Here I go along week 2 of having my husband gone all week. It’s rough being the only one home with the kids 24 hours a day from Sunday night through Friday evening, but for now that’s what it takes.

It really makes me appreciate how much my husband does around here.

It’s not like the days are all that different in some ways. After all, I’ve always been the primary caregiver, and at home all the time anyhow. But now there’s no relief, not first thing in the morning or in the evening. It’s allllllll me!

Brent’s always been a great daddy. Up with the kids in the morning, especially now that we have a baby still getting me up at night. Up in the middle of the night if either of the other kids needs a parent. A lousy housekeeper, but good at working in the yard and getting the kids out of my hair when I need a break.

I don’t have that right now for 5 days a week. I am so ready to get this move done and over with!

Researching an online home business is tough these days. It’s not just the ever present scams, it’s detecting them as those who promote them get smarter about how you research opportunities.

The big example is that searching for the opportunity or ebook name plus “scam” is often taken up by people promoting the opportunity. They’ve come to realize that this is a big term people use to check them out, so they try to claim it for themselves on the positive side of things.

These “reviews” can be hard to tell from the real thing. However, if you see a review of an opportunity or ebook starting out with something along the lines of “Is (opportunity) a Scam?” and then go into a glowing review of how it’s not a scam, be wary. Be doubly wary if all they have to say is positive. Just about any opportunity is going to have some negatives. A good review should note these.

Be even more wary if you see more or less the same review on site after site. Odds are it was provided by the business itself and the affiliates or promoters were too lazy to change it for their own sites.

So Where Are the Real Reviews??

Ah, that is the question, isn’t it? And it’s not easy to do sometimes.

Persistence is your #1 tool. Search on the business name. Use the name plus review. Use the name plus scam.

Check the testimonials on the site and see if you can contact the people giving the testimonials. If they have domain names with their testimonials you may be able to find a way to contact them on your own.

A lot of the big launches have big name marketers giving testimonials. That’s nice, but to me it doesn’t prove much of anything. A person who has been having success for a long time is going to see things quite differently from someone just starting out, and what they like may not be as useful to you if you don’t have the background knowledge yet.

Check their contact information and whois. Contact email addresses should be related to their business website in most cases. If you own your domain name, this is easy and comes with the hosting. Whois information can be kept private, but if it shows names and contact information it must be honest.

Read all the fine print, privacy policy, terms of service and so forth. Some sites don’t make it nearly clear enough that there’s a monthly expense for the information or opportunity. You need to know what your real expenses will be.

Try to figure out how it is you will be earning money. Mistrust any opportunity where either that’s not clear or you realize that you’re earning for recruiting rather than selling, especially if you only earn for recruiting.

Check Ripoff Report. Check scam.com. You can even check with the BBB, but honestly they have their problems as a resource.

Be wary if the site looks like a newspaper review of the business opportunity. That’s a popular way to present some programs just now, but they really are not news stories. Take a good look and you will realize that pretty much everything clickable on these sites relates to the opportunity being presented.

Ask on any work at home forums you know, such as the one here.

Think about if you can really afford to risk the money. No matter how good the opportunity, even when it is legitimate, you face the risk of failure. Not every person will succeed in any particular business. Sometimes it’s not a good match; other times it’s a scam. Either way, be sure that you can afford the risk.

Will This Guarantee That You Don’t Get Scammed?

Sorry, no, can’t promise you that. But you can cut down the odds that you’ll be scammed, which is a great place to start.

Always remember, be skeptical. Know the difference between home businesses and work at home jobs. Know what’s likely and what’s improbable. Ask questions. Do your due diligence. You are the one responsible for your decision in the long run.

And if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is!

This has been kind of fun. I’ve been using Craigslist to find home rental listings, and they often have a link to Google Maps to see where the home is.

When you go to the map, most also have a link to Google Street View. It’s fun because it’s a slight preview of the neighborhood. I get a good look at the house, can go up and down the street and see something of what the neighborhood looks like.

It’s not a strong impression, not quite like being there, but it’s not a bad place to start. It’s easier to tell on Street View than from satellite photos is the neighborhood is seriously run down or on the newer side.

There’s still a lot more than that to picking a good place. I still need to check out the schools and really see the neighborhoods. But the extra impression of the area is nice to have.

Guess what? I hate moving. Really. It’s a pain and gets in the way of more interesting things.

Sure I’ll be glad to be in a new home, and new places are fun once you get there. I just don’t like the process it takes to do that.

Especially when it takes away from my work time and means I don’t have my husband at home. Neither of those is good for my state of mind, which some say is pretty crazy to begin with.

But for now, when we don’t know just how soon we’ll be moving, I think I have some parts under decent control.

Parenting’s tough, of course, but that’s a balance I have to deal with all the time anyhow. The lack of any sort of relief or help is hard, but not so bad, as I’ve said before.

Packing I try to do for about an hour a day, getting all the stuff we don’t need for daily life put in boxes.

I’m a little shorter on sleep than usual too. That’s because I keep staying up trying to get things done while I have complete peace and quiet, and no one waiting for me to go to bed. After all, baby’s going to wake me up whenever she needs me anyhow.

I’m trying not to overdo that part. Went to bed at a more normal hour last night, which I think helped some.

The hardest part has been house hunting. It’s hard to do that alone, or rather, from a distance and even with relatives willing to watch the kids so I can look faster. A part of that is just being comfortable where I am right now. It’s a nice neighborhood and we have lots of friends. Not the easiest thing to give up, considering how long it took us to really settle in here in the first place.

I got to take a peek at a Kindle today at last. It was during my kids’ swimming lessons. The grandmother next to me was reading a Frog and Toad story to the little girl on her lap, while the girl’s brother was in his lesson.

Pretty nice.

The little girl really appreciated having a story read to her because, let’s face it, watching someone else have a swimming lesson is boring. A Kindle is probably no easier to carry around than a child’s book, but then again you can carry several in it.

One of my sisters bought one recently too. She loves it; her husband doesn’t see the fascination. That pretty much seems to be the reaction I see around. I tend to agree with my brother-in-law more than my sister, although I haven’t actually tried one yet. Peeking over at someone else’s as they read to child and talking about it with them doesn’t make for much of an evaluation.

As for me, I’m most into paperback books. Let me get into a used bookstore with money to spend, and things get interesting. Much more my style, even if they aren’t as portable when you’re taking a bunch along.

But I’m curious what others think, and so…

Here goes. I get to be the sole parent in charge all day. My husband is off at his new job and I get to do it all even more so than usual.

Some ways, it’s not so different from other times. It’s been a while since I’ve consistently been the only one to put the kids to bed, and my oldest in particular is rather emotional about not having Daddy home for a few days. My son says he’s not going to be sad about it, but we’ll see. That’s easy to say at first, after all.

And we’ll see how much the baby notices. They do, after all. If nothing else, there will be cues for her with how everyone else is acting.

But I’m used to being the one in charge all day, so that part isn’t going to be so difficult. I’m planning lots of play time for my kids with their friends that we will be moving away from. Trying to get what work of my own done that I can. Trying to find a home to move into up there.

And sleep. I know there’s time to sleep in there.

Really.

Despite the baby’s best attempts to keep me up some nights.

Sometimes I do my best work when things get crazy in my life. There’s just no time to goof off, and I know it. If I work at things, this might just be a help rather than a complete hindrance.

I posted about the new home party network, Emily Rose @ Home the other day. I think it’s a great opportunity for moms and daughters who love the American Girl style dolls.

They’ve started a contest now to win a free Platinum Starter Pack. If you’re thinking about joining this opportunity, I suggest going over and checking it out.

You have until July 21, 2009 to enter, and there are a few ways to earn entries.

The package includes @Home Business Builder manual, products samples, catalogs, business cards, marketing materials, and even membership in the “Founder’s Circle”.

This is the kind of business you can do to encourage your daughter’s entrepreneurial skills, while having fun yourself. Getting a free start isn’t a bad way to go. Give it a try and go enter!

Things are going to be really busy around our house the next few weeks or so. My husband just got offered a new job, so we’re going to be moving soon, as it’s about two hours north of where we live now and he’s just not crazy enough to force that kind of commute on himself.

I am so not looking forward to it. I hate moving. Love being done with it, though.

On the other hand, this is the furthest from pregnant I’ve been on a move since we got married. Every other move I’ve been either pregnant or within 4 months of having had a baby. By the time we actually move, Selene should be about 5 months old, so that’s a record for me!

He’ll be working for the state in the unemployment office… which, by the way, is currently doing a ton of hiring. If you know someone who might be interested and is in California, send them to the State Personnel Board website and take the online test. Working for the state can be a pain some ways, especially with the furlough days, but it has its good side too. Sadly, I think unemployment is California’s one growth industry at the moment. I hope that changes soon.

We’re still waiting to see if the local office will take him instead, but when you have a bird in the hand, why beat around the bush?

He’s starting next week. They wanted him to start tomorrow, but he wanted to give his current employer just a bit more notice. Obviously we can’t get the move done that fast, but it gives us a bit of time to start planning.

I’ll still be posting as time allows, but I’ll be going easier on myself. I have a post coming up tomorrow for a really interesting home party opportunity, and of course I’ll be writing whenever I’m not packing. I get really fidgety if I spend too much time away from my work – it’s just too much fun!

I just realized that I’ve been doing this Free Fun Fridays thing for over a year now. Not quite 52 posts of it, as I wasn’t too regular at first, but still quite a number of posts.

This week’s suggestion I can’t believe I haven’t made before. Read together.

With younger kids, you can read to them. If they know the story from having it read so often, encourage them to fill in the lines by pausing at points you think they know.

Take turns reading with older kids. It can be sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph or page by page, depending on what you think will work for your child’s skills.

Kids will catch you off guard sometimes. We were at the store the other day buying toothpaste, when my oldest daughter grabs a pack of colorful flossers off the shelf and starts begging me to buy them.

She’s begging me to buy dental floss? Are you kidding me?

Of course I bought them. I’m not sure someone didn’t switch kids on me for a minute there, though.

These are the Dentek flossers, and they’re… adequate. My kids really haven’t had trouble with them, and it’s nice seeing them want to brush their teeth. I don’t like them for myself, though. They loosen up too easily.

It’s fun seeing them debating which color to use, rather than putting up a fuss over having to floss.

There are some other really nice looking kid’s flossers over on Amazon I think I’ll check out when these run out, though. I want to keep encouraging such a healthy habit.