anything you need or want and get money back when you shop again. When you buy, you become a "preferred customer." The number of partner stores is mind-boggling. Check it out!

FREE Transitions Seminar in Astoria, April 30, 2008

Read or download flyer

Why diets don't work! Please see the flyer above and be sure to call (503) 338-8646, (503) 325-3179, or send e-mail to sign up for the free seminar.

Space is limited!

This is an exciting event . . . the FREE Transitions seminar I attended in 2007 changed my life. I lost 40 very stubborn pounds and achieved additional health goals.