Nochipra's Blog Spot

Want Your Zazzle Items Featured On My Squidoo Lenses?

2010-02-21T01:34:00.005-05:00

Here are some more of my latest creations on zazzle. I'm also looking for anyone who would like to advertise their zazzle items on my squidoo lenses. The items must be related to the topic of a particular squidoo lens I've made and must be no more than 2 items. If interested, please click on the link to the left, of the squidoo lens topic you would like me to link to your zazzle item and post the link to the ITEM in the comments section of that squidoo lens at the bottom of the lens. Please leave me a comment here and let me know you posted the link on the squidoo lens. DO NOT POST THE LINK TO THE ITEM YOU WANT ME TO FEATURE HERE, MAKE SURE IT'S ON THE COMMENTS SECTION OF THE PARTICULAR SQUIDOO LENS YOU WANT ME TO POST IT TO. Thank you and I look forward to showcasing your zazzle items.

Leprechaun Pants On The Ground Tshirt by Wheely5
More Leprechaun T-Shirts

Irishmen Have Green Shamrocks Tshirt by Wheely5
Many more tshirt designs available on zazzle

It Ain't Over Til The Checkers Fly Tshirt by Wheely5
Design a custom tshirt at zazzle

It Ain't Over 'Til The Checkers Fly Hat by Wheely5
More Checker Hats

I WANT TO BE A.COM WHEN I GROW UP BABY SHIRT by Wheely5
More .com T-Shirts

What Is Your.Com? Tshirt by Wheely5
Get t-shirts from Zazzle

WANNA SEE MY.COM? Tshirt by Wheely5
Browse other .com T-Shirts

OBAMA'S FUNNY .COM TSHIRT by Wheely5
Make customized tee shirts at zazzle

SARAH PALIN'S FUNNY.COMYOUBETCHA.COM by Wheely5
t-shirts made by zazzle.com

Who Dat Champs Tshirt by Wheely5
Design customized tee shirts at Zazzle

My Latest Zazzle Creations!

2010-02-03T03:04:00.007-05:00

Hi everyone! Please check out my latest zazzle creations. If you see a design you like but it's not on a product you like, just let me know and I'll see about putting it on a product that zazzle offers. NOTE: At this time I don't do the embroidery items since they have an additional charge to me and a waiting period to produce. Thanks, Nora

iPad Nothing! My Boobs Really Are This Big Tshirt by Wheely5
t-shirts made by zazzle

iPad Nothing! What You See Is What You Get tshirt by Wheely5
Design custom shirts at zazzle.com

New Man New Mood tshirt by Wheely5
Browse Funny T-Shirts

New Girl New Underwear Tshirt by Wheely5
Browse New T-Shirts

Fancy Restaurant For Valentines Day Tshirt by Wheely5
Get shirts on zazzle

My Parents Have A Baby Doll It's Me Baby Shirt by Wheely5
Buy tees at Zazzle

Your The Star Of My Heart Tshirt by Wheely5
Design a custom t shirt on Zazzle

Your The Star Of My Heart Tshirt by Wheely5
t-shirts made by zazzle.com

I'm The Star Of My Mom's Heart by Wheely5
Design custom t shirts on zazzle.com

I'm The Star Of My Dad's Heart Tshirt by Wheely5
See more Kids T-Shirts

I'm The Star Of My Mom's Heart Baby Shirt by Wheely5
Browse Star of my mom's heart T-Shirts

I'm The Star Of My Dad's Heart Tshirt by Wheely5
Browse other Star of my mom's heart T-Shirts

Our "BIG" Snow Storm Part 1 Jan. 30, 2010

2010-01-31T00:15:00.010-05:00

Our "Big" Snow Storm Part 2 Jan. 30, 2010

2010-01-31T00:15:00.009-05:00

Please Check Out My New Zazzle Store

2010-01-23T15:28:00.012-05:00

Click This Link See my store at Zazzle

Vitamix Video #4 - One Of My Green Smoothie Recipes

2010-01-20T20:02:00.002-05:00

Here is one of the many ways I make a smoothie in the Vitamix every day to get those vegetables and fruits in my diet.

Vitamix Video #2 Blueberry Syrup Made In The Vitamix

2010-01-17T11:18:00.007-05:00

Here is a simple way to make syrup for your pancakes, crepes, and waffles that I made in the Vitamix

Pressure Cooker Vegetable Beef Stew Recipe

2010-01-13T17:50:00.015-05:00

Here is a little video I made of the vegetable beef stew I made in the pressure cooker. Here is where you can get a great Nesco American Harvest PC-6-25-30TPR 3 in 1 Digital Electric Pressure Cooker

Vitamix Video # 1 - Our First Two Items Made With The Vitamix - AWESOME!!!

2010-01-06T01:06:00.020-05:00

Our first two items made in the Vitamix were a green smoothie and broccoli cheddar and chicken soup. I can't tell you how much it makes your life a little more healthy by owning one, if you use it. Get one here Vita Mix 5200 for a healthier you!

Vita Mix 5200">">

Dinner at the Silver Diner - Newport News, VA

2009-12-31T23:47:00.006-05:00

A little video of our dinner at the Silver Diner.

BD's Mongolian Grille Video 2 - Singing Grillers!

2009-12-29T16:08:00.006-05:00

This is just a quick video of our second visit to BD's MOngolian Grille. I caught them singing their version of My Girl called My Grill.

Our Christmas 2009

2009-12-26T23:01:00.004-05:00

Entertainment Book Savings Video 1 - Texas Roadhouse

2009-12-23T23:43:00.007-05:00

I've started an Entertainment Book savings series of videos. Here we are at the Texas Roadhouse, our 2nd Entertainment Book savings. At this point, with 2 restaurant savings we have already paid for the book.

Video from My Phone - Our Dinner At Olive Garden - Chicken Scampi

2009-12-23T02:45:00.007-05:00

This is just a quick video of our dinner of chicken scampi at Olive Garden tonight. The video quality is not very good but the chicken scampi, salad, bread sticks, and peach ice tea was GREAT!

Beautiful Christmas Tree in Newport News, VA Shopping Center.

2009-12-22T05:37:00.003-05:00

BD's Mongolian Grille - Hampton, Virginia - Opening Day!

2009-12-22T05:27:00.002-05:00

This place has great food!

Pt. 1 Christmas Time at Outdoor World aka Bass Pro Shop 2009

2009-12-22T05:24:00.005-05:00

Part 1

Pt. 2 Video from My Phone - Christmas Time at Outdoor World aka Bass Pro Shop 2009

2009-12-22T05:24:00.001-05:00

Part 2

Pt. 3 Video from My Phone - Christmas Time at Outdoor World aka Bass Pro Shop 2009

2009-12-22T05:23:00.001-05:00

Part 3

Pt. 4 Video from My Phone - Christmas Time at Outdoor World aka Bass Pro Shop 2009

2009-12-22T05:21:00.003-05:00

Part 4

Pt. 5 Video from My Phone - Christmas Time at Outdoor World aka Bass Pro Shop 2009

2009-12-22T05:21:00.001-05:00

Part 5

Pt. 6 Video from My Phone - Christmas Time at Outdoor World aka Bass Pro Shop

2009-12-22T05:19:00.001-05:00

Part 6

I'm back! I'm Making Youtube Videos Now, Check Them Out

2009-12-16T05:33:00.010-05:00

Hi all,

I'm so sorry I have not kept up with this blog, I have been doing a lot of other things and lately I have been into posting videos on youtube, so I decided to use my blog here to show them off. I hope you enjoy them and please leave a comment and subscribe if you do. Here are my latest ones and I've added the link to my youtube channel in the link section. I've been making videos more often now a days.

Thanks, Nora

Best Christmas Drive Thru - Celebration In Lights - Newport News Park, VA

Christmas Time Music - Peninsula Youth Orchestra Pt. 1 - Patrick Henry Mall

Christmas Time Music - Peninsula Youth Orchestra Pt 2 - Patrick Henry Mall

Best Christmas Mood Music - Relaxing Fireplace & Fireworks

Christmas Time at MacArthur Center Mall - Santa & Ice Skating set to Manheim Steamroller

Young Hibachi Chef Accidently Drops Egg On Me - Funny!

Best Christmas Decorated House - Hampton, VA set to Manheim Steamroller 2009

Rod Stewart Impersonator At The Pub In Hampton, VA

New Survey Question & Discussion

2009-04-20T02:20:00.002-04:00

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

Creating Squidoo Lenses : Too Much Fun! (Part 1)

2009-04-15T01:54:00.003-04:00

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.

Happy Blogging!

Nora

Squidoo Is Fun & Addicting!

2009-04-09T15:29:00.010-04:00

Hi all,

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

Come-Check-Out-Nochipras-Blog-Spot

The Debate Club

Dinner Recipes Tonight

Dinner Recipes Tonight Group

Useful Youtube Videos On Blogging (Part 1)

2009-04-06T15:42:00.003-04:00

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.

Happy Blogging!

Nora

Rihanna, Octomom, and Michael Vick : My 2 Cents Worth!

2009-04-02T16:18:00.002-04:00

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 Blogging!

Nora

Happy April Fool’s Day!

2009-04-01T01:14:00.010-04:00

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!!!

Mystery In The Sky : Is the World Coming To An End?

2009-03-30T13:17:00.004-04:00

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

Happy Blogging!

Nora

My First 3 Survey Results

2009-03-29T12:47:00.014-04:00

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.

Happy Blogging!

Nora

Forbes List : The World’s Billianaires - How Rich Do You Want To Be?

2009-03-28T11:45:00.009-04:00

THE BILLIONAIRES

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.

Happy Blogging!

Nora

Social Media and Human Nature

2009-03-26T17:19:00.005-04:00

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.

Happy Adventures and Happy Blogging!

Nora

I Have A Goal!

2009-03-25T22:13:00.007-04:00

Hi all,

I just wanted to do a small post about a new goal that I've set for myself here at Nochipra's Blog Spot. I think it's a pretty realistic goal, maybe? It is to acquire 3 new followers to the blog per day. Now I know I have not been a blogger long and their are far more experienced and much better blogs than mine but I'm always willing to learn. If anyone has any constructive suggestions on how I could improve my blog please leave me a comment. I will try my best to come up with some good future content that hopefully will keep you following me. Thanks to the 6 followers I have now for having confidence in me and giviing me confidence by signing up as a follower.

Happy blogging,

Nora

A Rant About Chip’s Hospital Stay!

2009-03-23T15:24:00.005-04:00

Ok, I wasn’t going to do this blog but the more I think about it, I think I should, if not just to get it off my chest! Chip had to go into the hospital on March 7 and came out on March 17. Without going into too much detail he was pretty bad off with pneumonia and a few other things going on. I have several issues that I would like to address about his stay (none of which are good!)

First! Why is it that when you go into a hospital that it takes an act of congress to get a room! We had to spend 22 hrs in the emergency room waiting for a bed to come “available”. In other words (in my opinion)… you have to wait for the cleaning staff to come in and clean a room!

Second! How many different people do we have to give information to? There must have been at least 10 different people who came in wanting to know his name, date of birth, doctors names, insurance information, what meds he takes, etc. I can understand the name and date of birth stuff because every nurse wants to know she has the right patient but how many times do we have to give medicine and insurance info? After the first or second person it should be in the computer by then. I mean I even had a list of his meds they copied at the front desk!

Third! Why do some nurses have to be soooo mean! Chip cannot stand to have tape pulled off of his skin. He has a hairy chest and arms and about every nurse that came in there insisted on ripping it off of him without even giving him a warning even though we told them before that he hates it. I think a few of them learned their lesson though because when Chip was kind of out of it, I think he gave them a little something they weren’t expecting too without knowing itJ

Fourth! When a doctor orders a new medicine for you why doesn’t the nurse tell you when she brings it to you? Every time they brought his meds we asked what they were and a couple of times there was something he had never taken before? If we had not asked then he would have blindly taken anything they brought him when he was kind of out of it!

Fifth! Speaking about meds! Why does it usually take a whole day to get the medicines right! Chip has to take a lot of different meds for his kidney transplant, blood pressure, and pain and it seems like it takes forever to get everything straight! The first day he was getting one pill at this time and another the next hour til everything was approved!

Sixth! Now luckily Chip had either me or one of his family taking shifts to be with him 24 hrs a day. If we didn’t, he would have been waiting for a nurse to come to his aide which for the most part could have been too late for some problems he was having. Even though we were there, there were times he had to have a nurse and it ended up being too late by the time she got there. Which in turn ended with them having to do a clean up. Now I understand there is a shortage of nurses and God knows you could not pay me enough money to do the great work they do but I just wish that their services were not spread so thin.

Seventh! Why is it that one day you get a choice of what you want for your next meal and the next day you don’t? The whole time he was there he had two different food service people bring the food. One lady was extremely nice and asked what he wanted on his next meals and even brought something extra for me when I stayed with him; then there was an older woman who just popped in the room, dropped the tray off and didn’t say a word or ask what he wanted for the next meal.

Eighth! Why does it take forever to get processed out of the hospital? The doctor had come in and told us he was going to do the paperwork to let him go home and then about an hour later the nurse comes in after Chip had his clothes on and says “Where are you going?” We told her the doctor just told us he was able to go home and we were just getting ready? She says “Well, let me go check and see if the papers are ready for him.” So a few minutes later she comes in with the prescriptions and take home instructions and says “Ok, I guess you ready and leaves the room to call transportation for a wheelchair!” We wait a few minutes. Ummm…. Excuse me? But he’s still got an IV in his hand? I go out to tell the nurse and she come in giggling saying well “ I guess you don’t want to take that with you!” DUH!

Well I could probably go on but I think I got enough off my chest for now. At least he is better now and hopefully will not have to go back any time soon. These incidents are not just based from this hospital visit though! When we first started going to this hospital I really liked them because I thought they were the best and friendliest we had been to at that point; but it seems every hospital we have had to go to in the past had the same problems? Oh well, I guess hospital visits are not supposed to be like staying at the Ritz Carlton but I was expecting a little better service?

Let me say though I have the total utmost respect for what doctors and nurses have to go through to help the patients and I know for a fact I am not the type to take on that type of job and responsibility. I’m not sure what nurses get paid but I know it’s not enough for all the crap they have to go through. I just think it’s the system that needs to be worked on and probably some communication problems as well.

If you have any hospital stories you would like to share please feel free to share them in the comments. Also feel free to make comments on the past blogs as well as participating in the little surveys to the left. Thanks. Nora

Affiliate Marketing: You Learn Something New Every Day!

2009-03-22T13:42:00.002-04:00

Affiliate Marketing? Do you know what it is? Well I didn’t until recently. In doing my research on social media and marketing in general, I kept coming across the term and it got my curiosity going. So, as I usually do I turned to you tube for the answer (you can learn almost anything on you tube) and this was a good answer to my question.

In addition to the Adsense ads that you can place on your blogs, participating in an affiliate marketing program seems to be a pretty good way if not more profitable way of earning extra cash from your writings. The main thing that has to be considered before participating in these types of programs though is building the traffic to your blog or website and that is where the social media comes in; where you promote your web site to generate the traffic by using twitter, face book, myspace, etc. It really makes you wonder how the world functioned before this new age technology showed up? You really can learn something new every day.

Please feel free to leave comments, especially on the post "What's So Special About Twitter" below and fill in the surveys to the left. Thanks. Nora

What’s So Special About Twitter?

2009-03-20T11:46:00.000-04:00

Hey all,

Today I thought I’d post a question that everyone seems to be talking about now. What’s So Special About Twitter? It seems to be spreading like wildfire! Even the Today Show and many other shows on tv are talking about it. This is your chance to tell everyone what’s so special about it and why you enjoy using Twitter. I’ll give it a week or so to see what comments are made and then I’ll discuss what was said and give my opinion in a later post. Please express your comments below. Thanks.

Group Blog Experiment Results

2009-03-19T11:08:00.002-04:00

NOTE: Hi, I am so sorry this post is late. Chip went into the hospital on the night of the 7th with high blood pressure, high sugar, low potassium, and pneumonia. I hope this has not discouraged anyone from checking on my blog posts since it’s been a couple of weeks but here is the result from my previous Group Blog Experiment. Please feel free to post your comments about my conclusions. Thank you.

Hi all,

Well a couple of weeks ago I added a blog post asking for people to participate in an experimental group blog. As of the deadline on March 7, 2009 at midnight, I received only one comment responding to my posted questions. I want to thank Chad Engle for participating and giving his opinion.

The question was:

Will Social Media Die Out? Will Some Other Form Take It’s Place? How Important Do You Feel Social Media Will Become Or Not?

Chad’s response was: “I feel that it will never die out. Sure it may come in other forms but humans are social beings and there for I think that we will always want to connect and see what other people are doing. Thats why reality tv does so well.”

Actually I totally agree with Chad! People are social beings that want to engage in conversations and interact with others, otherwise the world would be a sad and lonely place. Some of the first great inventions (and most popular) like the telegraph, telephone, radio, television, and the computers gave new life to the way people interacted with each other. I mean what else was their before that? Letters by pony express! Each one had it’s own hay day for that particular marvel of invention.

People are always looking for the newest and fastest way to interact with their fellow mankind. Being able to interact with another human being in a split second when you are on different ends of the planet has really been the ultimate goal and the birth of what is now known as social media. Social Media has had many different titles through the ages of inventions though. With the telgraph it was a telegram, with the telephone it was a phone call, with radio it was a broadcast, with television it was a program (taped or live), and with computers, well that just took on a whole new life itself.

As for the first part of the group blog experiment question: Will Social Media Die Out? I don’t believe it will EVER die out! As long as there are two humans on this planet, they will eventually try to communicate with each other even if they are far apart if possible. I believe that is just human nature. I mean just look at the space program? Humans are even trying to talk to other “beings” that may be in outer space?

Part two of the question was: Will Some Other Form Take It’s Place? In my opinion, of course! Now a days there is constantly some new way to communicate being invented at an astonishing rate. Just look at all the different kinds of phones there are on the market, the development of Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace to name a few? There will always be someone out there to improve on what is already on the market and make it better and faster or come up with some new way entirely to communicate. The human race is very creative when it wants to be.

The third part of the question was: How Important Do You Feel Social Media Will Become Or Not? Well in my opinion social media will always, always, always be extremely important. It will never not be important. Just look at how businesses use social media today? Most businesses wouldn’t even exist without social media? Just look at how many businesses there would not be if the computer had never been invented? Most “standard” type businesses wouldn’t be as successful if they didn’t have social media to help advertise themselves. To be able to communicate, socialize, and sell your business (your livelihood) is what life is all about and without it there really is no “life” at all!

2009-03-03T01:04:00.001-05:00

I just wanted to thank everyone so far who has taken the time to stop by my blog and fill in the little survey in the left column and made a comment on the Group Blogging Experiment. My hope is that with your help, it will make me into a better blogger in the future. Please let others know about the experiment and suggest that they stop by and leave a comment to participate in the discussion. As this video suggests all feedback is helpful in creating successful and useful information.

So please participate in the Group Blogging Experiment below. Thank you.

Nora

#GBE#1 Group Blogging Experiment #1 (Subject: Will Social Media Die Out?)

2009-02-28T23:10:00.006-05:00

Hello there,

Well tonight I thought I would try something a little different. An experiment if you will? This will be an attempt at a group blog based on the comments you leave? I will post a topic for the blog discussion and then you leave your comments. After about a week I will come and look over the comments left on the subject title and then proceed to write the blog incorporating what everyone has said in the comments. Once the blog is written everyone is welcome to still participate by making comments on the finished blog. I will also create a hashtag for this on twitter which will be #GBE#1

If there are any questions please DM me at #Nochipra if you are on twitter or email me at wheely5@hotmail.com. Thank you in advance for participating in this experiment. If it is successful I will do more. The deadline for leaving a comment before the blog is written will be 12am EST on Mar. 7.

Nora

GBE#1 SUBJECT IS: Will Social Media Die Out? Will Some Other Format Take It's Place? How Important Do You Feel Social Media Will Become Or Not?

What Do You Like To See In A Blog?

2009-02-28T08:37:00.006-05:00

Hello Peeps,

I've been up all night doing some research on blogging, social media, adsense, and other related topics. What I have discovered is a world that has really developed into this huge opportunity to do something I believe I would enjoy and may make a little money at in the process if done correctly?

Now, I've always been interested in writing, but I've never really figured out exactly what I wanted to write about? I tend to be a little (I guess?) ADD in that I will find something that interests me for a little while and then I get bored with it and move on to something else. In my life I've had several different jobs, mostly in customer service (like selling that junk on tv like the old Jerry Springer videos), but I've also been a peer counselor's aide, done volunteer work in a hospital, spent around 10 years as part of a country/western wheelchair dance group that did exhibition type shows around the east coast and been a sort of a "scout" leader for children with disabilities with the Winners On Wheels program.

All these jobs and activities I've been a part of were great and I wouldn't trade the experiences for anything but in a way I wish I had been blogging at the time I was doing them. Now granted at the times I was doing these things blogging was not even invented yet but how nice it would of been to have a written record of what I was doing and how I was feeling at the time.

This "somewhat" new thing called blogging has really opened up a world that I am looking forward to participating in. Now granted. I am the first to say that I am not a great writer and to tell the truth I'm kinda out of practice since I've been out of college almost 20 years but I want to try and give it a shot?

My first objective is to try and create blogs with interesting content. That may be easier said than done but I'm going to do some experimenting and see how things go? Once I create the blogs, then the next step I'm going to try is getting the traffic to my blogs. Then, if by some miracle, I manage to get some descent traffic to my blogs I'll see about adding some adsense adds and see how that goes to see if it's worth trying to make a little extra income through this new type of media?

Almost all this information is something I've learned through watching the youtube videos tonight and reading relevent tweets on twitter. One set of youtube videos I'd recommend watching is just about everything you can find that Joel Comm has put on there. He is very quickly becoming my guide/guru to social media studies and how to properly use them. I'm planning to purchase his latest book TWITTER POWER and probably others he's written as well. If you are interested in social media and blogging as a career and you have not checked out his youtube videos then you would be doing yourself a great disservice. This is just one of the many he has on youtube.

I actually just discovered Joel on twitter the other night during his Tweet-A-Thon that he was hosting. I was on twitter as usual and I kept seeing all these RT/retweets about the live Tweet-A-Thon at this web site, so I clicked it and watched it the rest of the night. I really enjoyed it so I started following @joelcomm and discovered that he's made a fortune in this business. If I could just end up making a pinky full of what he's made doing this then I would be extatic!

Well, I guess you could say that that is my "business" plan as of now but I'm always going to do more research on the subject because I'm sure it will only grow in the future. Please help me with some research by taking my little survey in the top left corner about the types of blogs you like to see and feel free to comment on this blog and elaborate about the kinds of content you enjoy in blog reading. Thank you.

What Is Marketing and Social Media To You?

2009-02-20T14:28:00.007-05:00

Hi all,

Well today I'm about to start a topic that I'm sure may open up a big can of worms sort of speak? It has to do with marketing and social media? Lately as I'm acquiring more and more followers on twitter I'm noticing a steady trend of people describing themselves in their bios as "marketing experts" and "social media experts". Now to tell the truth I'm still kind of fuzzy on exactly what marketing and social media "really" means? I have not gone to school and taken any kind of marketing or social media classes, so you can call me an ignoramous about the subjects although I do have a couple of associate degrees in word processing and office tech from back in the day? I have an "idea" what they are but it seems that everyone has a slightly different definition themselves? I guess it depends on what they are trying to sell?

My understanding of marketing first comes from the wiki definition of marketing :

Marketing is defined by the American Marketing Association as the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. [1] The term developed from the original meaning which referred literally to going to market, as in shopping, or going to a market to sell goods or services.

Marketing practice tends to be seen as a creative industry, which includes advertising, distribution and selling. It is also concerned with anticipating the customers' future needs and wants, which are often discovered through market research.

Marketing is influenced by many of the social sciences, particularly psychology, sociology, and economics. Anthropology is also a small, but growing influence. Market research underpins these activities. Through advertising, it is also related to many of the creative arts. The marketing literature is also infamous for re-inventing itself and its vocabulary according to the times and the culture.

Now, from this definition I get that marketing(in may laymens terms) is the selling "of a way" to sell a product or service to the public? Kind of like a person behind the success of someone else? Or in other words, like an agent or manager is to an actor, a secretary is to a boss, a wife behind a successful husband, or husband behind a succesful wife? This is my basic understanding of what marketing is but I could be all wrong?

As for being a "social media expert" as I noticed some of my followers describe themselves? That is a totally different kind of *cough* "important title"? The wiki definition of social media is:

Social media are primarily Internet- and mobile-based tools for sharing and discussing information among human beings. The term most often refers to activities that integrate technology, telecommunications and social interaction, and the construction of words, pictures, videos and audio. This interaction, and the manner in which information is presented, depends on the varied perspectives and "building" of shared meaning among communities, as people share their stories and experiences. Businesses also refer to social media as user-generated content (UGC) or consumer-generated media (CGM).

Now my laymens understanding of social media is basically that you like to talk to people through internet and mobile devices (period). That's not to say that what you talk about is not of importance? The subjects of which you talk about can help you gain new friends, a job, gather information, discover new places, hire someone for your business, and just keep you from being lonely, etc.

So, I guess someone who claims to be a social media expert means that they talk using these means a lot. As for me I guess I'm a social media expert wannabe. Right now, I'm mainly just a twitaholic since that and facebook are about the only social media tools I'm using on the internet right now. I don't even own an iphone or mobile device at the moment; a sad feeling just came over me:(, so I'm stuck doing my social media interactions at home.

Sooo! My question to you is:

Now please, please, please, if you wish to leave a comment about this blog, please DO NOT leave an advertisement for one of your marketing products. I'm only interested in hearing your opinions about what marketing and social media is to you. Do you use it for business or socializing? Any discussion is welcome other than self promoting yourself or business. Thank you.

A Blog About Valentines Day and Twitter

2009-02-16T03:18:00.009-05:00

Well I'm back and in a blogging kinda mood:) Chip and I had a very nice Valentines Day. We went out to dinner at The Crab Shack and had a delicious seafood dinner. Chip had to have a couple of teeth pulled a few days ago so his mouth was not feeling too good but it had healed enough to where he could eat something a little softer like seafood instead of a steak which is really what he wanted I think? When we arrived we were told it would be an hour and a half wait so we stuck it out. It pretty much worked out to be that long although I would have thought when the tables were called and noone showed up that the wait would be shorter when those people lost their table but no such luck.

I'm a little ticked off that we had to wait so long but what can you do it's Valentines Day?

Once we got our table we already knew what we wanted, I think it was called the Seaside Platter to split with fish, shrimp, scallops, fries, and cole slaw. YUMO!

After eating the platter we were still a little hungry so we ordered the clam chowder. That was delish too with lots of clams.

What made the day so much more fun was the fact that after we had dinner and went to Wally World to get some things, I had taken some pics while we were out and when I got back home I got on the computer and went to twitter and shared what we did with my followers. Lately I got back into "tweeting" more after being away from it for a while. I had fogotten how much fun and addicting it is. That simple little question "What are you doing" makes you want to tell the world what you are doing at that moment however "stupid" or "boring" it is. Why is that? I really can't figure that out for the life of me but I'm compelled to do it. It's gotten so lately when I wake up that is the first thing on my mind is to go to twitter and chat with the world?

Now I've started a quest on twitter to TWEET THE WORLD! I'm reseaching at least 1 or 2 people from each state in the US and on each continent to follow and hopefully they will follow me back? SOMEONE NEEDS TO STOP ME BEFORE I GO TWEETIE!!! LOL

Our Anniversary Blog

2009-02-09T23:39:00.003-05:00

Well, it's almost midnight here and our anniversary is about over. Eight yrs ago today Chip and I met for the first time at the mall after having met on the internet in a yahoo chat room. I can still remember the first time I saw him. Neither of us were driving at the time, he because of his eyesight and me because my van was having problems so after chatting online for about a month or so we decided to meet at a local mall. Luckily we lived in the same town, actually it was kind of ironic because we both had been born and raised in the same general area and had shopped at the same places all our lives but had never met.

Anyway, the first time we met I was so nervous because I had never done anything like this before so I hoped on the bus to the mall as he did. I was there first and hung out. He was actually late and I really thought he might not show? I had not eaten all day because I was so nervous, so when I thought he wasn't going to show I got in line to get a pretzel at Auntie Anna's. That's when I saw him come into the food court. He had on a red shirt and either black pants or jeans (can't quite recall that?). He was in a wheelchair at the time too because his legs were giving him problems. I recognized him because he had sent me a picture in the online chats and from his profile. I jumped out of line and went up to him and we got a table together. We talked and both decided to get a pretzel and share it and that was the beginning of a long, beautiful and very happy 8 yrs together. We've been through quite lot in those 8 yrs with his kidney transplant and my health issues as well but we are still going strong. I can't imagine the last 8 yrs without him. I love you the mostest babe:)

Wow, It's Been A Long Time!

2009-02-08T02:14:00.003-05:00

Well now, it has been a really long time since I blogged last. I figured it's about time to get back to it. It's been a really long few months with all the holidays and the other personal junk that's been going on around here and still is. The most heartbreaking thing that happened to us though was the loss of our "baby" Tippi. He was our cat and a big part of our family since Chip and I don't have kids. Chip had him even before I met him 8 yrs ago and they had a special bond between them.

Before Christmas I was working on my family genealogy and put together a book for my mom and grandmother as Christmas gifts. I still have a lot of work on it still to do but I have my grandmother going over the info I gave her to help me fine tune what else I need to put in it. Overall its over 100 pages long and includes 4 different branches of the family. The best thing about doing the genealogy though was finding new distant relatives I never knew I had? By going into the different Surname forums and inquiring about certain relatives I found a lot of others researching the same info. only to find that we were related. It really does help a lot too when you have others with some of the same stories you've heard about all your life being told by others you just met and being able to get new info from them as well as share your own.

Overall the last few months have been kind of depressing other than the time I spent researching my genealogy since it's been so cold. Chip and I have pretty much been hibernating til it does get warmer. I'm really just not a winter person. I prefer the fall and spring. In the last 3 months or so we probably only filled our gas tank about maybe 3 times which tells you how much we have been out of the house.

Oh well, enough depressing info for now. Spring will be here soon enough and we'll get out and enjoy life a little more but til then I guess I need to blog a little more to keep my spirits up til then. Til next time:)

A New Blog And Nice Visit

2008-10-13T13:33:00.003-04:00

Yesterday I had a very nice visit with my granmother and my nephew. I have been gathering some geneology information on her family and wanted to take her what I found out so far and have her gather some pictures and verify the information. I've actually managed to find quite a bit so far. I left here around noon or so and picked up some chicken sandwiches from Hardees for her, myself, and my nephew Dylan and we had a nice lunch. My nephew Dylan lives right down the road from her and walked his dog down to visit while I was there. Once I showed her the family information I had typed up, it seemed to trigger memories of some of the family that she recognized and she began giving me little tidbits about each one. I asked her to look over the information in the next few days and write down or tape record anything she could remember about them and dig out some old photos for me to later put into a book. Today I also received an email from someone responding to the post I put up a few weeks ago on the genealogy.com message boards. He says that he is a distant relative of one of my ancesters and I look forward to corresponding with him. I showed the information to my nephew (who is 14 yrs old) but he really did not seem that interested but hopefully one day he will appreciate it. He is very much into history and reading a lot so maybe eventually he will become interested in geneology.

I have also created a new blog here on blogspot to keep a record of how I found my information so I can remember the journey for years to come at http://nldfamgen.blogspot.com/ My grandmother will soon be 88 yrs old and is still going strong. Her mother lived to be almost 90 herself. It's nice to know that I have quite a few family members who lived very long and fullfilled lives. It gives me great hope:)

A Blog About Chip's Birthday Week

2008-10-06T06:25:00.004-04:00

I thought I'd just blog about this past week again. Saturday was Chip's 47th birthday but we kind of start things a little early and keep it late as usual. We usually take a week to celebrate each others birthday because not all the family members can celebrate all at one time. On Friday I took Chip to the Red Lobster for their all you can eat shrimp deal which was absolutely delicious and then we had to go to Walmart to get some groceries. Usually about every year we try to outdo each other on the Happy Birthday wishes from different restaurants and stores so at dinner I had them come out at Red Lobster and sing Happy Birthday to him and then at Walmart I had them to make an announcement over the loud speaker wishing him a Happy 47th Birthday which I think sufficiently embarrassed him:) On Sat. his parents and his sister's family took us out for his birthday to Cracker Barrel which was great too. Sat. night is chicken and rice night which is incredibly good so we both got that. After dinner and looking around their store we all sat out on their front porch with all the rocking chairs and had a very nice hr to 2 hr family moment of remembering old tales of when he and his sister were little and having some nice laughs. He enjoyed this very much since usually 1 or 2 members of the family end up missing birhtday dinners for one reason or another and it's very unusual for everyone to get together. He is still talking about how nice it was to have everyone together. Tonight for dinner I am going to fix the frozen scallops since that is one of his favorite meals. I just hope I don't screw them up because I've never fixed them before? I may try 2 or 3 different methods of cooking them just to have a variety and see how he likes them best? Of course if we end up going to any more restaurants or going shopping in the next few day I have to see if I can embarrass him some more with the PA announcements:) Well that's my little blog for now:)

Thinking About Doing Blogging Experiments?

2008-10-03T06:09:00.002-04:00

I've been thinking about doing some blogging experiments lately? Particularly for the purpose of making money. I've been researching how to accomplish this task and I am trying to think of some interesting and creative titles that will have some impact and sustainability? I've always wanted to be a writer of some type but could never really decide how I wanted to accomplish it? I did try my hand at screenwriting at one point when I was much younger but never did anything with it. Maybe this will be the beginning of a career for me but I still have quite a bit of studying to do yet. I guess we will see:)

A Blog About This Past Week

2008-09-29T03:41:00.001-04:00

I thought I'd just blog about my week. Well today I watched the Redskins/Cowboy game. YEAH REDSKINS! They won it! It was a close one at the end though. Going back to Monday though,I went to go see my grandmother who will be turning 88 yrs old in Oct. I hadn't seen her in a while which was entirely my fault. I need to take more time to go visit with her. Our visit was very nice though. I gathered some family information from her (this is my mother's mother) and have been working again this week on our family history and have gone back a few generations. Soon I will be getting quite a bit of information from my 3rd cousin in WV who has traced our family for quite a while and has a lot of info and pictures her aunt left her. That will definitely help me with my research although it will only be on my grandmother's mothers side of the family, I still have some to do on her father's side although I have gone back to 1800 already with him but I seem to be stuck because it's been debatable whether he was Irish or not and whether his wife was Scottish? There is also some Native American blood in my family but hopefully my 3rd cousin will have that info? My uncle did research on my dad's side of the family when he was in college and we discovered that we are of Scotch/Irish descent and now it is starting to look like we are of the same descent on my mom's side of the family as well with some Native American blood thrown in too. This past year I have really become very interested in geneology and have been able to find out a lot by just googling names and dates. There is usually always somebody else trying to find the same person you are looking for or someone that they are closely related too.

Something else I've been doing this week is trying to do more cooking at home. I've found a lot of great recipes on youtube and done some variation with some of them. Some of the things I've made have been Shepherd's Pie, French Toast with fried apples, Crab Cakes, and Sticky Rice with Magos and Banana's. Chip really seemed to enjoy them:) Well I guess that's all for now:)

A Nice Fun Day Yesterday:)

2008-09-21T22:23:00.000-04:00

Well it's been a while since I blogged so I thought I'd talk about our day yesterday. Chip has been talking about this Chesapeake Heritage Day for about a month now because it had a civil war demo going on with the firing cannons and such so he was really excited to go. We left here between 11am - Noon. We get to the park and it was a pretty pitiful excuse for a festival. They have a huge park and only about two sections of it were being used with everthing spread out so you had to walk forever to get to a section you wanted to see. They had a food area with only about 4 vendors with only bbq, hot dogs, and hamburgers. An area for the civil war tents and demos which was not much of anything. They used to have a dedicated Civil War Days at the Chesapeake Public Library in the past few yrs but ended up closing that and putting them at the Heritage Festival which really must have limited what they could do there? They had a a tent for very few crafters and a few people demonstrating a few old time trades like blacksmith and weaving baskets. They also had a very small petting zoo and a demo of a sheep dog hearding sheep. For a Heritage Festival there really was not many heritages represented. We only stayed for about 1/2 hr. It really took less time than that to cover it although we did get BBQ w/ chips & drink for $5 as our lunch that took some time. Since we were so close to Greenbrier Mall we stopped there and did a little shopping and then since Chesapeake Square Mall was on the way home we decided to stop there too since we do not get to Chesapeake often. Once we got there we looked around and talked about the John Anderson concert at the Smithfield County Fair. Chip actually met him in Florida when he stayed there and worked for a while so he is a fan and I like his music too so since he was not going to go on til 9pm we decided to go ahead to that as well. We got there around 7pm and ran into Chip's brother in law and 2 kids. We then went to get some supper in the food court tent and I was able to get my favorite festival food "gyros". I ate one there and it was so good I had to get one to take home. I had the guy just put some meat on the bread and give me the sauce on the side. YUM!!! Although they were $8 they were huge and almost too much to eat. By this time my electric wheelchair was running down and on red which means it needs to be charged real soon so I went around and bummed some electricity from a very nice vendor who let me sit by his booth for a while to put more juice in my chair. I really wish we had gone to this fair for the day since it was pretty big and a lot more fun but I didn't really get the chance to enjoy it though since I had to take the time to juice up the chair and then go strait to the concert. John Anderson was great though and I'm really glad we got to go. By the time we got outta there it was around 11pm so we had been gone about 12 hrs and I had been up much earlier than before we left so I was dead tired last night. Overall though it was really a great day even though I had forgotten to put the sd card in the video camera and all the pictures I took with it are not there since there is no memory in the camera:( Well that's my blog for the day. Night:)

Another Day, Another Blog:)

2008-09-12T00:52:00.000-04:00

Today 9/11/08 I took Chip to his doctor's appt, then went to dinner at Thai Erawan and then to Books A Million in a little strip mall area. We had a really nice dinner, I love Thai Food! I had this dish with lg. flat noodles, broccoli, chicken, and carrots in a sweet soy sauce with a little heat added to it (I can't remember the name of it though? DELICIOUS! I couldn't eat it all so I brought the rest home and shared it with Chip a little while ago. Chip had a dish called Perfectly Ginger (English translation?) with scallops, carrots, ginger, and rice. I had a small taste of it at the restaurant and it was delicious too. I bought some stuff to try to make my own version of his dish, I just hope I do justice to it when I try it. I also picked up the books I had ordered from Books A Million. A couple copies of the Boxcar kids series book #113 which talks about geocaching (I was surprised how accurate their info was in the book:) Well, I'm off now to get some Breyers Reese's ice cream outta the freezer. YUM!

Great Couple of Weeks!

2008-08-30T22:00:00.000-04:00

These last couple of weeks have been pretty nice. Last week Chip and I did some housesitting for his parents while his parents and his sister's family went to Nags Head. We had the whole house to ourselves which was nice out on the lake. We came home this past Monday and have been spending some lazy days here at home and then today we went to the Geocaching Hampton Roads 6th Annual Picnic. We got there a little late but there was plenty of food left, then we went to do some geocaches in the park. We got 4 in the park and one on the way home. I gave away a few of our signature pins and did some geocoin trading too. We stopped at City Center on the way home because we thought that the Va Symphony was going to be giving a free concert by the big fountain but when we got there the stage was empty so we went to find the cache that was located next to the Omni Hotel there anyway. I went into the Omni to ask if the symphony was playing tonight but they told me they had played last night! BUMMER!!! Oh well, at least we found another cache and it was not a total wasted trip to stop. The funny thing was that when we went to get the cache it was in a far corner of a parking lot and there was a car parked there with a young couple in it. I think they were making out:) We heard a lot of giggling while looking for the cache. I don't think they paid us any mind though. Overall it was a great day with great weather and thank goodness it didn't rain although it was pretty much overcast all day. We also won a door prize of a tb/coin too:) Lots of fun! Here are some pics of the picnic http://s230.photobucket.com/albums/ee41/Nochipra/GCHR%20Picnic%202008/

A Very Nice Evening:)

2008-08-10T17:44:00.000-04:00

Last night 8/9/08 Chip and I decided to go to the City Center and check out one of the movies that the dept of parks and rec. are putting on during the month of Aug. on Sat. nights. It was a great night with temps around the low 80's in the day and prob. in the 70''s or 60's in the evening. We got there early and got a front row spot in front of the large screen they had outside in front of the large beautiful fountain with the surrounding Marriott hotel and upscale shops behind that. After picking our spot I went to the stand while Chip held our spot and I got some free popcorn and a couple of sodas to enjoy while watching the movie under the stars. The movies was started between 8 or 8:30 pm. The movies they play are family movies and there were a lot of people, at least a couple hundred with their families or with their dates, significant others, or possible couples on their first dates. It was very romantic:) For a children's movie Charlottes Web is a very much a movie that can be enjoyed by adults as well. It was a very emtional movie and was moved to tears toward the end. I can remember reading the book when I was young and the movie did a great job of capturing it. Although the movie has been out a while, I had not seen it and it made the occassion very special to see it under the stars holding hands with my sweetheart. Afterwards we went to Sonic and got a late night dinner and ice cream. It was a great night indeed:)

A New Day A New Blog

2008-08-05T13:48:00.000-04:00

Today we are going out since Chip has a doctor's appt., then we are probably going to the mall. I'm hoping I can talk him into going to get some Thai food tonight? I guess I've finally gotten more into the new age of technology, I usually keep twitter on the whole time the computer is on and creating this blogspot was a bit step for me too. I even signed up on Second Life which is kind of like a sims game online but the reason I found and joined that is because I joined the gimpgirl site where they have weekly support meeting on Second Life. It really is a cool site and I'm sure I will be spending quite bit of time in there too. Well, that's it for now:)

2008-08-03T20:36:00.001-04:00

Just added twitter updates to my blog!

Twitter is Great!

2008-08-03T14:30:00.000-04:00

Cool! I just signed up with the Hampton Roads Twitter meetup group. I hope we can attend some of the meetings some time:) I also found a great civil war site for Chip through Twitter too.

2008-08-01T08:22:00.001-04:00

Finished watching all of Amtrekkers Youtube videos. Totally Awesome.

2008-08-01T02:06:00.000-04:00

Well, I'm slowly getting back to a descent sleeping schedule. I went to bed around 2pm yesterday and got up around 1:30 am this morning. I might actually be able to stay up til dark tonight!

Been up all night! Again!

2008-07-31T11:32:00.000-04:00

I've really got to get back into a good sleeping pattern. This sleeping during the best part of the day and staying up all night is for the birds! Since I stayed up I went to Hardees and got some breakfast. Made out pretty good when I got double the order of strawberry biscuits I ordered because I had to wait so long. I've been playing on Twitter and Facebook again too adding some comments and pics. Well it's getting close to bed time, I'm really sleepy now and it almost noon. I hate when I do this! Good night/day.

Our Time to Time Blogs and Thoughts!

2008-07-30T01:17:00.000-04:00

Hi all,

This is our very first blog ever! I've heard of blogging for quite some time now but never got around to doing it yet but now have decided to get into the craze! Be back later!