Our Blog Is Almost Two Years Old

It’s hard to believe that the first post was published on our blog on New Years Eve 2008, which is almost 2 years ago.

I had great hopes for this site, and Debbie and I spent a while trying to come up with a good domain name, the meaning of which you can see if you visit our About page.

At the time of creating the blog, both Debbie and I were creating lenses on Squidoo, as well as being involved on a new site Tagfoot as mentors.

I was also still living in Florida, with Debbie in the UK, and we were still 7 months away from my moving back to the UK so that we could be together all the time.

Over the months Debbie found it hard to get enthusiastic about writing, and so most of the articles in the last year have been up to me.   I also found it hard to work a full time job, create lenses on Squidoo, write articles on Associated Content, and try to earn money online to suplement my income from my full time job.

As a result, some weeks have seen just two articles published on here.  Firstly an automatic post that features my Tweets on Twitter for the previous week, and secondly a post that highlights the articles that I have published on Associated Content in the last week.

At this time I am not 100% sure which direction the blog is going in, since I would dearly love for Debbie to be writing again, since she has a lot of experience in dealing with children with emotional and behavioral problems, and also she has been ill recently and could write a wonderful diary on her history of Meniere’s Disease.

I have been posting shopping bargains and special offers as well, which is another area of diversity, and so in some ways it might be a good idea to create multiple blogs rather than just have this solitary one.

The one thing that will not change in 2011 is that the blog will go on, and hopefully if things continue to go well for us, Debbie will come back and write more, and give our readers more to think about and to enjoy.

If you do enjoy this blog, please can you give us a Thumbs Up on Facebook or any other social sites that you use, and hopefully our readership will grow over the coming year, as will the number of our articles.

Merry Christmas to you all and a Happy and Prosperous New Year for 2011.
Tony & Debbie


Apologies

rm2Oh dear… where to start?

Tony keeps gently reminding me that we have a blog and that some input from me would be nice.

I keep meaning to write on here, but what can I say?   My head is full of pregnant daughter… make that HEAVILY pregnant daughter, her up and coming house move whilst heavily pregnant,  Tony’s plans for coming home which just happens to be the same week as my first Grandchild will arrive,  Rocketmoms on Squidoo which I just joined, and the major, number One distraction in my life… TAGFOOT!!

I’ve just completed my first Rocketmoms lens When Debbie Met Tony

I have no idea how I get all this stuff done and still manage to work full time.

I’m barely sleeping where I’m so excited about Tony coming back and the baby arriving… oh, we know the sex!!! 

When Tony is back, he’ll then have to find a job here and then we’re moving house at the end of October and oh, I almost forgot… there’s a little thing called a wedding to plan too :)

Isn’t life great?


My First Day Back At Work

Today was my first day back at work after three months of being unemployed.

So naturally I was rather nervous, as most of us are when starting a new job, and as is typical for me, every new job I have takes me to somewhere I don’t know.  This one is no different, at Juno Beach, just north of West Palm Beach in South Florida.

It’s a 45 mile drive to work, and as I had to be there by 9:30am to meet my new boss, I thought I had better leave by 7:45am in case the traffic was heavy.   Well as it turns out, pretty much nobody went to work by the look of it, so the roads were fairly empty, and I got there by 8:50am!   I still had to wait until 9:45am for my boss to arrive, as he had to go to the other office first, so by the time introductions had been done in the department and I had got my security card etc, it was time for lunch.

My boss was busy, so I took a walk out, a chance to call Debbie, and also my Son, both in England.   The office is in a small strip mall, and across the road is a park.  The other side of the park is the Ocean Drive, and beyond that the beach!   There was a wooden walkway with steps leading down to the beach, so I stood there to make my phone calls and took advantage of the nice breeze that was blowing, it was great to not feel as sticky as I had just 1/4 mile inland.

The afternoon went well, with me getting into the systems and looking at a few programs, and then the drive home was fairly uneventful, getting home at 6:30pm.

I thought as I had been sticky, it would be a good idea to put the sauna on, and with luck someone had already used it, so it was still pretty warm.  Nice to only need 15 minutes to warm it up instead of almost an hour!   I had a good sauna, did 30 lengths in the pool and then back up my well trodden six flights of stairs to the condo, by which time it was close to 8pm.

I was ravenous by this time, having only had grapefruit juice and a banana before I left this morning, and just water and two cups of green tea all day.  I didn’t care to go out to eat, I preferred to explore a bit and make my phone calls instead.  Starving I was, but I didn’t want to overdo things as it was late, so I just made a cheese and tomato sandwich with some German Black Bread (Pepperidge Farm, really good) and peeled and sliced 3 carrots and had those with some ranch dressing.  Yumm…  Followed by a Raspberry Fat Free Yoghurt.  That hit the spot, and wasn’t too heavy either.   Now if I can do the same tomorrow, I ought to lose a couple of pounds for sure…

Watched a bit of tv, nothing much on though.  Caught up on my email, tried to print a couple of documents, but the ink was low on the printer, need to redo those at work tomorrow.  And now, last thing before bed, to catch up on Tagfoot.

So now I am winding down, and about ready for that trip to the Land Of Nod.   Catch you tomorrow… zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…

In A Word – Blisters

Well it had to come I suppose, I have been pushing myself all week to exercise more, and have been doing a good 2 1/4 mile walk at a fast pace every morning, with the result that I now have blisters forming on the balls of my feet.

I decided to slow things down a bit yesterday morning, which helped, my feet weren’t too bad during the day, but then I went on another 4 mile hike yesterday evening which left them sore again.  I was determined not to miss my walk this morning, but knew it had to be done at an even slower pace.  I also wanted to try and take a swim after, to make the most of my workout routine.

I lost track of how long the walk took this morning, but it was a while longer than the 36 minutes of the previous days, helped along with some more good music from my trusty MP3 player, today being a fresh batch of random songs from the same selection.

The walk starts and ends with going down and back up 6 flights of steps from my 7th floor condo, and within 10 minutes of having got back from the walk, I was changed and back down for a dip in the pool.  I managed 20 lengths, then back upstairs again, by this time just after 10am.  It really is nice to be living in Florida where you can do this sort of thing most of the year.  If anything the summer time is hte worst, since it’s just too hot and humid, even in the early morning.

I was feeling nicely energised after the walk and swim, and not very hungry surprisingly, so I made do with an orange and a banana.  I then set to on the internet, catching up with messages and postings on various sites.

Before I knew it, 1:30pm had come around, so I legged it downstairs for a 3rd time to put the sauna on, then grabbed a light lunch of cheese and tomato sandwich, my favorite since I was knee high to a grasshopper.  I topped this off with a yoghurt.

An hour later I headed down to the sauna, then did 20 lengths in the pool, took a steam, and another 30 lengths, before heading up those steps for a 4th time.   That made a total of 70 lengths in the pool, my daily record, plus I think a record for going up and down stairs.

I was going to have some homemade chicken soup for dinner, but didn’t feel like something that heavy, so I made do with some sliced carrots and ranch dip, followed by an apple and orange.

My day of working out wasn’t over yet though, as I went out for another walk to check out the opening times for the local Farmers Market and for a couple of items to Target.  I hadn’t been to this Farmers Market before, but Tim, who I rent from went today and got some real bargains, all important if you are on a tight budget.  We also discovered a nice park around the corner from the market, with several walks and lots of ornamental shrubs and trees.  I guess we covered about 2 miles in total.

So here I am at almost midnight trying to get my daily post completed before the day ends.  I have spent the evening trying to catch up with comments on my Squidoo Lenses and also on Tagfoot.   And so it’s almost time for bed, catch you tomorrow.

A Recipe For Victory

victoryA Recipe For Victory

 

Ingredients;

One  large,  good, solid idea

A good pinch of AIM/GOALS

One unique theme

A cool name

One cute logo

A massive amount of effective Support

 

METHOD:

 

Develop the idea over long periods of time.

Keep your aims clear and focused.

Blend in a unique theme and add a dollop of a cool name.  Mix with this in equal parts a cute logo.

Test, test and test again.  Invite friends to sample your product at regular intervals.  Encourage them to tag, tag, and tag some more.

Throw in a helping of Adsense and a pint of Amazon. This will produce revenue.

Blend all ingredients together and add some badges and ample amounts of goodies.

Pour mixture into Foot shaped tins and cook for as long as it takes.

Meantime, cherish, nurture and encourage the taggers in their footsteps.

When the mixture is ready, and only you’ll know when, hit the

GO LIVE BUTTON’

Stand back, admire and be proud in your  VICTORY  because your creation will rise and become the best on the net.

 

This blog entry is a contest entry on Tagfoot