Foovay’s Cauldron

Archive for the ‘Musing’ Category

The hubby has been busy this week getting some great photos like this one of a house finch. What I love about this is if you look, you can see how those streaky breast feathers blend right in with the brushy mess on the ground to provide the perfect camoflage.

He also got our best photo yet of that pretty pale Eurasian Ring-Necked Dove. I’ve begun to feel quite sorry for her as the rest of the flock clearly ostracizes her. Of course, she may as well have a target painted on her as be this pale color here in the desert. We have at least two hawks who pay daily visits to the ranch. I wonder how long she will last?

And our best photo yet of the buffalo. We always consider it a sign of good luck when we see them on the way to town.

Speaking of luck, in the last few weeks I have won five times in a row on the Lottery. Only a dollar each time – just enough to buy the next ticket – but I’m feeling pretty special! I’ve concluded that I probably ought to spend more time and effort playing the lottery since my chances of winning a big jackpot are somewhat better than the odds of getting a book published that actually makes any money! (No, really, look at the figures someday – it’s pretty unlikely that even a GOOD novel will make anything)

Never mind the odds of making money on the Internet. I had to laugh the other day at a comment on a money making article about “why isn’t my article making money?” and the writer said “Oh, you have to let them mature”. Yeah. I’ve got articles that have been maturing for almost 10 years and they are up to a few pennies a month now! LOL.

Yeah, playing the lottery is looking good.

But until I win “the big one” I’m working on some Squidoo lenses for the Get Cracking with Robin and Bonnie Challenge. The idea is to do a lens a day for…however long you can take it, I guess. Although their main thing seems to be giving prompts for ideas – and the last thing I need is more ideas since I have half a notebook full of them – I’m using it as a motivation to get all those Work In Progress lenses I have finished up and published. So far, so good – I’m four for four. Here’s my list of the new additions – everything from “I love my iPod shuffle” to “Dragonfly Watching”. Keep your eye on this space, folks!

Yesterday I got a nice surprise check from the sponsors of one of my adult sites. It’s even nicer when you think that I don’t even have a link up to them right now! Gotta love the adult biz – repeat customers rule. So I have put that on my todo list – really got to get a real website up there again someday! Besides, it’s fun. I guess you’d have to say it’s MATURED. *snicker*

Blessedbe

Summer

The things I think about…

Been a lot of activity on the Spring Coloring Pages lens for the last couple of weeks so I thought I ought to add some new coloring pages. So I asked on Twitter what people think of when they think of spring. Flowers, baby animals, rain, Easter, St. Patricks Day were some of the answers.

Here in the desert spring means the migrant birds passing though again on their way back south. The doves are cooing incessantly already for their mating season. The traditional spring bulbs don’t actually do very well here and most of the wildflowers bloom in the winter when there is water. The mesquite is the first plant to put out new leaves.

Here in America we never notice how our thinking of “how things are” or should be is influenced by the fact that the first Americans never made it past the Maxon Dixon line, and most of them are from kinder climates anyway. Places where spring is flowers and green grass and baby bunnies (which we probably won’t see here until May or June). People who move to the desert, and even many who were raised here complain about the differences as if the desert were just WRONG because spring here is not like spring in New England. My first husbands family – from New York and Pennsylvania – never stopped complaining that it never snowed in Oklahoma in the winter. Not like three feet deep stay on the ground for months snow. Look at any Christmas card – what do we think Christmas means? Winter snow on the evergreens and Cardinals in every tree, right? Not here.

But most people move to the southwest FOR the warmer, drier weather. Then complain when the seasons do not match those at home.

The desert is different. You love it, or you don’t. You accept it, or you don’t. (It doesn’t really care) But if you do open your heart and eyes to a different kind of beauty, the magic will transform you.

A roadrunner came from behind me, under the porch, and then ran out in front of me before he noticed me sitting on the porch with my coffee this morning. He stopped, turned, glared at me – then squatted and puffed up his feathers, holding his wings out beside his body to make himself about three times the bird he was a minute before. Just so I knew he was a pretty tough bird, ya know. He held that posture for a few minutes, then trotted casually off into the brush. Moments like this remind me why I love it here.

Spring means roadrunners are once again hunting their favorite foods – lizards and snakes. I’ve actually seen a lizard out running around on Christmas Day here.

You probably know that I started Color-Your-Own.com as a free line art site for players of the Orbis games. I still play, mostly at SandboxFarms where you can create animals to share with the world. Recently I created some new varieties of service dogs, including cadaver dogs, bomb sniffing dogs, arson and drug sniffing dogs, and search and rescue dogs. Long as I’m at it, I am creating coloring pages for them, too. I’ll be adding those all week so if you are interested, just check out the coloring pages blog.

I may have told you, but if not The Best Vegetarian Lasagna ever is hubbys first recipe to be shared online and on Squidoo. Check it out – it is delicious. Look forward to more as he gets out of that job and onto a new life.

Well, time to feed dinner outside. Hope you had a great Valentine’s Day and a good week ahead.

My buddy the Juvenile Sharp Shinned Hawk dropped by again this morning. He seems to feel I got enough close up pictures yesterday, instead he posed today with his back to me as we both enjoyed the view of the mountains and clouds out back.

I’m sitting here this morning having my coffee and doing my morning prayers (I am Pagan and I bet I do more and more regular prayers and blessings than most Xtians) and being just filled up with inspiration and brilliant ideas. My problem has always been that I have far more great ideas than time to bring them to consummation. All these groups and web pages and blogs and lenses and prompts to help you find great ideas and here I have them pouring out of my ears at any given time. I should just sell ideas. If I could get an idea of how to do it. LOL.

I forget now who said it but someone recently said online that 1.9 million Americans are out of work – boy that is a lot of new blogs. And here sits this old blog that has moved around here and there and changed up a few times to the newest thing but basically been around since about 2000. Yeah, I’ve pretty much been out of work that long – although largely by choice of late. I’d like to think I’ve learned a thing or two in that time.

One thing I have definatley learned is how to work your ass off 12 hour days 7 days a week to make about $100 a month on the Internet. Not that I want to discourage anyone, but during the last ten years I’ve seen a whole lot of people claiming to be making zillions on the Internet come and go in a matter of months. So it kinda makes me think either they weren’t telling the truth, or maybe they just made their zillion and quit to go lay on the beach for the rest of their lives. Maybe that 1.9 million unemployed Americans are all unemployed by choice – they are laying on the beach soaking up the sun and spending their zillion. Ya think?

Maybe not.

One of my brilliant ideas this morning – that immediately sprouted a dozen branches – is that I ought to start blogging a bit about my experiences and what I’ve learned. Right – I know – every blogger on line is telling you how to be an SEO expert, a social media maven, a blogging millionaire. So I’m not going to tell you that – I’m just going to tell you what I’ve learned over time.

I wish I could say that you’ll see an SEO entry every Thursday or something, but right now my life isn’t that neatly scheduled. I am at the mercy of the scheduling requirements of three doctors, two labs,  and counting upwards because of the hubby’s health situation. I may even have to go get a job, so he can quit, so we can get his disability. I guess if he wasn’t married they somehow expect him to live on air for a few months or years if he can’t work full time any more. He could work part time but his manager is too stupid to realize they could have their best cook part time for three or four more months – or full time for a couple more weeks before his health gives out. I love it – they know he has to have this and that day off for doctors to take care of his END STAGE renal disease and prepare for full time dialysis. So he calls in sick one day last week and they say “Why? What’s wrong with you?”

***LONG PAUSE***

Yes, I am keeping records for my wrongful death lawsuit when he finally passes out at work and falls into the fryer.

I thought about taking the usual route here on the Internet of making a lens or blog entry all about how sick my poor husband is and how financially fucked we are and oh please oh please buy a coloring book, just one coloring book, and save our ass. I know it would end up in the top 100 lenses at Squidoo and all that but – we really just aren’t that kind of people. Not that I am saying that’s bad, just it isn’t our way. We’ve been screwed since WorldCom turned out to be crooks – even before that really – and we have somehow managed to muddle along so far. And probably because of that sort of self sufficency, when we do beg for help, no one shows up to help. Fuck you – they seem to think – you made it this far. *shrug*

No sympathy for the devil

LOL

How did I get off on all that? I am not well focused today. I did mention that this was one problem I DO have – a lack of focus? LOL. Right. Regularly scheduled blogging on the Internet business – not going to happen. But some blogging on the Internet business – going to happen. More musing, I think you are going to be seeing more of the old musing about life in general on this blog again. More WRITING. Yeah, I’ll work on that.

And because like every other blogger on the Internet, I’d love to be making a living at it, probably you’ll be seeing ads on the blog again. Even if what I am saying in my article is most of this stuff being advertised is total bullshit. LOL. Except the pixie’s tickets. Those are real and you do get a good concert for them – if you live in England. And actually, I’ll probably stick on ads for my other websites. Even if you are here to learn how to make a trickle of cash on the Internet, maybe you’d like to spend some of that trickle on downloadable coloring books for older children and adults. Hah – got it in there!

But always – remember to stop and enjoy the view

I know a lot of us could use just a tiny little cash boost this time of year – Christmas gifts, Christmas travel, food for the big feast, Christmas decorations to replace those ratty things you dragged out of the attic – and it’s not as if the regular bills stop coming either. In fact, if you are like me, the insurance company likes to send you a big fat one the end of this month that they want paid by the 3rd of January or so, eh?

This is one time when I don’t feel too bad about recommending those quick, overnight cash loans. Yeah, they charge you a fortune in interest – but sometimes it’s worth it. You gotta have some fun.

I’ve got a couple of quick cash loan companies I’d like to share with you. One is quicker, one is a bit more family oriented. It’s up to you which you prefer.

FastWire Cash is quick – no waiting and faxing stuff around, no credit check, no hassle – you apply online and are approved instantly. Check them out by clicking here

Or you might prefer Family First Cash. They can loan you up to $1000 and are safe and confidential. They can have the cash to you overnight. Check them out by clicking here

So as you may have guessed these two offers are from my new deals shop set up courtesy of Affiliate System.us aka Anthony Morrison. I am still a bit on the fence about the whole thing. I got far enough through the training videos to realize that his idea of minimal start up and my idea of minimal start up are two different things. He is coming from the land of “oh and Google will just grab up $50 out of your bank account any old time they run that much up in clicks” and I come from the land of “not only is there not $50 laying around in my bank account any old time, but if Google starts grabbing at it they can quickly run me into the HUNDREDS of dollars in overdraft fees and leave me unable to eat or buy gas”.

It isn’t his fault. The middle class in America – what there is left of them – who have $50K a year in income and a few thousand in savings think they are barely scraping along. They aren’t aware that over half of us are earning under $30K a year and it is all we can do to pay all our bills every month, put gas in the car, and maybe buy some Ramen soup. Actually, right now hubby and I earn less than half of that. If that is where you are at – this really is not the program for you. I MAY be able to make it work without a few thousand to start up, but only because I already have a lot of knowledge about promotions and I have several up and running websites I can promote on for free.

Otherwise, the only thing he offers is to go purchase advertising on Google, Yahoo, MSN and so on. I have actually had enough money to do that. Once. I spent a fast $100 on Google Adwords and got about $10 back in income. This doesn’t work so well for me. *shrug* Sure, there is a learning curve to find out what works and doesn’t in advertising – I just do not have the money to lose while I am learning.

Like I said – I’m not quitting or anything. I will give it at least a year. There are some really good offers on my website if I can just get some people to put their eyeballs on them. I may hang on longer if there is a glimmer of hope. I’ve been at Squidoo over two years and have just now actually begun earning over $1 a month. It’s fun so I kept at it (and besides, it was good promotion for my coloring pages and coloring books) and it is finally starting to pay off.

Speaking of the coloring pages that seems to have reached a plateau. I have well over 300 coloring pages available now, and twice the number of page visits I had last year and guess what – I’m making just about the same old amount of money, almost entirely from Google Adsense. I can’t be specific, of course, but lets just say I only get a payment every two or three months. I’m sure there has to be some way to increase that without becoming one of those websites that beats visitors half to death with pop-up ads, or requires a membership and your email so it can be sold to SPAMMERS, or all the rest of that shit. Of course, all the hosting B.S. over the last year really kicked my ass, too. Dropped from the top ten on the Search Engine Results Page to not even in the top 100. Thanks Dreamhost. Now if I were going to pay for search engine advertising – it would be for Color-Your-Own.com. Get it on the top of the first page for a month or so and see if that didn’t start making a difference. But I may need to find some more targeted advertisers, too.

Well, I’m just rambling. Have a good weekend. I’m battling the winter blues, but maybe I’ll get a little work done, a little writing, something. Oh yeah, I’ve been playing with my poor neglected Sandbox Farms account so if you play there drop by and see what I’ve got up for sale. Doing a major farm cleaning to try and get it so I can drop by a couple times a week and still keep up on things.

Oh yeah, about the ever so happy coffee drinker up there – it is in the public domain so snatch away – it is one of many Currier and Ives prints that I love. I did a lens about them not to long ago so just click here if you want to know more about this American art

BlessedB

Summer

Now that I’ve written a title for this post – I feel a bit more like I have accomplished a thing or two this week! I have some things to muse and mutter about, and some updates and new items and recommendations to share. Maybe I shouldn’t put it all in one blog post – but then again, I’m not limited to 140 characters here! I will break it up into sections – will that help?

This is kind of a combo Squidoo, Internet marketing, and most important Pets and Christmas section

First off, I want to thank everyone who has helped promote Pets as Christmas Gifts and say keep at it and keep sharing and yeah – thanks! I updated it a little today because a friend of mine has created a lens that is the perfect companion lens – Furreal Pets and Friends. Sandy describes several of the fun new electronic pet toys and gives you a chance to vote for your favorites.

While I’m talking about pets , I want to share this unique business opportunity with you. You can open your own online pet supply store through this offer. I signed up for it myself because it looks to me a bit like my online sex toy shop deal. Over the years that little shop has been a dependable money maker even when I am not actively promoting it. Along with the online store, you are able to purchase your own pet supplies at a deep discount. So I’m thinking this would be very cool for someone who does pet rescue from their home – you get a discount on your stuff, you make a few bucks that can help defray the costs of rescue, and it would be painless to promote – face it, you have a zillion pet loving pals online don’t you?

That rather nice segues into my next subject, making money on the Internet. I don’t usually write much about this, because I don’t feel like I am all that successful at it. I’ve been working at making a living on the Internet for almost ten years now. Wow. I’ve tried adult sites, affiliate marketing, selling my art and stories, and had a bit of moderate success but I am most definately not a millionaire yet. Not even a thousandaire.

I have tried a lot of different Make Money on the Internet programs and found out that the vast majority of them are scams. I’m pretty cynical at this point.

My roommate sleeps with the TV on. This means that we get exposed to a whole lot of those late night informercial programs. About a week ago he told me that he had seen a program on making money on the Internet that actually sounded practical and real. As he described it to me, I became interested because I could see from my Internet experience, what this guy – Anthony Morrison – was doing and it is a legitimate business. A few nights later, I happened to see the program. I was intrigued enough to write the number down, and on hubby’s payday, I called and ordered it.

What impresses me the most is Mr. Morrison over and over says that you are not going to become an overnight millionaire. You aren’t going to buy your Lambourgini and lay on the beach at BoraBora while your website magically cranks out the big bucks without you lifting a finger. He tells you that it grows slowly and that you do have to put in some work. You know – like in the real world. I got my free website, which is right here if you want to check it out and have been going through the training videos. I laughed my butt off last night at the last one I watched where he says that people who go for that “overnight millionaire” scams are living in a dream world. So true.

The website actually has some good offers. Shit – I signed up for one myself! That is – the pet shop mentioned above. I’m still going through the training videos right now. I’ll let you know how things progress. This might finally be a legitimate “Make Money on the Internet” business. Cool.

Mini-brag about the “old” novel And this is one of those Law of Attraction serendipity things, too. I gave a copy of The River Way to a friend who works at WalMart. He put it in the break room to share and it wandered from employee to employee and has vanished, never to be returned. He asked for another copy. I finally remembered on the way to town yesterday to run an errand that turned out to be a)unneccesary and b)a waste of time – but I stopped at storage and grabbed my last three copies of the novel. Why all three? I dunno. Tossed them all in the car. Stopped at Walmart and my friend was not there, but another mutual friend was – so I asked her to hold his copy for him (I’m not in town much) and she said she would, but also asked if she could BUY a copy. I have to admit, of the big 12 author copies I bought – this is the first one I ever SOLD. I sold it at cost – she is a friend and fellow writer – but it was kind of a thrill anyway

Meanwhile, on Twitter, a new follower there insisted on going to Barnes and Noble to buy a copy of The River Way, rather than downloading the free ebook version. (The link to the Amazon buy it page is on the picture up there) Thanks!

BTW if you’ve bought the novel and read it – can you do me a favor and do a review on either or both sites?

Wow. I just noticed there is a REALLY nice review up at Barnes and Noble. Thank you anonymous whoever you are!

Speaking of Twitter, I’ve tried and loved two Twitter applications. And they are both free, so how cool is that?

TweetCatch.com gives you a simple, easy way to find people to follow and hopefully they’ll follow you back. You can set up filters to gather folks by certain keywords. I have filters for goth, birdwatchers, coloring pages, Squidoo, writing – the things I do and twitter about. Since I started using TweetCatch I’ve gone from about 100 followers to over 700. What I really like though – is I have discovered some of the most fun, interesting people to follow. Twitter is like 100 times more fun to read for me now! No affiliation, I don’t get a commission or anything – but it is really a good Twitter application. The first week is free and then it’s under $10 a month. I thought I’d cancel it – but nah, no way.

The other cool Twitter application I’m using is TweetMyBlog and I am an affiliate although I only get paid if you decide to buy one of their upsell products. Actually, they have some pretty cool stuff they are offering. The application itself, though, is free. This application links your WordPress blog and your Twitter account. Whenever you add a blog post, it is automatically tweeted. You also get a nice widget (you’ll see it to your right here) that puts your tweets on your blog. Myself – that’s all I use it for and I am really happy with that. It’s just a little time saver, trouble saver and if I happen to also make a buck or two – well, gee, cool! I’ve got it on several of my blogs now and it works perfectly. Very easy to install and get set up. And it’s free.

Okay. I think that’s it. For now. Not sure what I’ll be doing today… maybe draw a few more coloring pages.

Oh yeah – that reminds me. I am really trying to get my Free Printable Christmas Coloring Pages lens to the top ten in the Parenting and Kids category on Squidoo this month. You see, being off line I missed the Google dance, and poor Color-Your-Own.com doesn’t appear ANYWHERE in the search engine results for Christmas coloring pages. Which is a real bummer. I COULD maybe make a buck or two if I could grab some nice Christmas traffic, and get some new followers and bookmarkers, too. But I got search engine fucked (sort of my own fault since I had no Internet around the needed time). So if you happen to love me and my coloring pages and want to help out (hint hint hint) visit the lens, blog about it, tweet about it, pass it to your pals, rank it, comment on the guestbook, whatever you feel like doing. Thank you!!!!!! And BTW this really does help, since I started begging you wonderful people to help me out the lens has gone from #206 all the way to (as of today) #62. We can make it to the Top Ten and Squidoos front page – yes we can.

Okay, now that is all – really…

Summer Fey Foovay

I’ve just finished reading a very interesting article titled We May be Born with an urge to help.

I found several points to be very interesting. First – that very young children will innately reach out to help adults and other children. I have to agree that this information gives me a bit of hope for the human race. I would certainly like to believe that we are born with the desire to help, to cooperate, to “be nice” and “get along”. Wouldn’t we all?

This article also led me to think about the relationship of this apparently natural urge to cooperation to the current trend on the Internet to social sites from Twitter to Tagfoot, Squidoo, MySpace, all of those websites. Especially to those of us with online businesses, or using the Internet to promote our product or business (you know, like coloring pages or our writing) this spirit of cooperation, or helping, is essential. I know I often ask for help in promoting a particular article or piece of artwork and I am always happy to help out by promoting other peoples work, sometime because they ask, but also quite often because I find a really good article or website that I really want to share with everyone. And at the moment, the first thing I do is twitter about it. Later, if I get a chance, I’ll blog about it, maybe add it to my Tagfoot favorites, stuff like that. There are people who are very down on all this social cooperation – a lot of people do use it for shameless SPAMMING and strictly for their own business promotion, and others who say it’s just another fad that will go away soon. Things do pass through quickly on the Internet. However, after reading this article, I am more inclined to think that this is the natural, human way to interact on the Internet – sharing, helping.

The article also reminds me that Edgar Cayce (you know I am a serious Cayce fan) when asked what the purpose of life was, or any other related questions like “what should I do with my life” or “how can I improve my life/my relationship with God” always replied that we are here to help others, and that by helping others we grow closer to God and to expressing his and our purpose in life. That we have the urge to do this long before we are taught to do so by our families seems to support his words. God (or whatever supreme power you prefer to believe in) put us here to help each other.

Because of my personal experiences and history, this article also emphasizes yet again the untold damage of child abuse. Most severe abusers, particularily sexual abusers, will socially isolate their child victim either physically or through mental and emotional manipulation. This isolation naturally is going to limit a child’s ability to practice this natural urge to help and cooperate. In addition, abusers will specifically say and do things to discourage this urge. For instance, my mother would tell me that everyone is out to get me and that they would take advantage of me, so I should never help or cooperate with anyone because it would just lead to them harming me in some way. The discouragement of this natural urge and the inability to practice it because of social isolation is yet another type of damage an abused child may suffer. We do not learn normal ways to interact with other people.

“We’re preprogrammed to reach out,” Dr. de Waal writes. “Empathy is an automated response over which we have limited control.” The only people emotionally immune to another’s situation, he notes, are psychopaths.

This quote is very interesting to me, because of course, I am writing the novels based on a family of psychopaths. I wish the article had gone a bit more into whether they feel this lack of empathy was innate, or learned, but given that they are working with very young children and saying this urge to help and cooperate is natural, then I am led to believe that what they are saying is that psychopaths are born without this urge. It would be interesting to do another study, maybe with children who have been identified as at risk or potential psychopaths to see if they react the same way as the young children previously tested – do they naturally try to help or do they just ignore the situation and go on their own way. Hmmmm.

But probably the most interesting quote for writers is this.

“That’s why we have moral dilemmas,” Dr. Tomasello said, “because we are both selfish and altruistic at the same time.”

Yes – and that is what gives us stuff to write novels about

Speaking of which – I didn’t win Nanowrimo. As you may have noticed, I’ve been without Internet out at the ranch for close to a month. You would think I would get a lot of writing done, but I discovered that I really missed the support of other writers, as well as being able to look up something instantly when I needed it. Despite that, I do have over 30K words written on the Hunters 2 novel, and I have just dropped the inescapable moral dilemma in my “good” FBI agents lap. Jay has already been struggling with his urge to investigate the Hunter family even though the FBI has said they have no interest and in fact, think Lily is a nut. Mahdi Dixon, a “rogue” family member who is an FBI profiler, has introduced himself to Jay and asked Jay to share the information that Lily discovered. Jay has a sneaking suspicion that Mahdi may want the information to …well…kill the killers. And is that a bad thing? Hmmmm…

I am back online and hopefully will remain so for the foreseeable future. I am WAY behind on all kinds of things, but I am working away at catching up. Right at the moment – I probably should go fix myself something to eat.

TTYL

Summer Foovay