WAHM Rolls

To say I've done nothing on the Toolkit the past few months, I now seem to be on a roll. Last night I decided to change the keywords on my 'Work at Home Jobs' page, and ended up virtually re-writing the whole thing!

This is one of my most popular pages but which is still ranking outside the top 30 in Google. But no wonder...it was embarrassing seeing the keywords I'd chosen! This time I was being guided by the Monetize It! tool from SBI - choosing new keywords with the best 'keyworth', as they call it. Hopefully changing these will affect my ranking ... but then if my ranking does change, it could be due to better content now after the re-edit. I'm much happier with it now, although I think it might need splitting in two or making much shorter and linking out to sub-pages.

I also added Google Adsense as per the recommendation from Monetize It! - I had previously removed Adsense because I didn't like the type of ads that were showing up (they seem exactly the kind I tell people to avoid ... "make $1000 in an hour" kind of thing). However, perhaps the ad targeting will improve with the new content. We shall see.

Baby-wise

I got a cancellation for an MRI appointment on Monday - excellent! You even get a parking permit too, amazing! Thankfully, you go in 'feet first' for a fetal MRI...phew :-)

Domestic Goddess-wise

Tomato ketchup really does clean brass! As per 'The Cleaning Bible' from "Kim and Aggie" I tackled the fire surround which I have never seen an actual brass colour since I moved in (shame on me!). Now it's brassy and shines! I'm also going to order in a boat load of bicarbonate of soda, borax, white vinegar and soap flakes from Dri Pak.

Another item I've been meaning to order for a long time is bread improver - I make wholemeal bread in my machine but never used improver...can't find it in the shops but finally ordered some yesterday from Freebake - it arrived this morning! Will use it tonight and see how different the bread turns out.

WAHM-wise

My childminder was poorly today so I had to re-arrange my plans. "Luckily I'm a WAHM" so it was no big deal. I thought it would be a good time to arrange my first ever birthday party - how bad is that? My kids haven't had a 'real' party yet! Never been up to it, just the idea would stress me out no end so we normally just had a little 'do'. BUT, we have a new 'Wacky Warehouse' nearby and so I took the step to go book a party in a couple of weeks...it's cheating I know, they do everything for you, but I'm breaking myself in gently :-)

Got another payment from Chitika and looks like my Amazon aStores are doing well for me again this month - think I need to check them out more.

Baby Tara - Amnio was NORMAL

I can't believe it, I am thrilled!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I had prepared myself for the worst (and the hospital had assured me over what can be done in terms of funerals and taking photos, hand prints etc) so when I got the call about an hour ago and heard 'normal' I was stunned, then cried.

She does not have Downs Syndrome, but we still need to check her brain with a fetal MRI scan so still a way to go yet but I'm SOOOOO happy about today's news.

Another girl too!!

Back in play :-)


P.S. Regarding 'work' ... wasn't up to doing much, just fettling around online submitting links and a few minor changes to web pages... but it ALL counts - doesn't feel like much, you don't have the energy or motivation to DO anything serious but it ALL counts. Hurrah for being a work at home mum :-)

Ultimate Test of Being a Web Wahm!

I haven't worked on this site for 6 months, I haven't been up to it.

The short version is I am expecting another baby, but sadly the father is not around any more.

It has been an horrendously difficult few months, and I've just had one of the worst periods of depression ever, but luckily my sites kept working in the background and I still got my monthly payments from Google.

I've had the luxury of being able to take the time I needed to get myself together, and only now I'm starting to feel like getting back to being productive work-wise.

Yay for working at home online!!

How to Clean a Mattress

How to Clean a Mattress - Organic Spills: Vomit

(If this is urgent - jump to Step 7...)

1. Gently turf child out of bed - requires careful manoeuvres to minimise splash or spread of vomit. (Optional) - If you have bunk beds, move sleeping child no.2 safely out of the way of dripping spew.

2. Strip bed and temporarily place in bath along with drenched soft toys.

3. Position child in your bed, with bucket.

4. Rinse sheets under shower, hoping all chunks are small enough to fit down the plug hole.

5. Shove sheets into washing machine before asking Google 'how to get vomit out of mattress'.

6. Be thankful for eZine Articles.

7. Gather lemon juice and bicarbonate of soda (cos after all, most super WAHMs will actually have this stuff...lucky for me, my recent training as Domestic Goddess meant I 'did' have these ingredients ;-)

8. 'Dab' liquid with dry towel, don't rub since this apparently makes it worse. Apply 50/50 lemon juice and cold water to affected area, then sprinkle bicarb of soda on it to soak up remaining moisture and help prevent that fragrant dried vomit smell...bleurgh.

9. Repeat steps 1-8 on your own bed, as child pukes up in there as well for good measure.

9. Leave on as long as possible by everyone sleeping downstairs, before vacuuming off.

10. Enjoy the feeling of relief because you had the foresight to install leather sofas and laminate flooring, as spills just 'wipe clean away', although spatter potential IS high so use vinyl silk emulsion on your walls too.

(Optional...)

- Be grateful you work from home and don't have to drag yourself into work after being up most of the night ;)

- Start work while DD1 sleeps it off on the sofa.

...to be continued

Depression Sucks the Life Out of You

I'm not entirely comfortable talking about this because of the negativity and lack of understanding about a person's ability to 'snap out of it' - even from me, before I started with it! - but it is probably the main reason I am an internet-based WAHM...

I am constantly amazed at the difference from day to day - somewhere between going to sleep and waking up your brain decides that "today you're gonna be non-functional my dear!"

The past few days have been like wading through mud for me, yet today...fine! In fact, raring to go again and bemused at why on earth I felt so crappy the last couple of days.

This is what I call 'physical' depression, because it just 'happens'...it's just there when I wake up. I feel so very, very different inside, physically different.

All the positive thinking in the world doesn't seem to let me 'snap out of it' so I've come to realise that maybe I just have to let it ride and it will go of it's own accord, eventually. It's when it takes 'too long' that it becomes a problem.

WAHM life suits me for this very reason - it allows me to have these unpredictable ups and downs. Yeah I don't work as much, but I don't have to stress about time off work or not being able to concentrate on my job etc.

A Perfect WAHM Moment - Part II

DD1 wakes up with bad cough and feeling hot, but is still terrorising her little sister and looking very un-poorly behaviour wise. Dilema - should I administer Calpol and send her to school as she is 'ok in herself'...or keep her off because she does sound quite bad...but knowing it's just for 'a cough'... The deciding factor was the 'feeling hot'...I would give Calpol and see how she went.

As it turned out, she had to take the day off anyway. She had an optician's appointment as she's been doing funny things with her eyes and saying they hurt. Optician put some drops in her eyes which mean her sight will be blurry for 24hrs. Turns out she is a tad long sighted and is getting glasses for 3 months - she's delighted! She's been wanting glasses for ages, so I had wondered if this was all a ploy to get them, but no.

Anyway, point being...had I been working, I would have had to a) warn them I'd be in late this morning and then b) ring them to say I wasn't actually coming in at all...and I would have felt bad, especially as I would have already had a day off this week due to the Migraine I had.

Luckily I'm a WAHM.

I 'had' wanted to get cracking on an application for Editor on a women's site...but it had to wait. I had started to do it last night, but DD2 didn't stay in bed so I had to abandon it. Still, I figured if it's a US based site they won't get the app until later in the UK day anyway, due to time differences, so no worries hopefully.

Well, it's Friday, my one-night-a-week-off...and so far, I'm not doing anything exciting boo hoo.

Laters x