Alzheimer's Memory Walk

Oh my goodness! Alzheimer's is such a horrid disease! People end up a fraction of what they used to be. My grandpa had Alzheimer's. He was a state patrol officer for years, so it was so hard to watch this proud man's mind deteriorate. He couldn't even remember to do everyday things. He couldn't be left alone, so that hurt his pride. My grandma had to take care of him just as you would a young child, such as Grandpa knew he was supposed to do "something" such as brush his teeth, but without Grandma there to constantly remind him, he couldn't remember exactly what "something" was.

Luckily, there are people who care about finding a cure for this horrible disease. The Alzheimer's Association has been searching for a cure and supporting these people who need it. You, too, can support this worthy cause, by partaking in a Memory Walk in your area. There are many around the country, I'm sure there's one near you! I can't urge you enough to get out there and support this association, because you never know when this disease will strike your grandparents or parents.

Go now and sign up! Be a team captain! Get your family and co-workers to help your team, get the neighborhood to be a team, get moms from your child's class to be a team! There's really no excuse not to! Please help this worthy cause!

Moving in New Jersey?

Are you in or near New Jersey? Are you planning on moving soon and need a moving company in NJ? Check out www.homebulletin.net and get a 'free competitive moving quote'.

I think that's a fantastic idea! I love having all the names and numbers in one spot! No more digging around the phone book trying to keep track of who I've called and who offers what services.

Gifts for Men

When Father's Day, Christmas or Craig's birthday comes around, I always have trouble coming up with gifts for him. Same thing with my dad. My dad is a big car nut, so I'd love to get him one of these wall plates. He'd probably like the flame ones. They're really cool or since they're flames, I guess they'd be rather hot, huh? hehehe The diamond plate ones are pretty cool too. I'd have to get him a matching diamond plate garbage can for his shop because every shop needs a cool garbage can.

Moderation? Or Free-for-All?

What is your opinion on this parenting debate? I'm of the camp that allows my children to have things in moderation, hoping to thwart their desire to eat sweets until they're sick. I've even used this in my own life, while doing Weight Watchers. If I allow (and make note of it, of course) myself to have one cookie/cake/whateversoundsgoodatthemoment, I don't have the desire to eat the whole cookie jar of cookies.

I'm hoping the Princesses will follow through with this moderation when it comes to their finances. I'm trying to teach them that credit cards shouldn't be thought of as "free" money, because, we all know, it's far from free! Wish me luck!

Boatangel Outreach Centers

Our Ford Taurus has been sitting in front of our house for almost a year now. Last November, when Craig was driving to work, the transmission went out. We'd kind of had the inkling that it was going and we even had it checked out, but were told it'll either drive for a long time, or it'll go out. Obviously it went out.

There are places that will accept Car Donations like our Taurus. They take the cars (running or not) and sell them to dealers or at auctions and use the money to fund charities like Boatangel Outreach Centers. As a donor, you don't have to worry about trying to sell your car, plus you get tax credit for a charitable donation! It's a win-win for all involved.

If you've never heard of Boatangel Outreach, please go check them out! They're doing fantastic things with the monies earned from people donating their cars. They have programs in California, Arizona and Ethiopia. Through a one-year training program, they've transformed former drug addicts and gang members into upstanding young men for today's society through the word of God. Boatangel is also sponsoring outreach centers in which homeless people are able to get away from negative influences like drugs and alcohol, all free of charge. What an awesome program!

Please, if you have a vehicle, RV, boat or plane just sitting around, please consider donating it to http://www.carangel.com so it can help transform someone's life!

Babies Babies Babies

Babies are popping up everywhere! A friend I used to work with just had a baby boy. My cousin is having another baby girl in a couple months. A couple people I post with online are pregnant. I tell you, it's babies, babies everywhere!

So, in looking around for baby gifts, I've looked at Beauty and Lace Baby. What a fun site! You can find links to cute and fashionable things for mom and baby! I never had a sling when the Princesses were little, but I wish I would have. It would have made doing things around the house a lot easier! Beauty and Lace Baby has a link to some gorgeous slings. Not babyish looking, but real classy! They've also got a link up there to ohmygiddyaunt.com.au. I love the name because I was a giddy aunt when my niece and nephews were born.

So if you're looking for something for baby and/or mom and you don't want the usual run-of-the-mill gifts, check out Beauty and Lace Baby.

Fleas!

Our cat, Sweet Pea is driving me nuts! She is constantly biting and scratching and since we got her a little collar with a bell attached, it's driving me insane listening to that little bell.

We've been thinking about getting one of those flea dips. A couple years ago she had fleas really bad and I don't want to go through that again!

I'm learning a lot about flea control from Fleascontol.com. Did you know that there are certain plants that you can plant in your garden to repel fleas? Wonderful smelling plants like lavender, eucalyptus and mint! I think I will have to get some and plant around my yard! It not only will smell good, but hopefully keep those pesky fleas away!

Saving Money

Every time I shop online, I look for a coupon to use. A dollar is a dollar, you know, and hey, I'm cheap!

www.keepcash.com has a ton of discount codes and coupons for a bunch of different stores. The website is updated daily with the latest deals. I can't believe all the coupons I've found on that site! I've seen many stores on there that I shop online at. I'm definitely bookmarking this site.

I've been looking for Disney Crocs. I've found them at www.shoebuy.com and there's even Shoebuy.com coupons. I'm so excited! I've been wanting these for quite a while and to get them even cheaper makes them a great deal!

Before you buy anything online, go take a look, I'm sure you'll find a money saving coupon!

Virtual Sandcastles

Youngest Princess and I just built some Sandcastles. It was a lot of fun! You had many options to choose from and you could even color the sand. You got to add fun little things like beach balls, seagulls, crabs and even flags to the top of your sand towers. It was really easy to do, even Youngest Princess colored her sandcastle by herself. She even wants to go make some more. I guess she loves digging in the sand whether it's real or virtual!

The website even has a sandcastle gallery so you can see what sandcastles other people have built. Some of them are quite extravagant! I've always been envious of people who can make sandcastles actually look like something! Mine usually look like what they are.....upside down buckets. Thank goodness for the internet, where my sandcastle looks like something!

Make sure your speakers are turned up too! There are sounds of seagulls and waves crashing on the beach. If you close your eyes you can just imagine yourself sitting there with a cool breeze blowing over you and a cool drink in your hand.

Go build your own Sandcastles. It's a blast! I even built one without youngest Princess. I really wish I was sitting on that beach right now!

Free Coloring Pages

Have you seen the site that has Free Coloring Pages for kids? The Princesses are going to love this site! Good thing we have enough computers here to go around, or I'd be having to give up some of my computer time!

I've been playing around with it. I colored a page with Tigger and Pooh. Yep, they even have Disney pages! I was thrilled to see that and the Princesses will be too! They're as big of Disney freaks as I am. There's also Pokemon, Barbie, Hello Kitty and Bratz, just to name a few. They also have subjects such as holidays, food, transportation, sports and more. Oh goodness, I just looked again and found a My Little Pony page. Youngest Princess will be picking that one as her favorite, I'm sure!

It is really simple to color your page. Find the page you want to color, click on the color you want and then click on the picture where you want the color to go. Simple as that! You know what else is cool? You can upload your own coloring page and color it in. When you're done coloring, you can save your picture to show your friends and family, just make sure you're registered first.

See, it starts as:

and it becomes this in no time!


It doesn't matter if you're 3 or 83, go check it out! I bet you'll have fun!!

Have You Heard the News?

Have you heard? Pay Per Post has a new campaign going for blogger outreach. They've raised 7 Million dollars. No, that's not a misprint....it's in the millions! Ka-ching! Because of this, Pay Per Post is releasing over $7,000 in opportunities for us posties. That's really showing the posties some love, huh?

Of course, $7,000 doesn't exactly equal $7 Million, does it? I think Pay Per Post should spend that other $6,993,000 on the posties as well. Every registered postie could be given their choice of a new car, a trip, or just a big ol' fat check! I think that would be fantastic! Of course, in the realm outside of my dream world, the money should probably be used for things like promotion, getting new clients, staffing, etc. You know, the boring stuff. hehehe But, with that being said, because of promotion, staffing, etc, the posties will still benefit, so I guess either way will be a win-win!

If you haven't gone and signed up with Pay Per Post, what in the world are you waiting for? You get paid to write about the things that interest you. Real money, not credits somewhere. Real cash! Go sign up now! There's no time like the present, is there?

Check out this news:

The PayPerPost Revolution Accelerates, Sponsored
Blogging Marketplace Secures $7 Million Series B

Draper Fisher Jurvetson leads round and joins Board of Directors

ORLANDO, FL – (June 12, 2007) – PayPerPost, the leading marketplace for advertisers to reach bloggers and other consumer content creators, today announced it has completed a $7 million second round investment led by Draper Fisher Jurvetson, an investor in the company's Series A and one of the world’s leading high-technology venture capital firms. The financing brings the total amount of capital raised by PayPerPost to over $10 million, giving the company considerable resources for further development as the industry’s leading Consumer Generated Advertising marketplace. Additional participants in the round include existing investors Inflexion Partners and Village Ventures as well as new investor DFJ Gotham. With this investment, DFJ Managing Director Josh Stein also joins PayPerPost’s Board of Directors.

“PayPerPost created this exciting new advertising space and has established itself as the industry leader,” said Ted Murphy, chief executive officer of PayPerPost. “Although we’ve only used a portion of our first round capital, this added support from investors unlocks significant growth potential. Our content creator and advertiser ROI metrics clearly demonstrate the upside for PayPerPost’s model. We intend to use this capital to build the infrastructure, visibility and professional expertise necessary to reach and retain a greater network of advertisers and content creators than ever before.”

Since its founding in June of 2006, PayPerPost has signed more than 6,500 advertisers to its groundbreaking service, which has enabled Consumer Content Creators to be compensated for their efforts discussing specific companies, products or services via blogs, videos or other media. The content creators are required to disclose relationships with advertisers on their blog, providing transparency for the end reader. Over 125,000 Internet postings, most in the form of blogs, have already earned money for their creators through PayPerPost’s innovative marketplace. PayPerPost recently released PayPerPost Direct, a disruptive new service that allows advertisers to contract and negotiate directly with individual bloggers they identify through a safe, managed system.

“PayPerPost has laid a strong foundation for the future,” noted Tim Draper, founder and managing director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson. “It continues to attract a critical mass of participants from both the advertising and blogging communities. Analogous to Overture’s sponsored search model, we believe PayPerPost’s business model holds disruptive potential and will enable the company to thrive in the evolving paid-content arena.”

To mark the $7 million dollar funding, PayPerPost has launched a new website detailing the company’s service offering at http://www.payperpost.com. Bloggers and advertisers can easily sign up at the site and begin leveraging the self service marketplace.

Bindi the Jungle Girl

As I was browsing through videos at The News Room, I came across this video.

Steve Irwin's daughter, Bindi, is creating a TV show following in her father's footsteps. It's called Bindi the Jungle Girl and will be on the Discovery Kids channel. I love watching her, she's so animated and seems to be 'down to earth'.

The show will be about conservation and education of the wildlife around us. Some scenes will include Steve Irwin, since he was involved in the first few episodes.

I think Bindi's father would be proud! Her mother, Terry, thinks so as well. Anything I've ever seen about the late Steve Irwin shows he cared about family and animals. This show has both! My Princesses will love this show. They're both animal lovers.

I couldn't believe all the videos at The News Room. Anything that has been in the news was there! The clips aren't "last week's news" either, (although you can find last week's news too)! You can see really recent news clips easily. The whole site was easy to use. Inserting the video clip into my post was a piece of cake. I clicked on the copy button and it was copied! Simple as that!

Go try them out for yourselves! You're bound to find something of interest to you!

Coupons for Airlines?

When looking for airfare, do you think about looking for coupons for the airfare? I don't, or should say, I didn't. I would go to the websites and try to find the cheapest deal, but didn't know I could find actual coupon codes for my travel! In browsing through the store listing at couponchief.com, I found they had United Airlines coupons.

Next year is our 15th anniversary. Craig and I have already started looking into going to Walt Disney World. That was where we spent our honeymoon, so we thought it appropriate to go back, sans kids! I'm so excited I can't stand it. In doing our preliminary planning, we've realized that airfare will be a huge chunk of the total cost of that vacation. I'm most definitely going to be looking for coupons to help us out!

1408 Movie

Have you seen the previews for the 1408 Movie? It looks fantastic! If you're into suspense thriller type movies, you're going to love this one!

The movie stars Samuel L. Jackson (who I love as an actor!) and John Cusack. Watch the trailer here in my post and you'll see what I mean. It looks so intense!

John Cusack plays an author who only believes in what he can physically see. He doesn't believe in the afterlife and wrote numerous books on the subject. He's writing a new book about spending the night in haunted hotel rooms, where he learns of one room, 1408, in the Dolphin Hotel that is haunted. Samuel L. Jackson is the hotel manager and he warns John Cusack that 56 people have died in room 1408. He states that noone ever lasts more than an hour in that room. John Cusack's character sees this as a challenge. He's still trying to discredit the afterlife stating he's never seen a ghost, but, while staying in room 1408, Cusack's character may be in for a change of mind.

The 1408 Movie is based upon a novel by renowned author, Stephen King. Everyone has heard of Stephen King's novels. Given the basis for the movie, it will be fantastic! This is definitely one that I would love to go see!

VisaBuxx

Being the mom of a pre-teen, I think this is a fantastic idea! Have you heard about PAYjr Visa Buxx? It's a chore and allowance system for kids. Plus, when Oldest Princess becomes a teen, she can get a prepaid VisaBuxx card.

The whole system just seems like a win-win! I can assign the chores and then print out a chore chart. The system will even send an email to Oldest Princess reminding her of the chore and how much it's worth, so I don't have to sound like a nagging mom. I can do it the high-tech way! *wink*

Oldest Princess can watch her savings add up. She can also learn about budgeting for what she really needs, as opposed to what she thinks she wants. Her thinking is changed when it's her money.

In a few months, when she becomes a teen, she can earn the prepaid MasterCard. I can track where she's spending her money. It's such a great idea! She knows how much she has to spend and can't go over it!

HDTV Tuesdays

Have you heard about HDTV Tuesdays? You've heard me talk about Pay Per Post, right? Well, if you just crawled out from under your rock and have no clue what I'm talking about, Pay Per Post is the blog network that pays you for blogging about things you would blog about anyway.

Anyway, I did say HDTV Tuesday, didn't I? On to the good stuff!!! Pay Per Post is giving away really cool prizes. For example, the first Tuesday in May, they gave away Apple TVs. Last Tuesday, the big prize was a Playstation 3. This week, you could grab up a Yamaha Surround Sound System, a Slingbox, a Nintendo Wii (and you know how hard those are to find!), or a Logitech Universal Remote. We have that remote and love it! If you'll remember, I posted that Craig even programmed it to run the Roomba!! LOL

Anyway, go give some love to the sponsor Bid4Prizes.com of these fantastic prizes. It's a fun site to win some fun prizes! The lowest unique bid wins! What an interesting concept. Just think what you could bid for and win! Right now, they even have a quad up there! Right up my alley! *Grin* Of course, there's other cool prizes like cash! Who doesn't like cash?

Speaking of cash, go on over to Pay Per Post and sign up. You get cash for blogging!! Then you can spend cash on whatever you want!

Can You Feel the Love Tonight?

Ok, so I'm not Elton John. LOL But I am a Pay Per Post blogger (or Postie as we're called in PPP circles). You've heard about Pay Per Post, right? Do you blog? Well, guess what! You can get paid to blog, too.

I've been blogging with Pay Per Post since February and I've made almost $250.00. I could have made more, but I've been so busy with life, I haven't taken the time to sit down and blog much!

The $250 is basically "found" money. I LOVE "found" money. LOL I'm actually saving it to get Oldest Princess some new glasses. She needs them as she hasn't had new ones in about 3 years and her current ones are all scratched up. I also want to save up for the next time we go to Disneyland or Walt Disney World. It will be spending money that I won't have to feel guilty over.

Would you like "found" money too? What are you waiting for? Go! Sign up!

Coupons

Whenever I shop online, I look for online coupons. A penny saved is a penny earned, right? CouponChief.com has over 1,000 stores. You'll most likely find the store you're looking for!

There's a section for The Children's Place coupons. The Children's Place has some awesome deals! But what I really like is that you can still use a coupon code even if you're getting a sale or clearance price! Right now, couponchief.com is showing four different coupons for The Children's Place. One of them is even for $5 flat rate shipping! I love flat rate shipping from online stores!

Don't forget to go check out CouponChief.com before you buy!!

Small Business Bookkeeping

Since I'm a bookkeeper, I know how difficult doing payroll and keeping the books can be for a business.

Accountingparadise.com has made that process a lot more simple for small business bookkeeping. They have set up numerous companies and you can even get Quick Books online at a discount. You can't beat that! Bookkeeping services start at $10 a month. $10 a month is so cheap for a little piece of mind knowing that everything is taken care of.

If you need payroll services, prices start at $6 per employee. Payroll can be such a confusing process with all the federal and state taxes and forms. Letting someone else worry about all the "fine print" is definitely worth $6 an employee!

Check outAccountingparadise.com if you need an inexpensive way to keep your books and payroll organized to the last penny!

WhoGets.Com

Ready for a fun, free game show type sweepstakes? Sure you are! Free is fun!

Go join whogets.com and go find a prize you'd like to win! Pick your prize and if you're one of the seven random finalists, you'll get a chance to tell the world wide web why you should or want to win that particular prize. Members of whogets.com then get to vote on who should win. Whoever gets the most votes, wins! It's as easy as that! There are great prizes like Target gift cards, jewelry and you could even get a cell phone! So go, go now!