A new blog template

At last I was able to change this blog's template to a 3-column one, thanks to "BloggerStyles". I did this for three reasons.

First, I want to give equal importance to my advertisers' widgets and my blog's contents represented by the labels. Since I've started to monetize this blog, I'd like to be serious about it. That will mean displaying advertisers' widgets in an auspicious area, without sacrificing the best way for my blog's contents to be noticed. Content is King, and will still be the best source of information, whether intended for buyers or people from all walks of life who might benefit from what is relayed by a post's content.

Second, to make my blog's layout more organized. One of the best ways for me to be organized in my thoughts is to have an organized surrounding and the layout of my blog is not an exception.

Last but not least, to give my blog a more professional look. I believe that is one way a blog can attract traffic. Taking myself as an example, I stay longer on blogs that look professional, looking for posts that might interest me. That doesn't mean I ignore blogs that don't look professional enough, it simply depends on the time I have the moment I happen to land on blogs. Professional looking blogs would usually steal my time from doing my intended tasks.

A new blog

I'm thinking of creating another blog, and I'll do that tomorrow. I can't publish the name of the blog yet since I'm not sure if the URL I'm thinking will still be available tomorrow. I've been planning to do that since last year and I've thought of focusing in Traditional Chinese Medicine as a topic but I lacked the confidence to write about it. I've thought of a better idea, so I hope you can check what's it all about maybe two days from now. Just to give you a hint, my new blog will cover the following topics:

1. Feng Shui Tips
2. Traditional Chinese Medicine
3. Household Tips
4. Interior Design Tips
4. Any helpful tips I'll encounter
5. Tips from advertisers

The last item insinuates that I also hope to earn an income from this new blog but that will come later, maybe after 6 months or even one year of posting. Through this blog, "I Don't Want To Retire!", I've enjoyed talking about products from advertisers because they've always reminded me of past experiences I wouldn't thought of if not for their products. I was also challenged to be more creative and persuasive, and I really had fun!

2009 Babies

The New Year is always symbolized by a baby, so to start the year 2009, I’m excited to talk about the things babies or toddlers will need! I know that a lot of mothers are more excited than me because a baby grows so fast, and sooner or later will need this and that.

When my son and daughter were babies until they became toddlers, I could remember I would go to several malls to look for the exact item fit for them. Window shopping for the right item at the right price would last me a week or two. It’s easier with my special needs child now, since her requirements are not as many as that of a normal child. But I’m equally excited as the other mothers because this kind of child would use children’s items for a long time, and therefore I should choose the more durable ones. Our special needs child is now six years old, but she still has to use the play pen or play yard we bought more than 3 years ago. We knew that would happen, so we saw to it that it was a durable play yard.

I have good news to parents! That exact model of the play yard is not always available at the store where we bought it, but I saw it in a website called ShopWiki, which is linked to several stores. It was fun to go through this website and the sites linked to it because all the items for babies and toddlers can be found there. It is categorized into "buying guides" that will assist the buyer, and each guide presents helpful information that are linked to other sites or stores. The play yard for example, can be found in the "Activity Sets and Play Yards Buying Guide". The "Infant and Toddler Clothing Buying Guide" has countless of different kinds of clothings for babies and toddlers to choose from.

While everyone is skeptical about how Baby 2009 will develop or progress, mothers can’t wait to see what their babies might need the whole year. With proper nurturing, both kinds of babies will be healthy and happy throughout the year!

My Blogging Story - Part 2

Browsing my notes for make-money-online researches, I just traced how I ended up blogging. I mentioned in "My Blogging Story" that I was told about how blogging can make money, but it was not the first thing I looked for when I was looking for online jobs. That is the real reason why I had to pay $49. I was looking for other online jobs because I heard that affiliate marketing makes the most money online. But I realized that affiliate marketing is not that easy, though I can't remember why that was my conclusion. Since blogging is basically writing about anything, and writing is what I've wanted to do at any point in my life, I decided to choose blogging.

Through my notes also, I traced that it was Blogsvertise who recommended that I join Blogcatalog and other social networks for bloggers, and was the first to give me tips on how I can monetize my blogs. I would have forgotten that, if I didn't write those information in my notes. Why? Because my first blogging earnings came from Payperpost followed by Socialspark, and it was only after 7 months of blogging when I received a task assignment from Blogsvertise, which I've already forgotten at that time. If I can only get several tasks from these social networks, I won't look for any other source of income, simply because I enjoy what I'm doing. But blogging is not just enjoying what you write because with it comes some responsibilities like promoting your blog, reading other blogs also and commenting on posts which can be enjoyable too, and other ways that will increase the traffic to your site. Anything I forgot?

Lighting references

I’m sure glad to have an addition to my lighting references, thanks to Farreys.com. It offers hundreds of thousands of lighting fixtures, lights, lamps and outdoor lighting in a wide range of styles and at the lowest prices from dozens of top manufacturers including: Ambience, Fine Art Lamps, Flos, Fontana Arte, George Kovacs, Hinkley Lighting, Kichler Lighting, Maxim Lighting, Minka Lavery, Murray Feiss, Quoizel, Sea Gull Lighting and many more.

Maybe it is worth mentioning here a Feng Shui problem in lot shapes that have pointed ends. What’s nice about that is it has a solution, which is as simple as installing a light in that pointed end. I have that kind of lot, its shape is trapezoid. Instead of getting worried about its unfavorable Feng Shui, I’m even excited because I will be forced to install a light, and I’d like a decorative landscape light, if I or any of my children will have a house built there. A Kichler lighting is only one of the many outdoor or landscape lighting to choose from for that purpose.

Speaking of indoor lights or lamps, you’ll surely have a hard time choosing from the breathtaking Maxim lighting or Quoizel lighting among others. Enjoy shopping!

The Stainless Steel Store

Stainless steel is always the solution to products we want to last forever. I found a site that offers several stainless steel products made by Blomus. It is called "The Stainless Steel Store”. You’ll find products for the outdoor, the office, and of course for the home. I think I’d like to own a Blomus stainless steel caddy but that will be more for my personal use. For the whole household, the Blomus stainless steel teapot looks amusing.

As far as toilets are concerned, I guess anybody would like the tidiest toilets to be found in their own homes. Whenever I visit other houses, I would secretly look for tips, from the necessary fixtures found inside the toilets, and I will say stainless steel looks best in this area. In my case, whenever I expect visitors, I would bring out toilet brushes out of my visitors’ sight. But what if I’m not around, or unexpected visitors came inside my house ahead of me? I just found the solution from this same website, so I also would like to own a Blomus stainless steel toilet brush. And there are a lot of other Blomus stainless steel products for the toilets.

For the kitchen? Wow! I’d like to own all those Blomus stainless steel tools or equipments, including the Blomus stainless steel nut cracker. How I wish I’ve learned about this website when we still had a coffee kiosk because the tools we’ve been looking for are all found here. The Stainless Steel Store claims it has the lowest prices, so see for yourself!

The lamps that I love

My son's work schedule has changed to graveyard shift so we're letting him take a nap inside our bedroom before going to work. In that case I cannot watch TV in our bedroom like tonight, so I had to transfer to our dining area where there's another TV with local channels. My dining area is always lighted by a hanging lamp and even at daytime, I prefer it to be lighted because of the cozy effect it creates.

I prefer using lamps and pin lights instead of just the ordinarily housed lights. If there is one thing I had really appreciated when I was studying Interior Design, it was learning about the different kinds of lamps. Because of my love for lamps, I need not worry about the color of the paints I should use because a lamp can give varied effects even to the palest color.


I'd like to include here photos of beautiful lamps, the kind of lamps that I love, so that when the time comes our family can build a new house or renovate our current house, I can easily refer to this post. I will need to spotlight my paintings with halogen lamps, an arm lamp which can be a task lamp, and wall or night lamps that will give the rooms that needed warmth and feeling of security at night.

SocialSpark is Great for Mommy Bloggers!

Mommy bloggers like me sure have a lot of topics to blog about, but of course, we blog about the things we always see. It can be about our children, our husbands, our pets, our houses or gardens. You can just imagine the endless topics we can think of, focusing only on these subjects.

I can say that blogging is the most convenient way for mothers to journalize the daily tasks of parenting and housekeeping, or big family events. But these journals cannot be left in the archives unread. Blogs need readers, and a medium where blogs and readers can meet, like SocialSpark.

Mothers who join SocialSpark will find endless opportunities to monetize their blogs. Aside from that, their blogs will be spiced up with a variety of topics that are relevant to a mother’s blog, and bring out a mother’s creativity to the max. High quality posts are encouraged by SocialSpark through countless ways, including bonuses from some advertisers. SocialSpark will not only bring about a wiser mother, it will also increase her reputation as a person and make her family proud of her.

If you are a mother, you can now enjoy blogging more, by joining SocialSpark. A support group of fellow bloggers and most importantly, fellow mothers, await you. In SocialSpark, it won’t take long till you discover how contagious the feeling of satisfaction is, among bloggers and mothers who have signed up.

Mommy bloggers can also sign up for the mailing list in order to join, as soon as it is public. This is another calling for you, not only as a mother to your children, but also a mother to fellow bloggers. Since you will be earning from your blogs, you can be a mother to yourself too, and buy the more important things you've always wanted for yourself.

I Made A Mistake!

I was so eager to earn from my blog that I didn't review the terms in posting sponsored posts in SocialSpark. Though it allows bloggers to post at least three sponsored posts from SocialSpark each day, which was the only condition that stuck in my mind, it doesn't allow consecutive sponsored posts. Each sponsored post should be preceded and followed by a non-sponsored post. I don't know if changing the contents of a post so it won't be a sponsored post, like what I'm doing now will work. I will repeat the posting of my Dirt Devil's AccuCharge sponsored post, and well, I just hope they'll consider that.

SocialSpark is Exciting!

As time passes, I increasingly enjoy blogging because of the overwhelming learnings from the other blogs that I read each day. A lot of bloggers monetize their blogs through social networking sites offering opportunities to bloggers. However, just like the opportunities in real life, opportunities for bloggers didn’t come easily. Until SocialSpark was introduced!



Bloggers who join SocialSpark will find endless opportunities to monetize their blogs. They can always find opportunities that are appropriate for their blogs, and even filter its display, just like what I did as shown in the above screen shot. I filtered only those open opportunities where I am qualified and with an offer from $7 and above.

SocialSpark also helps bloggers improve their styles by showcasing examples of selected blogs who has taken the opportunities. It also allows bloggers to give their comments about each opportunity thus allowing them also to interact with the advertisers. The screen shot below shows just that!



In SocialSpark, bloggers and advertisers also have the opportunity to advertise contests or any other free opportunities that can help increase traffic to their sites. I can say that SocialSpark has considered all other needs of advertisers and bloggers to make their networking in SocialSpark more exciting!



SocialSpark's code of ethics ensures the following:

100% Audit-able In-Post Disclosure
100% Transparency
100% Real Opinions
100% Search Engine Friendly

To advertisers and my fellow bloggers, I've been looking forward to this opportunity to share to you the benefits that I and others who have signed up to SocialSpark enjoy. There is still a lot to tell, so sign up now and see for yourself!