Saturday Photo Hunt / Self

SELF

I am a Diva, Mom, wife, Grandma, honey, sweetheart, Aunt Sandy, usually happy person.
On 'those other' days, I am cranky, irritable, "don't talk to me", sick, depressed, hurting.
I am ME!

Advertisers Need Social Spark

I know I am writing a lot about SocialSpark.com lately, but I love it. I have some questions for bloggers. What kind of advertisements would you like to see on Social Spark? I would like to see more book and movie sites. I love movies and books, and we could do reviews of both possibly for a free copy.

It would also be great to see more advertisers doing shoes, clothing, girlie things, kids items for the granddaughters, and household products. Saving money is always good, so any kind of coupons or incentives would also be excellant.

SocialSpark.com is a Social Marketing Network that connects advertisers and bloggers through an online advertising marketplace. Developed by IZEA, the network allows advertisers to check out blogs and in turn, bloggers have the opportunity to be paid for writing about the advertiser’s product on their blog. Advertisers are just beginning to see how blogging is the new way to socialize. "Bloggers talk about everything!"

I know from experience that when a blogging friend blogs about a special at Lane Bryant, the amount of hits at Lane Bryant is off the charts. As soon as another blogging buddy blogged about a special deal at Michaels Arts and Crafts, the product was sold out within hours. Bloggers get the word out.

Advertisers, please let me blog about you! I could blog about things going on in my everyday life, like this weekend, hubby is at Jiffy Lube getting our oil changed, and we went to Sonic last night for milkshakes. Does everyone know the latest deal at Sonic? I can tell them. Does everyone know Jiffy Lube lets you print off a $5.00 coupon for your next visit each time you go? I could tell them. The possibilities are endless. With a dog, two cats, three granddaughters in all age groups, and a husband, I could blog about almost anything and everything, as most bloggers already do.

So if you read blogs of any kind and you have a product that you want to introduce, let us bloggers through Social Spark help you advertise the product. We would love to review your products. By going to SocialSpark.com, bloggers can sign up, earn money and meet new bloggers. Advertisers can sign up, create an opportunity and allow quality bloggers to write about their service or product.

The Internet is becoming the market place of the world. If you want to get the word out about your product, let bloggers at Social Spark do that for you.

My son and Family on Vacation

I wanted to show you this. Such a great picture! Dennis took his family to the beach last weekend for vacation and got back Wednesday. They had a much needed vacation and an awesome time. (left to right) - Regina with little Maddie inside, due July 29, Dennis holding Lily, Kenzie and Kelsi.

Social Spark is Now Live!

So many people are very excited about this and I am one of them.

SocialSpark is the wonderful opportunity for you to meet other bloggers. This helps you to improve your page rank and this also increase your traffic score. Even you can create these opportunity by creating an account as an advertiser which is totally free. I have accepted several Sparks (do not get paid for those), and a few opportunities. The Sparks I chose were to mention another blogger's blog in my post, and in turn, they mention mine. A great way to get more traffic!

Until recently, the nickname for bloggers who accepted assignments from PayPerPost to help advertisers get the word out about their products and services by blogging for pay were called Posties. Now there is another nickname for us-Sparkies. That is because we belong to PayPerPost's Sister Program called SocialSpark, which is a "Social Marketing Network." What is the difference? On Social Spark both Posties and Advertisers can create their own profiles and interact directly. Whereas PayPerPost assignments are selected one at a time from a list of current offers, through Social Spark, the Sparkies and advertisers can get together and arrange whatever works best for both of them. An advertiser who is pleased with a bloggers work can seek the blogger out of Social Spark and solicit a standing ad. My profile's name is Sandy M. If you sign up, and I don't know why you wouldn't, please add me as a friend. I chose that name because that is what you all know me as.

I like how the bloggers are able to sort of vote for (opp) or against an ad (drop) or each other! This gives bloggers who want to “line-up” for a post, a better idea on how an ad may or may not be worth doing. From what I’ve noticed so far, bloggers are getting into the “team work” spirit and giving each other props as well.

This extremely new platform, Social Spark brings a few outstanding changes. The main changes of course are to bring benefits for both parties. Firstly, they are search engine friendly, nobody is going to be get harmed again. And bloggers can write about what they want, it is no limitation and restriction.

They require In-Post Disclosure -100% Transparency so my blogging friends know that although the post may be really good to check out, I am getting paid for that post. I like that part as I do not want to be dishonest with my blogger friends.

I am excited about this, but in a disclosable manner, lol. THIS IS A PAID POST :-) !

If you are interested in becoming one of us - a Sparky. Come and join SocialSpark today.

(sponsored by SocialSpark)

Friday Fill-Ins

FRIDAY FILL-INS

1. For me _doing nothing at all____ is the opposite of creativity.

2. _The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch____ was the last excellent book I read.

3. I like fill-ins because _they make me think and I'm just a tad weird also____.

4. In nature I like looking at _flowers, trees, the river, just about everything except bugs____.

5. _At this point, I have No Idea -____ should win the US elections.

6. The last time I laughed with all my belly was _reading a joke at Comedy Plus____.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to _working online____, tomorrow my plans include _cleaning my house ____ and Sunday, I want to _spend some quality time with hubs____!

Bruises again

Where do the hospitals get the people who put in IVs? I swear this hurt, and no she didn't ever find the vein. She had to get someone else to come in and do it, and theirs did not hurt at all, and I have no bruise from that one.

Grandma likes rap

One of my little secrets - I like 'most' rap and Hip Hop music. Snoop Dog is my favorite, and I love his show and his new song "Can't Say Goodbye" with Charlie Wilson. I also like Ne-yo, Missy Elliott, Jay Z, Ice T, and Timbaland to name a few. I'm a lyrics fanatic, because I like to know what they are saying. I don't listen to the real vulgar ones or the ones about dying and killing and suicides. I have a lot of Rap Music Lyrics that I found here. They have a huge huge list of lyrics from artists I know and many I never heard of. I went to i-Tunes and bought the new Ego Trippin album with points I had there already. I love it!
Oh well, now you know something else weird about me!

Thursday 13 / the letter 'I'

Thursday 13 - This week is the letter 'I'

1. Internet - I spend a lot of time on the Internet. I have six blogs, a store, I do contesting daily, am now hooked on Entrecard, and chat with lots of my friends, and do memes and MySpace, Phew!

2. Insects - I am terrified of most Insects and creepy crawlies. I can deal with flys and ants (easy to get rid of) but most bugs just freak me out!

3. Independent - Up until the past year, I have always been a very independent lady. I like making my own money, and tend to be a bit of a type A personality when needed to be. Yes, ladies, sweet Sandy can be a B----h when needed, and I guarantee you I will win.

4. Income - Not having a two income household any longer is really really hurting us. I still haven't figured out how to live this way. I've never had to before. He gets paid, and after bills,and doctor co pays and gas back and forth to Atlanta to doctors every week, is killing us. Sometimes there is no money left for groceries, and it totally sucks. I went to some food banks last week, a first for me, and really felt like crap for days.

5. Inspiration - I love anything and anyone who is an inspiration to me. I have been inspired by the kindness of so many of you, and your blogs. It amazes me every day at the friendships I've made online. I need inspiration and positivity right now, and you are giving it to me in spades!

6. Ice Cream - I love ice cream and milkshakes, both very detrimental to my diet right now. My favorite is Butter Pecan. Do you have a Sonic near you? They are serving full sized milkshakes of your flavor choice every night from 7pm til midnight for 99 cents,Great deal! Try the pineapple. Yummy!

7. Irish - I am part Irish, part Scottish, and part Cherokee Indian. In other words, I am a mutt.

8. Shaved Ice - I am a sucker for shaved ice. Love the bubblegum and tutti fruiti flavors.

9. Ivory - the color of every drab wall in my apartment, Ugh!

10. i-Tunes - I love i-Tunes. Wish I had a lot of money to download whatever I wanted, but oh well, maybe one day! Did you know they offer a free singles download every week?

11. IKEA- one of my favorite 'window shopping' stores

12. IZEA- They own both SocialSpark and PeyPerPost, with who help my income, so I really like them, and they always pay on time.

13. The most Important "I" word is simple "I", or just me. Take care of your health and your body. I didn't and now I am paying for it big time. I is my new best friend, because in the end, it will just be I, no one else. Live for today, and do something every single day to make that day special for you!

Added Some Spark to my Life

SocialSpark

I signed up at two of my blogs at SocialSpark by IZEA Inc and I love it! The social aspect is kind of a cross between facebook/MySpace for the community involvement, and I've found new friends and good blogs there. The Spark itself is similar to Blog Catalog and My Blog Log. Bottom line it helps bring more traffic to your blog. Also a great benefit is making some extra cash with your blog or blogs. I like SocialSpark for this as it shows your honest side. SocialSpark wants 100% real opinions. They desire your true feelings and opinions on the topic that you would be posting about. They want you to take only topics that relate to you so that you can be truly honest with your opinions. Then they require In-Post Disclosure -100% Transparency so my blogging friends know that although the post may be really good to check out, I am getting paid for that post.

I like the money making aspect, and although I do not expect to get rich from it, I can however make gas and grocery money each month, which we desperately need right now. It is so easy with SocialSpark. You go to opportunities and browse for what interests you. YOU CHOOSE!

Say you are a Mom or a Grandma like me, you may want to do one regarding children's toys. You just click on Reserve this opportunity, and you then have 12 hours to post to your blog and submit the post to Social Spark.

This is what the opportunities page looks like. There are many pages to pick from. On other sites you will see just sponsored posts. Here there are not one, but three types of opportunities. Sponsored post is like other normal posts where you have to write about advertiser and get paid. Blog sponsorship means if your blog has good targeted visitors your blog will get sponsorship. Here you have to just accept the offer you will be paid daily till the sponsorship runs out. Spark is the wonderful opportunity for you to meet other bloggers. This helps you to improve your page rank and this also increase your traffic score. Even you can create these opportunity by creating an account as an advertiser which is totally free.
Plus, if you see an opportunity you are interested in and it is not available to you, SocialSpark allows you to contact the advertiser and request that they make it available to you. No other company does that. This not only helps you meet the advertiser, but maintain a connection with them. So give them a try! If you aren't interested in making the money, the community itself is awesome. But you will be so glad you did. I know I am. Thanks!

My Favorite Photo

When we were living in Phoenix, AZ, it had rained all morning. I went for my usual afternoon walk, with my camera always in my pocket, and looked up. I never took cloud shots before, but I thought, oh well, I'll try. To date this is my favorite photo of all I've taken, excluding family of course.
I found a new photo blog (photo blogs are my newest blog addiction). This one is called Pho-Tog-B-Log.
Some of this blogs photos could be greeting cards. Great pages and pages of pics! Take the time to visit, everyone like to look at pictures. Thanks!

Wig or Hair extensions?

I want a new haircut and as some of you know.. I just do not know what to do with it. It hasn't changed in over fifteen years. My sister in law suggested I check out a site for Wigs to choose a hairstyle that might suit me. A lot of celebrities shop here so it shows their looks as well. If you will go to the site, I will tell you which few I prefer, and then give me your honest opinion. Also, I know Nothing about doing hair and am very low maintenance.
One of my faves, on the site's front page is the Scorpio/Revlon. I really like that look, but not sure it would be easy to fix or look good on my pear shaped face. I don't want to go too short til I lose more weight. This is a bob cut and I've always liked that look. This wig can also be found in the synthetic wig section.
I like H-214/Beverly Johnson under the Human Hair Wigs. It has curls, wispy bangs, and looks very low maintenance, like I need. But I don't know if I could get my real to look curly like that without messing it up with a perm. I don't like perms at all. And I wear hair color to hide those ugly gray hairs, and hair color and perms don't match.
Hubs like this one here , but it is waaaay too short for me. Been there - done that- swore I'd never go there again. It is a Real Hair Wig called Extravagance by Alan Eaton. Again, just a blow dry would do it though.
Shoot, maybe I should just buy a wig from this site, but I think it would drive me crazy. Have you ever worn a wig?
So if you would take a look, and advise me when you get time, I would appreciate it.

I still love Current

My DIL and I were looking at the current website a few weeks ago, and we both wrote things we wanted to get. Today, I got a box of goodies from Current. My DIL had ordered them for me.
Wilton®Ultimate 3-in-1Cake Caddy This is a 3 way Wilton cake caddy and it was half price. holds 2 sizes cupcakes, a sheet cake.
Cup-A-Cake ™ These are great for hubby to take cupcakes to work in. You get 3 for the price of 2 in your color choice.
Blinking Stars Necklace Got me and hubs this for night of July 4th!
CurrentCatalog.com's Biggest SALE of the Year. SAVE up to 75%. Buy Now - quantities are limited
Do you ever order from Current? Thank you Regina!!!!!

Today is...

National HAMBURGER Day!

Where do you buy your favorite Hamurger?

Do you like them better homemade?

What do you eat on it?

Have a recipe for a great burger? Leave it in the comments or post it on your blog?

Orange Texas

Hubs and I were sitting here going through pictures and we found a whole envelope of our tiny trip to the small town of Orange, TX where the population is 18000 and you can buy a mdesium sized nice house for $56000. Hubs aunt lived here before they sent her to Beaumont to the rest home. Orange is on the Texas/Louisiana border. We stayed at the Best Western on the I-10.
Only took us a day to pack up her tiny house and get her moved. We stayed three days, and looked around. I loved the Shangri-La Botanical Gardens but hubs only loved one thing - the Stark Museum of Art. It is one of the most prominent and distictive museums of American Western Art in the country. He is totally into anything like that, and would open his own museum if he could.

We stayed in this solid white two story building all afternoon. I am not into museums, but they did have a lot of collectione to look at; like Western American Art, Indian Art, Books and Manuscripts, and my fave Decorative arts. We have a pic of the original James Audobon book 'The Birds of America'. They also have tours and a research library. The Nelda C. and H.J. Lutcher Stark Foundation was founded in 1961 and was founded to promote the arts and education. All in all it was a good day. Hubs must have liked it...he is still sitting here looking at and talking about the pictures.
Hubs loves small towns, and I think he would have moved to Orange if given the chance. But me, I'm a city girl stuck in a small town. Orange is located on the Sabine River. Lots of boating, skiing, fishing, jetskiing, and a huge fishing tournement every year. The water makes it a great place. But we do now support the Stark Museum. Well at least we did before we stopped having money.
So tell me. Have you ever been to Orange Texas? Do you and your family like museums? What kind? Are you a small town or a big city person?

Wordless Wednesday

Taken at GA aquarium when David and Jenny went last week.

I'm back and all is well.

Back from my procedure. It took no time and didn't hurt at all. They found nothing, thank God! I went at noon, was back home by 3. Took a nap, and now I'm ok.

Do you use a webhost?

I am considering using a web host for one of my blogs. I know nothing about it or who to use. I found this site with absolutely great web hosting tutorials and articles. They don't however recommend a certain web host provider. The articles are very informative and it was very worth my while, as I learned a lot of stuff. It can be very beneficial to anyone who is wanting to know about web hosting, and don't know much, like me.
Finding a good host is not about finding the most expensive one, but one that has 24 hour customer support, and if the web host pages loads slowly, yours probably would too if you used them.
So my question is - do you have any experience with web hosting companies, and who do you recommend?

Heads or Tails

TAILS - Tell about your job (Or one you've had)

Well, I'm no longer out in the working world. I now work at home. For twelve years, I was a supervisor at a major long distance company customer service center. I absolutely loved that job. When I married Robert, his job moved us around, so I have had a few jobs since then. I was an accounting clerk for 7-11 stores corporate office two years, worked at Las Vegas local phone company customer service center for three years, and have had more temp jobs than I can even remember doing various jobs.

But the job I loved most was being a Mom. I spent the first five years of their lives at home with them, and am so thankful I was able to do that.

Cleaned out storage

I found so much stuff that belonged to my evil ex. He was a Marine and then armed security. No guns or anything like that, (I would have had a heart attack, as I hate guns), but lots and lots of stuff. When I think of all the money he spent on 'police gear', it truly amazes me. I found gun and knife holders, vests, boots, tactical belt, and so much more. It is now all in the garbage bin out back. He spent many hours browsing and buying from here.
What does your hubby wastes your money on?

Yucky afternoon ahead

I have to have a procedure done in the hospital this afternoon. (light down my throat to see my stomach) They are putting me to sleep for it, and even though it's outpatient only, I hate that feeling.
I'll let you know how it goes.

10 on Tuesday

10 Favorite Time Wasters

1. Browsing the internet

2. buying too much makeup, lip gloss, nail polish, flip flops, and pink stuff!

3. Window shopping online

4. Flickr - I'm a flickr addict!

5. being a couch potato (not often, but there are those days)

6. watching the fish in the aqaurium, it relaxes me.

7. writing in my journal, because I doubt if anyone will ever read them anyway

8. planning my to do list, because it Never gets done

9. watching reality tv

10. memes, but I'm addicted and can't stop.

10 on Tuesday

Manic Monday / STAR

Will Smith is not my favorite movie star, but he is however, the one star I can name that I've liked every movie he has starred in.

I am Legend
The Pursuit of Happyness
Hitch
I, Robot
Shark Tale
Bad Boys II
Men in Black II
Ali
The Legend of Bagger Vance
Wild Wild West
Enemy of the State
Welcome to Hollywood
Men in Black
Independence Day
Bad Boys
Made in America
Six Degrees of Separation
Where the Day Takes You

Now looking forward to Hancock coming out this summer. Will Smith truly is a STAR!

Sunday Links and Deals

Found at Design Sponge.. how to make a cakeplate with old cheap vases and odd plates.

Great recyclable idea. Awesome cakeplate!

PUDDING LAMP! Awesome to make for a child's room, or a patio.

The jar lady is back - this time with Mudslide Pie and Strawberry Cheesecakes. These jars are not much larger than a nickel.... great for kids, but I LOVE them.

Current has a 75% off sale going on. I love their stuff!

Lookinf for the best gas prices? Try Gas Buddy. You just put in your zip code and it tells you where the cheapest gas is near you.

FREE weekly download on iTunes.

WIN a nursery at Giggle! Plus they are having a Memorial day sale.

and at Lane Bryant - Get 40% off all clearance items at Lane Bryant Catalog! Prices are as marked. Sale ends 5-26-08. I love me some Lane Bryant!

Apartment Therapy shows us How to: Make a Toilet Roll Extension Cord Holder .

Top Entrecard Droppers this Week

Puzzled Me

Stir the Cauldron

Freaky Frugalite

Wishing On a Fallen Star

Random Detoxification

The Mom With Brownies

Mommy's Little Corner

Squeaky's - Madmouse Blog

Mariuca's Perfume Gallery

What's new In?

Haven't joined Entrecard yet? Check it out. I'm addicted already!

Unconscious Mutterings

1. Referral :: recommendation


2. Indiana :: Jones


3. Foil :: aluminum


4. Horizon :: sunset at the beach


5. Event :: your life. Don't miss it!


6. Sailing :: Sandee


7. Footage :: movies


8. Sunday :: worship


9. Breathtaking :: view


10. Dude! :: Gnarly!