It’s fascinating watching Google spider my jewelry website. It’s currently aware of 37 pages (out of hundreds in the store) and has finally dropped all but one of some pages I thought I wanted then got rid of once I actually had the store in place. Still not admitting any links yet, despite that it has to have read about it here, the site has been submitted to at least 60 directories and there are links elsewhere as well. Some things just take a whole lot of patience. Yahoo is only noticing 13 links so far, so I’m not too surprised that Google is ignoring them.

I’ve been so busy with transcription, however, that I’ve had to neglect other things. I spent the weekend working just on transcription because the account was horribly behind and there was a bonus on. Next weekend I hope to make up for it.

It was even hard to get my newsletter out today. I resorted to using two guest articles, which I don’t like to do, but I was short on time today. I normally have the newsletter ready on Monday, even though it doesn’t go out until Tuesday, just so I can think about what I’ve written and make changes as necessary. I really like that back of the mind brainstorming time.

I watched a report on last night’s 60 minutes on stay at home moms. This wasn’t on what I would consider the average stay at home mom; this was the quit a high paying career kind of stay at home mom. I know plenty of stay at home moms who did quit good careers for the benefit of their families, but not quite as high-powered as the ones they interviewed.

The other side was presented by a woman who struck me as bitterly resenting that any intelligent woman would choose her family over her career. She compared, using a quote from Mark Twain, women who couldn’t make a difference in the world and women who chose not to make the difference she wants them to make. She worries that we’re going back to the ’50s, when a woman was supposed to stay at home with her family.

Not the same at all, just ask any at home mother! I really wish people like that could understand that a stay at home mom is not wasting either her education or her potential. She is making a sacrifice that I believe will benefit society. We’ve been dealing with problem children, children who don’t have parents taking good care of them and aren’t there when they need them. Can’t that make just as important a difference as heading a Fortune 500 company, being a senator and so forth?

A stay at home mom is not some kind of failure for being a dependent on her husband’s income. Just do some research and find out how much more work it is to be a stay at home parent. I have seen it quoted that being a stay at home parent is equivalent to having two full time jobs. That’s scarcely lazy.

Now, I don’t care which parent stays at home, but I do think when finances permit, it is best for the children in most cases if one parent does. My husband would love to stay home with our daughter, but when she was born he had a job outside the home, while I had learned medical transcription and could work at home. That’s how our decision was made.

One of my sisters is getting married soon, and if they have children, her husband will be staying home with the kids. Should he be ashamed for being dependent on her when that time comes, or should he be proud to be doing the best he can for his family?

I’m proud of him already. It’s a harder choice in many ways for a man to make.

Perhaps we stay at home mothers aren’t speaking out in the way some would wish. But we do make our voices heard in our own way, and those who think feminism means only following one path, that being a career, may not be ready to hear us. But I know of no stay at home mother who stays home because she believes it is her only choice. She stays home because she can make that choice. The financial sacrifice is tremendous, and being looked down on by women who have chosen a different path isn’t easy.

It’s fun watching a new website grow, even though I don’t understand where some of the keywords I’m being found on are coming from.

Yes, I’m doing AdWords, but certain keywords are not ones I have used for that, so I know it’s not there.

I’m delighted to be found for phrases such as “design engagment ring” as that’s one I really want. It’s a page I need to make faster, but still a good one to have found in the search engines. That one could easily be from AdWords, but if it results in a sale, well, that’s the idea, now, isn’t it? I’m going to have to start pushing that phrase a little, though.

Going to be keeping busy today. My transcription account is really behind, so even though I prefer to reserve weekends for website work when possible, there’s a bonus on, so I’ll be good and transcribe.

Just got an interesting offer from one of my visitors on my discussion board. He’s offering to give 15% of sales generated through my site to my favorite charity. I’m going to take a chance on it, and offered him an extra space on my Charity on a Budget page. I don’t really go looking for advertisers, but this sounds like a reasonable deal to me.

For those who are wondering, my choice was the San Diego Blood Bank. I’m a Gallon Club member there, but due to pregnancy, breastfeeding, rebuilding reserves after breastfeeding, and now being pregnant again, it’s been a few years since I could donate. Who knows how much this will do, but every little bit counts, and I think his product, a child safety product, is a good thing for parents.