After reading A Simple Form of Networking Even the Most Introverted Professional Can Enjoy, I started thinking about how networking really applies to my life as a work-at-home, homeschooling mom. I am introverted and often work with technology professionals who are also introverted, which is what first drew me to the article. But what strikes me is that most people think of networking in terms of social gatherings, groups of people, and meeting people they don’t know.

Maybe I’m wrong. But this is the mental image that networking immediately brings up for me. While I like people, that type of situation is a big energy drain for me and not usually the best use of my time.  And, as a at-home mom, with multiple responsibilities, social functions just aren’t very plausible.  I’m not apt to go out and “network” with professionals in my field very often.

But that’s the key there… “go out”. I do network. But I only go out and do it on a strategic, limited basis. As this article pointed out networking is really about building relationships. This I do for sanity – both as a homeschooling mom and as a working professional. My “going out and networking” is about getting together peridocially for lunch, or coffee, or maybe a periodic face-to-face meeting. If I’m at a conference, I may meet new people there and follow up.

But most of the time, my networking takes place where I work – on the computer and by phone. I build relationships with my clients via email, by phone, by sharing information I think they might find helpful, by filling their needs, and asking questions instead of making blind assumptions. I send cards at holiday times, and sometimes more often. Periodically when I’m thinking of someone, I’ll shoot them a quick email asking how they are doing or checking in with them. But not often enough to be a pest or disruption, but periodically to let them know that I haven’t forgotten about them. We all like to remembered, and to be thought of periodically.

I can’t go out and meet new people often. My time is limited. But in this online world, I meet new people anyway. Through forums, Yahoo groups, blogs, websites, and my favorite – online classes. Some people I keep in touch with via email or IM.  Others I follow on Linkedin, and most recently Facebook and Twitter. So networking really isn’t an issue, unless I want it to be. I am limited in my at-home lifestyle by only my imagination and the amount of time and energy I choose to put forth.

The real point of networking, as this article points out, is not to meet as many people as you can, but to build relationships. Helping others, encouraging other, and being a resource for them – that’s what we should be about anyway.

The life of a work-at-home, homeschooling mom is a lot about taking care of things – for our families, for our spouses, for our work. But in all this it is very easy to let taking care of ourselves slip or even put on the back burner.

For the last few years I’ve been on a concentrated journey to regain my health. Something that was dangerously close to the edge the result of the first few years I worked at home. I pushed and pushed, trying to do it all, and in the meantime would forget to eat, put off exercising, and rarely slept. It messed with my thyroid, my metabolism, and caused a dangerous situation. Thankfully, I’ve been able to make recoveries, and while I still have a ways to go,  I am healthier now both physically and mentally than I have been in many years.

Unfortunately, sometimes it takes a hard, in-your-face crisis to get there. Tonight I pray for a dear friend, another work-at-home, homeschooling mom, who had a heart attack this week. Pushing too much, trying to do it all, is not good for anyone, including ourselves, obviously. But also not good for our families or our spouses.

I pray that others will take our lessons and not go through it themselves. Please don’t try to do it all, to fit it all in in one day. It’s not possible, nor is it reasonable to expect of yourself. Take the time for yourself, for your sanity, for your health, so that you can be whole and healthy. It’s not being selfish. It’s part of serving those around you. A healthy, sane mom and wife is worth more than a worn-out, tired, ill mom and wife.  Believe me. I know. Learning it the hard way isn’t fun.

Last night a friend and I were discussing websites, blogs, and business plans and little things that we were stumbling over. She shared that one of the things holding her back from launching her new website/blog was deciding on where to host it.

I could totally relate, because that’s something that’s held me up on expanding my internet business plans for several years. Finally, last year I hit on a combination that I really like.

In 2004, when I first ventured out into the blogging community, I started on Blogger. In fact those blogs are still out there, even though I haven’t updated them in two years, and maybe one day I’ll port them over.

I liked Blogger, and really liked how easy it was to use Picasa to post photos. But I wasn’t fond of the fact that Blogger determined if my blogs stayed or not and I really wanted more control over the blogs. I know several who are very happy with Blogger, but I decided I wanted to self-host my blogs.

By that time I had done enough research and decided on using WordPress as my blog engine. I love the ease of using WordPress and the number of tools, plugins, templates, and tutorials out there to help me. But hosting was a bit of an issue.

For my domain names I use Directnic.com, purely based on a recommendation from my techie brother. And I’ve stayed with them for all but two of my domian names (see update below).

I like having the separation between host and domain registar. It gives me a comfort for some reason. And considering I switched web hosts 4 times in two years, it turned out to be a good thing. It is really easy for me to change the DNS server on my domains registered with Directnic.

For web hosts, I started out with one website in 2002 on a shared private server. It was free and generous, but in order to make changes I needed to go through the administator. I couldn’t make the changes myself.

So, without really doing a lot of research, in 2006, I moved to GoDaddy.com. I was inexperienced and ended up getting confused and buying more than what I needed and not exactly what I wanted. 

I still have my domains (see update below) and one email account hosted through Godaddy. And I’ve been happy with that. I just don’t care for all the upselling. A little upselling is good (would you like fries with that?) but too many choices everytime I make a selection is overwhelming to me. So, I sought a simpler approach.

Based on a recommendation from a person I respect, I moved over to GOT-hosting.com. It was simple, helpful, and reasonably priced. I would have stayed with them, but as the number of sites our family needed/wanted grew, I started wondering if there was a solution that would be more cost effective for a large number of sites.

Well God has an amazing way of answering prayer. In 2008, on a teleseminar on information products, Bob Bly mentioned a host that allowed unlimited domains to be hosted for one price – Hostgator.com.  I could hardly believe it, but it is true.

After checking out Hostgator’s site, flipping through their tutorials and help info, I talked to my hubby and we decided to try it with a new site I was creating for him. I found a coupon code that allowed me to get the first month’s hosting for a penny (yep, 1 cent!) and got started.

Now I have all but one domain hosted with them and have been very pleased. So far I haven’t found anything I haven’t liked  – support has been great, all the abilities I wanted are there, and I’m not overwhelmed.

If you want to self-host a WordPress blog, no matter what host you do go with, be sure they have Fantastico, so installing a WordPress blog (and other neat tools) can be done very quickly and in a few simple steps. (If you need help with this, feel free to email me, I’ll share my how-to install WordPress instructions.)

Anyway, hope that helps someone. If you have gone down this road and have some insight, please share. We can all learn from each other.

Update – Feburary 2011: It’s two years since I originally wrote this post and Istill love HostGator for hosting my wordpress blogs and websites, but purely for economical reasons I have changed who I get my domains through. 

I am now using GoDaddy for my domain names, simply because they are less expensive and I can get up to 30% discounts that allow me to pick up a domain name for as low as $7.49/year. As I get more domains it’s important to me to manage my costs, and going with the lower cost domains make a big difference the more domains you have over time.  

I still don’t like all the upsells at GoDaddy, but now I know to ignore them and just get what I need. And the domain manager has some re-direct features that are easier to use than with Directnic. 

If you have a need to register a domain and want to get it at the $7.49 domain price tag, click on this link to get the discount: Domain Sale! $7.49 .com at GoDaddy

If you’d like to give Hostgator a try, click on the link or image above and use this Hostgator coupon code “1cent“to get the first month’s hosting for only a penny.