Home and Family

OK, I’m trying out the survey thing.  Here are a few websites:

I just registered with them so I don’t have much to report yet but I’ll keep you updated.  At any rate, just from my very brief experience with the survey thing thus far, I really don’t think that this could ever be a significant source of income.  But, I guess it’s worth a try.  At the very least, I get to vent my opinion at someone else besides my poor husband!  Again, if anyone has any feedback or advice about the surveys, I would really appreciate it.  It would be great to know early on if I’m wasting my time.

I’ve been thinking about buying a laptop to use exclusively for my freelance writing.  Choosing a laptop can be a pretty overwhelming experience.  I ran across this post on the US Work From Home Free Blog: 
Do-It-Yourself Laptop Projects   This is an interesting post that discusses the pros of buying a used laptop, something that I find to be a bit scary!  I’ve heard some horror stories about buying used computers and laptops.  I’ve heard that it is pretty easy to rip people off when selling electronics and computers on-line.  Does anyone have any experience with this?  I was wondering if buying a used laptop was worth it and how it has worked out for others.

Is it possible to actually die from heartburn??? Geez! I have about a week and a half to go before my due date…I’m not sure that my esophagus is going to make it. It’s also fun getting about three hours of INTERRUPTED sleep a night. I think that I’m starting to go a little bonkers. I have the attention span of a rabid tree squirrel and I can’t seem to focus on one task long enough to get anything done. Yesterday, I actually got distracted while I was doing laundry. I carried everything into the laundry room and then just left it there. I guess that the laundry fairies were supposed to actually put the clothes in the washer and turn it on. At 3:30 am this morning, I was surfing the web and I think that I found out what’s going on. There is actually something called Pregnancy Brain. Apparently, pregnancy can actually affect your short term memory.  This is also compounded by the lack of sleep during the third trimester.  At least I have a reason for loosing my mind!!

OK, in my quest to work from home, I have run across the “Mystery Shopper’ thing.  I am assuming that this is some sort of scam or something.  I mean, if you could actually make money shopping, wouldn’t about 90% of women be in this field?   

I have found articles that say mystery shoppers are paid about $5 to $100 per job.  The purpose is to go into a store, act like a typical, everyday customer, and then give feedback about the store and the service it provided.  This is definitely not the way to make it big either.  I’ve read about people making about $6,000 a year as a mystery shopper.  But, as a stay-at-home mom, any extra money is helpful. 

Here are some web-based mystery shopping options: 

• Corporate Research International Mystery Shops
• Mystery Guest
• Service Intelligence Experience Exchange

If anyone has any experience with these services, I would really appreciate some feedback!!

Getting my husband to eat breakfast is nearly impossible.  He runs out the door every morning and drinks about 10 pots of coffee at work.  By the time lunch rolls around, he is starving.  This makes me crazy and I’ve been trying to get him to eat breakfast.  I gave up on getting him to eat before he left for work so I moved on to the ‘Take Breakfast to Work’ plan.  It has been rather successful.  I’ll basically make him something and throw it in his car window as he backs out of the driveway.  One thing that he really likes is a breakfast wrap.  It’s pretty simple and relatively healthy. 

Breakfast Wrap

1. Wheat and Garlic Wrap
2. Ranch Dressing
3. Ham
4. Swiss Cheese
5. Hard Boiled Egg

I put a little bit of Ranch dressing on the wrap and throw on some cheese and ham.  Slice the hard boiled egg and lay the slices on top.  Fold the bottom of the wrap and roll it up.  I then roll it in a sheet of foil.  It prevents any mess as my husband drives to work and it makes the wrap more aerodynamic so it’s easier for me to fling it into his car window as he drives away! 

I’m always looking for work-from-home opportunities.  I ran across the idea of having a call center from your home office.  Apparently, more and more companies are using home-based employees for their customer service.  These positions seem to be flexible.  Pay looks to start at around $8 an hour and the jobs may range from simply taking orders to answering customer questions to actually making sales.  Many of the companies have a zero tolerance policy about background noise and distractions.  You would almost have to have a dedicated office in your home where you can shut the door.  I found the following possibilities: 

• Home Agent with West at Home
• Independent Agent with LiveOps
• Customer Care Professional with Alpine Access
• Customer Support, Sales, or Customer Service with Arise

I have not applied for any of these positions.  I’m not sure if this is the route that I want to take with a newborn baby only weeks away but I thought I’d pass it along.  If anyone has any feedback about any of these positions, I would greatly appreciate it.

I know that it is standard procedure to give all newborns a vitamin K injection to help prevent blood clotting problems.  I guess that it is even a state requirement.  However, I’ve been reading about the injections and I’m really starting to worry.  There have been at least two studies done that have linked the injections to a higher rate of childhood cancer and leukemia.  Many people say that the risk of the blood clotting issue (which affects about 1 in every 10,000 newborns) is not worth the risk of the injection.  However, 1 in every 10,000 is not a small number.  I’m just not sure what to do.  I keep thinking things like, what if I allow the injection and she develops leukemia?  Or, what if I refuse the injection and she ends up with brain bleeding because her blood won’t clot?  Does anyone have any advice, ideas, or experience with this?  I would truly appreciate some help with this issue!

This is Nyxi.  She’s a Toy Manchester Terrier.  She is also the most ridiculous dog on the face of the planet.  If the picture isn’t proof enough, I have concrete reasons to back up my claim.  Don’t get me wrong, I love her to death and she is a total sweetie but there are literally dozens of reason why my dog is Ridiculous.  I’ll just cover the top 5:

     #5  She looks like a Doberman Pinscher shrinky dink

     #4  When she jumps up on the couch beside me, sometimes she will actually forget to jump.  She’ll careen full tilt into the couch and smash into it head first because she literally will forget to jump up.

     #3  She is smaller than every, single house cat that I’ve ever seen.

     #2  When she plays fetch (which is her most favorite thing in the whole world!) and she sees a different toy than the one I threw, she will frantically run back and forth between them, dropping one and picking the other up.  She can’t decide which one she wants to bring back to me.  Sometimes, she gets so manic about it, I’m absolutely convinced that her little tiny head is going to explode.

     #1  And the number one reason that my dog is ridiculous:  Her brain is literally the size of a pea!

OK.  So I was awake this morning at 3:00 am (you’ve never experienced heartburn until you’ve experienced pregnancy heartburn!!)  and I decided that I just really couldn’t stand the drivel that was on tv so late at night.  I was digging through some recent Netflix rentals and came accross Stranger Than Fiction.  Now, I’m not a huge Will Ferrell fan.  I like him on Saturday Night Live but I don’t think that I’ve liked any of his movies.  So, needless to say, my expectation were way, WAY low.  However, this movie is AWSOME!!!!  I was completely stunned by how much I loved it.  It was funny, sad, well acted, I really couldn’t have asked for any more.  It completely held my attention even at 3:00 in the morning with baby induced heartburn.  I would recommend this movie HIGHLY.  I would really love to know what other people thought of it!!!

CRY!  My feet are SO SWOLLEN!!  I look like I have flippers!  I can’t even wear my stupid flip flops because the straps cut into my feet.  The only pair of shoes that I have that are remotely comfortable are sneakers and I have a really, REALLY hard time tying the dumb things!  It’s so bad, that my dad actually took my shoe shopping!  My dad…shoe shopping.  He even willingly went to more than one shoe store!  This is actually pretty monumental for my dad.  The really sad thing is, we weren’t even able to find any shoes that would fit onto my hooves.  I swear, I had normal sized feet before I got pregnant!  Pregnancy is weird!  Do you know what else is weird?  That the e comes before the i in the word weird.  Why is that??  What rule of grammer is that following?  What happened to i before e except after c?  Whew!?!?  OK, I’m done.  I need to go take a nap now.