Edit; Still nothing. I am so moving this domain to my reseller. It’s absolutely ridiculous that they can’t reply to tickets and close them before issues are resolved.. and better yet, don’t even offer a phone number where you can contact technical support. I will never, ever recommend these guys to anyone else.

I am absolutely annoyed with the “support” guy I’ve been dealt with over the issues with Herbrokentoy.com. The site has been down most of the day and that is very unusual. I’ve been with my host for 6 years and have only had to report issues a handful of times, which are usually dealt with and resolved in a matter of an hour or two. I got a response to the first ticket I put in, shortly before the guy closed it. He said it was being worked on and should be back up shortly. That was almost 2 hours ago. About a minute or two after I got the email, the site was back up and running. Then, about 45 minutes ago, the site went down again! The guy closed the ticket, so I had to reopen another one. Ugh.

I have no idea, if there were still pending issues, why he’d close the first ticket. I mean, I could’ve just replied to the first one, rather than opening another but noooooooooo.

This is absolutely frustrating. I guess it’s another one of those “things aren’t going my way” kind of days. sigh

I love it when I find new blogs to read! I am excited to share a new find with you, My thoughts, Ideas and Ramblings! Lisa is a work at home mother of two, to a sweet little girl and a newborn baby boy (adorable pictures available in her birth story entry)! I think you’ll all enjoy her blog, especially all of you mommy-bloggers!

Another great find is Life in General! I just got a really good chuckle over one of the photos of Kim’s son filling his baseball cap with sand! And what better thing for him to do with that sand-filled cap, than to turn it upside down on his head! Kim is a mother, who enjoys crafty things like sewing, knitting, scrap-booking, crocheting and quilting!

These two ladies have great blogs for you to read, so go pay them both a visit!!

Nothing is going my way today. Absolutely nothing! I decided to take Jo out to dinner tonight, even though I’d already treated him to a “Father’s day” dinner (we count our kitties lol). Anyway. We decided on Olive Garden because we haven’t had that in a long time. We pull into the parking lot and see at least 10-15 people sitting outside because they’re unable to get in. Needless to say, we went somewhere else. Our next stop was East Side Mario’s. The parking lot looked pretty full but we didn’t see anyone standing outside. Once we got inside, we could see several people waiting and overheard some of them talking about an “hour” wait. Again, we decided to try somewhere else. We scooter poot on over to Swiss Chalet, we could already see it was packed. Next door was Boston Pizza, one of many here in Calgary. We really couldn’t tell if the place was real busy because it shared parking lots with Swiss Chalet. Of course, once we got inside, we could see it too was busy. At this point, I’d rather eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich than have to keep trucking around town. We decided we’d try one more place though, the Boston Pizza on 32nd Ave. The parking lot, again, was pretty full but we decided to go inside anyway. The hostess said we could be seated right away but it could be upwards of 45 minutes before our meals were brought out. As hungry as we were, we figured it’d be worth the wait and were seated.

I ordered the 7 Cheese, Baked Ravioli and Jo had the Smoky Mountain Spaghetti. It was ok, I guess. The sauce just didn’t sit well with me. It was more like vegetable soup broth or something, not really tomato sauce. I was a little disappointed because so many people keep recommending Boston Pizza to us. I’ve definitely had better but I was hungry, so I ate it. Jo had an enormous plate and was unable to finish, the waitress asked if he wanted a to-go box for the rest. He didn’t want to be rude, so he said he was too full and didn’t want it to spoil. haha!

Now I’m sitting here, at nearly 3am and tinkering with a theme I was hoping to have up by now. The bullet image for the list is driving me nuts. It only seems to work on the links area and not in the categories or archives. I’m so anal about stuff like that, about my themes and such, that I refuse to make it public until everything is a-ok with me. Hopefully once I’ve had some rest, I can look back over all of the coding and see what I might be missing right now, that will fix it.

I need to finish updating my links too. Here and on Herbrokentoy.com. It will be done today, oh yes it will!

That being said.. I think I’ll go night, night now!

Last year, my husband and I decided to sell our home. I’d just recently been laid off from work and it just seemed like the right thing to do at that time. We had a good amount of equity in our home, which would definitely help us out in getting re-settled somewhere else. We put the house on the market, for sale, by owner but didn’t have any luck. Our next step was to list it with a local agent, where it stayed for over 6 months!

Many people have dealt with similar issues as we did. For those of you looking at selling property fast, may I suggest MPG Investments? They buy UK properties and help homeowners sell their homes fast! For example, those who are stuck in a property chain, are selling due to debts or a divorce or even those hoping to avoid repossession! They are specialist in residential property and because of this, MPG avoids the fuss, fees and delays that are commonly associated with selling a property through a real estate agent! Best of all, they could buy your home for cash, in as little as 7 days!

Do you really want to see your house sit on the market for months or even years, with no bites? Neither would I!

My right knee is killing me. Maybe that’s exaggerating a little but it really feels like it is! Ever since having knee surgery at 13 years old, I’ve had arthritis. It’s never felt this painful though and the pain seems to be going from my right knee, through my thigh and into my hip area. Sitting in any position isn’t helping. Standing helps slightly, but only for a moment before the pain comes back. Laying down only makes it worse. Apparently there’s no room for comfort today. If I had some Tylenol (or any pain reliever), I’d take it. Unfortunately for me, we have nothing of the sort. I really don’t think Pepto Bismol is going to give any relief to my pain and that’s all we have other than Jo’s nasal spray (that’s also not going to solve my problem lol). Guess I’m s.o.l on this one.

My cats are curled up in the bed, beside one another. I’d like to hop into bed and cuddle up with them. As odd as it may sound, they actually get along a lot better since getting our new mattresses. Come to think of it, that sounds rather silly but it’s true! I think I’ll go catch a nap with them, if I can get comfortable enough to rest!

ps; I had to edit the title to state “28″. Apparently I’m losing my memory on top of getting arthritis early, because I aged myself a year. haha

I have a hard time filling out some of my profiles around the web. Why? Because I always get stuck on the part that questions my favorite books or favorite types of books. It’s really a hard question to answer because I like nearly anything. What makes a good book, for me, is keeping me interested! The storyline just has to keep me wanting more. It has to be one of those that grabs onto me from the start, so much so that it’s nearly impossible for me to put it down long enough to run to the restroom! I’ve just read an excerpt from Dancing Backward In Paradise by Vera Jane Cook, and I can honestly say, I think this is a perfect example of one of those books! I’m already drawn to it because of where it takes place - in the south! I was born and raised in Georgia, so the states surrounding my home state are familiar to me. I always tend to find this appealing, however, that’s not the only reason that I’m eager to read it! It has the perfect ingredients for the kind of novel you won’t put down until you’ve read the last word; lies, murder and betrayal.

Only a truly gifted writer can break your heart, make you laugh and inspire at the same time. Dancing Backward In Paradise by Vera Jane Cook is a brilliant debut that explores the definition of happiness and tries to make sense of the unexpected turns that create the richness and texture of life. Grace Place is nineteen-years-old and lives in Paradise, the Paradise Trailer Park in Hixon, Tennessee. The year is 1966 and Grace is content exploring the back roads, swimming in the cold waters of Tennessee and dancing in the wind. When her life is thrown off track by a man named Lenny Bean, Grace becomes entwined in a medley of lies, murder and betrayal. Trying desperately to remain true to herself, while the life she has created begins to crumble, Grace is more determined than ever to change her destiny.

“You’re going to New York City, honey” her mother told her. “It’s the only place I know of where things are so damn crazy and mean, so miraculous and exciting, so painfully alienating that you just might find yourself amongst the confusion.”

Accompanied by the most unlikely of friends, Ginny Jo, a tough-talking leader with a no-nonsense approach to life, Grace is on her way to New York City. The place that her mother had long ago told her was the only place where her life would become something worth living. There amidst the 1960’s world of civil rights, hippies and ambition, Grace begins living the dreams that her mother always held and that she never believed existed. A place that can only be called Paradise.
Absorbing and compelling, Dancing Backward In Paradise poses the question: Can

I decided to take Jo out for dinner last night and even let him pick where we went. I decided I wouldn’t limit him to a price or location, so he chose Red Lobster! I had an idea about what I wanted, but he didn’t. I usually get shrimp, and that’s exactly what I got! Shrimp linguine alfredo and fried shrimp! Jo ordered a steamed lobster tail with a sirloin steak! We both decided we wanted an appetizer too, so we ordered the lobster pizza. My heavens, I do believe that’s the best pizza I’ve ever eaten! I would’ve been happy with a slice or two of that with a grilled shrimp salad! Next time, I’ll do that instead of ordering such a big meal and having so much to bring home. haha!

When we left, I said “Thank you for letting me take you out to dinner, it was delicious!” LOL. It was his “father’s day” (even though the only kids we have are cats lol) dinner because he works Sunday.

Mortgage250 was created for those in the UK who are wishing to borrow less than £250,000. Their service is to provide you with the best mortgages available, through an impartial mortgage finding service! Their partners portfolios include more than 8,000 mortgage products, from some of the leading lenders! They’ll put you in touch with the leading FSA (Financial Services Authority) authorized mortgage brokers!

One of the popular mortgages their brokers provide is the buy to let mortgage. Many people that purchase homes, for the intention or purpose of renting them out, do so with a buy to let mortgage. The criteria for these buy to let mortgages are often more restrictive than other residential mortgages. Because of this, you may be expected to place at the very least, 20% down as a deposit. If you’re looking into a buy-to-let mortgage, you should know that they are not regulated by the FSA, if less than 40% of the purchased property is being used by the borrower, or even their immediate families.

I don’t know about you, but I am completely addicted to forensic shows! It started out with true story TV shows like “Forensic Files” and “New Detectives” and has only gotten worse with TV shows like CSI and Law and Order SVU! Every single night, I watch CSI (the original) and CSI Miami. Our cable provider here, Shaw, is fabulous! I can watch them back to back and once they’re over, I flip to another channel where I’m greeted with Law and Order Criminal Intent, which is followed by Law and Order SVU!! Our cable company back in Georgia was not this good! Even with digital cable, then even with DirectTV, we were never this lucky with our favorite shows! It was always hit or miss, except for with Spike. At least Spike showed multiple CSI episodes back to back. I just love it!

Do you watch any of these shows?

The lease on our apartment will be up in the next couple of months. At this point, we’re not sure if we will come back to Calgary after our going back to Georgia. Once we figure out exactly where we will be, permanently (Georgia, Calgary or even back in Newfoundland with Jo’s family), one thing is for sure, roomster.net can help us with our apartment search! Roomster.net will make our searching so much easier! They’re the leading roommate, apartment and sublet site for the US, Canada and the U.K!

Searching for roommates or apartments is very easy! I just did a search for the area in and around Atlanta, Georgia (have family there and we have considered the area a couple of times) and was given several locations that fit what I was looking for! Choose “Search” from the tool tab, then choose from the options provided in the drop down menus or enter the information to narrow down your search! Within in a matter of seconds you’re given a list of places that meet your criteria! It’s that easy!

Inherdreams.com; I would hope the name of the site is self explanatory but if not, it’s a dream-log. I figured it was something different and something I would likely enjoy doing!

I plan on trying to keep up with the dreams that I have, or at least the most vivid ones and perhaps include the interpretations that I find for them via the web! I’ll go ahead and warn you, I have some pretty out-there dreams / nightmares. Some are rather, horrifying (if it were something that might happen IRL) and others are just funny. I mean, some of my dreams are simply of me flying and in order to speed up, I’m required to press my belly button (isn’t that funny lol)!

Anyway! There you have it!

I’m really starting to wonder if those are appropriate nicknames for my two cats, Bella and Jynx!! I really can’t remember how the names sprung to mind, other than “Smell” Rhymed with Bell and we usually call Bella, Bell-Bell (if not Smell Bell). Then there’s Jynx, who is most often referred to as “Jynxy” (the resident grump of the household). Stinky rhymes with Jynxy, so maybe that’s just how it happened. Hrm..

I wish you could see the two of them right now. We’ve just bought new bedding, which is now on the new bed and they wasted absolutely no time claiming the bed. Bella is sprawled out across the bed, while Jynx is sprawled out mostly on Jo’s side of the bed! Normally they’d be clawing one another’s eyes out by now but not tonight! They’re too content!

Speaking of cats though. I’ve mentioned in the past that Bella is a strange one. Well, I’m starting to think she has a sweet tooth! I had a small box of TimBits (from Tim Horton’s) sitting on my desk. There were two left in the box but the box was closed. She likes to hop up on my desk, which I think is because she wants to send naughty messages to my IM friends (haha, just kidding). Anyway. She hopped up on my desk and somehow managed to get her chubby paws down into the box, and also managed to pull one of the TimBits out of the box! She looked at me, after doing this, like “Oh, did you see that mommy?? That TimBit hopped right out of the box and onto my claw!!”. Like she’s really surprised the TimBit is stuck to her claw or something! She waves it in front of her like it’s a press-on-nail that she’s very proud of! Hahaha! Of course I would never let my cats eat a donut, even a small one like a TimBit. I took the TimBit away and put it into the trashcan and she looked at me, as if to say “Shewww.. my mommy is a lifesaver!!! *insert Bella staring at her claw as if she misses that delicious TimBit that she ALMOST got to eat*”!!! Not 10 seconds after putting the TimBit into the trash, did she reach her chubby paw back into the TimBit box (yes, I know I should have thrown the whole thing out.. but someone might have wanted that last TimBit lol) and did the same thing again!!! TimBit = attached to Bella’s claw! At this point, I’m having a hard time being upset that she’s done this because number one, it’s cute as heck and number two, it’s hilarious! So again, I take away her beloved TimBit, that she’s worked so hard for again and threw it away! This time, I threw away the box too, it’s not like anything was left in it this time! When I returned back to my desk, I caught Bella licking her paw.. and she just kept licking and licking.. and licking! The sound of each lick began to annoy me, haha! I’m really surprised there’s any fur left on her right paw. Even after I cleaned them off, she kept licking it!

I guess “mommy” didn’t really stop her from enjoying her “treat”!

As most of you already know, I have been participating in PayPerPost, where posties (and for those of you that aren’t familiar with the term, bloggers) are paid to advertise on blogs. I signed up back in April and made my first post on April 23rd! Since then, I have made over $2400! Of the money I’ve been paid thus far, which is nearly $800, I have put the majority into my savings account.

Well, this week has been full of all kinds of new things! It began with the roll-out of the new site but one of the most awesome things that’s happened, the folks over at PayPerPost released that they’ve raised another $7 million! Because PayPerPost is so awesome, they’re allowing us posties to enjoy some of that by offering posties the chance at $10.77, $70 and $700 opportunities! Just when you think PayPerPost couldn’t be anymore generous to it’s posties, they go and do something like this!!

When asked “What should PayPerPost do with the $7 million?”, one of the things that comes to mind is what they’re actually doing right now. Offering posties the chance to win big! Hey and maybe since it’s summer, they could send someone on an excellent summer retreat!! I’m sure there are many posties who, because of the money involved, are unable to take a real vacation. I think that’d be great, to send a postie and their family on a wonderful vacation somewhere!! Lately, they’ve been great at scoring some pretty fun entertainment opportunities. I think that’s another thing they should keep doing! Keep everything as fun as possible and what’s more fun than “entertainment”, right?!

And to the great team at PayPerPost, I say to you - Congratulations on all of your hard work and in raising another $7 million!!

The PayPerPost Revolution Accelerates, Sponsored
Blogging Marketplace Secures $7 Million Series B

Draper Fisher Jurvetson leads round and joins Board of Directors

ORLANDO, FL – (June 12, 2007) – PayPerPost, the leading marketplace for advertisers to reach bloggers and other consumer content creators, today announced it has completed a $7 million second round investment led by Draper Fisher Jurvetson, an investor in the company’s Series A and one of the world’s leading high-technology venture capital firms. The financing brings the total amount of capital raised by PayPerPost to over $10 million, giving the company considerable resources for further development as the industry’s leading Consumer Generated Advertising marketplace. Additional participants in the round include existing investors Inflexion Partners and Village Ventures as well as new investor DFJ Gotham. With this investment, DFJ Managing Director Josh Stein also joins PayPerPost’s Board of Directors.

“PayPerPost created this exciting new advertising space and has established itself as the industry leader,” said Ted Murphy, chief executive officer of PayPerPost. “Although we’ve only used a portion of our first round capital, this added support from investors unlocks significant growth potential. Our content creator and advertiser ROI metrics clearly demonstrate the upside for PayPerPost’s model. We intend to use this capital to build the infrastructure, visibility and professional expertise necessary to reach and retain a greater network of advertisers and content creators than ever before.”

Since its founding in June of 2006, PayPerPost has signed more than 6,500 advertisers to its groundbreaking service, which has enabled Consumer Content Creators to be compensated for their efforts discussing specific companies, products or services via blogs, videos or other media. The content creators are required to disclose relationships with advertisers on their blog, providing transparency for the end reader. Over 125,000 Internet postings, most in the form of blogs, have already earned money for their creators through PayPerPost’s innovative marketplace. PayPerPost recently released PayPerPost Direct, a disruptive new service that allows advertisers to contract and negotiate directly with individual bloggers they identify through a safe, managed system.

“PayPerPost has laid a strong foundation for the future,” noted Tim Draper, founder and managing director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson. “It continues to attract a critical mass of participants from both the advertising and blogging communities. Analogous to Overture’s sponsored search model, we believe PayPerPost’s business model holds disruptive potential and will enable the company to thrive in the evolving paid-content arena.”

To mark the $7 million dollar funding, PayPerPost has launched a new website detailing the company’s service offering at http://www.payperpost.com. Bloggers and advertisers can easily sign up at the site and begin leveraging the self service marketplace.

My husband just made the best pork tenderloins and rice! It’s definitely a late dinner but it was well worth the wait! We had almost decided to skip dinner tonight or just grab from something town. I am so happy we decided against that and went for this! I don’t think there’s anything that could have satisfied me anymore than this tonight!

I wonder if he’ll notice when I snag the last loin on the grill???!

Trying to stick to a budget can sometimes be difficult. Especially when it comes to those items you just have to have or some of the items you really need. That is where a coupon will come in handy (When aren’t they, right??)! I use coupons fairly often, whether I’m physically in one of the stores I love (grocery or department) or even online. Why pay the full price of any item, if you don’t have to? That would be just silly!

You can find online shopping coupons over at Couponchief.com for over 1000 of your favorite stores! My husband and I just purchased a new mattress set and because of this, we have decided to also purchase new bedding! We have decided to browse around at Overstock. I can save $10 on a purchase of $99.

While browsing around their large selection of stores, I found one of their latest stores to be added; Joann.com. I know many of you work with crafts and have children for whom you do scrapbooks for! They have a great selection of scrap-booking supplies! I think I’ll have to splurge a little and add some more pages to my own scrapbooks!