Surviving At Home

Not that long ago I wrote about needing to focus my attention on what I wanted my blog to be: a creative, personal outlet or a business venture. I keep going back and forth with this decision and for some reason I get stuck on the idea that a blog has to be used for one or the other but not for both.

I recently ran across a post on a mastermind forum from a woman who was blogging regularly and making money with payperpost and it intrigued me. Was it really possible to make money with a blog without it being a great big business venture? I’m still in the testing phase but apparently the answer is a resounding “YES”.

PayPerPost.com is a forum for advertisers to post what exactly they want to promote and for bloggers who match certain criteria to accept the “job” of posting about the particular opportunity. It’s really a win-win situation: the advertiser gets more inbound links and traffic from these blogs (and possibly some new buyers) and the bloggers get a chance to make a little bit of money.

Many of the posts that I am eligible for as a newbie range in price from $5 – $20. But once your blog is approved by the powers that be at PayPerPost.com and if you have a decent google page rank (ie: traffic) you can accept larger-paying opportunities. (Now if I could just figure out that magical way to get more traffic…)

If you need some encouragement or proof, go to the listing on your dashboard of “top earners” and see how a few of them have earned a few thousand dollars. I have no idea in what time frame they earned that money but it’s encouraging to know that a nice chunk of change can be made!

Apparently you do have the opportunity to get yourself banned if you don’t follow the rules or you can’t write, so a little bit of self-analysis might be wise before you try this. Registration is free so it’s worth at least a peek to look around at the opportunities and decide if you would like to make money with your blog.

*This is a paid advertisement*

Much to my own dismay, we received the first Halloween costume catalog on Saturday. I understand that the company only has seasonal sales and it’s trying to make money but in the name of everything that’s sacred, can we not get through summer without being bombarded with winter clothes at the malls and Halloween costume catalogs in the mail!?

I was even more confused as to why my husband gave it to our daughters to digest (I need to get faster with the throwing-away-the-seasonal-catalog-thing). As you can probably guess, all of these Halloween costumes are quite expensive, both girls have circled a dozen costumes that they would like to have, and I’m not likely to spend upwards of $100 for dress up clothes!

My youngest daughter actually loves to dress up in costumes almost daily. Every year we save the Halloween costumes, some of which are beautiful because they were made with love by my mother, and inevitably they get worn for weeks after the Halloween trick-or-treating event but eventually they get retired to the ol’ “dress up box”.

This poor dress up box has been through the ringer! It’s just one of those cardboard storage boxes from an office store but after being stuffed to overflowing with these Halloween and dance costumes, it’s in shambles. But it’s a good standby when my girls have friends over and they complain about being bored. My favorite response is, “Go check out the dress up box!”

Now, if only I could figure out a way to prevent the kids from growing so we can recycle these Halloween costumes yet again…

What child doesn’t grow up with Dr. Seuss books? We have quite a few of them lying around the house. The kids love the silly characters and the rhymes. The Dr. Seuss inspired recipes and activities that I’m about to share with you have been a great hit in our house. Of course the famous green eggs and ham are included, but there are also quite a few other snack and meal ideas. Create a fun Dr. Seuss inspired afternoon with some of these recipes and of course don’t forget to read a few of the books with your kids. (If you don’t own any, enjoy a trip to your local library.)

Green Eggs and Ham
This has to be the most famous Dr. Seuss inspired dish. Scramble a few eggs, add a couple of drops of blue food coloring to the mixture and cook as usual. You can serve a warmed up slice of ham with it, and if you want to go all out, brush the ham with a little green food coloring. My kids love either biscuits, or mashed potatoes with this dish. Add a little food coloring (either green, or a complimentary color like red) to the biscuit dough or the finished mashed potatoes for even more fun.

Cat in The Hat Snack
Make the Cat’s Hat for a fun snack. All you need is a few Ritz crackers, gummy lifesavers (preferably in white/clear and red) and a little vanilla frosting. Put the Ritz cracker on a plate. Use a little bit of vanilla frosting to glue the first lifesaver on the cracker. “Glue” more lifesavers on top of the first one alternating between red and white.
These snacks are so cute; you may want to take a picture of your child’s creation before it is devoured.
 
Wiggly Fish
This snack was inspired by  “One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish”. Prepare several different colors of Jello according to package directions and pour each flavor into a shallow pan. Use a fish shaped cookie cutter to cut the Jello into fish shapes.  (If you don’t have a fish shaped cookie cutter you could also just cut fish shapes with a knife.) You can also add small pieces of fruit to the Jello mixture before it cools. This is a great way to sneak an extra serving of fruit into your child’s diet.
 
Pink Ink for The Yink
The Yink in “One Fish, Two Fish” love to drink pink ink. Make your own version by combining a few strawberries (either fresh, or frozen and thawed) and some milk in a blender. Add a few drops of red food coloring if the “ink” isn’t pink enough.
 
A Fruity Hat For The Cat
How about this for a fun Sunday breakfast? Whip up a batch of silver dollar pancakes and cut up some fresh strawberries. Grab some whipped cream and let the kids assemble the Cat’s hat by stacking pancakes, and strawberries on top of each other using the whipped cream as “glue”.
Enjoy a few of these Dr. Seuss recipes and activities with your family, or invite a few neighbor kids over for a Dr. Seuss party. Either way they are a lot of fun and a great way to bring some of the Seuss stories to life.

Want more family friendly recipes and crafts ideas?  Visit www.easyfamilymealplans.com for a sample weekly menu plan your entire family will love and www.kinderinfo.com for tons of craft and activity ideas that are sure to keep your little ones entertained. 

OK…so maybe that’s a slight exaggeration but holy cow, what a pain in the butt!

My husband’s cousin is getting married today and I thought I had a dress packed away in the basement that would be appropriate to wear to a summer wedding. It was one that I had worn on a business trip about 5 years ago but I was psyched that I could once again fit into it (size 12…yay!!) and I wouldn’t have to spend money on a dress to wear for one day (yeah, I’m kind of cheap that way).

Well, as luck would have it, I searched for the dress last weekend, one week before the wedding, and I couldn’t find the darned thing. Yes, I know, it was not my most brilliant moment to wait so long, especially since we knew the date a year in advance, but I was sure I knew where it was. I think in one of my purging moods, I tossed it into a donation bag when the school had their clothing drive. After all, I was following the “rules”: giving away something I hadn’t worn in the last year AND something that didn’t fit.

You could say that I’m kicking myself now because all the dresses I can find are black (hello, it’s summer!), fall colors (too much brown), retro-1970s patterns (ugly!), or have little spaghetti straps (aka: risk of flashing family during the chicken dance)! There’s also the other extreme of the polyester dresses down to your ankle that your grandmother would wear. Certainly there must be something out there in between the grandma look and the skinny teeny bopper look!

So I’m off to the wedding wearing a perfectly nice cream/beige skirt with a beige short-sleeved sweater. The weather report promises pleasant temps in the 70s and hopefully there will be some air conditioning if it’s warmer than that.

Kind of boring but who will be looking at me anyway?