Tracy:
Welcome to Women in WP, a bi-monthly podcast about women who blog, design, develop, and more in the WordPress Community.
Tracy:
Hi Women in WP listeners. This is Tracy with a quick message from our sponsor, WP Remote. WP Remote is a dedicated care plan platform that will help fuel your agency’s growth with maintenance care plans for your clients’ websites. WP Remote provides an automated workflow for you to manage multiple sites from one central dashboard. With one-click updates, incremental backups, automated malware scans, firewall, uptime monitor and more. WP Remote is created by the same great folks behind BlogVault, MalCare, and Migrate Guru. Save time, increase your revenue, and make your clients happy by trying WP Remote today for free. Learn more at wpremote.com.womeninwp. And now on to our show.
Angela:
Hi, welcome to Women in WP. I’m Angela Bowman.
Amy:
And I’m Amy Masson.
Tracy:
And I’m Tracy Apps.
Angela:
Our guest today is Cousett Hoover. Cousett teaches others how to use WordPress including WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads, LearnDash, including mompreneurs who were working by themselves to build a business they love. Cousett is joining us from Austin, Texas. Welcome, Cousett.
Cousett:
Thank you. Thank you for having me. I’m super excited.
Angela:
As you may know, we like to start off each episode by asking our guests how they got into WordPress. Tell us how you got started.
Cousett:
Oh boy. So WordPress, specifically, I was… Well, to get to WordPress, I had to get into tech. And just a quick little fact, I was born in Silicon Valley in the San Jose area. And we moved in at 2000 to the Austin area. So I say that was move from Silicon Valley to Silicon Hills. And so my tech goes way back to… My dad spent, I think, 50 years at IBM. And WordPress, specifically, I have a background in computer science. My BA is in computer science. And so I knew about PHP. I knew about different systems and software and stuff like that.
Cousett:
And I want to say it was 2005, I was at South by Southwest. And there was a talk by Matt about blogging systems. And I was like, “Well, I got to go check this out.” And so that night, I installed it. I had Bluehost, HostGator, I don’t know, some random system because at the university, we only had HTML access to a server to do websites. So I got a server and installed it and the rest is history. I have just been using it throughout since. So yeah.
Tracy:
I love it. I feel like that’s very similar to my story because I feel like at university, you had to Telnet in and use the Pico editor and HTML.
Amy:
Pico, oh my God. [crosstalk 00:03:44].
Tracy:
And that’s early on in the South By. I attended South By, I don’t even know, probably a couple of years after that. And it was great because then, it really was a great networking environment. Now it’s just too big that you can’t make any sort of connections and such at that. But that’s huge. Now that you’ve been in the WordPress community, have you had any experience within networking with WordCamps or any of those kinds of-?
Cousett:
Oh, yeah, for sure. I love WordCamps. I’ve organized two for Austin, and went to my first US in 2017, I believe. No, it was after… Sorry. I now do events by when my kids were born. It was 2018. So right when Gutenberg came out. It was a really fun… It was in Nashville. And I’m really getting into speaking now at WordCamp. So I did all online this year because of corona. But I did San Antonio and Austin this year and was going to speak at Houston. But they decided to wait till they could do a live in person event.
Tracy:
What do you speak on?
Cousett:
Oh, all kinds of things. For Austin, I did Mompreneurs Powered by WordPress and the power of passive income. And that was a really, really fun talk. I really love that talk and want to move forward with that and the idea. And for San Antonio, I did kind of a showdown of all of the different builders. So I did Divi and Elementor and Beaver Builder and Gutenberg. And we kind of went through all the different builders and kind of their show down and introduced builders to a lot of people that didn’t know they existed or stuff like that.
Amy:
Which WordCamp was that at because I’ve sat through one of those before?
Cousett:
San Antonio.
Amy:
Okay. I haven’t been there. So not that one.
Tracy:
That sounds amazing. I hope that is recorded and online.
Amy:
WordPress TV.
Cousett:
Yeah. I looked for it recently and I couldn’t find it. I know Austin’s videos are going up slowly and that was just in October. So it was really quick. Contact maybe the organizers of San Antonio and see if they need help or something. It was the first one that was done online. So I’m also wondering if they didn’t get a good recording or something.
Tracy:
Oh, that sounds amazing, though. I feel like that could just be its own video for education. That’s really great. And you said you had a background in kind of that education.
Cousett:
I do.
Tracy:
I want to hear more about that because I love that.
Cousett:
I do too. So my two loves since early on were kind of teaching and helping people and tech, and I kept trying to look for a way to kind of integrate the two. And at the PhD level, I finally found educational technology. Which learning technologies are different, places call it different things. So I absolutely love that. And I got pretty far into the program and then got pregnant, and I just couldn’t do it anymore. But I hope to go back. And I’m definitely bringing that into my business and into my every day life. Just that background and that love for learning.
Cousett:
When I work with clients, I very much work with them. That’s why I kind of call it the DIY Mompreneurs because I expect them to put as much into it as I put into it. I tend to shy away from the bigger projects of like, “You go do everything and then give it to me.” And that’s just my style. I’ve had both and can probably make a lot more from the second method. But I love making the connections with the people and showing them WordPress and showing them everything that can be done with WordPress. I mean, we were talking about LearnDash and Easy Digital Downloads like it’s no big deal.
Cousett:
But so many people are going to SendOwl or Teachable and then they’re paying a monthly fee. And it’s so much more expensive. And it’s not on their own server. And so there’s also the risk of just going away tomorrow. And it’s not as easy to have a backup of everything and stuff like that. So I try and bring that to light. And a lot of people just don’t know how powerful WordPress can be.
Tracy:
That’s so needed. Yep, I agree.
Amy:
So when you’re working with… Somebody comes to you. You’re not working in the model of, “I’m going to make it all for you and then give it over.” You’re actually just teaching them how to use that stuff. So how does that work? So when a client comes to you, how does that process go?
Cousett:
Depending on how much they want to do, I work with them with that, but usually, what I’m doing is the setup for the backend of the more complex stuff. So I will maybe do one of their landing pages but I will record how to do it as I’m doing or something like that. And so then they can see how to do it in the future. Or for like LearnDash or Easy Digital Downloads, I might set up the backend like the payment and stuff like that that you do one time, and then you don’t really have to worry about it. And then I show them how to actually add the items or create the course and edit the course and stuff like that. I try and give them just as much as they want to learn. Try and give them that flexibility.
Amy:
So a lot of problems with clients that they have, they really want to do it. But then once they give it a try and they get stuck, it ends up coming back to me. Do you have a process that gets them better equipped to manage it on their own?
Cousett:
So I have a couple different things. I have my membership, which is a collection of a whole bunch of different videos. And the way I’m doing the membership, instead of having super polished videos and super polished courses, if they come up with a question, I try to set up an easy digital download. But this isn’t working. I’ll try and get on and do a video of that exact scenario. And I have permission from them to record their site. And so then I do it, I record it, and then I put it into the membership so that if someone else runs into that same issue, I just send them that video. And I’m really excited about that. I have a small, small group. So I haven’t done a ton of that. But I think it’s a really awesome way to kind of get some of those things that come up, those weird things because with WordPress, it’s always just kind of these odd weird things that come up. And kind of have a little repository of little videos, of little fixes and stuff like that.
Tracy:
Yeah, I agree. And it’s a lot of things that are repeatable, whatever. What’s your most common question or hang up that your clients are getting into?
Cousett:
That’s a good question. I think SEO is a big thing. Performance is a big thing. When you’re doing things yourself, and I’m so guilty of this, too. So I tell them, do what I say and not what I preach, or do what I say, not what I do. But there’s this, you want to try different plugins. And so you start installing all these different plugins. And then you’re bloating your site. So I’m the queen of that probably because… So just understanding kind of what goes into the WordPress site and what goes into the performance. A lot of people don’t resize their images. So understanding how that affects performance.
Cousett:
The SEO, and I’m still learning a lot about SEO. I don’t say that I’m an expert in it, but I think there’s a lot of misperceptions. It’s like this fancy acronym that stands for what and they don’t realize. And then they get so stuck up with the light colors on Yoast or whatever. And those drive me nuts because I’m like, “Well, I’m writing about more complex things. I’m writing about WordPress. It’s not going to be at a second grade level or whatever.” I don’t know. It’s probably not second grade level, but fifth grade level, or whatever it’s targeted at.
Cousett:
So just kind of understanding that there’s more to SEO than just kind of being those green lights. I actually found a plugin called SEO Framework that I really love. It doesn’t have really any lights. It comes back and tells you a little bit about your title links and stuff like that. And then it has a good way of looking up keywords and things to include, but it doesn’t have that kind of system of checkboxes. And I get it. It’s a great way to kind of get started with SEO, but I think it can also be a limiter when you have great content and it just doesn’t check all the boxes necessarily.
Angela:
Yeah. I teach a six-hour SEO class and that’s something that I really have to tell people. It’s like the goal is not to get the green lights. You could get all the green lights and have horrible SEO because you could be optimizing on something no one is searching for. And also, if you don’t have the pro edition of Yoast, you’re only optimizing on one keyword phrase. And most posts are going to rank for multiple keyword phrases. And it’s not sensitive enough to know like, “Well, are you using singular or plural or the order of the words?” And kind of used to be like those very kind of crude stringing together these words multiple times on the page. Got it. But the Google AI is so much more nuanced now that I tell them, “These are internal checkboxes. Think of the lights in your brain going off. And are you using keywords in your headings? Or are all your headings just throw away things? And it’s not to make the plugin happy and getting all those green lights does nothing for Google. Google’s not reading your green lights.”
Angela:
This is all just a mental note-minders for you to think, “Did I do these things or not?” And it’s up to you to decide if you did them, not the green lights because you may have done it and the green light didn’t pick it up.
Cousett:
Right. Yeah.
Angela:
But that’s a whole thing because then people are like, “Well, I have all the green lights. Why isn’t it ranking?” Yeah. We’ve had a couple really great people on the show. Kate Toon from Australia. If you’re not familiar with her work, definitely check out her episode that we had. She has this whole online SEO class, and she focuses on business owners. So it might be something your business owners would love to do.
Cousett:
Yeah, for sure. What’s here name again? Kate?
Angela:
Kate Toon, K-A-T-E T-O-O-N, and she has some great courses. But yeah, I agree. SEO and performance tend to be… Once you get the nuts and bolts of like, “Oh, okay, the site’s up and it’s working. What next?” Now you need a better web host. You built it and no one came.
Angela:
You’ve also worked with Multisite and set up that for St. Edwards University. Is that still running or do you-?
Cousett:
I believe it is. I left St. Eds about five years ago, maybe six now when I got married. I guess seven. I’m like, “How many years have I been married?” But I believe it is. We set up a Multisite where every student, staff, and faculty member had their own website. So it was kind of replacing the old school HTML space that they had, server space that they had. And then lots of faculty wanted to take that to another level of having their own little Multisite. And so a lot of people did, including I taught a tech class for in-service teachers, or pre-service teachers, sorry. And so we did their portfolios on WordPress. And they learned how to create kind of their own little website and do their portfolio and add different things and all of that cool stuff.
Angela:
That’s awesome.
Cousett:
Trained the teachers to use WordPress and tech and stuff. Yeah.
Angela:
Yeah. I’m doing that with the University of Colorado now.
Cousett:
Awesome.
Angela:
Yeah, it’s brand new, but we want it… And it’s just for not the whole university, but one institute. But everyone was kind of on other sorts of platforms like Google Sites. Or we wanted to give them something really beautiful to use as well that had all the university branded typography and colors and that we could spin it up really easily. So I set up the system and then trained the IT people like, “Here’s how to clone one of these sites.” So it has all the Elementor templates and all the group blocks and styles. And it’s been great to see how much service Multisite can provide to an org in a large organization like that.
Cousett:
Yeah, for sure.
Angela:
It’s really fun.
Cousett:
It’s really powerful. Yeah. It’s another beast because there’s a lot of things that don’t work the same way but it’s really powerful. And I think it’s a really great option if people have multiple websites that they’re running or for organizations like these that need a bigger platform that are all running the same thing.
Tracy:
Yeah. It’s interesting. I’ve set up a couple Multisites and I run all of my sites off of a Multisite right now because I feel like I just do this little… I want to spin up a website because I bought a domain name because on a whim, so I want to be able to spin up a site and everything. And it’s one of those things. I think it’s this so powerful and it’s just this kind of sleeping beast because it’s kind of this mysterious where people are like, “Oh, yeah, there’s Multisite.” But Multisite, there’s so much you can do with that. And to have a whole university, that is impressive. What kind of things did you learn from that about especially with performance and getting that set up on such a large scale?
Cousett:
Large scale. Yeah. So we worked with CampusPress, the WPMU Dev. So they were hosting for us. And it was interesting working with them because I could request certain plugins and themes and stuff like that to be available. But it was definitely kind of a back and forth of what can go on there and not and stuff that. And we had faculty that were really excited about… Gosh, I forgot the name of the theme. The theme that must not be named.
Angela:
Was it like Thesis or something?
Cousett:
Yes.
Angela:
Yes, it was Thesis. I knew it. That would be controversial theme.
Amy:
I was an early Thesis person. I moved on.
Angela:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Me too.
Amy:
But I’ve been there.
Angela:
Oh my goodness.
Cousett:
So we tried to get Thesis for this faculty member on there and it just did not work at all. And it just reinvigorated me the idea that it was such a controversial theme. And just kind of the biggest thing, I think, was managing all the faculty with requests of like, “Well, are you doing a plugin that will do X, Y, and Z? Can we get it?” And I was kind of that gate between us and our host, which was WPMU to kind of be like, “Okay, let me go research this and see if it’ll work or if there’s another option or whatever.” And that was a good and bad. Our web team really wanted us to have full control over the host team. And we thought about that, and we looked at those options, and like, “Well, we can spin up a Multisite. That’s no issue.”
Cousett:
But it was all the backend of LDAP for the login. And we wanted it to be as seamless as possible with the systems that were already there. And you probably know, Angela, you’ve worked with academia, there’s a lot of systems that are very specific in academia that you don’t encounter anywhere else. And so that was a big thing to be able to do that and working with CampusPress, which they had it… I think CampusPress is our new name. So hopefully I’m saying that right. They have worked with other universities, other schools and stuff like that. So they had a lot of experience with that. And I think in the day, I think was the way to go especially since I was kind of the WordPress guru in the Instructional Technology Department and with me leaving, that left a lot of people that needed some support from the host and that’s what they were offering as well.
Angela:
Yeah. My project, they’re self-hosting on their own servers. I don’t even know where those are or how that’s set up, but they do put kind of everything behind the VPN that we have to, the Cisco VPN. But I did have to train in a way their IT people like, “Here are the issues with WordPress security. Here’s what you need to be mindful of.” And they were great because then they dug in to how they might need to configure things and then backups. And then also, how do you backup Multisite? And yeah. I was very relieved to not have that responsibility as an outside person for sure. But it’s really great to know that there are these other hosting platforms for universities. And that’s not something I was specifically aware of.
Cousett:
Yeah. CampusPress was great because they took care of the security. They take care of the backups and stuff like that. I mean, WPMU Dev is the original Multisite because it was MU before. It was Multisite. So they have a lot of experience dealing with Multisite. That was their big thing. And now they’re gaining more into agencies and doing… They have SmartCrawl Pro. I don’t know if you know that plugin for SEO and Smush and everybody knows Smush. And so they have a nice suite for agencies to use for their sites and stuff like that too. But they originally kind of came up and growing with Multisite.
Angela:
I noticed that you not only teach people how to have online classes, but you have some of your own online courses as well. Is there a certain one of yours that’s most popular? And how does it work?
Cousett:
Yeah. So Life After Blog Setup is one that I created for the Genius Bloggers Toolkit. And that one’s gotten really popular. That covers kind of, “Okay, I got my site installed. Now what?”
Tracy:
Now what? I love the name. Yay, now what?
Cousett:
Because I think that’s a big question. And that goes into, again, like, “Hey, you can have a store on here. There’s WooCommerce. There’s LearnDash. There is Easy Digital Downloads. There’s so many. You can have your portfolio. You can sell your services. There’s so many things that you can do with WordPress.” And then it also covers kind of security and backups and kind of all those maintenance tasks that you have to do. And so that one’s been really good. I think a lot of people really like that one. Also in the pro version, I’m speaking at the Blogger Breakthrough Summit, and the Pro Pass has also been included. So yeah.
Cousett:
And then in my membership, I have more courses. I don’t have a lot of courses that are very set up as more of a start to finish course, just time wise with my two kids and corona. Having them be here all the time makes it a little harder to record and have something a little bit more polished. But I do have kind of a very intense start to finish kind of set up your WordPress website talking about all the different… I kind of took a stance of like, “Okay, there’s not one best hosting company. Here are your options. Here are your price options. Pick one.” And then again, with builders, there’s not one builder to answer all your questions. Here are the different options.
Cousett:
And so I talk about kind of all that setup, and SEO, and stuff like that. And so that one’s included in the membership right now. And I’m in the process of making it available outside the membership as well. But that one’s a really cool one. That one has hours of video training and content, stuff like that. So I even go into like, “What’s a domain? What’s an extension?” It’s another thing that I run into a lot of like, “I want to have a super, super long convoluted domain because it’s a .com. And I don’t want any other kind of extension.” And I’m like, “You could do a .blog or all these really cool extensions. Isn’t .com still better for SEO?” I don’t know. Angela, you might have a different opinion. But from what I’ve read, it’s not unless it’s a really spammy extension.
Angela:
Yeah. I mean, what I tell people is they need a domain name that’s radio ready.
Cousett:
I like that. I like that. I’ve heard that too. The radio ready is a new phrase, but that you can say over the phone and people can type it out easily.
Amy:
Sometimes I’ll tell people to get the one that has their name in it that might be longer for the SEO and then have a radio ready that goes to the same place just to make it easier. One for saying and one for writing.
Cousett:
Right, yeah. I have cousett.com but nobody can spell my name because it’s French and it’s not the French spelling.
Angela:
And you could have mompreneur, and that would not be any easier to spell.
Amy:
Yeah, I can’t spell that.
Tracy:
True. I can’t spell entrepreneur ever. Constantly, I put it into Google and it’s like, “Google, you know what I’m trying to say. Just help me.”
Amy:
No, I can never spell that one. Nope.
Cousett:
I have Techie Mamma and then I do have a mompreneur one, but it just forwards to the same place. But Techie Mamma is my main domain. And it’s a little weird on the spelling but I think it’s easy enough to say it.
Angela:
At least you spelled tech right. I had a domain where I spelled it like T-E-K. Who’s ever going to know that? In the late 90s, I was Angel Tech but with T-E-K because I couldn’t get T-E-C-H.
Amy:
That sounds like toilet paper.
Angela:
It does. Or something you wrap your house in to weatherize it or something.
Amy:
Insulation.
Tracy:
Sick of being cold in winter? Angel Tek.
Angela:
Angel Tek.
Tracy:
Oh my goodness.
Amy:
So what are you using for your video streaming?
Cousett:
Video streaming, I use combination of different things. I have ManyCam on my computer. For video recording for the courses or for video streaming for-?
Angela:
Your streaming.
Tracy:
We want to know it all.
Amy:
Vimeo or YouTube or something else.
Cousett:
Okay. So again, since my life is chaotic with a four-year-old and a two-year-old. I record on Sunday usually for my Monday live and I use something called OneStream Live and it automatically will schedule it to all of the different streams. And then I use ManyCam. And then I’ve started playing with Mmhmm. I don’t know if you guys have heard of that new one. It’s literally Mmhmm, M-M-H-M-M because I watched a video about this and they had to be able to say it with a taco in their mouth.
Amy:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). I like tacos.
Angela:
I like tacos too. Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Tracy:
See it works. Oh my gosh.
Cousett:
Look it up, it’s really cool. It’s kind of this other take on Zoom or whatever. You can cut yourself out and make yourself bigger and smaller and do different backgrounds and it’s kind of cool. My latest live, I did it with Mmhmm. It just sounds so good.
Tracy:
I’m writing that down. That sounds amazing.
Cousett:
My husband the other day, he’s like, “Oh, wait, that was actually a word.” So I play with different things but for the scheduling, OneStream Live is really cool. And then ManyCam helps with the video since I’m in the middle of our playroom. Currently, I have a nice digital background.
Angela:
What about if you’re sharing a screen, what do you use for recording your screen?
Cousett:
All of those will let you share screen.
Angela:
Oh, okay. Cool.
Cousett:
Well, OneStream Live is more for just the scheduling part. But ManyCam will let you share screen really nicely. And you can kind of resize it and stuff like that. So usually, I do it with that. I could also do it in Camtasia and have more control over things. But since my lives are usually just really quick tutorials, I use one of the other tools.
Tracy:
These are great.
Angela:
It’s awesome.
Tracy:
That Mmhmm, that kind of reminds me of when /. Was really big. And people are like, “Well, what was the name?” Well, if you say http://., it’s funny. Try to say that, ha, ha, ha, ha. Mmhmm. I’m writing this down. I’m totally going to try using some of these.
Amy:
I’ve been taking notes too.
Angela:
This will all be in the show notes with links to everything.
Cousett:
Awesome. Yeah. I call myself the app queen because I love trying out different apps. Well, this will work better.
Tracy:
I hear you. Yeah, I do the same. I have gadgets and gizmos galore. Right? And I feel as a part of that wanting to learn, but also educate because understanding it. Because I was like, “I just keep downloading these and trying all these different applications and this and that and everything.” But that has prepared me to be able to do client work and help people. So I’ve tried this. And these things are better. Or did you know that this thing is out there? You have this problem. Did you know that there’s this thing that I randomly stumbled upon and I was bored? I fell down the internet rabbit hole and I found this thing. So it ends up actually being really good business sense to just get lost on the internet. Right?
Angela:
Yeah, I think that’s a great rationalization, Tracy.
Tracy:
I mean, that’s what I tell myself anyway.
Amy:
I end up getting caught up with all of the annual recurring fees for all the different things I buy. And then I realized, “Oh, I used this one time three years ago. I probably don’t need to keep paying for it.” But then I’ve got it sitting on one website that I have to maintain the license just for that one site. And I redo this all the time.
Tracy:
Isn’t there a service that’ll check and see what all your subscriptions are? Or maybe it’s-
Cousett:
There’s one that helps you track it that was a freebie on AppSumo at one point.
Tracy:
I need that one.
Angela:
Another tool that we can get.
Amy:
We need that. Our listeners need that.
Angela:
We need that. Whenever I reconcile all my QuickBooks expenses with my PayPal because that’s where all those recurring things come out, I’m like, “What is that? And why am I spending $250 a year for it?” And it’s $1000, $2,000 later, it’s like, “I need to get this under control.”
Cousett:
What did I do?
Amy:
I do try and go through once a year and look at all my renewals and just see, “Am I using all of this stuff? And if I’m going to drop something, is it worth my time to go back and find a suitable replacement instead of just letting the licenses expire?”
Angela:
Why am I billing my clients for this license I’ve been paying for? Do they even know?
Tracy:
Right there, that’s a service you could offer because I’m like, “Oh, yeah, that’s daunting. I should do that too.”
Angela:
I have a spreadsheet and I try to keep track of. It’s hard with all those premium plugins.
Tracy:
It’s hard being nerds.
Angela:
No, it’s hard being self-employed. Yes, we want to be on your career path right now which is to transition from being a freelancer to being a content creator. It’s really challenging.
Cousett:
It’s been a process. I’m not there yet. But it’s definitely what I want because it’s just not sustainable for anybody. And I really, really realized that this year with corona and the boys here all the time, that I can’t be on the computer all the time. If I’m on the computer all the time, then they’re on their iPads all the time, and that isn’t good for them either.
Tracy:
And if you are, it’s on your terms, it’s not because…
Cousett:
Exactly, yeah.
Angela:
Well, that’s why I think you’ll like the Kate Toon episode because we asked her that question. She made that transition. And we asked her, how did that go? And she said, “Well, you’re trading one set of stresses for another set of stress.” That’s why you’ll love her, but she’s happy. That choice.
Amy:
And prior to corona, were your kids in some kind of daycare and so you had to learn how to do all this with them home?
Cousett:
Yeah, basically. So my four-year-old was in a little preschool. That was 9:30 to 1:30. And then I took my now two-year-old because he wasn’t old enough for the preschool to the Y a lot of times. They had a little… They call it All About Me. And so either I would drop them off at that program, which was super cheap and twice a week or you get two hours of child watch. And so I would just work in the lobby.
Angela:
Me too. I totally did that at the Y. Dropped my little kid off in the little… I didn’t go work out. I was sat in the lobby next to the snack machine and hijack the YMCA WiFi which is pretty good actually.
Tracy:
Hacking tips.
Cousett:
They are amazing. I was with 24 Hour Fitness and I remember one time I was just talking to the instructor of the class I was taking and they came in found me. And it wasn’t even the… It was also like two hours or something like that that you had and it was nowhere near the two hours. I had just gotten done with the hour class and I was just sitting down for a sec. I was like, “I just want a few minutes to myself.” So the Y is just so different. That was with my first [inaudible 00:40:35]. It’s so different. And they take the kids at six weeks or at least mine did instead of six months. Man, with 24 Hour Fitness, I was waiting for his six month birthday so much that I could go back and work out.
Angela:
You need a whole blog on how to hack early childhood as a working mom with these tips. How to use fitness centers for childcare so you can work.
Cousett:
It was the best because it was free two hours a day and it’s free and if you couple that with the $17 All About Me that was four hours and did that in the afternoon.
Angela:
I’m telling you, this is a course.
Amy:
I think this is a new reality for so many of the women that are in our industry and now their kids are home, and of course, primarily, the care for the children is going to fall on them. And it’s something that I think a lot of people… My kids are teenagers. Right now, our schools are still open but if and when they have to come back home, they can pretty much do their own thing and they don’t need me. But for the people that have preschoolers or elementary school kids home, it’s a whole different ballgame.
Angela:
Yeah. I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes right now, Cousett. I really feel the stress of that.
Cousett:
Shout out to [crosstalk 00:42:10] because they have them right now. They take them Monday overnight to Tuesday and my lifesavers. But yeah. I mean, my desk is literally in the middle of our playroom so that they can kind of play and I can get few minutes on the computer. But I can’t record or anything because they’re making a lot of noise or I know they’re coming up and I even try not to do any kind of playing calls or anything because they’re…
Amy:
Trying to feed your dirty Cheerios, and yeah.
Tracy:
Eating something off the floor. What are you eating?
Amy:
After a while, Tracy, you just let him eat stuff off the floor. Nobody cares. It’s good for the immune system. That’s things new moms are worried about. Once you have two or three, nobody cares.
Cousett:
Oh, man. The difference between the first and the second.
Amy:
Well, it’s been a delight to have you with us today. Before we go, can you tell everybody where they can find you online?
Cousett:
Yes, I am Techie Mamma everywhere. That is T-E-C-H-I-E and then double M, so M-A-M-M-A, techiemamma.com. And from there, you can go and look at the sites for the membership and my web services and stuff like that. And then I have a Facebook group where we talk a lot about WordPress as well. It’s open just to everybody but WordPress is often a topic. And yeah, I hope one day to have my… I have my Mompreneur powered by wordpress.com domain. Like Tracy said, I don’t mean this on a whim. But hopefully one day, that will be something.
Amy:
Awesome.
Tracy:
That’s awesome. Thank you.
Angela:
Thank you.
Tracy:
Thanks for listening. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter or join our Facebook group. We would be honored if you subscribe to the show. You can find us on Spotify, Stitcher, Google Play, and iTunes. Finally, if you want to be on the show or know someone who would, visit our website at womeninwp.com. Until next time.
