End of Month Stats

$45.00 Writing Hotel Reviews
$80.00 Writing Homeschool Curriculum Reviews*
$59.10 PayPerPost Postings*
$0 PayPerPost Referrals
$7.50 ReviewMyPost
$0 Amazon Links
$0.65 Google Adsense earnings for February
$1.57 Kontera Text Links (started running in middle of the month)
$10.74 Suite101 earnings for February
$0.22 Helium.com earnings for February
$2.69 Dneero
$18.00 Smorty*
$5.54 Inboxdollars
$4.00 Paymetoblogaboutyou
$0 Clickbank
$0 GreenfieldOnline.com
$0 Bloggerwave.com
$111.49 Ebay (fees taken from total)*
$0.03 PayPal Money Mkt Acct*
Earnings Online…..338.35
PayPal Fees -8.30
*Total Received in February 299.81 (doesn’t represent totals of each starred job)

Creative Children?

Regarding Institutionalized Education killing children’s creativity. Some compelling thoughts. Isn’t everything compelling when it has a British accent?

Kids Blogs

I was checking out some kid blogs and came across a little 10 yr old boy who met Bill Clinton. His account of the incident is adorable. Enjoy.

MySpace, Google, MySpace.com, ebay, various artist

These are the top five searched for terms on the internet
1. Myspace

2. Google

3. MySpace.com

4. ebay

5. various artist

UM- I’m just thinking maybe people don’t know how to use the little URL box, they think they have to go to a search engine to get to a website maybe. Why else would someone search for “MySpace.com” or “Myspace” if that isn’t where they wanted to end up. Maybe they’re looking for talk about Myspace or who knows- I just think that’s an odd thing to search for. And Google- why would anyone search for the term Google. I’m thinking they might just bring up everything ever published online. “I went ahead and googled google just in case there might be something I am missing, and there isn’t.

“Results 1 – 10 of about 1,850,000,000 for google. (0.22 seconds) “

Interestingly, there was only ONE advertiser buying space in the adwords box, and that was….. google. Learn how to personalize your google homepage.

And- all of the first ten listings were Google.

If you haven’t caught on by now the whole point of this post started off as an experiment for me to see if using commonly searched for terms will increase my hit count. Since my website has nothing to do with Myspace or Myspace.com I’ll have to make up a bunch of stuff about how it was a pioneer in the social marketing / social networking industry and that facebook is now kicking its butt because facebook looks nicer and Myspace pages are just so ugly. Aren’t they, with their poorly centered tiled backgrounds polluting cyberspace. I have a Myspace but I’ve never done anything with it. Mostly because I always forget the password because they require you to use a number or limit the digits or something.

Anyhow- it has spurned a new business idea- not a complete idea, but basically as long as you buy the adword “google” you’ll be on the second most searched for term. I didn’t actually google myspace, but if you did, you might discover the same thing, and then you’ll have an ad on the #1 searched for keyword in the world. good luck.

Me being rude and maybe a little judgemental, but no more than Nancy Grace

You know who totally drives me nuts, that Nancy Grace from CNN. She’s got two brand new little twin babies, the same age as my E2 and she absolutely goes on and on being judgemental of other parents. So there’s some mom- a black lady in some other state, who was drinking and left her 3 kids home alone. I’m not saying it’s OK. Heavens no, it’s not. But this Nancy Grace is going on about how the kids should be taken away and put into foster care- OH MYGOD- this woman obviously has a drinking problem, and losing her children will not help. How about some counseling or rehab? Does she have family to help her out? A sister? I once heard of an experimental program in Hawaii where they sent in a live-in Nanny/counselor for a little while, in order to avoid foster care. The program reported like a 95% reduction in violence or whatever else it was trying to study. When is it ever good for children to be taken away from their mommies? NEVER- I say. What kind of mother will improve her life without her babies? NONE- I say. Look at Britney Spears. She has some serious issues not helped at all by the press but that girl needs some help. She needs some empowerment, some MOM POWER. Being a mom is some powerful stuff. She never got to feel that with nannies and everything. Put the chick in a mountaintop cabin with nothing but her babies and a vegetable garden. Then she’ll feel it. That Nancy Grace, I’ll bet she’s got a fleet of nannies, too. She needs to get over herself and stop judging other moms. Last week it was a lady whose kid wasn’t in a carseat, Nancy Grace went on and on about how “My babies are always buckled…” OK fine, 99% of babies are always buckled- does that make you such a better mom? And you are a journalist- Why the hell would any of us viewers care really about you being the perfect mom? You know what, I think she’s neurotic. Seriously, our babies are the same age, so we’re the same amount of post-partum, and if she’s as hormonal as I am right now I can guarantee she’s a bit neurotic. She’s insecure. She’s trying to prove to herself on national television that she’s not screwing up. RELAX NANCY GRACE- you’re a first time mother (even if there are two of them) and even though you might be almost 50 years old, you still have a lot to learn about mommies and babies. You don’t know everything even though you have devoted your life to telling people everything. Your experiences over the past three months don’t exactly render you a parenting expert, in fact, you’re so blinded by the insanity of new motherhood that you actually know less now than you did a few years ago. Stop being judgemental about other families and realize that children are resilient, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, people (even mothers and fathers) are always changing and growing and improving and that this woman (drunken neglectful loser that she may be) and her children don’t need YOU taking her kids away on National TV- instead you should be talking about programs that can help women like her and teaching people how to recognize and help our neighbors when they’re suffering and creating a world where women and mothers bond together to make life better for our kids instead of trashing each other and destroying any chance for a positive and empowering change to the situation.

(And for the record, I use the terms drunken, neglectful and loser in a non judgemental way)

I joined NaBloPoMo

NaBloPoMo stands for National BlogPostingMonth- it was a contest in November 2007 where bloggers were challenged to post every day. Only now they’ve turned every month into NaBloPoMo. There are prizes and the theme for March 2007 is “lists.” You might not know this, but I am a list maker. I don’t know how anyone can function without lists. You may have seen my lists in the background of pictures here because I have lists posted on my fridge, and in the dining room school board and a hundred other places in my house. I’m a list-making fool. Here are the lists I have consulted today, either for editing, using or whatever else we do with lists:

list of passwords and usernames
lists of things to do before NOTA
list of girl scout things to order
list of weekly writing things to do
list of Tuesday writing things to do
list of songs to download
grocery list
list of things to say to Jamie when I see her
list of missing bank statements for all 2007 accounts
list of breakfasts and lunches for the week of– well, this week.

And that is not all…

More Scrapbooking Freebies

I just wanted to list some of the latest scrapbooking freebies I’ve found.
Salatki has a ton of small kits, with great little elements for kids.

Here’s another that’s called Salatki- maybe that means free in their language. At least the word “download” is the same. Enjoy.

Scrapbooking Freebies 4U

Jennifer- you are warped.

I’ve chosen to warp Jennifer because she’s the first person whose portrait I’ve seen since I invented the “___, you are warped” game. Here’s the before and the after.

Before- she’s just a normal gal, complete with the obvious arm position of a self-portrait taker who hasn’t mastered the mirror method. (Neither have I, I think you need a special mirror or something.) And After….mwahahaha

Now you need to visit Jennifer’s Blog and see who she’s tagging.
I used Gimp software, it’s a free download. You could do the same thing in Photoshop, too. Have fun. I take requests.

Vacation Hotels and Travel

I have been writing hotel reviews and it’s making me want to take a trip. M1 is planning a trip for us to take in 3 years, either to China or to Russia to volunteer in an orphanage. I am sure she’ll want to bring orphans home. In 3 yrs I might even agree with her. She’s an amazing kid.

Anyhow- back to the hotel reviews thing, it’s making me want to take a trip somewhere. Where would we go? I’ve always wanted to drive across the country in an RV with the kids. I would want to take like a 3 or 4 month trip. I’m wondering if they make RVs that run on biodiesel. If they can do it with a bus, I am sure they can do it with an RV.

I would totally paint it purple. or pink.

3 months old

It’s been almost an official quarter of a year since she was born. I’m not feeling any stirrings of baby lust. I’m feeling instead like a big fat ugly lumpy blubbery lazy lard ass. Nothing fits me. I wouldn’t want clothes this size. Even my maternity clothes don’t fit. I didn’t actually sell them. The pictures I spent all day taking didn’t come out well, so they are just sitting in a big red Target bag. I am refusing to wear them; they’re maternity clothes for heaven’s sake. In addition to the maternity clothes, I now have all of her newborn clothes folded into a basket, in the same order in which I photographed them for ebay. She’s wearing a 3 month old size now. She’s the sweetest, snuggliest, cuddliest little angel. Her smile is like melted chocolate. Her eyes are beautiful. They’re blue, except for a little brown spot on her right eye, in the middle of all the blue there’s a brown spot. Isn’t that cool!

For today- the good thing about having no more kids means that once my body gets back to normal I will never have to feel this fat ickyness again. I hate this a lot. I don’t know how people do it. Every day I want to cry when I get dressed. OK, I really do cry. And since I don’t have a lot of clothes I end up wearing like the same 2 outfits over and over again. At home I just wear my pajamas, and I don’t even want to go anywhere because I know everyone is thinking “damn, you sure got fat.”

OK that last part was probably paranoid. I’m sure people have better things to do than evaluate my weight gain. whatever. I hate it and I can’t wait to get back to normal. I think I am going back on my juice-and-coffee-only diet.