Do you ever get that feeling, like you wish you were more than the sum of your parts?  I’m having one of those days.  I was sent a link to a web design firm in the next city over and as I was checking it out (they’ve got job openings there… I was curious) I realized that I knew that address.

I knew the owner.

I knew him before he was ever an owner of anything.

He’s a cool guy.  He deserves the best.  But he did it.

… I’m feeling a pang of jealousy.

I got my first job in my industry through him.  He worked for someone and then went out on his own.  He was making a name for himself - he was good at what he did.  He’s now built himself a company.  He has quite the staff.

… another pang of jealousy.

Not that I want to be him.  But I’m jealous over his success.  Wow - I’m so happy and yet… wishing I could manage to do that, figure out how to do it and just freakin’ do it.  I would love to be forging ahead - with a group of people along for the ride because that’s what they love to do - programmers, link managers, copywriters, article development.  Doing it all.  Doing something I love to do.  Not feeling stuck - because lord knows - in this industry there’s always opportunity - it’s just having the means to do it.

I think my pangs of jealousy is that I wish I could have done something - been more “lucky” and get things moving here - branch out into what I love - designing websites and push the limits there.  Just freakin’ do it.   Baby steps… but I think all the plans that I’ve done so far - really need to be scrapped and I’ve got to look at the bigger picture… and work on that.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Last night I finished up what I would consider a very laid back email to the subscribers of my Fan Site #1 newsletter. I didn’t want to come across as super desperate or anything like that … a few times I had to refrain from using “so do you like it?? huh? huh?” and “check out this nifty header image I whipped up… !!!”. Yes, sounds terrible doesn’t it! But I was really happy with the way it turned out.

I put together an introductory couple of paragraphs to the newsletter - since it was the first send. I have 25 people on the list as we speak - so yes, it’s tiny - but I’ve got to start somewhere and I also don’t want those 25 people sitting there wondering where the hell their newsletter is - and I don’t do anything until the list gets bigger… no. I see potential in the 25 people, who knows they might forward the email to their friends to sign up - and make my list bigger!

I put in a couple of articles about some things that were written at the site, so it made the newsletter - well, full of things! Wonderous things! LOL. I also added a couple of CPA links to the mix - just to see if anything will click… what will work… not sure… just testing the waters. Why not right!

It’s almost exciting… scary… will it work or bomb. All sorts of things rolling through my head right now - so far 6 have opened and I’ve got a 50% click-thru rate. Not so bad and I’ve got 20 more to go… to see if they ever open it or it bounces or whatever.

I did a bit of flip-flopping when it came to building my newsletter… as in which one to use. I tried the free PHP script that I got with my account, but it was hard to manage and I never did figure out how to send a proper email through it. So I went the easy way I went with Constant Contact, the Do-It-Yourself Email Marketing. I didn’t think Aweber was what I was looking for in this case - I didn’t need a multitude of auto-responders… I just needed a way to create a newsletter with the least headaches and hassle.

So I created some images, some content and some links to pages on the site that I wanted to see traffic too - and to let them know, if they’d not been there for a while, that there is new stuff there. I try to get something up on the site every other day or so, or if it’s a good news week… then I’m posting every day on Fan Site #1.

I’ll keep you posted on what happened with the Newsletter… since it’s my first send out on this site - I wanted to be sure it was laid back and not very pushy. Just like me….

Hahahaha.

I really do recommend giving Constant Contact a whirl - it gives a 60 day free trial where you can develop a list for nothing and check out how easy it is to create and send an email. Seriously a definite time saver

Email List Management Tool - 60 Day Free Trial

Popularity: 3% [?]

Since the whole Registerfly problem I had (along with anyone who had domains with Registerfly after iCann), I’ve run into a couple of problems.

One - some of my Registerfly domains were switched to GoDaddy - without any approval from me.  Probably some sort of small type after the whole iCann thing.  So I am now working with GoDaddy for a few of my domains.  Now I’m not too keen on GoDaddy, and I’m less than thrilled that I have my domains with them of all domain registrars.

So I had some domains that needed to be renewed.  I had to request a password - that never came and I forgot about the renewals.  Then I get another email from them, I send in for another password - and I repeat the cycle.

Last night I realized that one of my domains that I didn’t want to lose - is gone.  I can get it back… for $80.  For FARKS SAKE I HATE THAT.

Purely my fault, but damn I need to blame someone for being behind on the password times.  I finally got a password, but now this is complicated by the fact that they need info that I don’t think they have - for this domain because of all the transferring crap that happened… without me saying “OK” to.  Damn it.

Totally frustrated.

I’m starting to transfer out the domains that I want to keep… and see if I can do that.   I’ve heard that it’s harder to get domains transferred out from GoDaddy.  We’ll see how it goes.

Popularity: 4% [?]

As we work online to make a few extra dollars, I think we often do it to suppliment our income so we can either pay bills or get some things we’ve had our eye on but couldn’t due to our financial situation. I’ve always lived my life on the financial edge and more than once I’ve fall off that edge and felt that I really didn’t have many options left to me, but to look into total bankruptcy.

When I saw TotalBankruptcy.com I thought about the options that are available to those of us who have fallen off the edge and find ourselves in a real finanical dilemma. I would never have thought about getting a bankruptcy lawyer. I honestly thought they were for big financial institutions or the high-rollers out there. Not for your everyday type of woman. But there are options available to us.

Total Bankruptcy lawyers are available to help stop the harrassment, repossessions, foreclosures and lawsuits. With a lawyer by your site you have the chance to keep your home, your car, your wages and even your furniture.

On the Total Bankruptcy website you can get information on Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 bankruptcy, time-lines, fees… you get all the basics and a way to find lawyers available who deal with bankruptcy. The site goes into detail about what you need to do after bankruptcy - what do you need to do after all the dust has settled. How do you rebuild? You can find the information you need by contacting a bankruptcy lawyer.

If you feel that your debts are climbing and you don’t see any way out, be sure to check out their free bankruptcy evaluation, it never hurts to check things out before taking that next step into bankruptcy.

Popularity: 1% [?]

… and it’s sitting here beside me staring right back at me … and I can even hear it taunting me!

I’ve honestly not done squat this past week with my sites.  I’ve had a few good days with Google Adsense - made over $2 on a couple of them.  *insert image of me doing a cartwheel*  That’s made me pretty happy, because the goal in my little book was to make $30 this month with Adsense.

Once I got it to that point - I was going to focus on expanding my advertising options.  I’m hoping with the next google update, and hopefully a little pagerank love I’ll be able to use Text Link Ads on my site.  That’s one option to open up the advertising.  I’m also looking to push some products out there - in the same realm as my sites = focusing mainly on Fansite #1 and Fansite #2.

The other sites that I’ve got up are hanging in limbo until I’ve got a little system going with these two sites and I can start to get my revenues up to a nice level = I can pay hosting/domain renewals.  That would be a big step for me.  Then save up the extra cash and focus on 2 more sites to see what I can do revenue wise with them.

See… working out the kinks.

But my list that I write… goes all the way back to May with some things that I’ve just put off.  I need to get a couple of hours to myself every day - and just get things done without distraction.  Just a couple of hours.  That’s all I need… or more… but I’m thinking I’m good for a couple of hours before I get distracted by Facebook or an iTunes download.  Hehe.

I’m hoping next week is more productive.

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