This is my personal blog about the random thoughts and things that happen in my life. I hope you enjoy the content and please leave comments letting me know you stopped by. Thank you
I just wanted to make a quick post letting you know that I've posted a new survey question to the left under About Me. When I created this survey I kinda thought it would be interesting to see what answers come up? Please take a moment to make your choice and then please comment here as to why you answered the way you did.
I've been pretty busy creating my latest lens on Squidoo called What's On Your Grill I'm pretty proud of it but it can always be improved. It's taken off pretty well:) Please stop by and take a look and let me know what you think. I'm working on my next post which I'll add in a few days in the meantime please participate in a discussion about the survey question. Thanks, Nora
Are you familiar with Squidoo.com? Well I wasn’t until a little over two weeks ago! To me, this site is like Facebook, MySpace, Digg, Wikipedia, or almost any other social media sight you can think of pretty much rolled into one. It might just be my new facination with the site but I am totally addicted. Pretty much like I was addicted to Twitter when I joined but even this site has torn me away from Twitter for the time being. Although, when you update your lens (page) on Squidoo you can automatically have it tweeted to Twitter. How cool is that?
So far I’ve created five lenses (which is what they call pages) that are kind of like a Wikipedia page that you can create content on any subject you can imagine and one group lens. If you have something you believe you are good at and want to share your knowledge, then Squidoo is a great place to do just that!
One of my lenses is linked with my blog here to help promote it. It's called Come Check Out Nochipra's Blog Spot . I’ve placed content on there referring back here listing my latest blog posts, encouraging people to stop by to participate in my surveys to the left of this post. Given updates about what I’m doing on the web during the day, etc.
But, the best part is that you can actually make income from Squidoo without actually having to do anything other than market the lenses to generate traffic! You decide on the affiliate ads that you want to place from Amazon, Ebay, or Cafepress. I believe that at this time they are the only three I‘m sure will give an affiliate profit? There are also google ads and other ad profits that get put into a pool and depending on how your lens does, then you can get a portion of that too. It’s a totally cool system in my opinion but you do need to promote your lenses and get them seen.
Another lens I created was just for fun called Dinner Recipes Tonight . The concept behind this lens is to have people come together online at dinner time and share their experience with everyone from the actual recipes they made, to whether their family enjoyed the meal, how the night went if it was a date, etc. To expand on the discussion on how the night went I also created a Dinner Recipes Tonight Group . This is where they can go into more details if they wish, about their frustrations of cooking dinner in a hurry, how the kids interrupted their cooking, expand on how their dates went, etc. With more of a discussion group type setting.
The next lens I made was The Debate Club. This lens has debate questions where you can choose a side and express your opinions on different subjects that I post. At the moment I have 20 questions listed but more will be added later. This lens along with the Dinner Recipes Tonight lens seem to be my most popular.
The last two lenses I created were What’s Your Blood Pressure Now? And What’s Your Blood Sugar Level Today? I just created these two lenses in the last few days. My purpose in creating these was to have lenses where you could come and keep a record of your blood pressure and of your blood sugar if you’re a diabetic. My inspiration came from Chip who had a really rough experience recently with a 10 day hospital stay of which I’ve blogged about in a previous post or should I say ranted about? Anyway, it was definitely not a bed of roses! Since he got out of the hospital we have done some pretty significant changes in our lives including checking his blood pressure and blood sugar every morning and night. These two lenses are designed for me as well as anyone else who needs to keep a record for any future doctor’s visits. I believe it is important for anyone with medical problems similar to Chip’s to keep a close eye on these numbers.
I’ve tried to keep my lenses interactive which my visitors seem to enjoy. The majority of the lenses on Squidoo are very informative text lenses with a wealth of information on just about any subject you could imagine.
The potential to be able to make money on the site is very exciting as well. You can choose to either have the profits from your lens sent to your own paypal accout, have it donated to charity, or split it both ways. There are several different ways that you can make money on Squidoo.com. This video is one of the better ones I’ve found that gives good information on the different ways.
I’ve become so excited about creating and potentially making some much needed extra money on Squidoo that I couldn’t possibly put all the information I’ve learned into one post. So I’ve decided to break it up into parts where I will share with you my experiences on things like; what I’ve learned about how to make a Squidoo lens, how to promote the lenses, and of course how to make the money from the lenses.
I hope you will find these posts informative and I have not forgotten about my previous series of posts too. I will be doing posts on Informative Youtube Videos on blogging and social media.
Please consider following my blog to help me achieve my daily goal of gaining at least 3 new followers a day. There is also a fun poll that you can vote on to the left of this post. Let your vote be heard!
If your interested in signing up and getting an account with Squidoo please consider using my referral link to do so. It will be greatly appreciated and when you make your lenses, let me know that they are ready and I will come visit them. http://www.squidoo.com/lensmaster/referral/Nochipra Thank you.
I just wanted to make a short post explaining what I've been up to the last few days. I've been creating Squidoo lenses (pages)on Squidoo.com. If you are not familiar with it then you should stop by and check it out. It's really fun creating the lenses (pages) and there is a potential to make a lot of money and it doesn't cost you a thing but your time and effort in making the lenses. I've already created 3 lenses and 1 group and have plenty of ideas for more. I'll be adding a post soon on my newbie experiences on Squidoo so please keep checking back for it. I will hopefully have a good report on it in a few days. In the meantime, I'm working on Squidoo lenses and your invited to check them out. Please let me know what you think. Thanks
Hi all! Well the last few days have been pretty busy and I realized I needed to do some more writing for my blog so I’ve decided to do a series on some of the useful Youtube.com videos I’ve found to help me learn about blogging and social media. I believe you can learn something on just about any subject by watching youtube. This has by far been the most useful tool I’ve found on how to create, promote, and edit my blogs and how to use different social media tools to get the word out about it. This series may not be in order as I will probably write some other blog content in between each of the parts but I hope you will enjoy what I‘ve discovered on Youtube.com . I am in no way saying that these are the only sources on youtube that discuss these things but these are the one’s I found first. I hope you enjoy the series and find it useful too. I’ll feature about 5 or 6 videos in each.
1. When I first decided I wanted to start blogging, I had absolutely no idea how to start. So I turned to my favorite place to learn something new, Youtube.com . This is the blog I found that taught me where I could create my first blog by BloggerHelp. They also have some other videos that are very helpful such as adding video to your blog, adding a gadget, adding a blog list, etc.
2. Once I started blogging on Blogger.com I need to know how to use some of their tools to help me add a link to my blog post. I didn’t have a clue how it was done so this video was very helpful by RealEstateSources.
3. I found this young man, professionalblogger, pretty informative. He has several videos that I found very useful. Whether you agree with his opinion on niche blogging or not he seems to know what he’s doing.
4. This guy, Relativity2, has a lot of videos on blogging that are very informative and focuses a lot on how your blogs should be perceived. This particular video is part 1 of several on Online Reputation Management Best Practices that he has done.
5. This is another young man that really seems to know what he’s talking about, JohnHM31 . He has quite a few videos on blogging and how to promote and make money with those blogs.
These are the first five videos that I have found extremely helpful in learning how to blog but it is by far not the only one’s I’ve referred to in learning how this blogging stuff works. I may not agree with everything that they advise but I take what information I like and use it to apply to my blog but I'm still learning every day. For more info on helpful videos, please check back with me later for further parts to this series. Please do not forget to cast your vote in my survey to the left of this blog and to leave a comment to let me know what you think of this post and of my blog. Thank you.
Three of the top stories that have been in the news recently are the story of Rihanna who was beaten up by her boyfriend Chris Brown, Octomom aka Nadya Suleman who gave birth to 8 children at once after having fertility treatments, and the case of Michael Vick who after being convicted of running dog fights is in bankruptcy court today wondering what his financial future will be once he gets out of jail.
These stories have been everywhere in the news. It’s gotten so you can’t really watch tv without hearing about one or all of them. I just thought I’d chime in with my 2 cents worth as if it really mattersJ
Rhianna and Chris Brown: This particular story really does strike a nerve with me! I’ve heard about the battered wife syndrome where a woman feels helpless if she doesn’t have man in her life even if he treats her like dirt. They tend to feel that if they left they wouldn’t have anywhere to turn and I can understand to a certain point how they feel. It is a scary world out there and if you have been supported by your significant other for a long period of time then it would be scary to think of starting life back out on your own. Not to mention, if you have kids within that relationship, then it would be an even harder struggle.
My personal opinion on this is that a woman or man for that matter should always have an idea of what they would do if the relationship were to go sour later and they would be faced to with starting their lives on their own. Most women, especially the older generations, were taught that they were supposed to get married, have kids, and be supported by their husbands and to pretty much stay in the relationship no matter what happened. Well, needless to say I totally do not agree with that idea.
Without actually knowing Rhianna and the “real” circumstances of the situation, it is still clear to me that she was beaten up by Chris Brown according to the police reports. That alone is why I believe Rhianna should cut all ties with Chris Brown. When I met Chip and realized that I wanted to have him in my life I made it perfectly clear to him from the beginning that if he ever hit me, cheated on me, or verbally abused me then I was gone! NO SECOND CHANCES! I believe people can change and I hope and pray that Chris Brown gets the help he needs but once something like that is done I believe it can stay with you forever and eat away at a relationship. If he gets the help he needs and does change his ways then maybe there is hope for him in another relationship.
Octomom aka Nadya Suleman: This is another story that really gets on my nerves! This woman already had 6 kids to start with and she didn’t even have a job to support them! Why the #%*@ did she have 8 more and all at one time to boot!!! My theory! She definitely planned to exploit them. I believe she got the idea to use the unused embryos probably after watching a show like Jon and Kate Plus 8 that airs on TLC and thought to herself “Hey if I can manage to have a lot of kids at once maybe I’ll get rich by getting my own tv show!” Now if I give the woman the benefit of the doubt, then maybe she is the type that really loves kids and wanted to have a big family? But, you don’t go out and have a bunch of kids if you don’t have a way of supporting them from the get go! Plans and dreams don’t always come true! The fact that she didn’t think this through makes me question her sanity but I’m not a doctor and her sanity is a whole other storyJ Now I do have to admit that I have watched that show Jon and Kate plus 8 a few times and I did enjoy it but both of them worked and had a way to support the kids before the reality tv show happened. Octomom had no job and was on welfare with 6 previous children before having the fertility treatments. What doctor in his right mind would even perform such a procedure for a single woman with no job and 6 kids already! I guess as long as “someone” paid for the surgery then I guess he couldn’t have cared less?
The thing I find funny about this though, is that if she had had these children one, two or three at a time as many women in America do; then she probably wouldn’t have the publicity she’s getting now and we would’ve never known about her and her situation? Back years ago when my grandparents grew up they were a part of a huge family. My grandfather himself was one of 14 kids and they were extremely poor in the mountains of West Virginia. No one thought twice of seeing a poor family with so many children or of the fact that their parents got married at the ages of 15 or 16 yrs of age? The shear fact that we even know about this woman and the fact she has such an opportunity to get rich by exploiting herself and her kids shows the power of the media these day. I wonder? If the media was not as powerful as it is today whether octomom still would of done what she did?
Michael Vick: Since I live in Virginia and somewhat close to the area of the house where Michael Vick lived and had his dog fighting, this has been a big ongoing story in these parts. Michael Vick was convicted of running a dog fighting ring and is now back in court today to have his financial fate decided for him.
I myself love animals and I believe that what Michael Vick did was terrible and I am happy that he is being punished for his crimes. Today he was in court again to have a judge decide his financial fate. Michael will explain his plans for future earnings and it will be decided whether he will file for bankruptcy. As for his plan to return back to football? NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said he will review Michael’s status after he is released.
This is a story that really gets to me too! If he is allowed to return to football and earn millions of dollars again as if nothing ever happened then I will probably reconsider ever watching professional football again? At least I won’t watch the team that actually gives him a contract! I couldn’t imagine a team that would take him though? They would have to be out of their minds because they would be the most hated team in league! But? Stranger things have happened. As I stated before I do believe that people can change but I think they need to prove themselves again before they can even hope to gain the type of fortune they had before. And that would still have to be quite a bit of time before I would trust they wouldn’t do something stupid like that again.
Well that is my 2 cents worth about these stories. If you would like to express your opinion on these stories as well please feel free to do so in the comments section. Thank you.
Happy April Fool’s Day to everyone! I hope everyone has fun pulling good natured pranks on everyone today. Today also happens to be my mom’s birthday which means I am planning to go visit her. In the spirit of the day I thought I would research the origins of April Fools Day. Instead of repeating what the April Fool's Day Wiki page says, I’ll let you read it for yourselves http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Fool's_Day It has a lot of theories on how the day started but not really an official tradition. I really enjoyed reading all the famous well known pranks done by all the companies (many of which I never knew about).
April also brings about the time when everyone catches Spring Fever. I know I have since we started having a few descent days of weather pop up every so often, although it does tend to bring the April Showers with it. Many people are planting their gardens and getting out more. I noticed quite a few people on twitter mentioning that they planted some things and got out of the house after a cold winter. Spring is one of my favorite times of the year and I really look forward to getting out and enjoying weather and taking little vacation trips whenever possible with Chip for a few days just to get away.
Something else not so fun is the rumor about an April Fool’s Day computer worm that is supposedly scheduled to damage a lot of computer systems today? Whether this is an April Fool’s joke or not, it is scary and I’m sure a lot of people don’t find it funny. Here is a link in case you have not heard about it http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/03/24/conficker.computer.worm/ Let me know in the comments section what you like to do when spring shows up and also any funny jokes you may have played on someone today. Don’t forget to check out my survey to the left of the blog too. There is not much time left before the latest one is closed. Thanks.
Happy Blogging!
P.S. I found this interesting video on you tube also, hope you enjoy!
April Fool! Didn't you read where it said scary popup? BWWWHAAAAAAAAAAA!!!
Last night here on the east coast there was what some call a phenomenon or a mystery. A lot of people heard what was described as a sonic boom and then saw bright lights in the sky. I personally did not see or hear it although I do live in the local area where most people did. Even our local news got a hold of the story and did a report on it.
The strange thing is that no one seems to know exactly what it was, even the experts? This is what http://spaceweather.com/ had to say:
ATLANTIC COAST FIREBALL: Last night, March 29th, around 9:45 pm EDT, people along the Atlantic coast of the USA from Maryland to North Carolina witnessed bright lights in the sky and heard thunderous rumbles. It was probably a meteoritic bolide--a random asteroid hitting Earth's atmosphere and exploding in flight. A spent Russian rocket body did reenter on March 29th, but that happened near Taiwan more than two hours after the Atlantic Coast event. Stay tuned for updates and more eyewitness reports.
Does anyone else find that a little unsettling? If even our scientist and so called experts can’t explain it then how many other things are out in space, that are that close to earth, do they not know about?
There are those that believe that the world will come to an end when something from space like a large meteor hit’s the earth and annihilates the human race. This mystery in the sky that nobody can explain is starting to turn my beliefs in that direction. I know it’s been less than 24 hrs since this phenomenon occurred and I have confidence that our scientist “may” be able to figure out what it was but it’s still disturbing to know that it happened right out of the blue without warning.
If you experienced this mystery last night I would be very curious to hear your story. Even if you didn’t please feel free to express your opinions and theories on what it might have been and please don’t forget to vote on the survey on the left side of the blog. Thank you
I just wanted to give a summary of the results from the first 3 surveys that I placed on this blog. I decided a few weeks ago to start putting about one or two surveys on my blog per week to help learn what you want to see in a good blog. My followers are few but I have received some good feedback from them.
The first survey I placed asked:
What Kind Of Blogs Do You Like?
Blogs about anything and everything History/Genealogy Entertainment Traveling Teaching Blogs (like on marketing/social media) Home Improvement Games/Gaming Other types of specific subject blogs not listed
I received a total of 10 voters and 17 actual votes. I opened this particular blog so that more than one answer could be chosen. There were 5 votes for blogs about anything and everything, 0 for history/genealogy, 2 votes for entertainment, 4 votes for traveling, 2 for the teaching blogs, 1 for home improvement, 1 for games/gaming, and 1 for other types of specific blogs. Based on this information the blogs about anything and everything and on traveling are the clear winners. I did find this very reassuring since I have made this particular blog about anything and everything. I also have a blog I started about my genealogy research but I have not really updated it in a while since I am trying to focus my attention on this blog first and get it read by more people. If I happen to take a trip somewhere then I plan to add any articles about that in this blog as well which will cover the traveling part too.
My second survey asked:
When Do You Tweet On Twitter?
Not every day, when I have free time About every day, only when I have free time Only when I’m out, I do mobile tweeting Only when I feel I have something interesting to say Every day, all the time, I’m a twitterholic! HELP!
Well, this particular survey did not fare as well as the first. I think it is because I put it on at the same time as I did my third survey which pushed it below that one. I think people did not realize this one was open too? There were only 3 votes. 2 were for only when I feel I have something interesting to say and 1 for everyday, all the time, I’m a twitterholic! HELP! I’m sure though that there are probably more tweeters that fit in the latter category than they are willing to admit, me included!
My third survey post asked:
How often does a blogger need to post to their blog for you to follow it?
At least once every day Several times a day At least once a week At least once a month Whenever they feel like posting
I received a total of 6 voters with 6 votes. I didn’t open this one to have more than one choice. The results were 1 vote for at least once every day, 1 vote for several times a day, 3 votes for at least once a week, 0 votes for at least once a month, and 1 vote for whenever they feel like posting. Due to the fact that 50% of the votes went to at least once a week, I think it is safe to assume that most people like to see a new post done once a week if not more often.
I want to thank everyone who did participate in my little surveys. You provide me with great feedback and information when you do them. Based on the information I receive from them and other valuable sources that I am learning from every day, I will try to implement them into my blog. Please do not forget to participate in my latest survey, What Is It That Makes You Stay And Read Someone’s Blog Once You Arrive At The Site? These blogs are only up for one week at a time, so please don’t hesitate to put in your votes.
Note: Once the survey is completed, the survey with the results are posted on the lower left side of the blog. If you didn’t get a chance to particpate in the older surveys please feel free to discuss your votes in the comments section. Also, please make suggestions of surveys you think would be informative. Thank you.
1. William Gates III 2. Warren Buffett 3. Carlos Slim Helú 4. Lawrence Ellison 5. Ingvar Kamprad 6. Karl Albrecht 7. Mukesh Ambani 8. Lakshmi Mittal 9. Theo Albrecht 10. Amancio Ortega 11. Jim Walton 12. Alice Walton 13. Christy Walton 14. S Robson Walton 15. Bernard Arnault 16. Li Ka-shing 17. Michael Bloomberg 18. Stefan Persson 19. Charles Koch 20. David Koch
Above is a list of the top twenty richest people in the world according to http://www.forbes.com The article stated that even the richest people in the world have gotten poorer. This year the billionaires have an average net worth of $3 billion which is down 23% in the last 12 month. I know what everyone is probably thinking. Boo Hoo right? Most people would kill to have that kind of money or would they?
How rich would you really want to be? What would your life “really” be like if you had a billion or even just a million dollars? Sure you might have the mansion, the best car money could buy, hang out with the movie stars, etc. but would you be really happy and stress free? I think the key words there are stress free. Now I know everyone has stress, so maybe the key words should be a less stressful life but everyone seems to think that if they had enough money they wouldn’t have the stress they have now? I really don’t believe that for a minute! You only change one kind of stress for another kind of stress. It really comes down to the kind of stress your willing to deal with in your life.
Do you want the stress of “How am I going to pay all my bills on this budget?” or do you want the stress of “I have so much money, how am I going to keep it and trust the right people to manage it?” Money management is the key to being rich and if you don’t know how to handle it or get trustworthy people to help you manage it, then you are bound to head for disaster. Just look at all the celebrities other people in the news that have lost millions due to mismanagement of their money.
Another question I have is: Do you really own anything? I have had discussions about this with my mother and my grandmother. They are always complaining about house payments, car payments, property taxes, etc. If for some reason you lose your income and default on these payments then your property gets taken from you? How is that owning something? Look at all the different auctions you can go to and get things people defaulted on just because they couldn’t pay for something they supposedly “owned”. I’ve always rented and the vans I have owned were not new; so I had little payment due on those, but I don’t really see a difference in renting and owning?
I’m not trying to say that you should not strive to gain more income and enjoy the finer things in life that you enjoy doing. As long as you are happy with your life and don’t put yourself in a situation where you are always working and not having fun to gain that extra dollar or living beyond your means, then go for it. Life is to be experienced the way you want to live it. It just comes down to how you want to live and what kind of stress you can live with in your life.
Well that’s my two cents worth. Please let me know your thoughts on this subject in the comments area and please don’t forget about the surveys I have on the left side of the blog. Thank you.
Human Nature? What type of person are you? Are you the type to be skeptical about everyone you meet asking yourself “Ok, is this person for real or are they going to hurt me?” Are you judgmental when you meet someone? Are you willing to give a helping hand to someone who asks for it or do you want to know what their motives are before you help them? When using social media tools like twitter and face book are you less judgmental and more open to help someone as long as it is not face to face?
If I ask myself this question and if I am perfectly honest? I would have to admit the fact that I am somewhat more judgmental when I meet someone face to face rather than on the internet. Coming face to face with someone for the first time in today’s society can sometimes be a little scary. In today’s world the news is full of stories of people luring others to meet them and then hurting or even killing them. To actually meet someone that you have never met or have barely talked to on the phone or internet doesn’t give you a lot to go on what that person’s nature is like.
I like to think that I trust someone until they give me a reason not to trust them but within reason. I try not to put myself in situation where something could go wrong. For example, Chip and I met eight years ago through a yahoo chat room. I was a young disable woman and interested in finding someone to hopefully spend the rest of my life with and I was willing to take a chance on finding someone through the internet; although I had heard many horror stories about doing this as well. My first plan was to not put myself into a situation that would be hard to get out of. We chatted online for a good couple of months and I didn’t even give him my phone number until just before we met in person. When we finally did meet in person, it was in a public mall where I knew most of the people who worked there because I had worked there as a food delivery service person to the store employees for tips. Needless to say, I was relatively comfortable meeting anyone there. We spent about a month or so meeting and dating at the mall and other places around town. At the time neither of us was driving since he has poor vision and my van was out of commission. As I got to know him and realized that he was a very nice guy and I was falling in love I eventually let him know where I lived and we spent a lot more time together.
Anyway, my point is that I’m the type that likes to know what I’m getting into and that I am actually helping someone when I give them assistance. Some people are more trusting from the get go than I am. Willing to give help without thinking about it first. I wish I was a little more like this but sometimes I think it can also get you into some trouble that you didn’t count on.
There are two people on twitter that I really have to say that I admire. They are usernames Amtrekker and Twitchhiker. I first found out about Amtrekker on geocaching.com and then twitter. He is a guy that had a list of 50 things he wanted to do in his lifetime and he quit his job relying on the kindness of strangers from the internet to help him accomplish them by traveling around the U.S and Canada on a shoestring budget and not paying for a single night of accomodations. He then made videos and blogged about his adventures for all to enjoy. You can find his adventures here http://www.amtrekker.com . Twitchhiker is a more recent adventurer who, like Amtrekker, is traveling around the world as far as he can go within 30 days only through the kindness of strangers from Twitter. His adventures can be found here http://www.twitchhiker.com . I really have to say that the adventures that these guys have been through really have strengthened my trust in human nature. The kindness that has been shown to them is overwhelming and goes to show that there really are more good, helpful, and reliable people in the world than the news on tv would have you believe.
Hi, My name is Nora and I am a 41 yr old woman who was born with spina bifida and I am a wheelchair user. I live with my boyfriend Chip whom I've been with for 8 yrs now. Please help me achieve my daily goal of gaining at least 3 new followers to this blog per day.
Thank you:)
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