What are you doing on this fine Tuesday evening? I’m having a rockin’ cool time! I’m Skype-chatting with my friend, Loretta, hanging out in a couple message boards, like Punkymoms and others, and Twittering with friends - and …watching one of my favorite movies, Meet Joe Black! Here, have a look:

And did you know how difficult it is to take a picture of your computer monitor at night? I’ve taken plenty of pics of it in the daytime with no problem, but, at night - man! I turned the flash off and it still didn’t help. And that is how we wound up with a pic of the creep instead of the incredibly sexy Brad Pitt or that lovely Claire Forlani, or even better yet - the incredibly handsome Anthony Hopkins. That creep just creeps me out, too. I’m sure it is just the roles he’s had, but, he gives me the heebie jeebies.

Anthony Hopkins, though, I could seriously listen to him all night! I just love him! And Robert Duvall - I think they’re my most favorite older guys. It’s hard to tell, though, because, I like a lot of those older guys - Al Pacino, Robert Deniro, and the like….

And let’s not even mention Huey Lewis - oh no, we musn’t go there…*swoooon*

I’m telling you, though, I’m just loving this whole setup - the text chatting, the blogging, the message boarding, movie watching - all of it at the same time.

Life is really good some days, you know?

My baby girl is at the school sock hop! I think this makes it her first official school dance! Oh my goodness, yes - it does! She is in the fifth grade!

Isn’t she cute? That is her on the first day of school this year!  She was very excited to get back to school!

Anyway - she and her girlfriend came over here and curled their hair, put on a little makeup (just a touch, thank goodness, my sweetpea is very good at makeup and doesn’t over do it) and tried on a few different outfits. Then they walked over to the friend’s house so that her parents could take them up there.

It’s kind of weird that it is on a Monday night, but, this is a super short week, so I guess it’s ok. They only have school today and tomorrow. And then they are off for Thanksgiving.

The Sock Hop is from 6pm-8pm. Awww…my baby at her first dance. My sweet little precious baby girl.

She looked so pretty, too. Her hair is really thick, so the curlers put just the right amount of curl in the ends of it. And then she put on some jeans with a pretty blouse and a lovely, soft blazer from her late Aunt Charlene. It’s a little too small, but, neither she nor I care - because we miss Aunt Charlene so much and we just loved the gifts she gave us - they were always so precious. She is just going to roll up the sleeves a little bit.

It is so lovely to think of Aunt Charlene being ‘at the dance’ with her like that. And my sweet girl just looked so smart - just sharp, you know? I’m so proud of her. She’s not at all pushing her femininity (yet! ack!) - she is just letting it speak quietly for itself.

I think she kind of reminded me of a magazine editor tonight. Smart and lovely - but, in a very subdued, quiet way. While the people around her are loud with it, she is drawing the attention, because of her seeming inattention to it. Do you know what I mean?

I’m so crying now - thinking of my Aunt Charlene and my precious baby girl - and how much they love each other. And how they can be together for this, her first dance.

Precious, absolutely precious.

Or, “There are too many damn words on the internet!”

See, here’s the deal.  Lately, I have been so damn distractable!  Sure, sure, that’s not a word.  I don’t mind, it fits what I want to say so nicely.  I’m like a seven year old kid at FAO Schwartz for the very first time.  I can’t stop looking.  And looking.  And looking.

And I cannot focus and do what I need to do - which is maintain my family of blogs.  I need to write.  I need to blog.  I need blinders on - word blinders.  Do you think they make those?

I have always distracted easily, don’t get me wrong.  I can hear my mother in my head going, “Lately? What are you talking about?”  Ha!  I know, I know, Momma - I am highly distractable - but, lately it has been unbelievably bad - yes, even for me.

So if someone could just come along and erase the internet just for a few days, so I can get back on track, that would be great.  Thanks a lot.

I’m so excited, ya’ll! One of the other things that I’ve been doing online to make money at home is working for ChaCha.com, a human-powered search engine. It’s really fun.

One of my biggest complaints, making me nervous to even work for them recently - has been that the application is a Java-based app that runs in Internet Explorer! Ugh!

I couldn’t wrap my brains around why Scott Jones - a brilliant, millionaire businessman - would be running his latest company on a browser notorious for security breaches. I mean, this guy is awesome - he’s done so much! Check this out:

Scott Jones, CEO & Co-Founder

All this guy does is come up with amazing ideas and create successful companies around them. Ever heard of voice mail? Well, when Scott was only 25, his company Boston Technology invented the system used by nearly all the telephone companies around the globe. He started Escient, later transformed into Gracenote, which led the development of music recognition technology. He also founded IndyRobotics, which built one of the world’s premier self-driving vehicles. And now he’s created ChaCha. What’s next for Scott? We can only imagine.

Amazing - the guy is truly amazing! I love reading about go-getters like this, with brains that never turn off!

And now - I have no worries when I log into help people search on ChaCha.com, because, I’m no longer compromising my machine with potential access by low-life types. And that thrills me to no end, because, I actually really enjoy this job! I meet a lot of interesting people and I learn a lot of new things!

The other super-cool news on the ChaCha front is that they just received $10 million in funding!! Wow! That’s totally awesome! You can read all about that here: ChaCha Receives $10 million in funding

So I’ve been back to searching the last day or two and I’m having so much fun!

Go ChaCha!

I missed four whole days of posting here. Well, I’m not giving up yet! No way, no how. I’m going to just forge on ahead, in spite of my flakiness! I am actually falling asleep sitting up here at my desk, so this post will have ZERO substance to it. I wanted ya’ll to know that right now. Or maybe you already guessed. Heh. And I might just miss tomorrow - a certain princess who resides in my castle is turning eleven tomorrow and has activities at school. And another monster who calls this dwelling home is sick with a bad cough, so will undoubtedly need attention, if not a trip to the doc-in-a-box.

But for today - I have posted! Hear me roar!

My two favorite sites for social networking are two completely different apples. They really are like night and day.

The first one is MySpace - naysayers be damned! I love MySpace! The important thing that you have to remember when it comes to MySpace is that it is called a social networking site for a reason. It is all about connecting with people! It is not about marketing! If you can remember that, you may come to love it as much as I do. I have not only made a host of new friends there, but, also have reconnected with a lot of people from my past. Neighbors, schoolmates, even my cousins! My boys both have MySpace pages and I keep them on my top friends so that I can keep an eye on them! And of course, I keep up with my beloved Punkymoms there, too! I’m telling you - I just love it!

Now - is it possible to market on MySpace? Somewhat. Take me for instance, the majority of my friends on there are moms. And for Halloween I was helping to sell a really cool Halloween recipe ebook. Did I tell my MySpace friends about it? Sure! I’m definitely not going to tell my friends about crap - and ask them to fork over money for it! So they know if I’m bringing it up, I have complete faith in it.

My daughter and I even had some fun making some of the recipes - I video taped her, and then I posted the video to MySpace! It was fun - the making of the recipes, filming my sweet daughter, and sharing it with my friends.

So if you just remember that MySpace is number one, about being social, you will do alright there.

Another thing that is really good about MySpace is that it is an awesome traffic generator! Let’s say that I am really proud of this post here on Lisa Marie Mary, and I’m worried that not enough people will see it. I can post about it on MySpace in my blog, and maybe even post a bulletin about it, if I haven’t posted too many lately! You definitely do not want to abuse the bulletin system - that gets downright annoying. And gets you knocked off of people’s friends lists. And if it is just too obnoxious, you’ll get reported, as well.

People can slam it all they want, but, I would be lost without MySpace - it is how I connect with so many different people!

Now, moving on the next apple, er, uh…site. It is one that I also really love! It’s called Squidoo. It is owned and operated by Seth Godin, a phenomenal marketer, who not only lets you market on Squidoo, he encourages it!

You can see my lensmaster page here: Lisa Marie Mary on Squidoo.

I just absolutely love Squidoo! It has all the aspects of social networking, but, you are allowed to market and promote pretty much anything you want - in lots of ways.

Say you don’t really have anything of your own to promote. No problem! Squidoo provides money-making modules for you! Perhaps you are the biggest Star Trek fan ever! And you know all kinds of thing about the show and the cast. Get in there and start filling out your lens, then add some of the Squidoo-provided money-makers, and you’re off! But, if you’ve got your own ebook, or your own blog, or even your own personalized letters for kids - you are free to promote those, too!

You will see that I’ve got quite a few lenses going on my lensmaster page. I’ve got a whole handful of lenses that I haven’t even activated yet. And each lens is always growing and changing. That is what keeps it fresh and what keeps your rankings doing well.

I owe every single bit of my Squidoo knowledge and comfort level and even passion to one great (not to mention pretty and sweet!) marketer named Tiffany Dow. She wrote an awesome how-to ebook all about Squidoo a little over a year ago. The book is so amazingly helpful and detailed! She walks you through, step-by-step, setting up your lenses. She knows all the tricks and she shares them in this book. Her ebook is so good that it was endorsed not only by Seth Godin, but, also by John Reese!  Those are definitely two marketing names that I trust!  I printed out my copy and put it on rings and it is so worn out, I might have to print it out again. I use it all the time in setting up new lenses.

The ebook is called Social Networking on Squidoo, and it is worth every penny I paid for it - and more! That is my affiliate link - I will earn some money if you buy through my link, but, every single thing that Tiffany puts together is gold, and this is no exception! (She’s got an awesome PLR site, PLR Mini Mart - I’m never disappointed with her articles! And that one’s not an affiliate link!)

I’m sure I’ll be blogging about both of these sites more here in the future, but, this gives you a little taste of my experience with them!

I didn’t post here yesterday! What a bummer! I had a migraine and I had taken medicine for it. So the effects of the migraine coupled with the effects of the meds, and I just wasn’t worth a whole lot. So I used what remaining brain cells I had left in operation to post on Hippie Spelunker and Bookworm Broadcast and never did get over here to this blog. I’m bummed, but, I’m just going to get right back on this ‘blogging horse’ and get back on the trail! There is no sense in giving up now! I have been wanting to do this for myself for a long time and I’m going to keep right on going.

I also missed walking for LiTaWaMo over on Naturally Lisa, but, you will see if you click over there, that I am dealing with that in a positive way, too!

I would like to say that I will make up over here by posting twice, but, as I’ve got other blogs that need my attention today, I just don’t know that that will happen. If I have time, I definitely will, though!

A lot of people have been asking me lately how I do what I do. That is, how I make money from home online. Most of the money that I make comes from blog monetization. That includes paid reviews, paid links, things like Google adsense, and WidgetBucks. There really is an almost endless list of ways to monetize a blog, but, prior to monetizing a blog, you need to have a blog! And most importantly, in my opinion, you need to have a self-hosted blog - that you own and maintain yourself.

The people that have been asking me about my work fall into several categories: some have free blogs that are next to impossible to monetize (such as MySpace blogs), some have free blogs like Blogger blogs that can be difficult to monetize, and some don’t have blogs yet at all.

So at this vantage point, I think a great place to start would be tutorials about setting up your own self-hosted blog. And the funniest - and coolest! - thing happened as I was pondering where to begin. My friend, Amy, did the ‘beginning’ for me. Awesome! It was so weird, because, she and I hadn’t been talking about this at all. We both just had our minds on it. Which works out perfectly for me, because, she did all of the work. And work she did! She does such a great job of explaining all of this, step by step, and I am not sure mine would have been as detailed or as thorough.

So let’s get to it, shall we? Ok, Amy did a whole series on this, so to get the full meat of it, you will need to go over all four posts.

1. Getting Your Own Domain for Blogging - Part One
2. Getting Your Own Domain for Blogging - Part Two
3. Getting Your Own Domain for Blogging - Part Three
4. Getting Your Own Domain for Blogging - Part Four

This is a great place for anyone who is thinking of breaking into this field to get started.

Thank you, Amy - for doing such a great job!! I know my readers and I definitely appreciate it!

I am finished with Monday.  I have had enough of it.  It hasn’t been bad, really.  Actually, I’ve done fairly well keeping busy and motivated.  And then, around 4 o’clock, I hit some weird wall.  It hit me like a Mack truck.  And now it’s bum city.  I am totally ‘bumming’.

I don’t really feel depressed, but, I feel weird.  So I figure, you know what?  Why fight it?  I’m gonna take some ‘me time’.  Embrace the bummin’.  Yeah, that’s my new motto.

I just got two new mags in the mail - Revenue and Working Mother.  And I am working my way through my new book, You on a Diet.  So I’ll take those to bed with me, and maybe pop a movie in the laptop.  I’m gonna get some popcorn and nice, cold Sprite and just go to bed.

Hey - I’ll wake up refreshed and feeling good for Tuesday that way, for sure!  I mean, who couldn’t use some hanging out, relaxing in bed time, right?

And I’m excited to read Revenue - it is my newest subscription and it looks really good.  You can check them out here: Revenue Today.

Ok, so ya’ll have a lovely rest of your Monday.  I’m calling mine over! 

I can’t wait until tomorrow.  Tomorrow starts a fresh, new week of work.  And I don’t have any extras in the way of work!

There are no doctor appointments, no haunted forests, no football games, nothing!  Just all work - glorious work.  I may even get to start working on cleaning up and organizing this horribly cluttered and messy office!  I hope - I hope!

I don’t even have my weekly conference call this week.  My boss will be at Blog World Expo and won’t be available for it.  So I can just work straight through.

Now if my tummy and my head will cooperate, and not give me any trouble, I may just make some really good progress this week!

Cool - I’m looking forward to it!

I’ve got a lot of friends going to Blog World Expo and Postie Con this week - it will be fun to keep tabs on them.  The guys from PayPerPost have been twittering their road trip to us the whole time - it’s been a blast to ‘be along for the ride’ with them.  So maybe I can talk my friends into some serious twittering while they’re there!  Sure wish I was there - maybe next year!