Baby Book Moment #1 of Many (I'm sure)

Had a babybook moment the other day with my sweet baby girl. A babybook moment is one of those "incidents" you just have to write down so that years from now when Mommy and Daddy are being introduced to so-and-so prom date we can remember (not that we'd forget this one!) when...


Olivia flushed Daddy's entire keychain down the toilet an hour before we to leave for vacation. You read that right...all the keys, the keyless entry, the company car key, the house and mail keys...every last one of them.

Maybe you're wondering how this could possibly happen. But I'm guessing if you're a mom, you can probably more than understand (at least better than my husband when I tried to explain what happened to his keys)! As I said, we were getting ready to go for 10 days at the beach. It's a few hours in the car and a lot of stuff to pack. Everything was all set. My husband just had to load the stuff in the car. My daughter was wearing her crankypants (and I think she had the matching hat on that day, too). Anyway, in an attempt to stop the whining I thought I'd put her in her little push car and take her and the dog for a spin around the block. In my mind, I'm doing this to help give Daddy a little room to work, a few minutes of precious silence before the three hours in the car, a few minutes of solitude before a week surrounded by both our families. Before we left, for our walk, I needed to make a pit stop. I sat Olivia on the floor just outside the bathroom and left the door open so I could watch her from my perch. She immediately started whining. I grabbed Daddy's keys (his, b/c he asked that I grab something out of his car while on my walk) to keep her entertained for the 10 seconds (yes, I pee that fast) I needed to myself. By the time I had finished she'd crawled over to me, keys in hand, pulled herself up on my legs and was now standing. I held her one arm so I could stand up and get my self situated. I quickly turned around to flush and in that very second she leaned her chubby little hand over the toilet bowl and waved "bye-bye" to Daddy's keys. My hand shot into that toilet bowl faster than I'd like to admit, but they were gone. Bye-bye keys. ""%$^&*!!!" Why is it that my husband hadn't been there a minute before to pick her up when she was whining, but now that the keys were sitting square at the bottom of the sewer he was there questioning how in the he** this could have happened. He (and I'm sure most other Dads) wouldn't and couldn't understand, he's never peed with his daughter hanging off his leg.  

Immediately I called my father-in-law who said they couldn't have gone too far and to stick my hand down there further. By now my hand was nearly stuck. Great, that's all I needed. As I'm on the phone with him I think, "maybe a hanger" will work. A minute later he suggests the same thing. I must be onto something if we both thought of it. But five minutes later it's clear that won't work either. My husband then comes down with a magnet. I thought this was pretty good. But we quickly realized that wasn't the answer to our growing problem either. With an hour until we needed to leave we decided we had to call a plumber. "Yes, ma'am we can be there within an hour. It'll be $275." You've got to be kidding me! The only key we really needed was the key to my husband's company car. He finally found a spare and we decided the keys would have to remain in toilet bowl heaven.

We left for our vacation knowing when we get back we've got a different kind of fishing to do.

I hope your July 4th started better than mine. 

Exciting Ehow News

I know I just posted about my June ehow earnings, but I have to share my excitement. July is off to an awesome start! Earnings for yesterday, July 1, just posted. I made $8.81 in one day. One article made $2.50 by itself. Many eHowers consider a great article to earn that much in month! If this keeps up I'll clear $200 for the first time. And for any doubters out there (I'm slowly converting my skeptical husband)...here's why I don't think it's a fluke day:I've averaged $9/day over the last three days...one day getting an $11 spike!!!

I'm going to try very hard to track my daily earnings. Ehow doesn't do this for you, so I'll have to do it manually (or at least with the help of Excel). We'll see if I can keep up with it while on vacation. Oh wait, I'm a SAHM I'm never really on vacation.

Happy 4th!

Recommended Reading:

How to Earn Passive Income at eHow.com

Ehow Earnings Month by Month

Ehow Earnings: A SAHM Making Money Online

This is a huge month for me Ehow-wise. I've passed the $600 mark...total, not on the month. (Maybe one day!) That means in the six months I've been writing for Ehow, my articles have made me over $600!  For the last six months, I've been publishing my growing earnings on this blog. But this month I'm going to do something a little differently. I'm going to give you a few screen shots of my earnings so you can actually SEE the cash flow.


Before I get to the actual meat and potatoes there are a few things I need to get out in the open.

June was an extremely busy month for me. Besides the fact that we could finally get outside the second half of the month, my family spent most weekends away from home.

 I also started a few new freelance writing ventures in order to bring in additional streams of passive income. So while I've been concentrating on building my Squidoo lenses (with the intention of promoting my ehow articles, while making a little extra cash through affiliate sales) I've also been working hard to promote my eHow articles. 

All that being said I didn't write too much on Ehow in June. Here's how it breaks down:

12 New Articles
Average: 3/Week
Earnings for Articles Written 6/1-6/30: $6.77
June Articles Earning Money: 8/12

Here's why this is significant: even though it sounds low, $6.77 is almost what I made in both November and December. "So what?" you ask. In that amount of time I had 42 articles!!! 

NOTE: If you do not pass the $10 threshold on the year, you're docked a dollar. So I was actually only paid $7.20 for November & December. 

The point of all this is that my June articles are all written with a focus on keywords and SEO or search engine optimization. January was when I purchased an ebook by one of Ehow's top earners (well into the four figures) and when I noticed a significant jump in my earnings...and hence earning potential. I guess what I'm trying to say (in far too many words) is now that I know how to write eHow articles, and how to get them picked up by the search engines, I don't have to write as many in order to make money online. 

There's one other thing I want to point out and that is page views. You might think that the more page views an article has, the more it makes. What I've found is that is far from the truth. For example, my highest earning article has made $75.82 to date with 1,678 view. I have four other articles, each with more views than that, and they have only made me a combined $12.45 with two of them only earning $1.63 total (not to date, total)! By the way, at least one of the four I just described is a recipe. It just goes to show, that recipes don't do well on ehow. While someone may find your article useful, they're not interested in the ads on the page, they're solely interested in how to make xxxx. So topic, category, and ad relevance matter...a lot. 

What I'm focusing on now is promoting them so they can earn to their fullest potential. My husband thinks I'm crazy for biting off yet another project.  But I never feel overwhelmed because it's all freelance work. I write on my time. If I'm busy I don't have to write. If I'm blessed with a three hour nap I get two ehow articles published. I'm off to write...as my daughter is napping....finally!

Recommended Reading:

How to Earn Passive Income at eHow.com

Ehow Earnings Month by Month

COBRA Insurance Subsidized & Affordable for Families

With the state of the economy and the growing jobless rate families are being left with difficult choices to make. Often times when an income is lost, due to layoff, termination, or circumstance health benefits are also lost. But going without health insurance when you have children is not a risk worth taking.

Cobra insurance is not, traditionally, known for its affordability. But under the 2009 Stimulus Bill qualified laid off workers are only responsible for 35% of the insurance premiums. So are you eligible and how do you apply?


In order to be eligible for lower COBRA premiums, under the new stimulus package, you must have been laid off from a job or terminated against your will (with the exception of firing).

The government subsidy for COBRA health insurance, under Obama's stimulus package, applies only to individuals who lost (or will lose) their jobs between September 1, 2008 and December 31, 2009

Eligibility in the program is limited to individuals who make less than $125,000 or families with a combined income of less than $250k a year.

To enroll in the government COBRA stimulus plan former employees must contact their former employer's Human Resources department. Workers who lost their jobs, prior to the passing of the stimulus bill on February 17, 2009 (but not before September 1, 2008) have 60 days from the passing date to re-apply for COBRA. This includes those individuals who initially declined Cobra health insurance coverage after being laid off.

The reduced premiums on Cobra health, vision and dental coverage, under the stimulus package, will end after nine months or when the individual is covered by another medical insurance plan (either through a new employer, Medicare or a spouse's coverage) which ever comes first.

If you do not qualify for cheaper Cobra insurance premiums, you may still be able to find cheap or short term health insurance for your family.

I'm a SAHM, I Just Know

"How do you know?"
It's a question that for me, I'm sure, will rank right up there with, "Why?"
If I had a quarter for every time my husband asked me "How do you know?" since our daughter was born, he wouldn't have to work either. Every time he gets the same answer...


"I just know." What I want to say is: "I'm with her 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I'm her mother, I just know." But I shorten it. 

Today, those four words about put me over the edge. I have to give you a little back story so you can fully appreciate all of this.

My daughter's been teething. In the last three weeks, she's gotten three teeth. One is just about to poke through the gum, but it's not there yet.

Yesterday, she spiked a fever of 103. The doctor diagnosed her with a sinus infection and some sort of virus that causes blister-like bumps on her throat. I picked up the prescription for Amoxicilin last night and we tried to give her a dose. But she clamped her lips. This is so out of character for her. She'll eat anything...and she does! Same thing this morning...and while I was trying to get it in her mouth I spilled half the bottle all over my white shirt. It's a large bottle. Not a happy mommy. 

She takes two naps a day: 9 and 2pm. You can set a clock by her...although I'm constantly reminded she's not a robot.

Today she refused to go for her nap. At 12:30 she was still awake, but I decided it was time she had to rest. If this was the beginning of one nap days I'd be sad, but I'd accept it. My little girl is growing up. She fell asleep for 20 minutes and woke up screaming. She'd eaten, she'd pooped, she was exhausted.

Then I realized I hadn't given her any teething tabs today.  But the bottle wasn't in any of it's normal spots. Of course, this had to be the day they were missing. I searched everywhere: emptied the diaper bag and the toy box, looked through the dog's toys, in the bathroom, through the diaper genie, under the crib, the dresser and the sheets. They were no where. I called my husband to ask if he remembered seeing them. "No. How do you know it's her teeth."
"I just know."
"But how?"
Goodbye. I continued searching. I could not find them anywhere. By now it's 2:15 and still no nap for Miss Olivia. I finally decide to take matters into my own hands.  I run to the new CVS they've been building a mile from my house. It's closed. She's screaming in the back of the car. I run to the nearest Rite Aid. Nothing. She's screaming. I ask the man sitting in the van next to me if he knows where the nearest CVS is. He's from across town, but he knows someone who will know. She's screaming. They're not answering his call. I tell him thanks and I'll just go to Walmart where I know they sell Hyland's Teething Tablets. He tells me the construction is horrible, find a new way. I go the long way. She's screaming. I can't find a parking spot. I park in the back of the lot and carry her all the way to the back baby aisle. I get the teething tablets. I carry her back to the car. She's screaming. I give her three and nurse her. I put her back in her seat. She's screaming. We head home. She's quiet. She's asleep.

Like I said: I just know.