WTF?

Totally MIA, I know.   And totally wiped out about 96% of past posts.   Maybe I’ll put em back, maybe I won’t. But I promise to eventually come back to the blogging world…. eventually.

Google Search Phrases

Okay, so every once in awhile, I’ll check all of my website statistics in order to study various traffic information, like average visits per day, files viewed, error logs … that sort of lame stuff. Why? It’s just something that we nerdy webmasters do, mmkay?

Anyway, back to my story.

There’s also the opportunity to see keyphrases that were used to find your site.  You know… you go to Google, type in a search term, and out pops out a dozen pages of results, you click a link? Well the actual search term that you use, it gets recorded into a site’s log. (Scary, huh?)

Booooooring, I hear ya.  Normally, it is.  But I always manage to come across a few keyphrases that make me giggle slightly, albeit while scratching my head in an “eh?” sort of fashion.

So here’s some of the obvious search terms that lead Googlers here: (with my comments enclosed in parenthesis, much like now)

adsense income suddenly drops
how to keep kids occupied while making dinner
moms creating baby food
nut-free brownie recipe
ways to keep babies occupied? (let them gnaw on a boob… always did the job for me)
ramblings (ha, guilty as charged)
my 9 month old suddenly wont go to sleep and stay asleep (welcome to the club, sistah)
mom works and rocks (awww, that’s nice)
work at home mom blog design (so there’s a need for it)
being a mom rocks (it sure does, for the most part)

Now here are some web searches that kind of made me go “uh, okay?”:

creative ways to fold a rag  (um, I don’t know how to do that, but okay)
creative ways to hang utensils (I didn’t realize there was one)
things to keep you occupied when you’re bored at school (apparently the internet?)
mom rocks wallpaper (I looked around, and don’t see any around here)
mom rocks necklace  (again, nope)
mom with flashlight behind kids  (should I be in front of them? hells no!)
mom what is that under the blanket (it’s me, leave me alone!)

And these, my baker’s dozen o’ readers, are the searches that I am filing in my mental “WTF?” file:
moms are rocks (say again?)
i haven’t cleaned my house  (okay, so this one is semi-believable)
bath tub worm farm (see above search for the possibility on why I could very well have one of my very own)
legal crack (I admit that I once posted about this… dunno if it’s in the archives or not, but it’s not what you think)
legal crack diet (sounds like a great upcoming book title… Random House, I’ll kick your nuts if you steal this from me)
percocet craigslist (oh sure, like I’d part with a percocet!)
mom live showing ass (I swear it’s not MY ass, don’t you worry)
my mom sniffer
sniffer mom (I don’t even want to know, okay?)

Oh well, they gave me a chuckle anyway.  I’ll post more next month if I find any goodies.

I ROCK At Procrastination

For as long as I can remember, I have been a procrastinator. And for just about as long, I’ve been fully aware of it, and also aware that procrastinating has never benefitted me in any way.

As a kid, I hated cleaning my room. Hated It. I would put it off till I couldn’t find a damn thing around me and had no clean clothes. Result? My mess made me totally late for everything.

In school, I vividly recall scribbling half-assed answers to my homework right outside the classroom. Result? Bad homework grades. Oh, and anxiety-filled thoughts about the bad report cards. That must have been a bonus.

Now in my grown-up life, I realize I haven’t gotten very much better.

I am alright about doing the necessities, like feeding the kids, paying the bills, cleaning the catbox. But I find myself putting off pretty much anything that isn’t in dire need of doing. Read: dishes, laundry, email replies.  This is sucky because when these things that aren’t in dire need of doing actually become dire, I’m overwhelmed.

I have a fortune cookie note taped to my computer monitor. It says “Procrastination is the fear of success”. It took me a month just to get around to putting it up! I thought by posting it there, it would give me the motivation to just get going with things.

I’d like to believe the fortune cookie. I enjoy the thought that the little Chinese man who makes my Shrimp Fried Rice somehow knew I needed to read that, so he put that one in the bag deliberately.

Anyway, I’m hoping to change this horrible habit.  Not for a New Year’s Resolution or anything (and even if it were, I do realize that it would’ve taken me THREE MONTHS to decide on it), but just to get some normalcy happening around here.

I’ve reluctantly removed my favorite  “Never put off until tomorrow what you can avoid all together” magnet from my fridge and am ready to get motivated.

Um, maybe.  In just a few minutes.

Consistency Is Not One Of My Strong Suits.

My apologies for the lack of updates to MomRocks lately. I’m in the process of getting the new design finished up and trying to preserve a few of the blog’s better posts.  You may find some dead links for the moment, and you’ll also notice that most older posts might disappear. But I promise that it’s for the best.

Mysterious Adsense Drop

Last month I started seeing a small dip in my daily Adsense earnings. No biggie, I thought. I assumed it was just a fluke that would even out at the end of the month. But holy crap… the end of April showed a pretty serious earnings drop for me.

It didn’t occur to me to actually dig around and find out WHY my earnings were declining during April. (Exerting effort is not my strong suit.) I spent some time the other day investigating and realized that the Adsense ads on my main income producing site were totally unrelated to the site’s topic! I mean, they had absolutely nothing to do with anything. No wonder no one clicked on the ads!

Don’t ask me what happened, or why, or what the heck I did to cause the problem. (I swear I did nothing. This particular site is a blog that I rarely update yet continues to make a pretty decent daily profit.)

So now that I’ve identified the issue, I’m freaking out, trying to get it corrected. So far, nothing is working. I’ll spend a little more time on it and report back if something resolves.

So here’s my tip for the day: If you are using Google’s Adsense ads as a profit stream (and you should be doing this already, as it really is a nice effortless income), be sure to monitor your earnings/sites at least every few days in case you run into this weird occurrence.

Semi-Update: Although I still haven’t seen an improvement on the ads showing on my blog, I have devoured a bunch of information. I still can’t figure out WHY these totally irreverent ads decided to suddenly show up (and can’t find any good answer), but I have read that if you use the following invisible tags in between a paragraph or a set of keywords that are applicable to your site’s topic, it may correct things within a day or two (after Google re-spiders your site/blog):

Here’s where your content or keywords should go, telling Google what your site/blog topic is about, so the ads are more targeted. Don’t forget to end the paragraph with the END tag, coming up.

Hopefully that might help. I put the tags on my blog and will report back how it goes. If you’re experiencing the same issue, give it a try.

Another Semi-Update:  Whoa! After putting in the code I mentioned above, I figured I’d sorta update a few of the pages at the site.  I was poking around some of the pages with Wordpress’ Theme Editor and - holy hell! I’ve been hacked! My (file name removed for security purposes) file contained a HUGE, HUGE amount of invisible text and links not entered there by myself.

I’m guessing it was someone trying to attain a better Google search engine ranking for their keyword terms (in this case, it was Debt and Credit Card, which were the exact unrelated ads that were relentlessly appearing on the site).  I have no idea how they got into my site but I know I’ll be checking these files frequently to be sure it doesn’t happen again.

Hospital Hiccup

Today I’ll be taking the day off (far) away from the computer after I return from my liver biopsy. There’s just way too much information available by searching Dr. Google. The Internet is a bittersweet thing. Information at your fingertips, but sometimes… way too much information.

Update: I lied. Here I am. Don’t believe what you read about liver biopsies. They are horrid. My advice is to stay far away from children who are inclined to kick you in the abdominal area while nursing. And try your hardest not to succumb to your desire to check your email “just once”. I obviously succumbed.

Hi, My Name Is Chris And I Am An Internet Addict.

Redecorating

I’ll be spending the next week semi-redesigning the Mom Rocks blog. During this time, there will be links that are removed/broken.  I’ll have them fixed as soon as I can.

For the final design of the blog, you’ll be seeing a few categories deleted and a few others added. You’ll probably see many of my older posts vanish as well.

I want to have the blog in a little better shape by June 1st.  Why? I don’t know. But it feels good.

So if you have any suggestions as to any new categories or new sections for Mom Rocks, feel free to drop them off.

Peace out.

So Much To Do…

I have approximately a dozen income projects in the work that I’m totally excited about. I know one of them (a new membership site that will hopefully be launched by June 1st) will be HUGE, and the others will make me a few more nice monthly income streams. I have new ideas buzzing all around me every second, and can’t keep up with them fast enough.

So what’s the problem? you might ask.

Hey! Thanks for asking!

I absolutely CANNOT find a balance between my online work and my very-needy/very-fussy/very-active/mind-draining 9 month old daughter. And I mean it. My brain literally melts when I try to get a very small task accomplished.
Keep in mind that I have an 8 year old son, and I’ve “been here” before. But the difference was I somehow FOUND that balance the first time. I had a semi-thriving online biz going on and I was doing great. This time around though, I just can’t get my groove on.

I am trying to decide on some sort of schedule that may help things here. So far, no luck, but that’s probably because my 8 year old is home for the week and things are all wonky anyway.

I can’t be the only WAHM who’s hit this bump in the road, can I?

And kind of on the same topic, I am lagging on so many other things, like Updating. This. Blog. I’m sorry about this. I have so many things to get posted, things that I hope will help and inspire you. The blog redesign is scheduled for May, so I’m hoping that with a new design, I’ll be more inclined to post to this blog more. Will I? Who knows. I really hope so.

Blap:

I have been working all day with my 9 month old daughter on my lap. Right now she’s asleep, so my left arm, which fell asleep approximately a half hour ago, is trying to get some keyboard action in.

Normally I wouldn’t bother, but I have a writing deadline that is quickly approaching, and for some reason, Coley decided that today of all days is the day in which she will NOT be put down. Not even for a minute.

I’ve written the obligitory “Sorry about my typing, baby on lap” just about 400 times today in various forms of communication - texting, IMs, and emails.

So I’ve now declared a new word in the MOM ROCKS dictionary, to save me the trouble of having to tell YOU that no, I’m not stupid, I’m not slow, I do know how to spell most words, I just have fifteen pounds of colicky chub on my lap.

Hence my new word: BLAP. Baby on lap… get it? Eh, it will catch on. At least, it will on this blog.

Anyone else BLAP? (the verb form “blapping” will also be allowed, fyi, as in: “I know it’s 2am, but I missed my favorite blog today so I’m totally blapping right now”)

1/5th of business, gone.

Okay, I’m trying not to be a crybaby or a whiner here. I really am. But I just wanted to vent for a bit about eBay’s new listing policies, and how it will totally suck for me and literally hundreds of others who sell digital items.

Have not a clue about what I’m talking about? To recap, eBay decided today that they will no longer allow the selling of any type of digital delivered item. Not only does this mean ebooks (which used to make up a bunch of my eBay profits), but this also means domain names, websites, digital photos, templates, graphics, advertising…. the list goes on, but I think you get the idea.

I have sold on eBay since 2000. When my son was a baby, I sold so much that I (accidentally) attained PowerSeller status. Got a certificate and everything - and it’s still hanging in my living room (I’m such a loser, I know). Never did I need to go to the post office. I sold 99.99 percent of my goods online, via digital delivery (there was one time, where I was selling a large website of mine for a big chunk of cash, that I created a backup CD of website files for the new owner).

I have said time and time again, that selling digital items on eBay is one of the BEST ways to make income from home. Very stress-free. Now all of this will be changing, and I’m really not seeing it changing for the better.

Ebay was 1 out of 5 ways that I made/make money online. I will need to think long and hard about how to turn this into a positive. My only idea right now is to use eBay solely as a means to drive traffic to my website(s) via classified ads, with my digital items being sold directly on the site.

I will keep the blog updated on this topic, and if I can find any other positives to this change. I am SO not happy about this. What a suck-ass thing to wake up to!