effing soy allergy!

This post is a rant, be forewarned. I am allergic to soy. Soybeans, soybean oil, you name it if it is derived from soy and I ingest it soon my lips become swollen and huge, days later they are stiff and the outer layer of skin starts painfully cracking leaving me with open wounds for a mouth. This continues for a week of misery. For a while it seemed like doing a couple of shots of apple cider vinegar was controlling it but it suddenly reared up again, maybe I wasn't vigilant enough about taking the vinegar. One needs their mouth you know? This makes me feel shitty and cranky.

The Living Well Health Master aka the Montel blender

My aunt bought this the other day and asked me to give it a whirl as I cook more often then she does. It's pretty intimidating right out of the box, huge and digital so I looked it up online and found the main site which has instructional videos. A dvd and booklet came with the blender but I didn't know where they had been placed by my aunt so this was a quick way for me to see how to use it. Once I saw that the blender and lid both had to be locked in place, and that turning it on requires two buttons instead of the normal one, I was ready to go.

Now, this isn't one of those Consumer Report reviews where they check all the features and make the recipes included. I have a couple of foods I make with a blender, and created one of those. I'm about as veggie-oriented as the rest of America, I like them but sometimes preparing veggies seems like too much work so years ago I created a green soup. I use a tomato and whatever leafy greens are in the fridge, a shot of hot sauce and some water, blend the whole mess together and heat it up with some chopped up cheese.

This blender uses centrifugal force to heat the liquid inside, which basically means you blend the hell out of it and it pours out steaming. Well, I just couldn't do it. Being from the generation where hot foods in the blender equals a broken seal, when the greens and tomato looked emulsified I poured it into a bowl, topped it with the cheese and microwaved the soup the way I normally would. It worked well as a blender, and as I am fearful of using it to heat the food (the instructional video said it takes 8 minutes on high, level 8) I'm not sure this fancy of a blender is one I would purchase. That said, it was easy to use and seems sturdy and safe.

The runaway wife

As usual I wake up to the Today Show. I love to hate that show. Sometimes it focuses on the most "huh?" people, Kim Kardashian and Hulk Hogan come to mind. It is usually a mix of dark and light sufficient to keep me somewhat occupied without having to think too hard in the morning, which is probably their goal.

Today they took a break from the disasters hitting America to interview the husband of the latest "Runaway Mom". Now, I haven't had a child, but I have nieces and nephews and the idea of a mom abandoning their baby is sickening to me. If, however, one is a person who can do that, seems to me she shouldn't get that baby back when she changes her mind. Dual custody, maybe. Even that is risky when the person already took off to another state without telling a soul.

The interview was obviously slanted the same way (this I find insulting, let us decide for ourselves but that is another subject) with the repeated shot of the frumpy overweight wife and her disreputable-looking, in need of a haircut boyfriend entering a cheap car. When an interview is obviously biased like that I want to root for the underdog, but in this situation even I cannot. If you want to leave, tell the person you are with. This major search for clues that you are still alive thing is all kinds of unethical.

Update on the Cat Emery Board

My cat doesn't like it, he prefers the regular scratchy board so much it has a deeply scratched dip in it. He either isn't using it at all, or he is using it when I am not home and it hasn't made any difference in the sharpness of his claws. Ah well it was worth a shot.

Yesterday a friend and I went to downtown Buffalo and had lunch at Gabriel's Gate, a popular place on Allen St. It was one of the few places I had been to in the area that offered a steak salad, so I ordered it but was disappointed that my 'mixed greens' were only Romaine. It was an okay salad, not something I would order again if at the same place. The bartender was friendly and entertaining and the decor is certainly unusual as you will see in the clip I am providing so all in all it was a nice lunch.

The power of complaining (politely)

Recently someone gave me a generous Amazon gift certificate and I have been ordering items here and there. Unlike my experiences with Ebay, on Amazon the merchants appear to actually care about the customer's experience. One of the items I ordered was a DVD of The Secret. I have and enjoy the book and sometimes it's nice to have positive reinforcement going on in the background, so the DVD playing would be good for that. Unfortunately, there was a problem with the DVD and it wouldn't play past the half-way point. Just as the site recommends; I contacted the seller about the issue before leaving feedback. They apologized and removed the charge right away! Of course, I left good feedback after that. So keep in mind, happy customers are your best advertising.

Goodness me cell phone follies

So I forgot my already missing the back to it phone was in my sweatshirt pocket today and it went crashing to the floor, rendering it inoperable. Damn. Luckily, I had a spare, a cell kindly provided by a friend which had a battery that both fit my phone and made it come back to life. Now I'm just waiting forever it seems for the phone cover I ordered to get here so I don't have to worry about my phone coming to pieces in my hands (or out of my pockets).

In other news, I'm making brownies :-)

Content is king

You hear this phrase all the time when researching search engine optimization. Creating content is key so go with your strengths. I have an account that is very visual in nature, so for that account the content is visual too. I concentrate on creating fresh images, publicize the fact that new images exist and roll out the images in a balanced manner. They entire days work isn't immediately published, this account has an established customer base so I give the current customers the opportunity to buy a slide-show of the best of the day's images while keeping the majority of them off the Web. I chose two or three to use to freshen up different ads. The creation of new visual content then leads to written content as I blog about the new pics and where to get the slide-show.

While I had the model there and ready to go, I also made a Youtube clip to upload to the account's channel. This is called making the most of the client's money and time and creating as much content as possible, now not only does the account have new images to sell and use for promotion, they have a behind-the-scenes type of video clip to promote via Youtube which also links back to their main website. Don't disregard the importance of search for images and videos, it is relatively new as far as companies taking advantage of it for SEO and therefore easier to get to the top of the list.

I bought the Cat Emery board today.

Clipping my cats claws is no picnic so when I read online that these are available in stores I decided to go for it. If you don't know what they are, it is a curved board your cat scratches and is supposed to file down their claws. Great idea, right? Well the jury is still out on whether or not they will use it enough for the intended purpose but I can advise you on one thing. The directions tell you to put the entire bag of catnip, which is included, all over the board to attract the cats to it. Only do this if you know how your cats react to catnip. I put about half of the bag on the board, the whole thing just seemed excessive to me, and my cats went NUTS, fighting with each other and rolling around as if posessed. So, it was an oddly entertaining morning here. I will post again when enough time has gone by to accurately review the item. Also, it was $19.88 at the local Walmart.

Holy lack of privacy Batman!

A colleague tipped me off to a very disturbing website. Type in a name at Spokeo dot com and get WAY too much information. Now, it is hit or miss, alot of info is flat out wrong and somewhat laughable, but still more then should be so easily accessible. To remove yourself from the directory click the 'privacy' link at the bottom of the page, insert the url of your profile and your main email address, complete a 'capatcha' type thing (this seems to have a glitch and keeps refreshing even when you do it correctly), and go to your email to click to 'remove me please' link. Good luck and more privacy to all!

Windy, rainy Friday

Sometimes circumstances challenge even the most positive thinkers to have an off day. This past week was a roller-coaster, awesome economically and challenging on the personal relationship front. As today has been quiet I am reflecting on how to make the best of challenging times. The plan here is to first, take care of myself physically. I developed this through trial and error, one can only booze and overeat it up as a response to stress for so long before you start to feel even more like crap! So rest when you are tired, get regular exercise, some of it outside and eat your veggies so that slip-ups aren't such a big deal.

Update on the Craigslist issue: as long as the ad is worded differently you can contribute an ad daily. No problem! By the way, that cute purse is still available, it is in pristine condition. Any Buffalo-area purse lovers out there, this is the deal for you!

Cute comic

I know just how he feels ;-)

We all need some stress relief

So I'm including a video of the sleepy cat. Happy Weekend everyone!

craigslist

So I created my first Craigslist posting yesterday, and learned today that even though the ad is completely buried that I am not allowed to make a new one today. So, one of today's tasks will be to figure out how to 'work' Craigslist, and when I do (and I will) you all will read about it here. Link to my ad. It's for a cute Dooney purse, giraffe print, so if you are in the Buffalo area and want a deal on a stylish accessory have a peek.

Spam from the name Googlesuccess

Yep, there is a Googlesuccess.net which is the real deal and Googlesuccess.org which is well-known on the complaint sites. My introduction to the spammers came a couple of hours after posting an item for sale on Craig'slist. I received an email from who I thought was an interested party and when I responded with my phone number (DOH!) an auto-response came back. Here is what was sent to me.

"Elaine Pettaway"

You don't have to sell this so cheap...

I used to sell stuff on CL just like you were doing to pay my bills. I was really getting ripped off by selling stuff so cheap. A friend of min told me about this website I should look at, and I made about $4000 from it last month... I'm doing better than I was at my regular job... If I can do it, you can. Visit http://googlesuccess.org

If you need help getting started let me know, it's simple."

Riiight. By the way, I was not under-valuing the item having done my research beforehand. So, watch out for this one!

Search engine optimization

One benefit of using social networks to bring attention to your small business site is that search engines tend to love and index them. However, when you are ready to create a site it is good to know the basics of what search engines look for. This link give you some good starting points. Eleven steps to search engine heaven Just like when buying anything or service, the more you know about what you exactly need the more likely you are to have a satisfactory experience.

Blogging while nauseous

So after a bit more then an hour on the treadmill doing interval work I am done, showered and instead of feeling great feeling rather nauseous. The great thing (also an extremely distracting thing) about working online is the opportunity to look stuff up. So I checked out "nauseous after working out" and Google gave me this.Basically it says I'm probably dehydrated. So I checked my Twitter account, followed back all new followers (which is doing the least yet keeping up-to-date) and am going to rehydrate before attemtping to learn something new. Today's lesson; if you do nothing else, check your Twitter account!

Always learning

Todays attempt is to embed a slideshow here. Photos and slideshows are great marketing tools and add visual interest to your site. This one was pretty straightforward for me to create using Picasa and add to this blog entry, what I want to learn to do next is figure out how to add it to the side of the header. Brushing up on my xml is important. Another thing one can do with slideshows is upload them to the Youtube channel created for your network.

Chugging along

In spite of feeling ill this morning (thank-you for the ibuprofen sweetie!) I made myself do the 60 minutes of exercise before work. There is something about making yourself work-out longer then you normally would that gave me visions of my flat belly in a bikini when summer rolls around which was inspiring enough to make up for the fact that I was on a treadmill in the basement.

 Now that the two blogs are integrated into one it's time to do one of the hardest parts about establishing the Internet presence: blog regularly. It can be hard to come up with something new to write about on a regular basis and when it is you have options. You can find an article online that is relevant to your potential customers and write about it along with a link, inviting customers to comment on the article or you can write about a personal anecdote, thus making yourself more 'real' to potential clients. Of course, you can also pay someone to blog for you, either on a regular basis or just when you are really stuck, I offer that service myself.

Are two blogs better then one?

In this case, not really. I opted to allow Google to put ads on the new blog only to discover that I had this one (forgotten I admit). So, this is the blog that I will focus on using in my networking experiment. In other news, my Adsense account had $0.00 in it! Jeez, even with only the one blog entry you would think someone would click on a link or two. Ah well we will see how it goes with regular postings, the kind I am always nagging clients to keep up with, and Twitter should help too.

   After two days inside in front of the computer I took a much needed break to take a run thru the park today and even though I wasn't the most enthusiastic about it at first, once in the cool sunny air it was amazing. After three miles up and downhill I didn't even feel too guilty about the yummy brownie afterwards. Note to myself and everyone- get away from the computer and try to go outside for a while every day. Life needs to be well-rounded and the new study that says women need an hour of exercise  Exercise study link to maintain our weight without dieting is probably, and unfortunately, right on.

Here we go!

I've been consulting small business owners on increasing Internet visibility and sales using free sites online for three years now and it is about time to practice what I preach. This project is me creating a network of sites using free resources and social networks to use as an example (hopefully a good one). I've got a Myspace page set up as well as an active Twitter account. The Twitter account is more active at this time. As far as Facebook goes, I have a personal page that I really use to keep up with friends and family so I prefer to keep that one pretty tight as far as the friend list goes so we will see what I decide to do, if anything, as far as utilizing that for myself.

At one time I encouraged clients to take advantage of the free hosted space available with their Internet service providers, and to show how I created a small site of my own with the space Verizon included with the dsl package using the Trellix website creation platform. What a disaster! Once the site was created it was impossible to edit, making it a static site which is basically useless online. I'm still working out what to do with that and in the meantime taking advantage of Blogger's free web-hosting to create an online blog to link to and use as a site.

Your comments and suggestions are welcomed.