I finally reached payday on the first posts I did through PayPerPost. Logged into PayPal this morning, and there the money was. Very cool.

I haven’t been the busiest of bloggers for PayPerPost, probably averaging under two posts a day, and skipping any days where I didn’t see any posts I felt like doing. But I’m having lots of fun doing the ones that do interest me, and I’ve done more than $300 worth of posts so far. Not bad for a little side income, even if it’s not a living.

I may well do better in the months to come. I’ve added more blogs to my account, which gives me more flexibility as to the posts I take, as well as to the number of posts I do. Normally you can do up to 3 posts per blog per day, although just now the limit is 2. That should be lifted soon. I’m trying to keep every post relevant to the blog, so most my others really don’t get a lot of paid posts as they aren’t so flexible in topic as this one is.

I have to admit, if you have a blog that meets the requirements this is one of the easiest ways I’ve seen to earn money online. The basics are that your blog must be at least 90 days old with at least 20 posts… check the PayPerPost site for more specific rules, and if you join, don’t forget to tell them info@ aspectsofdesign.com sent you.

This would have been just devastating to Ariel last year, but this year she only pays a little attention to the Wiggles. It turns out that Greg (yellow) is probably quitting due to health issues. He’s been sick off and on lately apparently.

Whether or not you enjoy their show, you have to admire how well they’ve done, being Australia’s top earners in entertainment.

It should be interesting to see how things go without him. I assume they’ll have a replacement.

[tags]wiggles,children,television[/tags]

Just read this comic and couldn’t help but agree. After all, I remember when my mother bought a computer that had something like a 64k hard drive. She thought it would always be plenty.

Then again, I know there are all kinds of neat ways they’re looking at improving internet speeds. I’ve heard of gas line and power lines being possibilities sometime in the future.

Didn’t post about this yesterday when I first heard, as not all my sisters had heard yet.

We’ve been expecting this for about two years now, ever since the first time he got pneumonia. However he went quietly in his sleep.

I’ve been working off and on. It’s a nice distraction even if I lose focus pretty easily.

Ariel’s generally taken it well. She knew my grandpa a little bit but not too well. She just needed to be held at first, then today she had a complete meltdown. Took a solid 10-15 minutes for her to let it all out, insisting all the time that it was just because the cat bit her.

I won’t be doing my newsletter this week or next, due  to the funeral not being until Monday, which means I won’t be home when I would normally be doing next week’s newsletter.

My husband was doing some Christmas shopping when he found a great toy for our niece – his sister’s daughter. But since she lives in Viriginia, he came home to buy it online and have it shipped to her. Why package it up ourselves, after all?

We could not believe the price differences on this toy! Target had it for under 30, but on Amazon it was about $60, and some guy on eBay was trying to sell it for nearly $70.

This is not some hard to get toy. This is a toy for a baby, nothing trendy, and some of the sites listed the suggested retail price as being about $32. We just could not believe the price differences.

Obviously, we know where we’re getting the toy.

[tags]toys,baby,christmas,shopping[/tags]

The work at home field is full of scams. If you have spent much time at all looking online for that perfect work at home job you’ve probably seen far more scams than actual jobs. It’s rough out there.

The reason for this is that it’s so easy to set a scam up and have people fall for it. Websites cost very little and a scam can be set up in just a few hours, waiting for the unwary.

If you want to work at home in customer service there are a few things you need to look out for in order to avoid the scams. There are real jobs out there if you can only find them.

No matter the work at home job you want, be careful about paying when you apply. There are a few legitimate companies that do charge for a background check, a practice I personally disapprove of, but it’s something you can also see in outside the home jobs. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve written about being protective of your kids when they’re online. There are lots of dangers in the sites older children love to visit most, such as MySpace or even in their email. Monitoring their usage is vital.

However, you can’t be standing behind them every second, and that’s where a quality software solution comes in handy. Today I read about one I hadn’t heard of before.

SpectorSoft has a software that can help. It can be used for Myspace tracking and other online activities. You can have it alert you to the usage of certain keywords or phrases, so that even if it happens in IM, chat, email or MySpace you’ll know about it. Read the rest of this entry »

I did this post last year too and confused a forum friend who saw the title of my post last year. Yes, it was on purpose. He made the natural assumption about such a title until he read it.
Last year, I called my post Quitting Cold Turkey. That’s the name of the recipe my sisters invented to take care of Thanksgiving leftovers. You know how boring turkey sandwiches get, but there’s much more you can do with excess turkey.

This year, since we weren’t hosting anyone we only have the leftover turkey my mother-in-law foisted off on us. That was about enough for a lunch and a dinner, so I don’t get to make that recipe… yet. I am thinking about buying a very small turkey sometime in the next few weeks to make. After all, it’s very cheap meat and the bones are a great soup base.

What do you do with turkey leftovers?

[tags]thanksgiving,turkey,leftovers[/tags]

This Thanksgiving weekend I’ve seen a lot of blog posts about what people are thankful for. Just thought I’d join in the crowd.

I’m thankful for my children and my husband. They make life difficult some of the time but much better than it would be otherwise most of the time. I can’t picture living any other way.

I’m thankful for the ability to work at home. It allows me to take the time I want to be with my family.

I’m thankful for the Internet. Without it, working at home would be much, much harder. I don’t know exactly what I would be doing, maybe medical transcription running tapes and reports back and forth, or maybe not even working at home, but I doubt I would be having half as much fun.

I’m thankful my car still runs. Hope I didn’t just jinx myself there, as the poor thing is getting old and showing it. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the big things that slips for a lot of work at home moms is that perfectly clean house. You know, the one all stay at home moms are supposed to maintain.

Even for a stay at home mom, keeping a perfect house is one heck of a lot of work. Any time the kids are at home you can count on new messes being made. It’s not easy keeping up with the messes, and the kids can only help as well as is appropriate for their ages. Often that means they make more messes than they can clean well.

But it gets worse when you add a work at home job into the stay at home mix. Suddenly there’s something more demanding hours of your time. Depending on exactly what you do you can’t always limit things to just when the kids are asleep… especially if you want time with your husband. It’s a tough mix.

Working at home is serious, even though many people think it is little more than a hobby. I speak from experience in this area, as it took literally years to get my inlaws to understand that first my job as an at home medical transcriptionist was a real job, and then that my home business did indeed bring in real money. Read the rest of this entry »