Wow! I haven't seen This place in a while!

I started spring cleaning. I'm doing the usual, you know, cleaning. I've made it my mission to change a few things in the house and my life. Today I've been focusing on my computer stuff.

...Wait...

Let me catch you up. Here's the short list:

• Husband is fine now and back to work.
• The little one is growing up and in middle school now.
• I took a long break from any writing so I could get the youngest into and through elementary school; and, the oldest on to graduate not only high school but college too.

There it is, the short list. Now, one might ask, why did those things keep me from writing, releasing whatever I'm thinking about on paper, um, blogging, or whatever? I just found myself always having something else to do.

Well, everyone has to have an excuse. Back then, I found myself using this blog as more of a technical journal. Something to link everything else to. Anyone can see what was going on. I was writing on AC, Shared Reviews, Squidoo...Trying ever so hard to learn all the ropes about SEO, html, and such, I lost myself.

Then the accident happened--the wake-up call. You just never know when those life-changing events will occur. A moment in time that you get a notion you have so much on your plate that things better change or you brain is going to explode.

Then there's my beautiful little girl. I wanted to enjoy watching her grow up. I wanted to be the mommy helping at the class parties, going on field trips, and volunteering in the library.

We did all the cool stuff: aquariums, costumes, dollar summer movies, museums, and zoos! You name it, we probably did it.

All that kid stuff was a fun ride!

So, I'm back to where I started, spring cleaning...Yesterday I sorted through clothes, today I sorted through my blogs, tomorrow is another day. I'll let you know how it goes with my spring cleaning...

Build a Fire to Renew and Grow

It's a bit chilly outside. I'm hoping we have a cooler winter than we had last year. Given the cool air this morning, I'm thinking we may. I cannot wait to build a fire in the fireplace.

Last year we did not use the fireplace once. I missed it. When we bought this house I could not wait to build a fire for the first time. We have since used up all the wood from the wood pile so it's time to re-stock.

Behind our home is the community park. It's surrounded by trees. There is a slope down to the pond. It's a beautiful walk down some trails to get there.



A few months ago a large old red oak fell to its demise and took down a few cedars in the fall. My husband and I want to clear and chop that tree, and the unfortunate bystanders, to restock our wood pile. I miss the old oak. At this time the leaves would be turning into a glorious spectacle of color, which is rare around here.

Is it wrong to take the wood for our personal use? The property is community owned, but part of the tree fell on our lot. No one ever visits the slope beyond our home. No one keeps the area up. It just grows. I think clearing the debris would make room for new trees to grow, allowing the earth to renew itself.

We've been going back and forth about this situation. I think we're just going to do it. If we had already done the deed, I would build a fire today...

I have some news. I posted about wanting to become a Giant Squid: Squidoo Talk Time. I finally made it! You can see my Giant badge on My Squidoo Cheat-Sheet.

Building my Squidoo presence has taken up a lot of my time. I only have so much computer time during the day with the kids, house, and otherwise. I have to prioritize in order to keep up with my goals. Thank goodness the Squidoo Giant goal has come to fruition. That fire is built, I just have to keep stoking it now.

Back to my original topic...I wonder if my husband would be up for working on the old oak this weekend? Another question popping in my head is if the oak has sat long enough to be useful cooking wood? He probably knows the answer but I'm going to look into it myself.

It would be nice if it is because we have a brisket in the freezer screaming to be smoked--yet another reason to build a fire.

I love to sit out and watch the smoke rise from our pit. On a still day the smoke rising from the fire seemingly doesn't move. It just vanishes and renews itself.

Pepperjam Network: The Best Affiliate Program!

Did you know Pepperjam Network made Inc 5000? PJN is in the top 100 of the fastest growing businesses in the United States! I recieved a newsletter telling me all about it.

PJN is also:

• The 2nd fastest growing company in Pennsylvania
• The fastest growing affiliate marketing network
• The fastest growing full-service Internet marketing agency
• The fastest growing interactive marketing agency
• The fastest growing search-engine marketing firm
• The fastest growing advertising/marketing in Pennsylvania
• PJN ranks #5 in the United States in advertising/marketing

I'm really happy I signed up with Pepperjam Network. Doing the affiliate ad work has given me a whole new perspective on what to do with my Squidoo lenses. I've gained a lot of new ideas using the banners and links Pepperjam provides.

You know what else? PJN is very helpful. They have a great support system. Plus, all of your banners link back to your PJN account, they track everything for you, and all of your information is laid out so you know exactly what's what!

The more affiliate work I do using Pepperjam, the better I get at building the ad content. I'm almost thinking I'm better at writing ads than any of the other writing I've been doing. Which is baffling to me. I'm building the Squidoo lenses faster and better than I ever had before.

I think everyone should sign up with PJN! If you haven't done it yet, do it now!

I'm Building another Blog...And Yippee for Back to School!

Insanity has taken over. Actually, I want to bring more focus to Inspired Day by Day. I also want to highlight my Squidoo lenses and provide them backlinks without taking away from either site. I figured the best way to do this is to build a blog that focuses exclusively on my Squidoo efforts: Squidoo to Do for Me and You

This is not to say I won't try to slip in a lens here and there on Inspired. You know what they say, the more links the better. I'm just trying to get a little more organized web wise...

Speaking of organization, my oldest daughter went back to school today! Yippee for me and the little one! Now I'll be able to use the computer at will, and hopefully, get back to better posting, reading, writing, and working. All without sleep deprivation!

We did last minute school shopping yesterday. You know when I was in school we never needed all the stuff they need today. I swear manufacturers and schools have joined together and created a monopoly on school supplies (or would that be a conspiracy?).

Gotta have this, gotta have that...Just wait, I'll probably be harping about the special teacher's list she'll bring home tonight--all stuff she must have by tomorrow.

Affiliate Marketing: Getting My Toes Wet

I've been busy, too busy. I had to put the blog on the back burner for a bit. I hope to get back to my 3/week posts by the end of summer. I am still visiting blogs. I just haven't had too much time for posts.

I signed up to be an affiliate marketer. You can see some of the ads on the top of the blog. Adsense just isn't cutting it for me. I signed up for their "image" ads and still only got text. So I took the plunge to be an affiliate. Guess what, it's free. You should check them out because Pepperjam Network is Now Offering a $10 Affiliate Sign On Bonus. Join Today.

Here's how I'm using the Pepperjam affiliate ads on Squidoo:

• Swimsuit Model Selections for Real People
• Food Recipes: Variety is the Spice of Life
• Debt Free! Real World Credit Management Solutions
• Dereon Makes Perfect Back to School Clothing
• Bartending or Bar Tending? That is the Question...
• Old Vintage Jewelry is Beautiful and Stylish
• The Pepperjam Affiliate Marketing Program is for You!

Here's another affiliate program: ClickBank. Their ads are in text link ads to digital products. I just signed onto this one. I created Bass Fishing Guide for Fishing Largemouth like a Pro. I don't know how many clickbank lenses I'll do, but that lens was a fun one to throw together.

You probably won't have to hear me ramble on too much about affiliate marketing until I get to know the ropes a little better. So far I'm doing alright with it. Every day another advertiser accepts me as an affiliate at pepperjam. As long as they do, I'll keep building the lenses.

If you are looking to run ads on your blogs or make more money on Squidoo, I think you should give Pepperjam a go.

Squidoo Talk Time

I've been updating. I like to go through pages, check links, and decide if I'm ready to change up the format, style, or direction. I play with the blog constantly, so if you're looking for changes here you probably won't see much.

The biggest changes I've made were on the Squidoo lenses. I decided to work on those a bit since they are getting a little traffic. I was reading through some tips Squidoo has to make desirable lenses and get them to produce. So I've started applying some of the tricks and adding relevent fun applications and widgets.

I read that some lensmasters are earning quite an income from their lenses. I can see how that's possible. I can also see those top earners have bucket loads of lenses--many are similar in nature. I guess I need to make more lenses so I can cash in.

I need to gather ideas. The last few posts here have covered some topic discovery tricks I use for my articles. The lenses are different though. They're not really articles. They're more of a lead to some of my other stuff.

Right now I have two I'm working up but haven't published yet. One may not get published at all because I'm waiting for an okay to use an image. Without the image the lens would be rather lame. If I can't use it I'll just delete it.

I want to build some hobby lenses, a few more local attraction lenses, and of course a few more promotional lenses. Then comes content, which takes time. Given I'm always short of time, I've decided to start the lenses and add to them as I can to freshen them up.

On the lenses I've got up, some of my content is short. Some of the content only directs to other articles. Some of the content is pictures and links--something different I was trying.

Since Squidoo only requires 5 modules to publish a lens, you can have a table of contents, a text/write, an Amazon and eBay selling module, and a guest book--there's 5. Lens started and published tout suite.

The trick is updating the lens and adding to it over time. So much to do...

I was hoping to build 30 more lenses before June 30. If I could accomplish that I would become a Giant Squid. I don't think it will come to fruition at least not this go around. With summer, the kids, and family stuff, I can barely keep up posting to the blog twice a week--I was doing 3 but I cut back for summer break.

Maybe I could still get the lenses done... Three a day... No, I'm not even going to try. I have bigger fish to fry.

Have you built your first lens yet?

Squidoo Lenses are Up, Up, and Away...

I did not get a chance to post yesterday. Not only was I busy putting the house back together after the party, I had laundry to do--such is my life. I did manage to put together a couple of new lenses on Squidoo. They are getting so easy to do!

I like how I can get one started with my basics and go back to edit or add to them. As a matter of fact, I started two more this morning--those are still WIPs so they aren't showing yet.

I want to share the two I completed yesterday:

• Scenes from the Texas Guadalupe River
• Scenes from Canyon Lake, Texas

Of course I still have my other lenses up. I did a few updates and changes on those too:

• Blog It...
• Bartending or Bar Tending? That is the Question...
• Just One Click Can Make a Difference
• Make My Day eBay
• How to Flip an Old Boat

The two I finished today are not live yet, but if you want to check them out tomorrow, or ever, you can see them on my Lensmaster Page. I also created a side bar link under the Join Squidoo button.

The lenses I completed today are Bettas: The Fish Full of Personality and Cypress Cove Community.

Some may think I'm going wild, or something, but that Squidoo is addicting. Especially since I'm actually getting readers out of it.

I'm going to try to keep the new lenses coming. I'm at 9 and I have more planned. Since I can edit them at will, I'm going to continue building the basic lens and go back to add on to them after they are published. Here's my list:

• Inspired Day by Day--just about the blog with links to my favorite posts I've done.
• Food Recipes: Variety is the Spice of Life--recipes of mine and some I've tried.
• Shared Reviews: Paid to Review Site--a how to.
• Sproutbuilder Widgets Help You Market and Promote Your Content--a how to
• Swaddling a Baby--a how to.
• Dr. Brown's Baby Bottles--a sales lens.
• Teen Pregnancy--get the word out lens.
• Teen Pregnancy Monkeybrain lens--a debate lens.
• Led Zeppelin
• Nascar
• Butterfly Alphabet Book--a review/sale lens.
• Vintage Jewelry--a just because lens.
• Port Aransas

The two scene lenses are pretty much done except for a few photos I want to scan and add to them. Those I really want to keep as pictorial references and highlight the article links.

I think I'll be doing some major edits to the Betta lens. The photos on it did not fare to well through the Polaroid module I used. I think I'll have to direct link them from photobucket to get the quality a bit better. I'll see once it goes live if there is any difference in photo quality.

Now that I'm getting more used to Squidoo; I think I'll start sharing more links for making better lenses to the blog. I've found a bunch. Then I'll throw in my own two cents as usual.

Blog It Lens is Up! More Information on Squidoo

Well, I finished my Blog It lens! I also have been cruising around updating all of my pages for St. Patrick's day. It's been a busy morning for me indeed.

My friend Swubird commented: "What exactly is a Squidoo? Lens? I've never heard of the term outside of optical use. I followed the link, but I'm still unsure as to how you actually implement one of these little things. Do you put it on your blog, another blog, another site - ?"

I replied in a comment back but some how the comment disappeared into web land. So I decided to post it here along with the link to the latest lens: Blog It...

Squidoo is the name of the site. A derivative of Squid. I read somewhere that the lenses were like squid in the ocean--to be looked at, learned about, and multiplied. Lenses are, well, I'll just quote from SquidU:

• What is a lens? It's many different things. It's a small look at the world. It's a list of your favorite things. It's a way to share your resume or promote your business.
  The best way to learn what a lens is is to create one. Play with it. Add stuff. Delete stuff. Move things around. You won't break anything, I promise!

Like I said, my first lens took me a month to put together. Not only because of my lack of content, because I did not really understand what to do with it. I knew I needed to put some together for promotion and indexing; I just didn't understand the make up of the parts and how to use them.

SquidU suggests: Do Squidoo: A much requested guide to creating a successful Squidoo lens. This lens offers a guide to building a lens. However, I'm more of a put it together without the instructions kind of gal. I opted to build it first and read later.

Now as far as implementing them goes, the lenses are promotional tools. SquidU says:

• When used right, Squidoo is a promotion paradise. You can use it to drive traffic to your business or entertainment websites, boost your online resume presence, and position yourself as an expert on your topics of interest.
  Find the best tips for promoting your lenses, groups, charities, and yourself here!

I've heard that search engines love these lenses and they tend to rank higher than your standard blog post. Perhaps the bundling of so much information is what does it. What ever the reason, I want to utilize it to my advantage and build lenses to "advertise" my articles.

Looking at other lenses and reading forum posts about the site convinced me that joining Squidoo would benefit me. Not only is it useful for linking back to my work; it can generate a residual income and a portion of that can be donated to charity.

I say, just sign up because it's free anyway. If you don't like it you can always cancel your account. Once you sign up, you are not committed to building the particular lens you started your account with. As a matter of fact, I deleted the lens I began when I signed up.

I made a "Join Squidoo" button at the bottom of my posts if you want a quick link. You can also join from the Blog It... lens by clicking "make your own page."

If any of you do build a lens, comment to me about it. I want to see your work! Happy lens building to those of you that try it.

My New Favorite Toy: Squidoo

You're not going to believe this, but, I made another lens yesterday. The lens is, Make My Day eBay. I got this one done much faster than the Bar Tending lens. Of course I will be editing and adding to both lenses as I learn more.

One thing is you need to know a bit of html. You must to be able to add links to direct your readers to your work. We all do that here with the < href= "URL"> stuff. You can also do italics, bolds, colors...One lens with great Squidoo tutorials on the process is: Basic HTML for Squidoo.

I think what took me so long to finish my first lens was I didn't know which direction I wanted to take with it. Now I get it. The process eases after you complete and publish the first one.

Last night I thought of a variety of topics for lenses. You can take them in any direction you want--heros to pet peeves. I guess its similar to blogging. Each lens would be a post.

From what I learned, narrow topics do better than broad. The more information you can input about your specific topic, the better. Okay, so my lenses are a bit broad at this point. But you can bet that I'll trim the next ones.

The best thing about Squidoo is I can utilize the lenses as an index for my articles on AC. As I branch out, I can add to or eliminate.

Today I'm going to work on the lens for this blog. I'll post about it when it's done. I'm going to link to other blogs there as I have done here. The same, but different.

Look for the blog lens link soon...

Oh Squidoo! What a Promotional Tool

Well I did it; I built a Squidoo Lens. If you remember, I mentioned doing this in my updates post. Now its a done deal: Bartending or Bar Tending? That is the Question!

The process was quite easy, even though it took me a month to get it published. First, you sign up. Second, you find a topic you want to publish about. Third, you build your content. Last, you publish.

Cruising about the site, I found that the most popular lenses are chock full of information. Typical, because people enjoy learning. Popular lenses also have used the Youtube, Amazon, and Flickr modules to dress up their page. There are other modules to include like plexo (haven't quite figured that out), polls, and searches.

Right now I just utilized the text and image modules. As I learn more about the rest, I will add to my content.

A few things occurred to me as I built my lens. One was that I need more content. That just figured since I have been rather lax lately. So I cranked out a few more articles to boost up the page. I have a few other articles in mind, but I haven't written them yet.

Then I thought, using Squidoo to lump together my related articles will make for better traffic. Something I'd like to do for my blog also--Brainstorm! Remember when I referred to linking everything together? So, I'm going to start working on a lens for the blog.

I published my lens on Saturday (the 9th) and today (Sunday) I checked my stats and I've already gotten over 90 clicks. I better pump up the promotion because over night that's better than any other thing I'm doing. (For related promotion: here I'm under 200 since last August and Myspace is @ 170 since December)

If you have a Squidoo lens, let me know in the comments so I can check it out. If you want to build a lens, I put up a link button for you at the bottom of my posts and archive.

Working on the Home-front, Updates, and Plans

What a time this has been. My husband is still laid up with his leg. I've been busy tending to home matters. With all that's going on, the teen is coping an attitude.

I woke up early this morning to update my eBay pages, myspace, and I wanted to make sure to post something here. I'm really having a tough time keeping up the momentum I had prior to the holidays.

Surely things will get back to normal around here soon. I have some plans I'd like to put into action. I want to get a move on them before the end of the month.

I've been working on a series of articles for my work at Associated Content. I almost have that wrapped up. Once all the articles are submitted and published, I want to build a Squidoo lens for promotion. So far the articles are getting pretty good views on their own, but I've learned that Google loves Squidoo and articles promoted on Squidoo rank higher. Ranking higher increases page views. Increased page views means better pay. Sounds kind like the snowball effect, but whatever works.

I'm finding inspiration sitting here writing this. I know now things are not as bad as I thought. I'm inspired by all I got done this morning. I will strive to do it again tomorrow.