That’s right, it’s that time of year again – time to quit eating cold turkey!

My family has a basic recipe we make when we get tired of turkey. It’s pretty simple and a great way to use up the remaining turkey while adding some flavor. It’s not a very precise recipe, however.

Basically we take leftover turkey and cut it up. We also chop a variety of vegetables. Cauliflour works well in this recipe. Throw it all in a frying pan with just a touch of oil, a teaspoon or two of turmeric, and a half cup to a cup of water. Garlic and crushed red pepper work well too if you want a little more spice. This recipe goes well over rice.

Ok, so it wasn’t really that bad, but Gage just HAD to get roseola! He had a fever earlier this week, then Wednesday he had the “slapped cheek” appearance, and on Thanksgiving the rash appeared, and I finally realized what it was he had.

Now, most of the time this wouldn’t matter, as roseola’s a pretty minor bug. But it can be dangerous to pregnant women, with a slight chance of causing miscarriage so…… we had to call my oldest sister, who is pregnant and tell her. After discussion with various family members, it was decided that my oldest sister would have to sit the holiday out, as one of my nieces had been exposed, and her mom doesn’t think she’s had roseola. Since they live with my mom, obviously my oldest sister couldn’t go there.

It wasn’t fun having to call her and tell her so late that she’d have to make her own plans for Thanksgiving, but far better than taking a chance.

The rash is worse today, but it’s not bothering him. Poor kid has a cold on top of that, though.

And no, this is NOT spoiling any shopping plans for me. I’m not the sort to brave the Black Friday crowds, especially not with a 3 year old and 9 month old in tow. I’m quite determined to do as much shopping as possible from home this year!

And all the stuff that comes after it. We’re entering into the most hectic time of year for a lot of people.

Thanksgiving, like a lot of holidays for me, isn’t exactly relaxing. We’re starting out by going to my in-laws house in the morning for a visit, then having dinner with my mom.

I’m hoping to do a lot of my shopping online this year. I really dislike the crowds in the malls, and if you can get free shipping, it doesn’t cost extra and might even be less. Shopping with an infant and a 3 year old isn’t exactly fun, after all.

Amazon, of course, is one favorite, since they often offer free shipping and have a great selection. Last year, we saved my mom some clutter and got her a Netflix subscription – that went over very well!

We’re planning on doing a picture of the kids soon and we’ll probably give VistaPrint a try for the Christmas cards. We’ve done the photo cards every year since Ariel was born, and it’s a fun way to do Christmas cards, and really affordable. It’s a real time savings to be able to do it online, even with having to wait for them to arrive, since I don’t have to worry about when the stores are open.

Shopping for the kids and my husband can get challenging. Ariel has so many toys, and Gage has a lot handed down from her. I know some things I want to get for Ariel… a toy tool set, preschool learning books (she just got into the one we have for her), and it seems like every time we go to the store there’s something she wants. That’s 3 year olds, of course. At the family dinner, Gage was very attracted to a toy dog from Fisher Price and a LeapFrog school bus, so we’ll probably either get those or put them on his wish list… not like we have to worry about him really understanding Christmas yet, after all! Can’t find the dog online so far, though, and Amazon only seems to have the Spanish version of the bus… not that that is necessarily a bad thing.

I’m finally getting around to doing some of those things I put off too easily… putting articles from the newsletter onto their own pages so they can be found easily with other relevant articles, for example. I updated a lot of my links and I’m working on getting links to a wider variety of pages.

This is in part because I got a good reminder that I need to keep up on these things. Lost my rankings for some very good keywords, but nothing came up to replace them. Doesn’t feel good, I can tell you!

But no matter how hard it is to fix these things immediately (read impossible), there are still things I can work on to try and improve matters, even if it takes a while for results to show, and that’s what I’m doing right now. Mind you, this is not the easiest time to be doing major work… my brother-in-law is still in the hospital after his surgery, and I spent much of today helping one of my sisters take care of my nieces so my mother could go up and help my sister deal with her husband staying in the hospital for a bit longer than had been hoped for just the other day.

I’m also going to be trying to get my other sites running better, as I hate having to rely on just one main site bringing in the best income. I’m still doing better than I had been before, but it’s not by much now! Yikes!

Things are looking up around here. I’m back from a quick trip to Sacramento for a family dinner, and my brother-in-law might just get out of the hospital in the next day or two, which is earlier than expected. So I’ve gone ahead and signed up for Affiliate Classroom’s $1 trial.

It’s pretty interesting so far. I’m focusing on the average affiliate marketer’s section, since that’s how I think of myself. Right now I’m reading about Upsells, which is an area I have not been very strong at.

There’s a lot of information available. It’s going to be interesting to see how much of this I can get read in time to decide whether to continue to pay for access or quit at the end of the trial. Right now I’m inclined to say I’ll stick with it, but since I’ve been a member for less than an hour, I suppose that impression could change.

I’m going to have to find a new balance to both read the information at Affiliate Classroom and get actual work done, though! That means I’ll be cutting back further on my discussion board participation at other sites. I was already down to every other day on those few I go to.

Are you serious about affiliate marketing? Well, this won’t take much money… in fact it won’t take any. Anik Singal is offering a free course on affiliate marketing. I’ve been getting the course for a while, and it has some great ideas. I use my Gmail account, and most of them end up saved (yes, even with Gmail I delete a lot) so that I can refer back to them later.

Now, if the course isn’t quite enough for you, you can take things a step further and try out Affiliate Classroom for just $1. Considering the sheer quantity of information offered at Affiliate Classroom, that’s a great price to be allowed to try it out for a while. It’s a monthly subscription after the trial runs out, but I think you’ll find it worth your while.

Me? As I’ve said, I have enjoyed the free course so far immensely, and I’ll be trying out the Classroom shortly. Just have to finish taking care of my nieces first. My brother-in-law’s surgery that was supposed to happen last week was switched to this week, and I know I won’t be able to get the full benefit until things are back to normal around here. But when I sign up, I’ll be posting about the experience.

It’s my second day today of watching 4 kids – my two (ages 3 years and 8 months) and my sister’s two (ages 4 and 2). It’s definitely more than double trouble. First of all, my 8 month old is pretty mellow, so he’s easy to care for. Second, my sister’s kids aren’t terribly used to me, since they’ve only had one overnight stay before this with me.

They’re with me because my brother-in-law is having surgery today. Matter of fact, he should be in there right now, unless he got rescheduled again. He was originally scheduled earlier this morning. His surgery is to repair a congenital heart defect that was originally fixed when he was a baby, but now needs work again. It should be about a two week hospital stay.

Thank goodness I am not solely responsible for the kids the entire time. My mother will be taking my sister’s kids for most of it, then I’ll be going to her place to help her.

It’s a sacrifice in terms of time I can spend on my business, but that is one of the beauties of working at home; it isn’t too much of a sacrifice for me. I can work evenings if I’m not totally drained from the day, but even if I don’t, I still have income coming in while I help my sister’s family.