A Day Off? *GASP!*

Could it be that I'm actually playing hookie today? Well, kinda. I have I don't know how many shopping guides that need to be finished and got none done yesterday, yet here I sit about to get ready to leave for the day. My other half talked me into blowing off today so we could enjoy HIS day off and celebrate New Year's a bit early since he'll be working tomorrow night. I said fine, just as long as he lets me work while he's gone!

Yesterday was one of those days...I had planned to get more done, but my site had other ideas. I ended up not finishing the big release of a new section until near supper last night. Plus I was still replying to emails after 11pm! Bad on my part, I know. You can always tell when I'm excited about a project when I work late. This project I'm DEFINATELY excited about. I'm not even half way done with the promotion, and I'm getting an awesome response.

Want to see what I worked on all day yesterday? A big new section on Mom's Market!
http://www.momsmarketonline.com/product-reviews.html

I'm very excited about this because it's not just any old "product review" section like you find on other sites, but rather it's being worked into the actual directory. Making the directory itself unique as well. The main goal with this is to drive more focused visitors to those listed on Mom's Market. I want to give customers the chance to find EXACTLY what they need, and be sure it's something they are going to like. It's going to be a very big part of my 2006 plans, and it won't be even half way finished until the end of 2006. Yes, new reviews will still be added after then, but I want the bulk of them up before the end of the year.

If you have a product you want to send, you can get the details on what we are accepting here:
http://www.momsmarketonline.com/review-info.html

Hope everyone enjoys their New Year's tomorrow!

Big Plans for Mom's Market

I'm so excited to be saying my focus is back on my very first website, Mom's Market. There's big plans ahead for this website, several that I've already "hinted" at here and there. I just can't wait to get started on this new project, which I hope will be set up by tomorrow. I guess you could say what I'm about to start has been a long time coming. I've been wanting to do something, anything, with Mom's Market for a very long time. I didn't want it to be just another "directory" - there's FAR to many copies of that site now. Sure, I can say Mom's Market is the largest WAHM mall that I've ever seen and the most successful, but that's not the point. There needs to be something different, something that makes it very special and not just another "wahm directory". No matter what I do though, the "directory" will always be there, but I'll say this - it's going to be amplified and improved.

So look out - big changes are ahead!

Handmade Items

Last week someone sent me a link to a site they had found for those looking to buy and sell handmade items. I have to tell you, I'm in LOVE with this site! I'm finding handmade soaps, candles, and other awesome items made by hand. I even put up my own shop for our specials and discounted candles.

You can see our store at:
http://prairiesoy.etsy.com/

Very neat site, spend some time there and you'll be hooked!

Very Exciting New Project!

I'm excited today to get started on a new project that I'll be working on for the next 3-4 months. What I'll be doing is taking somewhere around 300+ pages of a few websites, and completely re-writing them. Before all they had was affiliate links, and after about a year the search engines started booting them from the listings. Around 300 pages were dropped along with that part of my income. Over the past year I've kept by myself busy with other project to suppliment that income because I just didn't know what to do to bring that income back up. Well, I now realise the answer is content so that's what I'll be doing. Pure content for every single one of those pages, with affiliate links and blog posts sprinkled in.

What's really exciting about all of this is the time of year and where I'm at right now. It was exactly 2 years ago I was looking over reports and seeing the possibilty of affiliate programs, and making plans for major work on these exact pages. From late December 2003 until nearly April 2004, about all I worked on was those page. It was exciting, and my income was more than I had ever dreamed from affiliate programs. My goal was $500/mo from those page, and it was amazing to see myself meet and completely pass up that mark (by the time it was all done, I had more than tripled that goal, and was doing it every single month!). So now to see myself sitting in the exact same spot at the same time of year gets me very excited. I know where I'm heading, and know this time I'm doing things the right way. Of course I've got other projects here and there that also need my attention and that I'll be taking care of, but for the most part I'll be working on content for nearly 300 pages.

Since I've got another site which is pure content and survives on Google Ads, I'll be working on that site too here and there. It needs content just as much as these other sites, and I can't forget that.

While I might have to make some minor changes along the way, I have a full schedule filled out until the begining of March. I'm hoping to finish before then, but it could also take longer.

Anyway, I'm very excited if you having noticed!

New Edition Coming Soon

2 years ago I wrote and ebook on how to start your very first website. All this week, and probably for the next several weeks, I'll be working on the second edition. I feel like this project is long overdue, and am happy to be working on it.

So what's this ebook about?
Well basically, it's a step by step guide to getting a website set up. It covers how to buy your own domain name & hosting, how to build your first page, and even touches on some basic marketing for a website. The main focus, though, is to help the reader get completely set up with their own website without saying "now what?".

The ebook should be released within the month, so if you would like to be notified, please visit:
http://www.momsmarketonline.com/starting-a-website.html

Where I went Christmas shopping

Wow, all I have to say is I'm so proud of myself for actually getting all my shopping done with a full 2 weeks left before Christmas. I'm NEVER done shopping this early, but I have the internet to thank this year!

Just for fun, I thought I would post where I went shopping this year and what I got everyone (exspecially the kids).

My first "stop" was before Thanksgiving even, and I managed to get stocking stuffers for the kids plus a few gifts for the big kids. I went to www.EasyBakeGreetings.com and picked up a greeting cake for each of the kids (Says "For a Very Special Kid!" on the front), plus 2 others that said "Merry Christmas" for other family members.

Next I contacted one of my very dear friends online, Patty King, that sells Gabby Goodies. I got a Spinach Dip for my mom, since she had bought a similar one at a craft show a few months ago and has been looking for another ever since. My uncle got a bag of gourmet coffee, and my other half some French Vanilla Coco mix. I gave in and he got it early, and he absolutely LOVED IT! Oh and I just HAD to pick up some tea for myself as well. ;)

I found soup mix for my grandparents at a craft show back in October, so that was taken care of long ago. Had I not found it, I would have probably bought something similar from a WAHM online.

Last night was the last of my shopping, and it was all for the kids. I looked around for some things here and there, but finally settled on items from Amazon. This has become my favorite place to shop online for kids stuff. I tried my hardest to avoid getting them tons of toys, but what else are you suppose to get kids for Christmas? I did manage to pick up some craft-like items, but they are still getting quite a few toys. I thought I did pretty good though, spending less than $100 but still feeling like I went overboard. Here's a few things I got them:

Create-A-Scene Magnetic Playset: Construction Site (for Chase, who's 5)
Magnetic Fairies (for Jillian, who's 3)
Playdoh Make-A-Meal (for both of them)

There were some other items as well, but those were a few things that stuck out. I'm just still in shock my shopping is completely done! Now all I'm missing is the wrapping paper....you didn't really think I was THAT organized now did you? HA!

Hackers Beware!

Okay so now I'm out for revenge (maybe even blood to be honest with you). Can you believe I'm still dealing with issues/problems my stinking hacker left me? We have the Direct Sales Private Forums set up at MH's Online Community, right? Well besides wipping out all the content in there he's also left me without a way to give some of our members access again. Grrrrr! Haha, I feel such a feeling of accomplishment this evening because I found away his/her little mess they left me with the usergroups! Yup, I'm patting myself on the back tonight!!

Boring, but worth it

This week seems to be dragging on a bit for me, for the simple fact I'm working on hardly anything but the blogs. It's extremely boring, but completely worth it. What I've been doing is writing enough posts for at least a month and saving them to be posted daily. Nothing automatic, just copy and paste. I've done the work ahead of time because it's quicker to do it all at once instead of struggling to get it done daily. There's been days where I couldn't get much of anything done either, so being able to copy and paste has been a lifesaver. It's just writing everything that bothers me.

Ok, so why do I need to post every day to these blogs? To keep the content fresh of course. I don't want to make 20 posts all in one day. These are different types of blogs than what you see here, and that of course wouldn't work for this blog. I don't want to give out too many secrets because it's a strong source of income in the making for me. But I will say doing the same thing for several weeks in advance has saved me TONS of time. Just like checking your email once or twice a day saves more time then checking it 10 times in a day. I'm trying to do more in this way because of the amount of time that it saves.

Not much else to talk about today, because it's been long and boring.

First Snow

Just when I start priding myself on conquering the evil beast of procrastination ... I mean I have caught myself up from being on vacation for ten days what I feel was a decent amount of time and that includes doing a couple of other projects that have come up in the meantime.

I finished The Ultimate Direct Sales Guide which was already behind schedule. I wanted to finish it before I left for vacation but unfortunately I still hadn't recieved all the advertiser's info. So finishing this was a major goal for me. I've already disbursed the pdf version to all my advertisers and I'm simply waiting to get my printed copy to review and hopefully it'll be sent out to my distributors this week.

I set up a new affiliate program at PayDotCom.com. This project isn't completely ready to launch yet but I have to say so far I'm pretty happy with PayDotCom.com. It's definitely seeming to be a better alternative to ClickBank. It's by far more affordable which is a definite plus in my book and has a lot of extra goodies not available such as being able to contact your affiliates on a regular baisis.

I caught up all of my advertising. (Well, almost) I was pleasantly surprised that most everyone had read my messages at the top of each of my advertising pages knowing that their advertising wouldn't be processed till I returned. That means no nasty emails of "Where's my advertising?!?". Haha ... Yes, I've gotten that one too many times. Usually I don't work on weekends so every once in a while I'll recieve an email on Sunday about advertising bought Saturday morning. It gets a little frustrating but a lot of people online expect services rendered immediately. In a perfect world maybe.

Oh, I did mention "almost". Almost means something that doesn't need done right away but something I'm definitely going to work on. I've found the definite pluses in having a virtual assistant. Katie has been super-fast and super-reliable ... it's been a pleasure having her work for me and she's agreed to take on some more work. So, a little re-formatting some pages and we'll have that ready too.

Okay so there has been other work that I've finished too (for example we lost our private forums for DirectSalesHelpers.com due to the recent hacking so I had to rebuild those and have everyone re-register) but you can see how I'd be proud of the non-procrasitnation, right? Oh, and did I mention I'm done with my Christmas shopping? Well, we have one gift for each of the kiddos to pick up but other than that ... we're done!! Yeah, you're reading from a person who's done the Christmas Eve shopping spree too many times in the past. I've NEVER been this far ahead ... and I even have my Christmas tree!! Okay St. Nick bring it on!

So, where was I? Oh, the first snow ... okay, so it's not officially the first snow but it is for us considering the official first snow came while we were in Florida. This is "our first snow" of the season. There's really not that much out there and I couldn't bring myself to knock the expectations down of the kiddos when they're gathering the innertubes to go "sledding" ... ummm, they're not going to go very far very fast with all the more snow that's out there. And a snowman? Nah, that's not gonna happen. LOL! So as everyone's searching the house for their "snow clothing" we come to find that we can't find my daughter's "play coat" so her only other alternative is the WHITE coat that my mother-in-law bought last year. (I love my MIL to death ... honest I do but honey, white, why?? LOL) Okay, find the snow boots. Well, my son has two pairs of snow boots. One pair is leftover from last year which is two sizes two small. Then we have the hand-me-down pair from a friend or ours which is three sizes too big. LOL, it's amazing what 3 pairs of socks can accomplish! Did I mention that I just bought them new gloves and hats yesterday ... and did I mention that they didn't have any that were my sons size so they're a size or two too big too? Hmmm... and the ugly beast of procrastination strikes again....

That's okay, they're having a blast outside anyway. That's the beauty of what some ingenuity can come out of a needy mommy...

Major work ahead

This week has been an absolute blur, with so many ideas buzzing around. Be watching for some big things to surface within the next few weeks. There's lots I don't want to announce yet, no matter how excited I am. It's hard to keep it all quiet!

I will mention some major things happend at Idea Queen. Plans have been made for a new business section, which hopefully will be added today if all goes well. I don't want to get too carried away because I'm in no way competing with major work at home sites. It will be very basic, and mostly ideas. I'm also kicking around the idea of archiving the Direct Sales newsletters there, or at least some of them that focused on "ideas" to keep with the Idea Queen theme.

So much buzzing in my head right now, I've got to get some of it done and out of the way!