I have just started to give my boys pocket money. They are ages 4 and 6. They get $3 a week, every Saturday. I am tying it in with chores such as making your beds, putting your toys away (still working on this one), putting your dirty clothes in basket etc.

I think we are still in the novelty stage because Harry comes home from school and says Mom what are my pocket money chores – both boys dried the pots for me the other night. Both of them had teatowels and Harry picked the pots off of the drainer dried them and then gave them to Sam who of course dried them some more and put them on the side. I must hasten to add I had quickly but discreetly got the breakables off the drainer beforehand. Wow, I hope this carries on until their teens, lol.

A couple of days after Sam got a temperature and was really tired. I kept him topped up with paracetomol and got him an early night. Harry started to experience side effects about 4 days after the vaccination. His side effects were much the same as Sam’s really but it seemed to hit him a bit harder. All 3 of us were given a dose of 0.5 and Sam and Harry are supposed to be going back for another 0.5 in a month – I am cancelling this appointment. I have spent all weekend whittling, worrying, asking opinions, looking on the web and just generally driving myself (and my husband) mad as to whether or not I have done the right thing giving them the vaccination in the first place. The outcome of my weekend thoughts are that:

1) Its too late to change what’s already done

2) I have found out that they are still protected a little even with 1 dose

3) Vaccinations can damage the immune system by reducing your own immunity to viruses. Now this is something that does make sense to me. My Dad gets the flu jab every year and has done ever since he was a semi-pro footballer. He has been getting it now for around 30 years. Before he started with the flu jab he was fine and used to cope with illnesses well. Now if there is any sign of a cold he is sure to get it – a lot worse than the person who gave him the cold. Another thing that has played a large part on his immune system not working as it should is the amount of antibiotics he has had. For others it’s drugs or smoking but for my Dad it’s antibiotics ! I have tried to talk to him but he knows best or so he says, sorry if you’re reading this Dad but stop popping the pills!

4) From what I am reading there is a lot of debate as to whether or not the vaccination has been properly tested

5) My kids are tough normally – they shake illnesses of quickly. I have them on probiotics, omega and vitamins daily which has helped with this.

6) They are not having the second shot in a month !

7) Think about things BEFORE YOU DO THEM! (Note to self)

I found out about Friday Follow earlier in the week and couldn’t wait for Friday to come. What’s it all about ? Click to enter a link to a blog post you have and that will add you to the list (this can only be done on a Friday). Copy and paste the banner onto a blog post. Then it’s just a case of visiting and following the top 3 blogs and any of the others from the list that appeal to you. Leave a comment to let them know that you are following them from Friday Follow and they should follow you back. If anyone follows you be sure to return the favour. Click below to start – oh and while you’re here feel free to look around.

Click here to enter your link and view the entire list of entered links…

Well here we are again, it comes around quick doesn’t it ? I have reached day 27 so far this month so compared to last months 26 day cycle and the previous months 25 day cycle it’s an improvement. My fertility guy has told me that I have a short luteal phase so I am hoping even if I am not pregnant to last out a few more days. The luteal phase for anyone who doesn’t know is the phase directly after ovulation. A luteal phase should last for between 10 and 16 days. It’s the time when the egg may get fertilised and implanted.

I have my appointment tomorrow to see him so I am just hoping it’s good news. He will have my blood test results back from day 21 so it will give him an idea as to whether the doubling the clomid dose actually made me ovulate. If it doesn’t look good then he wants to start the injections to make me ovulate which are a lot more expensive.

This month I have had no symptons of being tired, cranky or sore boobs until now. I do feel exhausted but that is most likely due to the fact that I have been up at 4am the last 2 mornings. My boobs have just started to hurt and feel swollen. That’s me done on the symptons because as you know from my last post on pregnancy I am not listening to them anymore – I had loads of symptons last month only to find out that I hadn’t even ovulated !

If you submit articles online then you will see the traffic that comes with this. On your articles you put links to your blog or website. It’s traffic and the best kind of traffic – free.

I know it can all seem a bit daunting at first but once you have written your first article and see the benefits, you will be hooked. I know I am, but, I can remember before I started to submit articles online how I had all doubts, such as ‘how do you write an article? where do you get your content? will anyone actually want to read what I write? To answer these questions, writing an article is easy, you are already a writer if you blog. With articles it’s just more targeted to your particular niche or interests. You get your content from the good old web. Google what you are looking for and there you have it – your information. You must however not copy what others have written, you can take the information and put it into your own words, but not just copy word for word. Yes, people will read your articles.

The next thing to consider is to make sure that you write articles with a good site. I have found Ezine Articles the best on the web. Google loves them which is great for you – you get higher ranking. They have lots of fabulous widgets, such as this that you can put on your blog or squidoo to link back to your articles.

Remember it’s all the linking that will get you better success as an online marketer. So if you are not already doing it start to submit articles online, then call back here and tell me about your success. Happy writing!

Previously at kids play park I used to be around the slide, or pushing my boys on the swings and then get called to the monkey bars because they couldn’t reach. Well, it’s official – I am not needed anymore! The last 2 times we have been to the park, the boys have played imaginery games, such as Pirates and they haven’t needed Mom.

The crazy thing is when I used to push them on the swings or watch them down the slide, I longed for this moment – now I have it, I want them to need me again! Does this sound crazy?

The boys made a friend of a Seal at Underwater World as you can see from the video below:

I am a bit late posting this, as it’s from last year, sorry guys, but I did want to get it onto my blog. You see last year, when Harry was at prep, towards the end of the year, we attended a parents evening. This was an evening where the parents got to have a chat with the teacher about how their children had done throughout the year and where we got to see some of the work that they had done over the year too.

Harry had been looking forward to the evening for about 2 weeks. Yes, I made the mistake of telling him it was coming up, which meant at least 1000 (felt like that many) times a day I would get asked, how many days? how many sleeps? , right down to how many minutes? You get the picture, he was really excited.

Anyway it really was a lovely evening, the teacher was really happy with Harry and said that he had, had a good year at Prep. This was especially good for us to hear because we had emigrated from the UK the year before and with that came the question how will it affect he boys? Harry showed us all his work that he had done throughout the year. I have included the pics so that you can see for yourself how proud he was.

Sam absolutely loves this song. He gets so into it with all the actions, he loves it. Harry pretends he is not into it any more (it’s not cool enough for a 6 year old) but I can still see him watching Sam with a smile when he’s in full flow with the Bear Hunt Song actions. Here’s a video of the song itself and over the next few days I will tape Sam in full action – he’s got to be the biggest Bear Hunt Song fan !

Finding free images online for your marketing can prove a tough task. Yes, it’s easy to find sites that will provide you with lots of quality photos if you are willing to pay for them. I used to spend lots of my time looking around the web for free images online and YES there are a few places that you can get these from. This post will list the ones that I have come accross, up to now and I will add any more I find in the future:

Dreamstime is my favourite so far. They will give you 50 free images before you start purchasing them. So if you just wanted to use the free images then thats ok. They have a good selection of free images online for you to use and it’s really easy to navigate yourself around the site. You don’t have to contribute to the site to use their free service. Here’s a free image from Dreamstime:

Creative Commons (click here to visit site) can also give you free images online. However, you will need to attribute back to the photographer. Here’s a free image from Creative Commons:

Photo courtesy of Kapungo at Creative Commons

(Notice how I have put a border around this image – I will show you how to do that in another post).

Another one that I have for you today is All Posters. Here you will need to join their affiliate program (free to join) and that will give you access to all the poster images that they have. You will need to refer back to All Posters, but it will link back to your affiliate program so when someone purchases a poster from the site you will get commission too. Heres an example of an All Posters image:





Buy at AllPosters.com


I have also started to get a lot of my own images now. Whenever I go out I always have my phone which has a built in camera and video options and take pictures of all sorts of things from road signs to birds to pineapples! (Yes, I have used all of these images). You will be amazed with what photo opportunities come your way when you look around. Amazon has many video / camera mobile phones available.

I absolutlely love massage. If I were rich I would be one of those women who have a massage once a week. However, saying that, I would no longer go to the spa’s etc. I have found a woman who does massage from home and she is so good. I have always in the past had a nice relaxing massage which don’t get me wrong has always been good. Lovely and relaxing and providing a bit of stress release as well as letting me escape for an hour or so. But, this time I was asked if I would like a remedial massage and because my neck area was in absolute knots (probably due to all the time I spend on my laptop) I decided to give it a try.

The therapist explained that at times it may hurt and just to let her know if it hurt too much. She asked me if I had any areas that I was getting pain from, so I told her about my neck area. It was so bad that when I moved my right arm, it hurt. The lady told me that women also hae a build up in there buttocks. Now there is definitely a build up of fat on my buttocks but I was hoping that this wasn’t what she was refering to. It wasn’t, she said that because women wear high heel (I don’t) and all other pressures that we put on our legs it causes a build up. I didn’t think that this would be a problem area because I had not experienced any pain there, probably the extra pounds in that area were providing protection? Ok, ok, I know I am clutching at straws, trying to excuse that extra portion of apple sponge and custard.

When she did get to the buttock area and after working on it for a few minutes pressed to release the tension, I nearly flew through the roof, it killed! Anyway, she did this a few times and every time she did it the pain got a bit less. The pain there when I was massaged was actually worse than when she did my neck!

After the massage she told me that I would probably ache for a few days (I did) and then I should start to feel the benefits. I also had to drink plenty of water that night and over the next couple of days. The benefits were great, a lot better than other massages, I must have had so many knots because now I felt so good.

I am now hooked on Remedial massage, no more nicey, nicey massages for me.

Ovulation and fertility is just not happening for us. I had my appointment yesterday with Paul Stokes my fertility guy who went through what had been happening over the last couple of Clomid attempts. By looking at my progesterone levels that he has because of blood tests, it seems that it’s not working for me, not on the 50mg dosage that I took last month anyway. In fact my progesterone level last month was lower on 50mg than the previous month on 25mg dosage of Clomid. Both months on Clomid have been lower than the previous month without Clomid – just on my own.

We are doubling the dosage this month, up to 100mg. Not looking forward to double the tiredness, swollen belly and swollen boobs, but, hey ho, it’s a small price to pay if it works! He told me that if it does not look like I respond to this then we will look at daily injections with monitoring to bring on ovulation. This will cost $800 per month – needless to say that we will not be able to afford it every month.

Please let us get ovulation and fertility this time, 3rd time lucky hopefully