I WILL make it!

Monday, May 30, 2005

Interesting Weekend

So the weather was odd... gorgeous and sunny for a few hours and then thunderstorms - Saturday AND Sunday. Which led to me babysitting a strange dog. Next door to my best friend's trailer there was a puppy (it couldn't have been older than 4 months) was tied up outside for what we figure 10 hours. By 2 pm (my friend said the neighbours were gone when she got up at 9) there was no food or water left in it's dishes, and the sun was HOT. We got it more water and decided if a storm came (it threatned for a few hours before actually showing up) one of us would take it in. I finally grabbed it around 5ish when we heard thunder. As it wasn't OUR long weekend, we finally had to drop it off at another friend's trailer who has a bigger dog than us because my dogs were freaking and we had to go home. When we left around 7, the owners of this PUPPY S T I L L weren't back and the office was closed. I hope they had a heart attack when they came home finally! A$$holes! For goodness sake, if you get a pet, TAKE CARE OF IT. And I hope those damn owners have issues - I'd love my or my husbands fists to get a workout on them. People like that deserve the same kind of pain they inflict on their pets!

Ok, off my rant now :) I came home last night after dropping off the above best friend around 9ish and checked my stats - decent traffic and adsense. Actually, it was enough that as we speak (with no clicks yet today) I have broken the $100 payout threshold!!!!!! Even happier news, I finally got my PIN today too!! (Why they sent it AIRMAIL from New York City to Montreal - an 8 hour drive - I'm not sure.) So whether I get a check in June, July or August, I don't much care - it was the landmark I was looking forward to. To more experienced marketers, I know $100 isn't much, but it's really good reinforcement for me :)

Today looks like it will be dedicated to going after link partners. I got 35 for the dog site through Sitesell Value Exchange that I have to check out, and I someone I contacted a couple of weeks ago just got back to me for the travel site. I really hope to have the "secret, ha ha" site public this week. I haven't cleared up all my affiliate issues, but to heck with it, I have 3 or 4 which is plenty right now. It's been sitting in limbo too long, and Jon says he can't find any issues with it, so I'm going to do final checks and probably go public by Friday. You'll hear it here first, promise ;)

Off to work now,

Tara :)

Friday, May 27, 2005

It's been a crazy day

*** Due to piracy concerns, the link to my version of the goal starter page has been removed.

Ok, so it's been a quiet couple of days with my little bro around visiting. Very little work - that is until today.

Andrea from GoldenPineCone.com messaged me today so I could test her new template. Yes, this is the lovely woman who asked me to be an affiliate. I hadn't had time to sign up until today, so while I was doing the testing, I signed up. Now, before I start on the story, understand, the problems I had today had NOTHING to do with her awesome template - purely my own stupidity, as usual. lol

So while fooling around (and rushing) to publish the template, I didn't pay attention to which site I was putting it on, and managed to somehow merge my 3 sites into one. The subsequent clean up took about 3 hours, and I still can't get it to work properly on my desktop, only on the laptop. Which is fine, I've been meaning to get everything up and working off the laptop for a while now. Still though, the only reason I got everything working is because I HAD backed up the site on the laptop. So as Jon said today in his blog... yes it's a pain in the ass, but BACK UP YOUR SITES!

On the slightly upside, I fixed a few more things on the not public yet site and caught a few mistakes I'd missed. We're getting there....

On the really fun upside, I've spent about 3 hours tonight playing with this awesome template. It's brand new and available right now and worth the (ONLY!) $15 Andrea is charging. Seriously folks, if you follow James Martell and want an easily customizable "home page" (like he suggests) head on over and pick it up - but make sure you do it when you have a bit of time, you'll be adding your own pictures and links galore. Lots of fun, and very useful. And for those of you who aren't aware, all of Andrea's templates are great - and she design's James' templates as well, so you know you're getting quality stuff.

Ok, I'm off the template kick.. lol It really was great though! So, off camping again this weekend. I've been asked by a couple people "again?" - let me just clear it up - until Canadian Thanksgiving (first Monday in October), if not longer, unless there's a big family/friend do, it will be every single weekend :) So unless the internet with my phone suddenly works this weekend, I most likely won't be posting until Monday night.

To my American friends, have a great LOOOOOONG weekend! Everyone else, enjoy your time off!

Tara :)

Wednesday, May 25, 2005

Woo hoo, Carrie Won!

Not loving the single so much - but the best finally won!

It's been a slack couple of days. I was really tired all day yesterday, but couldn't sleep at nap time or bed time and only fell asleep near 6 am. Luckily when I woke up after 1 today, I remembered I was expecting my brother around 2 and didn't go back to sleep.. lol

I've been contacting possible merchants (for the new site) to see if they have affiliate programs - no love yet, though some have answered at the very least. And 2 merchants I've signed up for already are a little slow to answer emails, so I'm not terribly impressed. Sadly they're independants so I don't have much recourse - but I need them, there's very very very few merchants in this niche - at least not many with affiliate programs.

Happily one of my existing merchants does cover what I'm after and I figured out how to do a URL redirect on CJ today. Now I think tomorrow and Friday will be spent going back over all my affiliate links and doing the same thing, as much as possible. Maybe write a few articles too. I think I'll also stop predicting when this site will be public - every time I do, I have to postpone it again. I would say most likely some time in June.

I'm in the single digits before getting a check from Google. At this rate, unless I have a really bad few days, I may just qualify for a check this month!

Zat's about eet folks!

Tara :)

Monday, May 23, 2005

Back after an exhausting weekend

And I'm TIRED. So if any of this is incoherent, you'll know why :)

As predicted, there weren't too many sober moments, though I wasn't the worst. We found out my best friend's boyfriend is quite a lightweight - but he provided many giggly moments.. lol

The weather sucked. Friday was decent, and then rain. 3 days of rain. Lots of movies and games going on, but it was nice to see friends and family.

On the A.M. front, I have surpassed last month's earnings in Adsense, in no small part due to today's earning's alone. With a week to go, I will most likely hit the $100 mark by the 31 of May. If not, I will bet my first check that I have it by the 5 of June. No commissions that I've seen yet, which is very depressing - across the board through all of my affiliate networks I'm averaging about a 7% click-through rate of those who visit my product pages. Oh well, it'll happen eventually, right?

I think this week (a short one again since we go camping every weekend) I'll be working strictly on my not-so-secret site. I'm not too crazy about alot of the Adsense ads on most of the pages, but I've gone as far as I can with Google, so I'll have to just do some testing. To do that I'll need visitors so I'll need to go live. Plus I'd like to see some more cash :)

So, I guess that's the weekend roundup. Oh, and I did all but 2 of the articles I had planned last week. Hope you all had a great weekend and have a fantastic money-making week!

Tara :)

Thursday, May 19, 2005

As always, I'm late :)

As promised, here are the latest articles:

What to Look for When Buying a Dog Trick Training Book
The BARF Spreadsheet Will Help You Keep Track
Stuffed Toys for Dogs Can Be Fun For All!
Keep Your Pet Safe With a Dog Car Harness!
Women's Travel Clothing - More Than Meets the Eye
There are Lots of Swimsuit Coverup Options Available
You CAN Take Your Dog - Just Use an Airline Carryon Dog Bag!
Here are My Favorite Travel Products
Souper Puppy Nylabones are Super!

There are 4 more, but I'm not ready to release the new site yet, it still needs some tweaking. Hopefully next week. With one day left of work, I've got to try and finish the last few articles, get Eric to edit them and then publish. Big feat to accomplish if I'm as busy tomorrow as I was today. I wrote 6 articles by 4 pm and then as a treat, I decided to FINALLY watch Desperate Housewives, which I'd been too busy to do. And I folded laundry, so it wasn't wasted time ;)

Then the phone rang - my Mom calling me back. Ok, chatted for about 15 mins, no problem, back to my show. Not 5 minutes later, my husband's credit card company calling AGAIN (not a creditor, a telemarketer) after I've told them politely twice to call back AFTER supper. This time I was less polite. About 2 minutes after that, hubby starts with the MSN about the articles I'd sent him to edit... I did manage to finish watching about 2 hours after I started. Oh well.

Then it gets better. Tons of email coming in all day, PM's back and forth with someone who'd like me to be an affiliate (OMG how FLATTERING!!!! - I said yes of course, I love her stuff!), chatting with Jon (as usual, I think my husband is starting to get jealous! lol) and then I discover I can no longer publish. Across all 3 sites. Internal server error. Then it's on to back and forth for an hour with my hosting company.

K, listen - I may be a newb at hosting, but I did work tech support and customer service - I know when I'm being brushed off. They tried to tell me some b.s. about back everything up, uninstall FP extensions, reinstall and get back to us. I hadn't touched anything in FP, and I don't know how to manually configure anything, so it wasn't me. We then discovered it was related to another issue (which is what I thought) and problem solved. Usually I talk to someone else who knows a bit better than to try and get rid of me. Hell, can't blame 'em - I did the same thing.. lol Still a great company with good support and fantastic prices. I would - and still do - recommend them to anyone.

Let's see, what else did I do... Signed up for a couple of affiliate programs for the hidden site, tweaked it a teeny bit, ogled Adsense and my stats, as usual, spent too much time on the AP forum and my RSS feeds, as usual.. And of course those articles above. Went to bed waaaaay too early yesterday (but it felt great) which is why the first articles didn't get posted. Then I decided to just wait until they were all done. I think that about covers the last couple of days.

If I get a chance to finish all the articles, I'll be posting tomorrow. Otherwise, unless the internet with my cell phone suddenly works this weekend (not holding my breath) I'll be posting on Tuesday most likely.

To all my fellow Canucks: Happy Victoria Day weekend - eat, DRINK and be merry!

Tara :)

Tuesday, May 17, 2005

Busy Weekend

We had a lovely (read delicious) late Mother's Day dinner last night at a cute little Indian place. It's funny, as I get older, I enjoy my parents company more and more. Perhaps because we don't live too close together or talk too often.. lol Seriously, my Mom and I fight a lot less these days, which is nice.

No camping sadly, but we'll make up for it this weekend. It's a holiday weekend, Victoria Day (Monday) weekend here in Canada. Looks like Friday will be devoted to moving our old bed and our outdoor bar down to the trailer, coming back to get the dogs and just relaxing/drinking all weekend. Our good friend will finally be joining us this weekend, so I don't expect much sober time or sleep. Good times!

In terms of affiliate marketing, I've had two extremely good days in Adsense. Yesterday was better, but today is nothing to sneeze at. Actually yesterday was my best day ever in terms of amount, though not clicks. Let's just say that if I could get the amount every day, I would get a check every month.

I also have 9 articles (some I've blogged about already) edited but not set up. I'll most likely do that after I post. Tomorrow's post should include all the articles. I wrote 4 of them today. I would like to get at least 20 articles done this week (across all 3 sites) since I effectively will lose 4 days of work. With no internet connection at the trailer, I'll have a hard time writing the articles as I tend to do research as I need it.

So that's my life today. You know, it's funny where motivation can come from sometimes. The person whose site I blogged about earlier today called me an inspiration. We started at about the same time, but no doubt because of this blog, I have been more successful than her. It's all relative I suppose, because I certainly don't feel successful or that I'm any kind of inspiration, but then again, I'm sure that my inspirations don't feel like one either. Her very sweet comment has definitely motivated me to work harder. And don't worry, I had offered to help before she said anything :)

Something to think about...

Tara :)

Monday, May 16, 2005

Short post for now

More coming later.

But, for now, help out a friend of mine and take a look at her site, Your Guide to Finding True Love. If you like it at all, do her a favour and link to it on your blog for a few days, she's having a heck of a time to get some SE's over to it.

Thanks loyal readers!

Tara :)

Sunday, May 15, 2005

Today was a good day

Despite the weather, which SUCKED ROCKS. So much for fixing up the trailer!

***But... we ended up taking down assorted furniture I needed (like a desk and such) to spend the summer down at our campsite. After filling up the truck to the brim today, all that leaves us is our old queen size bed and our outdoor bar. I realised that there is a good chance that our bed will fit into the 'rents mini-van. If it does, that means that we can postpone fixing up the cargo trailer until later in the season (or after it if need be) and take the Home Depot gift card money (Xmas pressie) and put it towards a much needed roof on the campsite trailer. So far, so good.

***My day started much brighter than that though - I finally got my first commission! Ok, so it wasn't through any of my sites, it was through the blog - for my hosting company. And, ok, it was only $0.90 - but it's a start, and it's a recurring commission. Small steps lead to bigger ones, right?

***In other good news, I got 2 articles done today before heading down to the States. They aren't set up yet, but that will be done later tonight or tomorrow. One is for the dog site, the other for the not-so-secret site. Hopefully I'll get a bunch more done tomorrow before heading out for our week late Mother's Day dinner. Should be able to, Eric's headed over to a friend's house to help "open" their pool. (New home owners.)

***And to top my day off nicely, the latest Affiliate Buzz came out. It's definitely the best new one I've listened to since buying James Martell's book at the end of January. Lots of great info and motivational tips. Way to go James and Charles!

***Not great news, but maybe somewhat interesting to some of you - I think I may have finally decided on the topics for my next couple of sites. I think I'm going to start devoting (or try) at least a half hour a day to research so I don't get all stopped up like I did between the travel site and the newest 2. Continuous pour as Mr. Martell says.

***Icing on the cake? I've realised that there's a good chance I may actually see a Google Adsense check sometime in July. I'm more than halfway (though closer to half) to reaching the payout threshold. And this month's Adsense revenue will almost certainly be higher than last month's. Heck, if I have a really good 16 days, I might technically qualify by June 1st. I think it's more likely though that it will happen in June. Hopefully it won't take nearly as long to get the next check! lol

I hope today is a sign of things to come. Keep your fingers crossed that I won't run out of money anytime soon so I can keep this up!

Tara :)

Friday, May 13, 2005

I am the Queen of Murphy's Kingdom

It figures. When I'm finally ready to make a post this afternoon, Blogger schedules a maintenance. Sorry for the lack of post last night, went to bed earlier than usual.

I finally today put those articles up. And it turns out that the other day when I said I'd written 2 articles, it was actually 3 - I'd forgotten about one.. lol I can't imagine saying that 3 months ago! There are actually 4 written and ready to go now, but I'm still waiting on the other webmaster for one and the other is for my "secret" (haha) site. I'm pretty sure now that I'll publish it here, I'm too greedy, I want it indexed right away. So keep an eye out for that next week.. maybe. Have to do a bit more testing, plus an affiliate that I REALLY want isn't ready for applications right now.

We're not headed to the trailer this weekend - or rather, not the one we sleep in. My Dad has graciously offered us his beat up old trailer, but we have to gut it first and then rebuild it. So off to the 'rents tomorrow to start work on that. I'd LOVE to finish it before next weekend, but I'm doubtful. With the possibility of rain on and off during the weekend, I don't know how much will really get done. If we can get the pieces all fitting together properly though, I can always go an paint them next week.

Anyway, here's the stunning (/end sarcasm) new articles:

Do Luggage Discounts REALLY Exist? Where are They?
Winter Can Be Fun with Extra Warm Dog Coats!

Have a great weekend, I may post more before Monday,

Tara :)

Wednesday, May 11, 2005

Today's roundup

Not a whole heck of a lot done today, or rather, not much concrete work.

I wrote 2 articles, but Eric is tired, so I'll wait to ask for him to edit them until tomorrow. The problem with one of the articles is that I'm being a good girl and asking permission to link to an Excel spreadsheet on someone's website. It's probably my strongest keyword in terms of KEI (check out Wordtracker for an explanation) though it's not really something that will probably make me money. I'm hoping that it will serve as a good doorway page to get people to check out the rest of the dog site. So until they respond, that article can't go live.

What took up another hour or 2 today was researching meat grinders strong enough to also grind bones. No, I didn't kill anyone (though I did make a joke about that to Mark), neither do I have any intention of doing so. It's for the BARF (bones and raw food) section of the site. Some dogs don't tolerate whole bones very well (you're supposed to give them raw, meaty bones) so some people prefer to grind them up. As you can imagine, many meat grinders can't do the job properly. So once the research was done, then it was off to find a merchant, which I thought I had already done, but hadn't. Then I figured out how to link directly to a product (first time I've tried that) so that my readers wouldn't have to wade through a site. Fun day, let me tell you.

And as usual, I LOVE chatting with friends, so I spent way too long doing that instead of working. Though to be fair I did do a lot of it while watching Revelations and Law and Order, so those 2 hours don't count.. lol I need to learn to turn off the chatting programs when I want to get some work done. I know it won't happen though! lol I also did a ton of blog surfing to get some more credits. I bought some on one of the traffic exchanges, but I'm trying to still surf to keep the credits high.

Oh, I'm not sure if I ever let everyone know what Google said about my other site and the Adsense issues. They have now responded twice, fixing one problem beautifully, and sadly the other problem due to stop words (though they didn't use that term) looks like it's here to stay. I figured as much. I'll most likely just take Adsense off that page and any other pages that give that issue (it will happen again due to the nature of the site). Still undecided as to whether or not I'll eventually post a link from here. Since there's absolutely no competition that I've found (other than the merchants themselves) I'm leary. Especially with all the wonderful Blog Clicker and Blog Explosion visitors. While they are appreciated, I don't know them like I know my few loyal readers.

Anyway, it's long enough now. Funny how I often worry that I won't have enough to say and even feel guilty if I don't post. Jon and I were discussing that tonight. For him it's a habit now. I don't know if it's quite a habit for me yet, but it's definitely getting there.

Seriously now, Good Night!

Tara :)

Tuesday, May 10, 2005

Wonder of Wonders

I actually wrote 4 new articles for the travel site, since I didn't have my keyword list for the dog site. I now remember very vividly why I started to embrace the idea of hiring authors. I can't begin to tell you how sick of travel accessories I am. lol Oh well, maybe with my tax refund. Of course, I really should DO my taxes first.. I'm only 10 days late as of this second, and getting later by the day.

Anyway, here are the articles:

Do You Know What to Expect When Buying Discount Luggage Sets?
Leather Carry On Luggage - Who Doesn't Want That?
Hardside Luggage - Who Makes It?
Samsonite Laptop Cases - How Do You Choose?

Nothing fantastic, but what can you really say about discount luggage sets? lol Other than the articles, I cleaned up my inboxes (7) and bookmarks and started a teeny bit of research on my next possible niche. Truly not much accomplished, but I have to admit to spending a bit of time outside - it was 26 degrees Celcius today, if not warmer. Summer (temporarily) in May. *sigh* Unfortunately it's gonna get much colder tomorrow. Such is life in Montreal.

Last but not least - if anyone happens to know what the heck was wrong with Vonzell tonight on AI, leave me a comment, I'm so curious!

Tara :)

Monday, May 09, 2005

The Grand Unveiling II

***This time, it's not my site, but my good friend Jon's first site. For someone who's not really following one guru, (and even if he was!) I think this is a fabulous site! If you'd like to see the site (and I can't recommend that enough) go see the best Home Theatre Accessories Resource I've seen. If you have any tips for him, click on Jon's name and leave a comment on his blog, which is also great. I'm sure this site will do well! And obviously, if you see a product you're interested in, don't hesitate to buy ;)

As for this weekend, what a turnaround! Beautiful weather - Friday was the nicest day, I was in shorts all day after leaving Eric's work. We went in early because the school was having a garage sale - I love books and can't afford to satiate my cravings at brand new prices, and these were 5/$1 for paperbacks! I even got a book to help me with writing my dog site! So I guess it was worth getting up at the crack of dawn (7:30) in the end. Except for the fact that I forgot my dog site binder with all my article outlines and keywords at Eric's work, and then he forgot it tonight.. lol Oh well, I guess it will just make me work on my travel site or my other site in development.

Speaking of that site, I believe I mentioned previously that I was having Adsense issues due to "stop words" that causes filters to give me only PSA's. I wrote to Google and within 2 working days I had a response. I could see they'd been all over the site, and they answered that the problem was solved. It's mostly solved, but there are still 2 pages that return PSA's. One intermittently, the other consistently. The consistent one doesn't surprise me, and I don't think I will get Adsense on that page ever. The other one should display relevant ads though, because they do exist. So after giving it a week to test it out, I have written them back explaining the problem, and asked if I should expect the problems to continue or not. I'll let y'all know what happens :)

On that note, I think I'll end this. But I'd like to wish all the Mom's out there a belated Happy Mother's day - especially my Mom. Her biggest present I could ever give her would be having a kid like me one day.. lol Until then, I still have until Sunday to figure out what I'm getting her this year. (We were both busy yesterday and decided to wait to celebrate.)

Have a good night!

Tara :)

Friday, May 06, 2005

6 New Articles

I'm funny that way.. I tend not to do 1 or 2 a day consistently. It's more like 6 or 7 in a shot and then no more for a week.. lol But, however I do it - at least I DO IT. And these are the first I've written since launching the site. So it's a good thing :)

In case anyone is interested, here are the 6 new articles:

Getting a "Smart Toy" for Your Dog Is a Great Idea!
The Pros and Cons of Steel Bar Dog Crates
My Take on the 10 Best Dry Dog Foods
Dog Care Includes Bathing - Unfortunately
Dog Charms for Collars - So Pretty!
Dog Cook Book For Fundraisers? Great idea!

Yes, I know 2 of the titles are repetitive. You people are probably the only ones who'll notice though, so I don't care ;)

That's about all I got done today, with the exception of getting ready for camping tomorrow. Had to do some laundry (dry, but not folded yet) and groceries (we like to eat while camping) and that's about the sum of the work. Scary, especially since I didn't even take a nap today! lol Woo hoo me!

So that's about it. If I can get the cell phone internet connection working this weekend (the American company said the service should work, but isn't "hard launched" yet, so I may have to wait since I'm not a customer, but just roaming on their network) I will post from down there, promise! Otherwise, I'll most likely only be back Monday since the weather is supposed to be very nice Sunday. And since I no longer have to rush in to work, and Eric's hours are fairly flexible, we'll stay and enjoy another night. Also, seems like we'll be able to be down there (cross your fingers) by about 3 or 4 pm, missing the rush hour traffic out of Montreal. Can't wait!

Have a great weekend, one and all!

Tara :)

Thursday, May 05, 2005

Site Submissions

Just slightly better than article submissions. Gotta be done though. Self Promotion helps alot though, thank goodness! I can't recommend them enough. The site will do auto-submissions for free for you, and if you like the product, you can donate. I finally donated $10, and when I'm doing a bit better financially, I will contribute more.

Other than that though, I had a totally slack day. I got up too early and took a 3 hour nap - not good. Also, before my nap I had a massive sneezing attack and seem to have pulled a muscle under my rib. Having done this before (though not by sneezing) I knew to expect a lot of pain. I was right. Good news though - I have some anti-inflammatories left from the last time I pulled a muscle in my back, and 1 pill in so far, it seems to be a smidge better. Hopefully by the time I get up tomorrow it will be better, since I have to load the car tomorrow night for camping.

Anyway, that's about all I have for ya tonight, 'cept - WOOO HOOO, Scott Savol is FINALLY gone. Should've been about 6 weeks ago in my opinion! I predict the following: Anthony gone next, then Bo, final 2 Vonzell and Carrie with Carrie winning. That's the way it SHOULD go, unless they can bring back Jessica Sierra!

See ya!

Tara :)

Wednesday, May 04, 2005

Pretty cool Adsense day

It wasn't the best day in terms of the amount, though it's pretty good for me. What's so great about it was the number of clicks. I'm not sure I'm allowed to reveal the number of clicks, so I won't, but it was in the double digits. I also broke the $50 mark today. At the rate I'm going lately, I should qualify for payment at the end of this month or at worst the end of June. It won't be a huge check (unless the dog site kicks in soon) but I would just LOVE to show everyone my check from Google ;)

Got some article submissions done today and signed up for SiteSell Value Exchange. I haven't ever done a links campaign yet, so I can't compare, but I think that article submission has GOT to be just as boring. I finally had to stop before I took a nap. But... I submitted at least 2, and up to 6 articles on 5 or 6 article sites. I need to get more done, and I may just do it after this as a substitute to a sleeping pill. I'm also waiting for www.SitePromotion.com to process my donation and I will do some submissions to lesser directories tomorrow.

Oh, and I even got some house cleaning done today.. lol My goal is to finish cleaning my horribly messy house by the time I go down to the trailer for the summer, which will be sometime in June. 3 rooms done so far.. lol

With that, goodnight!

Tara :)

Monday, May 02, 2005

Back from a GREAT (cold) weekend :)

***As mentioned earlier, some blogs that I've been reading for a while and should have posted a looooong time ago:

Kieron's" Affiliate Marketing Blog from UK Offer Media (thanks for the link back Kieron!)
Jean-Rene's" My Quest for Financial Freedom (thanks for all the nice comments!)
Clicknewz! Behind the scenes with Lynn Terry (really great informational blog, and I haven't even gotten to her forum yet!)

Hope y'all get tons of traffic from me! More blogs will be added shortly, those are just 3 of the too many to count in my feed reader.. lol


As the title says, it was COLD and rainy this weekend down at the campsite. We also don't have heating in the trailer, which is not an issue in July, but on April 29th it can be. Thank goodness I asked for that electric blanket for Christmas! (Thanks Mom!) Don't care though, it was wonderful to finally go back, even though I'm not sure if I'll ever get all the mud off. To make matters worse, we couldn't get the hot water tank lit. Not a surprise since it took us over an hour the first time last year. The rain didn't help either. Come to think of it, it sounds mighty depressing, but I swear, I had a great time. Friday evening was spent visiting "camping" friends that we haven't seen all winter, Saturday was with some "home" friends and Sunday was work time. All in all, a great time was had by dogs and humans ;)

Sadly, I couldn't get the internet working or I would've posted from there. The cell phone works (with fluctuating signal) but it seems that the GPRS either isn't functional there or it's not allowed either at the moment or ever for my company. (I roam on an American network at the trailer.) So today was spent searching for a hot water tank to rent (non-existant), heating oil (no prices and I'm not sure if we're too small for them to bother) and dial-up internet access which I find expensive. (Netzero isn't available there - argh.) Plus even though I slept 12 hours last night (thought I was coming down with the flu, damn I didn't feel well!) I had to take a nap today. So I'm only getting to this post tonight. Sorry to leave y'all high and dry for so long!

On to affiliate marketing stuff. I had a crappy adsense weekend. Glad I wasn't here watching the clock.. lol Still no affiliate sales yet. I'm hoping the dog site will get that started. I have a funny feeling that the travel site is my "flop" site, though adsense isn't horrible from it. I should break the $50 mark by the end of this week. And to be fair, the income is going up and up. I just would LOVE to see an affiliate sale so I can prove the nay-sayers wrong ;)

The dog site has been visited by both Google and Yahoo a few times now, and somehow, way before I went public, it had been visited by Ask Jeeves. I have no idea how unless they monitor new domains or something. Still no SE traffic yet, but hopefully this week. I'd love to have enough Adsense income from the 2 sites to actually GET A CHECK from them! lol

Tomorrow should be spent either writing articles or submitting to small SE's and directories - maybe a bit of both, who knows? And for those of you following the saga of adsense on my other site (reason it's not launched yet) I finally wrote them an email on Friday. No answer yet, but they've been all over the site with over 30 page loads today at various times, so hopefully I'll have an answer soon, because I'd like to decide one way or another what I'm doing with the site.

Anyway, this post is quite long enough now, so put your eyes back in your head, and I'll post more soon :)

Tara :)

P.S. I'll be answering comments from now on IN the comments section, so keep an eye out if you've left me a comment. If you'd prefer I replied privately, make sure to include your email address. Remember you can always email me @ support AT a1-travel-accessories DOT com.

Tara :)

Quickie

I'll give y'all a nice long post later today. In the meantime, check out this really cool blog (link will appear here later) by Kieron, someone who's been at it a LOT longer than me :)

Tara :)