I appreciate all your input and have been slowly chipping away at articles. I just wrote some more and thought you might be interested in reading them! I hope they help!

How to “Tweet” a Photo

How to Block Ads and Websites With the Windows HOSTS File

How to Speed Up Your Computer

Blogger Tut: How To Show Sidebar Content Only on Homepage

How to Batch Resize Photos With IrfanView

How to Turn Off Windows 7 Desktop Snap Feature

How To Tell If Your Blog Has Been Hacked

How to Prevent Popups in Internet Explorer

If you have ideas or questions for other things, especially related to computers, the Internet and blogging, leave a comment and let me know!

Anyway, it’s over now, lol. Christmas hasn’t been this fun in 16 years, when my newborn baby and two toddler kids got the flu…. three times over. So I’m thankful we got it just this once this time. LOL

Anyway, I’m so glad it’s Monday. That means that things will be back to normal! And it’s nice to start out the week with the meme. Here goes!

1. What are your New Year’s Eve plans?

I am gearing up for a wild, crazy, frenzied, bacchanalian evening of Scrabble with the husband! Woooooo! I’m cracking my knuckles, combing through the dictionary, and drinking the raw egg protein mixes, baby! Hum The Theme Song From Rocky and be rooting for me, guys!

2. How tall are you?

Average. Almost 5’4″. I used to be 5’3′, but after having my first child (at age 22), I grew a little.

3. What is your favorite pudding flavor?

Anything except banana. Ick. Oh, and except coconut. YUK. Oh, and I don’t like pistachio, either. Or lemon. But I like any pudding flavor, whatever. I think the most luscious pudding tastes like dark chocolate, like in those chocolate gifts boxes. YUM.

4. What room of the house do you blog the most in?

I write my articles (I’m a copywriter) up in my bedroom, believe it or not. It’s quieter up there, without the dogs, the phone, the traffic, etc. But when I blog, I usually do it downstairs, in my living room. Blogging is a lot easier than copywriting, so I don’t require a totally silent atmosphere. Even so, I hope to convert the living room into an office someday. I will eventually convert the attached garage into a big family room, and then I will be able to have the whole living room to myself.

This is my setup, photo taken from last year (before the renovation). I have moved furniture a bit and we have a new rug, but the big ol’ desk is the same.

My Tabby-point Siamese, Livvy, likes my desk, too. :blink:

5. What is your best physical feature?

Hmm… I would have said my hair, but in the last year my health has suffered and my beautiful, glossy, thick, wavy locks have been replaced with limp, thin hair. I’m eating better and trying not to overwork, so my health is improving and my hair is growing back.

My legs were also very nice. :D I took ballet as a young lady, and my legs were muscular but shapely. I have extremely strong legs. But the past few years I have grown sedentary, due to recovery from a back injury and my new desk job, so my legs are thicker. Still, my legs are honking strong. I can whup my husband in Indian wrestling.

Thanks for visiting me this Monday! Please consider “following” me with Google Friends Connect in my sidebar ———> I’ll follow you back! Have a happy and flu-less New Year!

Over the weekend, I did some research for an Eye Health Guide and such, and I found a few videos showing cataract surgery. It’s totally unbelievable, totally. The videos are NOT for the weak of heart or stomach, I warn you. I won’t post the video here- it is *pretty* intense. But if you are brave, you can check it out here. I forced myself to watch it (parts 1 and 2). The surgery is amazing, but it made me feel pretty queasy every once in a while. And during the procedure, they kept squirting this saline solution or something into the eye as they worked on it. I kept wondering why they did that, and then it hit me: Oh yeah, the eye will dry out; they are simulating a person’s blinking. Apparently, they have to keep applying a special sterile saline solutions for eyes.

The doctor who did the video has snappy 80s music playing in the background. :blink: It’s a tad disconcerting. I don’t know about you, but if a surgeon was working on MY eye, I would not like him bee-bopping and Rick-Rollin’ to a punky 80s song. But the surgery is truly amazing.

In case you didn’t know, cataract surgery involves removing the lens of the eye, because it has become cloudy. It’s a common ailment among older people, they say. In order to remove the lens, the surgeon makes a slit in the cornea, inserts a tiny vacuum cleaner, and slurps up all the cloudy gunk in the lens. He then inserts an artificial lens (I have actually seen such a lens at the doctor’s office- they are tiny!). The artificial lens looks like a hurricane– it’s round with a swirling arm on the top and a swirling arm on the bottom. The doc plugs the emptied lens with the artificial lens, and patches up the corneal slit. Recovery is usually a few weeks.

EW EW EW!!!!! It’s amazing but disgusting.

I am rather sensitive to this right now. My eye has a huge Weiss ring floater that is affecting my vision. I can no longer drive at night, and looking at the computer for long periods of time is painful. My opthamologist has warned me that I may need artificial lenses in a few years or so because I am so severely myopic…. but I am not very eager to get any. What I need is new eyeballs. I don’t think any doctor can give me that. I need God to heal me. :D And I believe I will get new vision, either in this life or the one to come. Watching these videos just makes me more determined to want God to take care of my eyes. There’s just something so creepy about a stranger poking metal sticks into your eye that is very repulsive….

I am frequently asked by women and fellow women bloggers how to work at home. I work at home full time (well, only part time since I started this kitchen renovation, but I AM supposed to work full time!). That, right there, is actually one of the beauties of working at home: if there is some big home project that needs attention, you can give it attention and not have the boss breathing threats down your neck!

I’ve written a few sporadic posts here and there about working at home. I think I am inspired to write my story, and perhaps write a “How To” post, as well. For many years, I’d wanted to work online but had no idea where to begin. My entry into the online world was through blogging and, later, freelance writing. I’ll have more posts about how I went about this in the future. For now, if you are curious about what exactly IS working online, here’s a work at home forum you can check out, from the folks at WhyDoWork.com. The forum is chock full full of questions, advice, conversations, and other information that may help you get a grasp on the subject. while I am new to this website, I took a look around and saw that it does offer some good stuff. Best of all, the website has a list of available work at home jobs– you can peruse the daily 30,000 job entries and qualifications, and get a taste of what employers are asking, expecting, etc. There’s also an active work at home jobs community on the site, very important. In my early days, I was a frequent forum poster; it was immensely helpful to get advice and tips from those who blazed the trail before me. WhyDoWork.com has a forum of nearly 70,000 members, so that’s a plus. And if you have your own website, you can place a small embedded widget for you and your readers to search the job database. Nice!

So if you’re looking to get your feet wet and test the WAH waters, here ya go: WhyDoWork.com. And I’ll be blogging more about, too.

In case you didn’t know, WAHM is an acronym for Work At Home Mom. I love– just love– working at home. I never ever thought it possible, but here it is! I hope it lasts forever, because I just love my jobs (pro-blogging and writing freelance). The work is sometimes a little overwhelming, but I do love it. And it’s been a blessing to be able to pay some bills and have dreams again of renovating the house!

But look who’s jealous!

Isn’t she bad?? lol That’s what she does. She wants to go outside or wants some attention– she clambers up to the desk and plunks her Siamese butt right on my work. Sheesh. Worse still, she keeps touching the monitor with her sticky, wet nose. YUKKK!! :hmph: My monitor has all these nose prints, and they drive me nuts as I try to type the articles. She won’t stop it, though, even when I tap her on her back to quit it.

BAD. :rollpin:

But I love her. How can you not love this cute pookie face?!

Holy cow, I got what I wanted.
I made my list– I have 100 IDEAS for How To articles now!! You guys are the BEST. I want to thank these folks for giving me the ideas.

Jay
Cindy
Penny Raine
Alice
Carole
Janiss
Chuck
John
Vixen
Renee
Jean
Now guess what I have to do! I have to WRITE them all!
Oh it won’t be hard. I do it alll the time! I’m sorry that things have been delayed– I had the flu last week, then I was slammed with lots of work from my writing company (not that I mind), and then more blogging….. whew, talk about feast or famine. But I do fully intend to write them (most of them, anyway) and I’ll be linking to the article and to your blog when I get them done, so you can see the answers.

I really appreciate you guys taking the time to help me out. You da best!!!

ALL. DAY. LONG.

I write for a few companies, and then there’s my neato new blog, The Older Geek, which I love. Sometimes, I am given ideas as assignments. Most of the time, I have to come up with my own.

:bangwall: Well guess what I’m doing these days?!

NOTHING! You’re right! I have run dry on ideas. So I’m asking for help from you guys. Can you guys give me some ideas? Ask me anything, anything you want to know how to do. I will research them and try to write about it. I especially like to write computer and software how-to articles. You can take a peek at The Older Geek for some examples. I also like to write about home improvement, and gardening, and other stuff.

Could you please take a minute and give me some ideas? You can email me or leave a comment here. Ask as many questions as you like, the more the merrier. I’ll let you know when I have completed them!

So I was checking out headphones at the store. I rarely buy anything retail around here– I visit the stores to check out their wares, find something I like, and take the product number for online ordering. The store that day was horribly noisy: the headphone section is next to the stereo section, and I think some kid had turned on and up every single boombox on the shelf. :S

I saw some big headphones that look really comfortable. I glanced at the retail price and gulped– $200!!!!!!!!!!!!! Holy cow, who would spend $200 on headphones?! These were Bose “noise canceling” kind. Rrrright, ok. Do noise-canceling headphones really work? I tried them on.

Oh. my. gosh.

It was SILENT. I was floored, totally floored. It was like the boom boxes had faded away. I fell instantly in love! But, still, $200. Whoa.

Buy.com has something like them on sale, for under $140; it’s the Bose Around-Ear headphones set. I love that kind; Bose is the most comfortable because they don’t hurt my sensitive ears. Still, that’s a lot of money for headphones. I could always claim them as a business expense, since I’d be using them for work…. not sure. Those noise-canceling headphones were so very nice, it will be hard to find a suitable alternative! I’m spoiled now, lol!

Maybe Buy.com will discount a set and I can nab them then. :D Buy.com always has good prices. I get an email every week with their weekly specials. Check out the site if you want to keep on top of the sales, they have excellent sales– and things go pretty fast.

I need to find SOMETHING, though. I can’t think with all this racket around here, gah! I’m open to suggestions, if you have any!

Freaky Frugalite is a mommy blog. It’s *relatively* popular. I get about 20- 30,000 hits every month here (sometimes as much as 200,00 a month), and I’ve given several interviews to media corporations, including the Associated Press, TIME magazine, and other “smaller” media corps; and I have been approached by the folks from Good Morning America and BlogHer.

And it’s really neat.

I mean, I think it’s so cool that people actually LIKE ME! People actually LIKE to read what I write! It’s a terrific feeling. (No hotel stays or free cameras, though :-p ).

But…. fame doesn’t buy the groceries. :-p

I still have Page Rank 0 here, despite loads of people visiting me, linking to me, and media bigwigs mentioning me. My New York Traveler.net blog is even bigger- I get close to 700-1,000 hits a day there, with an active readership and a LOT of new folks visiting (my posts there are very informative). And that blog only has a measly Page Rank of 2.

I’m a pro-blogger. I write because I enjoy it, but I also maintain so many blogs because I’ve made it my career while I raise my children. It’s an extremely fulfilling career– thanks to you!– and I absolutely LOVE blogging. But all this love and flowers and media attention doesn’t change the income a whole lot…. and sometimes I feel disappointed and a little desperate.

… ?? I don’t know what to do, exactly. Maybe I just don’t have what it takes to make this blogging gig a full-time career thing. That’s OK, come to think of it. I’m happy keeping things easy and relaxed. But gosh darn, you’d think with all these interviews and mentions and fireworks and wreaths of roses, I’d see an increase in some cashola! Nope. Still, Page Rank 0 and tepid sponsors. Hm.

*sigh*

So what’s next?