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Changes and step ups

So this past week I've stepped into the role of the Sports and Recreation Channel steward!! Super excited!
I was a bit overwhelmed at first but I think I'll do OK. I am in need of sub-channel stewards so finding good candidates will take up a lot of my time.
Another thing that is keeping me busy is moving. Or preparations to move in the following months. My family situation is a bit off, but to make it short my husband and I, along with the rest of my family will be moving to Europe.
No not exactly the glam Europe you are thinking of, but to a town on the border of
Croatia and BiH. A lot of people have misconceptions about the whole of Balkans. Yes there was a war there...over 10 years ago.
Anyway the town is not my first choice (I'd much more prefer Belgrade, or Zagreb in the second spot) but it doesn't matter since the place I live at now isn't exactly the most exciting thing ever, I mean cmon it's in Michigan!
So the big upsides to moving are that we will be a lot closer to UK (where my hubby is from and where we would eventually like to end up) which makes everything from documents to travel easier. Also well be closer to all of my family.
Need I even mention the endless vacation possibilities that I can only dream of while in the US?!?!
Also, once we move we will be able to live off of my freelance writing alone! How amazing is that? :)
I am also in process of making a website for my writing but that will take a minute.
Speaking of Freelancer websites you guys should really check out:
Hire A Writer Online



It is a website by Angie Papple Johnston, a friend of mine and a very talented writer. You will find her works in places ranging from Helium to the various Government Press Releases.

HeliumLyoto Machida: What makes him so special?


Improvement

In the past few days I have been so lucky to get the opportunity to be a Sports and Recreation Channel Steward. I am sad to see Dan step off, it will be weird as until now he was the one to turn to for any questions or advice.
At the same time I am super excited to step through this newly opened door and to see what awaits on the other side!
I hope I do a decent job and not screw up too much! :D
Anyway, wish me luck you guys!

Problems concentrating...

 
The writer by =tasteofomi on deviantART

The key to working efficiently online is to minimize your distractions. Whether its at home or at the office, distractions are the killer of efficient work. So before you even start to think about work, turn off all unnecessary accessories such as your TV or any other object that could tempt you away from hard work with relaxation. Something else which can definitely affect how well you work is how tidy your surroundings are, a messy room often leads to a messy mind, so before you start work, take out 10-20 minutes just to clean up your desk and room. Now with all known distractions put aside, you'll want to think about your work, depending on what sort of person you are you'll want to go about it either one of two ways.

The planned approach - If you feel you work better by getting everything thought about before you started you'll want to follow this approach. Grab a piece of paper and write down what you need to do and set yourself goals. For example, every morning you should wake up and have a rough idea in your mind about how much work you have to get done and when you should start doing it. It's always best to set multiple goals for yourself, if you feel the goals are too easy after a couple of days, make them a little harder, try to get more done but being realistic about it at the same time

The unplanned approach - This is my more preferred route of action. Rather than filling your mind with all these things you need to do, just like in the planned approach give yourself a little bit of structure by setting a quota for each day on how much work you have to get done. But unlike the planned approach, don't over think it. I find that I get my best work done when i freestyle it, for example when I write for Helium I write much better when I don't think about what needs to be written instead just write straight from the heart and it hasn't let me down so far.

Now once your deep into your work it will get harder and harder to keep on going with all these potential distractions around, so instead of overworking yourself for a small amount of time then quitting, try to give yourself occasional breaks. Watch a little TV or browse the net for 10-15 minutes, but be sure to regulate yourself. Far too often I have found myself taking a break and get caught up in the moment, and I find myself one hour later not knowing what happened, so be sure to time yourself.

If you can stick to these rules you should be able to complete your days of work online as efficiently as possible, just be sure to avoid distractions at any given costs as they will ruin your entire day!


Ah, now only if I could take my own advice...


So I have, after I don't know how many months, come across my Squidoo lens this morning. I thought this sucker wasn't even approved!
Go figure... o.O
Check it out??
Aloevantage


















Easter Omelette by ~TwyceFDailey on deviantART

Once Easter time has come and gone you are left with a bunch of random plastic Easter eggs. What could you possibly do with them, other than throw them away? You might be surprised as there are a few good uses you can put those plastic Easter eggs to!

An obvious and easiest way to reuse the plastic Easter eggs is to put candy and other small goodies into them as party favors for little kids or just as treats for your own children. If you have a themed kids party they are pretty easy to decorate to match your theme. With a marker, a sticker, and some paints maybe you can transform any old plastic Easter egg into a smiley face, a lion, a football, a Mr. Potato head, a girl or anything else your child might like. It doesn't have to be Easter or some other special occasion for you to give your child a small sweet surprise and put a smile on both your faces.

Another way to put the plastic eggs to use is to get crafty with your kids, friends or by yourself if you please, and make Christmas ornaments with them. To do this you will need paints, some string or ribbon and a bigger needle. First you want to poke a hole on top of your egg so you can draw the string or ribbon, by which it will hang off of the tree, through it. After you have done this decorate it by painting a holiday theme onto it. If you are up for it and crafty enough to do it you can pain the outsides of the plastic Easter eggs with random designs and fit them onto the little light bulbs on the Christmas lights. If this project is done right the results are amazing and those that see them are usually left in ave.

You can spend some extra time with your child while you show them how to make a cute bell out of one of the halves of the plastic Easter egg. Take some string and pull it through the top of the egg as mentioned with Christmas ornaments, but make sure you don't tie it just yet and there is plenty string on either side. Grab a button or a bigger bead (polymer clay beads work great!) tie it to the end of the string which is inside the egg half. Now pull the string out leaving only so much slack for the bead to smack about the inside of the egg when shook but not more. Tie it on the outside end making a loop for holding. There you go, you've got a nifty bell!

Many times we will have rings and small jewelry lying around that we don't have any boxes or storage solutions for. Throwing them into a marked plastic Easter egg is a great way not to lose them, have them damaged or scattered around taking up space. If you feel like going all out you can make them look rather fancy by, once again, decorating them. Anything from markers to stickers to bedazzle goes. A similar use is to put random buttons and other small knickknacks into them.

Plastic Easter eggs have been used as molds before. Whether you are making a candle, soaps, jello or some other sweets, these little plastic eggs are great fun and super easy to use.

Im sure there is plenty more uses for them, however this is it from me!



Eggs by *RetteMichBabe on deviantART

Ever since I can remember, Easter holidays were the time of colored eggs and tons of food. Instead of always buying paints and kits full of sticky, uncleanable messes, my mother started putting the plants and leftovers she found around the house, to use. She eliminated nearly all cost related to decorating the Easter eggs, the use of plastic and artificial dyes (as well as the waste they make) along with making the eggs that we eat more natural and healthier.

As a general rule, if you worry about it staining your fingers or towels it will work good on Easter eggs, so look around your house and your yard... what have you got? A few things you can use:

- Onion skins (both red and yellow, but you will use them separately)

- Beets (canned are OK!)

- Dandelions (the yellow flowers only)

- Orange peel

- Stinging Nettles (many don't find this amusing however, so they use spinach)

- Shredded carrots

- Coffee

- Tea

How to decorate Easter eggs by using any of the above :

- Need:

- Eggs

- Onion peels (or anything else you choose)

- Big pot (enough for your eggs and peels)

- Water

How to:

- Put the onion peels and eggs into water and bring to a boil, basically doing all that you would do to boil the eggs.

- Once your eggs are boiled let them cool before taking them out, by now they should have gotten a nice golden or red color (depending which peels you used).

Tips:

- The more peels or plants you use, the stronger the color. The brown eggs will give off more earthy colors, for example if you use red onion peels on brown eggs they will come out red, whereas the white ones will be pink.

- Before cooking the eggs, grab an old pair of pantyhose, cut it up into pieces big enough to hold an egg. If you do it tighter around the egg and make a few knots all over the place the egg will come up with star like markings.

- You can use interesting looking leaves to leave undyed impressions on the eggs. To do this put the leaf against the egg and use the stocking like above but make only one small knot, try to position it over the leaf. Parsley leaves, for instance create great impressions on Easter eggs.

- You can use herbal tea, such as rosebud, to get pink color on eggs rather than just typical brownish.

- If you take a white crayon or candle (any color) and draw on the eggs before painting them the color wont take where you drew.

- After your eggs have been cooked, painted and cooled off, take a piece of smoked bacon skin (if you don't have this just grab a strip of bacon from the fridge) and rub it over your eggs, this will give them a lovely glow and make them so shiny, but won't leave them very greasy at all.

I don't know about you but whenever I think of stained glass windows the first (and pretty much the only) thing that comes to mind is a church. There is a possibility, however, to turn this traditional look into something modern. How? With vector designs. If you are not sure what this is just Google vector art or vector design under images, cool huh? You can also use deviantart.com as a resource to find a design you like, make sure though that the person is OK with their art being used and reused, most users on deviant art will have "rules" about using their work. Most times you can use it but not for commercial purposes such as reselling it.

Need:

- Clear contact paper (buy it at your local hardware store or online, its pretty inexpensive)

- Print out of the design you want

- Scissors and/or Stanley knife (runs about a buck or two at any store)

- Glass Paints (these come in both opaque and transparent colours, you should choose according to the design you are working with)

- Paint brush/es

- Black permanent marker (thickness according to need)

- Clear gloss spray paint (runs a couple of bucks at the hardware store)

How to:

- Depending on the design you will use, you might want to go to your local photo center and order a custom size print that will fit your window, otherwise your printer will do just fine.

- Cut out the clear contact paper ( make sure it has a clear backing too so you can place it over the design and see through it).

- Place it on top of the design print out (adhesive side down but do not remove the backing!) making sure you align it properly.

- Now, remember when you were a kid and you traced pictures onto the paper? This is exactly what you will do. One way is to trace the outlines with the black permanent marker and then paint the insides, or you can do the outlining with opaque paints and the rest with the translucent ones. Either way first do the outlines of the design and let it dry off completely, this takes about 4 hours more or less, you are welcome to blow dry it to speed up the process.

- Filling in the design will take some precision and patience. You will not need a lot of paint as the contact paper wont absorb it, so take care not to put on too much onto the brush and to have only one layer of paint everywhere. You want to make one way even strokes otherwise it will look messy, streaky and blotchy.

- Let this dry, do not lift up vertically until it is completely dried otherwise some runnage might happen, after spray on a coat of clear gloss spray paint.

- Once the spray paint is dry you are ready to carefully put it up onto the window glass.

There you go now you have a unique and beautiful (but faux..shh!) stained glass window, for just a fraction of the price too!

Tips:

- Another option for a textured look of the outline is instead of using regular paint or markers is to use heavy dimensional fabric paint.

- Have someone help you when applying the film onto the window, don't take all of the backing off at once start with a corner, align it and stick it on then slowly pull the backing while adhering the rest of the film to the window, this minimizes chances of any air bubbles or wrinkles.



technorati

Does anyone have any experience with technorati?
What exactly is the point?
5FHD2Y9GZU5N


Using Google AdWords to generate leads

For the today's consumers the world is rapidly shrinking, pretty much anything they can think of is just a credit card and a few key strokes away. Unfortunately, the same can not be said for the business owners. They now have to compete with not only their part of town or even state but with the whole world. Many have already found their way to the Internet but have failed to effectively reach their targeted audience...read more. 


Social Networking

Please check out my FB Page (to the left). I have started making it today and am kind of stumped....where do I go from here? Do I just keep adding articles??


I cannot for the life of me to decide whether I want to use blogger or the free wordpress...... I think I might just post simultaneously on both. Sort  of like mirror blogs?
Good? Bad? What do you think?