November 28th, 2007 by BlogRmom

Let me start by saying “I hate Google.” That’s a bold statement don’t you think? Well let me fill you in a bit. Google has recently started targeting blogs lowering their page rank. The reason they are doing this is because I, like many others, are doing sponsered ads or links out of our blog. We do a little product review, or write a blurb, or link a key word and we are paid for doing so. The amount of money is not huge… usually around $5 an entry. Although there is alot of money to be made, most people don’t average out making too much. For shits and giggles, I will disclose to you this… I’ve collected around $100 this month for blogging. So you can get a general idea. Now, why does this piss google off? Well most people are going to give you some thick lengthy response and say this or that… but the bottom line is… Google is losing advertising money and business. Because they are much larger then the average blogger, they’ve decided to LASH out on us… thus lowering our page ranks. Why does Page Rank matter? Well for a few reasons. My blog is here for several reasons. First and foremost, it’s MY blog. Period. I want readers to come here, enjoy what they see, comment, perhaps grab a goodie or 2, and then return in the future. This is a networking tool for me, and I’ve met tons of people through my blog. Many have common interests and goals. The lower my Page Rank the less likely my site is to come up on a search. The reason for Google targeting blogs, pisses me off. I’ve owned this domain for over a year. In that year I’ve spent MANY MANY $$ in hosting, time and products to keep my blog alive, up and running. I have handed out THOUSANDS of freebies and products that I have spent countless hours away from my family, friends, etc to create. I am by NO means saying that I regret it or that it was dumb to do. I do it because I want to, because I enjoy giving things away. I am a SAHM and this is a wonderful outlet for me. Because of the costs to have a blog and host files, etc is the MAIN reason I’ve turned to paid blogging. Again, something I WANT to do. But Google has decided to take my Page Rank of 3, yes THREE and send me to a 0, yes ZERO. One click of a button and it was all gone for them. Something I spent FOURTEEN months on… I’ve poured SO much in to get that Rank… Does Google give 2 shits? No, they could care less. Bottom line is they want me to stop blogging for money so they can get their greedy ass hands on some more money. That pisses me off.

So what does this mean for me? Well let me just say, I hate Google. I don’t plan to advertise for them, use their services (including their shitty Gmail email), or give them the time of day anymore.

Simply put, this is MY blog. If they don’t like it, too bad. I pay for my web space, not Google. I will do what I want here and that is that. They can shove their Page Rank up their asses. I don’t need to be ranked with them, nor do I care anymore. I will be popular all on my own for reasons that are much better then ANY Page Rank. I want people to like my blog because of the freebies, because of me, because of my personality, because of my humor, because of my scrap pages, or simply just because. I want readers and I want them to return, but I will not sell my soul to Google to make that happen. I will blog on because as I said, this is MY space. As for Google I don’t care. As for Page Rank, who cares… it’s a number… and I’d like to think I leave my readers with something more then a meaningless number.

SHOVE IT GOOGLE!!

November 27th, 2007 by BlogRmom

I scrapped and I am SOOO proud of my 2 layouts!! They are 2 of my favorites right now. I have more up my sleeve, so that might change, but here are the 2 I did yesterday:

Click the thumbnails to see them larger on Flickr with credits. They turned out amazing… I love them and I am very proud of both of them!! So today I have a couple more planned but we will see.

I was up almost all night with my son. He’s got a horrible COUGH!! He was up most of the night coughing and of course I was giving him cough medicine every 4 hours as the bottle says. It wasn’t enough though. You know I tell hubby this this morning and he says bring him to the DR. I would but you know there is something magical that happens… I hand the DR the $30 for the co-pay and suddenly they are no longer sick. I hate that more then anything!! So I am trying to hold out. It’s really just a cough and it doesn’t sound crouppy or anything like that. Just sounds like my ‘nose was running and now the snot is in my lungs’ cough. I hate being the one to make parenting decisions. I really do not want to be up all night with him, but I can’t justify the co-pay. I don’t think there will be anything they can do besides tell me to keep the cough medicine up, use a vaporizer and VICKS, which we are already doing. So I guess I will give it a couple more days. If he doesn’t improve, I will take him to the DR. Certainly before the weekend as I HATE the Urgent Care centers and HATE to use them!!

SO after I take Mariah to school I’ve got to stop through Walgreens for some more cough medicine, pens and some crayons Mariah needs for school tomorrow. Then I am planning to come home and lay down. I am hoping my son will agree with that and perhaps crash on the couch for a while. He’s been awake and out of bed since 5am and really that’s too early for ANY child that doesn’t nap, let alone him!!

Have a wonderful Tuesday bloggers!!

November 21st, 2007 by BlogRmom

After MUCH time I finally broke down and ordered some candles from Sage Grove. Let me tell you, Lara is amazing!! Her candles are awesome. I rarely order things online anymore unless I have a great referral. In this case I did. But I still usually start with a small purchase. All the stuff is made to order and I knew that, so I anticipated it taking a bit to arrive. But guess what… it came TODAY!!!! SUPER fast!! I picked GREAT. Lara also included some scent cards which was AWESOME because there were a few scents I wanted to smell and even though they sounded good, I wanted to be sure. Although after seeing the product, I could NOT have went wrong!! So I was happy with that. She included a little goodie too which was awesome of her and PERFECT for the holiday!!! So when you need candles and you want ones that are worth the money… head over to Sage Grove and get yourself some YUMMY candles!!

I scrapped an adorable page of my son today… Used some new goodies from Blythe Evans and her November Scrap Sack. I have to tell you, that sucker is LOADED with goodies and again, was never a let down. This girl AMAZES me at how awesome her Sack is each month!! What a steal!! Here’s my page:

Isn’t it too adorable!! I totally love it!! Of course my son was the perfect model. I did a photo shoot with him yesterday. I managed to get 3 good photos. That’s amazing for us!! We usually end up with none that I love!!

Other “mommy” news… Mariah lost her 3rd tooth. She was so proud. It was gross and was not a pretty site. I’ll be scrapping it soon, but she managed to get $2.00 from the Tooth Fairy!! She was so excited, but she had to bring the tooth to school first to show everyone!!

Okay well I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday!! I am headed to my mom’s for a meal. My hubby has to work and my mom offered to cook. So I am headed there with the kids. No reason to make a big meal here for me and the kids. So we will head there for some yummy turkey, potatoes, pumpkin pie and of course a couple wine coolers. It will officially start the holiday season for me!! I will try my best to get in the holiday spirit. I am working so hard at the gym. I am hoping to fit in some of my nice clothing by Christmas time… we will see. My brother is here tonight with me to watch movies and entertain the kids… but I think I am going to head into the shower and warm up some. I am just FREEZING and we got some actual SNOW flurries tonight. Nothing that STUCK, thank god, but it’s that time of the year *sigh* I could totally do without the snow!! I hate that word!!

Happy Thanksgiving Bloggers!! What are you thankful for this year??

November 15th, 2007 by BlogRmom

Todays post is loaded!! hehe I am a babbling machine this morning and since my hubby worked nights and went to bed as soon as he got home, bloggers, you get to hear it all!! Lucky you hey??

Last night we had conference for our daughter at school. Went pretty well. She’s doing good. She’s really struggling with SLOWING down. She wants to be done first hence running through her work and not trying to the best of her ability. So we need to figure out a way to conquer that. It’s become rather annoying on both the part of us and the teacher as we are CONSTANTLY reminding her to SLOW down, WRITE NEATER, etc… But hopefully after this conference she’ll “get it” and we won’t be doing this every night with her!! Other then that he grades and everything else are perfect!! So I am proud of that!! WTG Mariah!!

SPAM… I tell you… I totally HATE this CRAP!!!!!!!!! I am not evening talking about the annoying newsletters that get your email address that you can unsubscribe too. I am talking about the sex ones, the medication ones, the drug ones, etc… how annoying. I have banned and blocked each and everyone that comes in yet I still get 50-100 of them a day. I have them set to go to my SPAM folder in Outlook but none the less I still have to go through my SPAM folder to make sure none of them are NOT SPAM. So it’s still annoying. I want this CRAP gone. I swear this should be a crime and people should get prosecuted for sending this stuff!! It’s annoying. I am a mom, wife, scrapbooker, I stick to myself. I do not need viagra or any of the sex toys that you are wanting to sell me so STOP sending me your SPAM and CRAP!!!

Other then that tomorrow is payday so I’ve gone on the hunt for some Coupons. I found some wonderful coupons for Target which is my favorite place to shop so those will come in handy. I also found some Petsmart coupons that will come in handy. The puppy needs some new bones and toys and I’ve wanted to get him a new collar for a bit now. So those are all on my shopping list for this weekend. We also need to look at some tv stands. We are trying to find something to fit under our wall mounted TV. That is NOT an easy job. We bought the TV about 6 months ago to replace the 42″ projection screen TV that our son threw a diecast Thomas the train through!! So we decided to wall mount to prevent a future happening of this again!!! I can not afford to replace another TV! The only problem is that we had the VCR and the DVD player and all that on top the TV before. Now we need a stand of some sort for that stuff. So that has been something that has been ongoing for us… we have yet to find one that will work, but I think we are CLOSE now!!!

Other then that I am hoping to get some scrapping done!! Hopefully that will happen. It certainly has been a while since I have gotten some scrapping done. I have some lovely goodies, just need to get some time to sit and scrap!! Soon!! Okay bloggers have a great Thursday!!

November 12th, 2007 by BlogRmom

I swear I have the worst time with medication. I really try to avoid it and to take medication for me needs to have some serious something happening to make it worthwhile. Well I’ve had some serious migraines and that has lead to a need to have some testing, scans, etc done which lead to a medication called Topamax. My time on Topamax has been a rollercoaster that has been nothing shy of a nightmare. I’ve expieranced every side effect known to this medication. I’ve tried to do as the DR requested and ride them out as frequently they go away in time or are just with the increases for a few days. I am to the point of needing another increase and still not over the side effects from the last increase. I can no longer handle this. Of course there are much more details on why the DR wants this medication, etc and I am not going to do details here, but I’ve officially placed the call and told them I can NOT take this any longer. I just can’t. I’m tired of being sick everyday. I’m tired of not sleeping. I’m tired of not being able to eat and feeling nauseous. I am tired of my arms and hands tingling. I am tired of the diziness. I am tired of the sadness. I am tired of the fatique. In a nutshell… I am tired of the 3 little white Topamax pills each night. They suck!! Still waiting to hear back from the Neurologist.

The kids are sick… AGAIN. That time of the year. Mariah has brought home some sort of head/chest cold and of course Alex got it 10x times worse then she. He’s so congested and yuck. I’ve been giving him Tylenol Cold during the day and I am thinking of some Musinex for him too. I got some Vicks rub. Hopefully tonight will be a better night then last night he was up a lot of the night. He finally managed to crash and the prower went out. That of course woke him and he was too “scared” to sleep. So he didn’t. He was another 3 hours… UGH!! We are very much a white noise family so we pretty much were all up for the 3 hours while the power was out. That totally stinks. I hate power outages. Even the middle of the night ones!!

On a side note I was reading some information on Washington DC medical malpractice lawyers today. Interesting information. I guess when we head to the DR the last thing on our mind is that they are WRONG, but sometimes they are!! They are VERY wrong… It was amazing to me to read some of the things that do go wrong!!

Okay well anyway…. I am back off to veg and relax!! We got a ton of movies and we watched I know pronounce you Chuck and Larry and now we are getting set to watch Spiderman 3. Have a great day bloggers…