I guess it would appear I am due for my monthly blog post here. lol Sorry, it’s not that I have intentionally put your guys on the backburner or in the dark it’s just that for about 2 weeks of May I was almost totally offline. My PC decided one morning that it just didn’t want to load my desktop. So I took it into a PC repair shop and they concluded that my Windows was jacked up and needed to be re-installed. NO one ever wants to hear this and especially when your sole income source revolves around the data stored on your PC. Lucky for me I have the paid version of Roboform, so all of my site passwords and log-ins were backed up but at the same time I lost most of the software I had purchased over my internet marketing journey. So slowly I’ve been having to contact software distributors to try and get the downloads again. Royal suckage!
The second week of my computer giving me problems really started to become an issue for me because of two things; an upcoming article review deadline and sudden backpain again! The article deadline was my own fault. Remember in my last post I had mentioned a company wanted to send me a free product in exchange for a review on my site? Well, they sent it out to me just a few days before my PC started having issues so I told them they could expect the article review to be up on my site within 5-7 business days after receiving the product.
Anyhow, so the next thing I know my PC gets fixed only it has a new problem. It took another week for them to figure out the new problem was a result of their own doing. They had removed my graphic card saying it was no good and they replaced it with a lower quality one. After getting the run around and waiting for a new one to be ordered, they finally put in my new graphic card and all is well.
During this week of figuring out my PC issues I have that horrible back pain again and it’s so bad that I cannot even sit at my desk for 5 minutes without sharp pain in my lower back and a pulling sensation in my hip. So now I am in physical therapy to see if they can see if maybe what I am doing in the gym with weight training is aggravating my back or if it’s a posture issue at my desk.
So needless to say, between my PC being inoperable for about 2 weeks and this back pain, I have not been working too hard at my business. lol
Most of my days involve me putting in about 2 hours at the gym, blog posting on a few other hobby blogs I have and reading junk online. Oh and I am also really good at abusing my body. Check out my latest war wound (those of you on my Facebook have already seen this). I got this baby from doing front squats and apparently the bar was not placed up high enough on my deltoids so lesson learned there.
I did ok earnings. Adsense was a little low. I did $704 through Adsense and my main site that earns via the Google Affiliate Network had it’s highest month yet of $456. So I did about $1,160 for May. Just a little bit lower than what I did in April but I am ok with that. Like I said, I haven’t really done much work the past few months and yet I am still earning.
With only 1 more week left for my son at school, I am starting to get anxious about how this summer is going to look for me. It’s going to cost me more money to workout during the summer now since I will now have to pay $2 per hour of childcare at my gym and I am there about 2 hours a day. My younger sister was hinting and then finally straight up asked me if I would be willing to watch my nieces for the summer. One is the same age as my son and one is 2 years older but the problem is the kids start bickering the longer they are around each other and then expect me to be a referee. That part isn’t so bad but it’s HOW they handle me to be the referee. They camp out beside me at my desk poking my arm until I stop mid-sentence typing to look at them or they will say “whatcha doin?”
When It’s just my son home for the summer it’s not a big deal. He understands the rules. he knows that when I am in my office and on my PC, I am working. My nieces don’t seem to comprehend this whole idea of working from home. They think if I am on the PC, I am on the PC like their mom and dad which only involves playing video games and Facebook games. The other issue is my youngest niece will constantly come in and ask me when am I done so they can swim and she will repeatedly do this about every 30-40 minutes until I just give up on my workday. I pretty much told my sister when she asked me that this was probably not a good idea because it won’t allow me to concentrate on my work but I told her I would think about it. In the meantime they already fired my cousin whom was suppose to be watching them for the summer. *sigh*
My mom just found out last week she got laid off and has not mentioned it to my younger sister yet but I think if she finds out, she will assume my mom will watch the girls which just comes right back to the same issues since I live at home with my parents. (All the more reason why I should be working my butt off right now on my sites so that I can earn more money and move out!)
Well this turned into a really long post and my back is killing me already which means it’s time to get up and stretch! Talk to you all soon!
RSS Feeds
on 
on 
on 
on 
Dang! Sounds like life sucks right about now doesn’t it. Hope things turn around for you. I can sympathize with the PC. My laptop died a few weeks ago. Turns out it was the motherboard and unrepairable. They managed to get my data extracted to an external hard drive but I have yet to replace the laptop. Don’t really want to spend the money but will need to. Trying to put it off.
There is no way I could concentrate with kids around. I have a hard enough time doing stuff as it is. Sounds like you are the same way. If you do end up watching them, I wish you luck.
Finally, how much weight did you have on the squat bar? That bruise looks awful. Hope your back gets better.
kidgas recently posted..I Finally Started a WordPress Blog
The bar weighs 45 lbs and since I was trying to not push myself too hard since it was my first time, I just used the bar. I do bruise easily but this was rather ridiculous. I am getting all kinds of attention from it. Strangers either think I have some abusive man at home or they assume I get into bar fights and am a “trouble maker”. If you look closely, you will spot another bruise on the opposite arm in relatively the same location. It’s just about 10x smaller but the big one catches the eye first, no doubt. It first appeared 2 Sundays ago and I had several women at church come up to me and ask me what happened. This past Sunday I wore a sweater over it to avoid the questions again. lol
When all of this happened, I did toy with the idea of getting a laptop and I even looked at the new towerless-PCs. I ended up spending a total of $330 on this repair so I was already about 1/3 of the way to a new PC. lol
Dude – yuck on the bruise. Sorry about that, ouch! I haven’t done squats for a while, but the leg extension machine and hack squat machines work well without that problem.
And sorry to hear about your PC – all the more reason to get a Mac (so my wife’s iPad2 keeps whispering to me). I dread the day that happens to my computer, but at least you’re making some great money w/o working too hard (on the PC I mean – sounds like you’re working hard enough in the gym).
Maybe your back pain is related to the squats? That kills your lower spine unless you keep your posture just so. All the more reason not to work out (so says my lazy inner Fat Albert).
jamesthejust recently posted..California Approves ETax While Texas Vetoes It
Get yourself a trap bar and do trap bar deadlifts. Honestly, I have suffered with back problems for ages and wouldn’t dream of doing squats.
The TB DL keeps you in a more upright plane of movement and no ugly bruises. Plus it stops the same compression on the spine too.
Hey an IM blog going down the fitness route
Dave recently posted..nofollow
Yea, I am keeping it real.
I air out my dirty laundry with my dating life too! haha!
Wow that sucks about the PC and the back – does not make it easy to work at all! I don’t know about you, but sometimes even the smallest changes to the routine I have going can make a huge difference to my productivity. So I’m not surprised you don’t want to look after the kids in summer! At least you can say you’re earning money when you’re away from the computer though
Ruth recently posted..My Process For Building Email Lists On Niche Sites
They camp out beside me at my desk poking my arm until I stop mid-sentence typing to look at them or they will say “whatcha doin?”
This is good to hear. I have two kids and they cannot seem to entertain themselves for more than 5 minutes and/or bicker. So I am not even going to try and work over the summer except the bare minimum maintenance.
Glad you to hear you are doing well despite a few bumps and bruises. And crashes. And back pain. Sorry!
Carrie recently posted..May Earnings Report
Sara,
What version of Windows were you using? Couldn’t they set it back to one of the restore points?
I think some of the automatic updates have been screwing things up. Yesterday, Outlook wouldn’t let me do anything with my emails, it prompted a repair function, which took three hours to get through.
>>My younger sister was hinting and then finally straight up asked me if I would be willing to watch my nieces for the summer.
Is this the same sister that lived in your house rent free? Is she planning on paying you?
In the meantime they already fired my cousin whom was suppose to be watching them for the summer. *sigh*
… but I think if she finds out, she will assume my mom will watch the girls
It sounds like your sister is a moocher that needs to learn that everyone else’s sole purpose isn’t to revolve in her orbit.
Carla recently posted..EzineArticles Loses Its Mind Post Panda
I have Windows XP and the problem was it wasn’t accepting .NET framework updates anymore which is pretty vital now since apparently everything we use uses .NET Framework. I personally couldn’t system restore at home because my desktop stopped loading. I couldn’t even access Safe Mode. It froze on the system specs. never really figured out why it was doing that and why in their shop they were able to access my desktop immediately. Oh well.
Is this the same sister that lived in your house rent free? Is she planning on paying you?
Nope, different sister. This is my younger sister.
I know they are in a difficult situation because they have to work but this is something all parents must face and most people would have to put their kids in summer programs or daycare for the summer and I guess that is just not an option for them because essentially it’s like one of them would be working just for childcare costs.
I still haven’t given them an answer but I am 100% positive I won’t be doing it. Just afraid that my mom might feel obligated to step in and watch them but it just backfires and puts me in the same predicament as to why I am saying no. Good news is they have not approached her yet. Frankly, they were paying my cousin beans and he was willing to do it since he has no job right now so I am not sure why they fired him and now are depending on me or my mom to step in now. I just don’t want any drama. I love my nieces but when they get together with my son for too long, it’s a bad combination.
Dang….your computer got mad and hit you lol….that sucks about the PC problems…well at least money still came in. Why do you stay in the gym for 2hrs? I do 48 mins tops in and out. lol Im on a mission when im in there.
My training alone is about 60-90 minutes. Depends on how crowded the gym is and these days its extremely crowded due to college out for the summer so now all the college kids have swarmed in too. I’m really gonna dread it when the schools get out this week because then the gym is really gonna be crowded with the moms that want a break from their kids so they will finally take advantage of their gym memberships just so they can drop them off in childcare.
Sara,
Haven’t read your blog in over six months, and I’m glad to see that even though you’ve had some real difficulties lately, you keep on moving forward. Good for you!
As for the PC stuff, I’d consider an online backup program like crashplan, because it’s not really a case of “if”, but “when your computer’s going to die on you and put your online work in limbo!
My mother in law came to stay with us from Mexico, so I’m spared the “Daddy Daddy Daddy!” and retreat to my local coffee houses with the laptop these days. I totally feel your pain!
Ross recently posted..Marketing Your Business Offline- Movie Screen Advertising
Hi Ross,
Perhaps that is another reason to consider getting a laptop. Perhaps if I were sitting in a coffee shop, I would have less distraction and focus more on my work at hand versus messing around with things around the house or browsing forums and stuff that suck up my time.