Down On Our Luck

What a crappy week.

This whole month I have had just way too much going on. It’s year end at my day job, I’ve been trying to post every other day here (I know, it didn’t happen this week), as the pet pics come in I’ve been updating them, I’ve had to relist a bunch of stuff on eBay, ship orders out, and… you get the picture. The whole world came crashing down in my head this week when I got the sinus infection from hell. These things have a way of sneaking up on me; one hour I’m fine and the next minute my head is about to explode and if I sit upright I may hurl.

Sinus infections are my body’s way of telling me to slow down and this time I tried not to listen because I had so much to get done at work. At 1:00 on Wednesday I just had to call it quits and go home as I was getting to the hurling point of the infection. On Thursday I realized that I had no choice but to just stay home and lay on the couch all day, otherwise, this headache was just going to rear its ugly head again. This is a very rare occurrence, I’ve called in sick like 4 times in the last 5 years. I wish my body would come up with a more subtle way of telling me to take a break, but I probably wouldn’t listen anyways.

This doesn’t happen to me very often, so this huge gap in posting should only happen about once every 1.5 to 2 years. Of course, some visitors may have enjoyed the break

Anyways, I’m looking forward to April 1st, when work will be back to some semblance of normalcy.

I have had a little bit of writer’s block the last couple of days which explains my lack of posting. I really need to get a voice recorder to keep in my car and record all of the ideas that I get while I’m driving too and from work as it’s a little difficult to write things down when driving.

This 13 year old is definitely on the right track when it comes to thinking outside of the box. When you think about it, we are taught from Kindergarten on that the way to being successful is to get a good paying job and save. Then at age 65 you can retire and enjoy life. Who really wants to wait until they are 65 to be able to enjoy life? The middle class/poor way of thinking is part of the mindset that could lead to problem gambling. The people that get into trouble take the rent money to the casino thinking that they can double their money; when they lose it all they end up either borrowing to pay the rent or borrowing money to gamble in order to get the rent money back. It’s a vicious cycle that can end up consuming a person’s life.

Instead of gambling, what can a person do to make their financial position better? That is totally up to the problem gambler. They can keep spending the rent money and land up on the street or they can turn into the next self made millionaire; it all depends on their mindset and what they really want for themselves. Are they willing to work to make themselves better or does the problem gambler want it handed to him/her on a silver platter? I hope they realize before they are on the streets that what they are doing isn’t working and seek another way of making money that is successful.

Q is funny when it comes to this way of thinking. In the past, he has went to the casino and blown a week’s worth of pay trying to “hit the big jackpot”, but when he has a business idea he thinks throwing $50 at a craft fair entrance fee to see if something he made is successful is totally out of the question. What is wrong with this picture? If you find that this a portrait of you, please find a way to change your train of thought before it’s too late.

Let me know what you think.

I found a Guide to Beating Addiction over at ExperienceNewThings.com the other day and found that he has some extremely helpful tips to getting over any addiction.

The one thing that the blog post stated which I have been driving home to Q is to find something to replace the gambling. Scrap recycling is Q’s new addiction. On a good night, he can bring in a decent amount after paying for his gas and the rental shed that he keeps with his buddy. Q has also started selling on eBay as part of this, but he really hasn’t taken to that as well as I had hoped. He does go through his phases.

Are you or a loved one going through a recovery period? Feel free to share the “new” addiction that has replaced the unproductive one.

When I first announced One Million Pet Pics I promised a post or two about the tools that I used to set my new blog up.

I had some rules for choosing a theme for my new project. My first goal was to find a magazine type Wordpress theme that didn’t cost a fortune. I wanted to allow for multiple posts and pictures on the front page at once; basically I was looking for a magazine style. Having a featured pet was important, but having many pics on the front page was just as important.

My second rule, was I didn’t want every other blog out there to be using the same theme. Revolution has become a popular Wordpress theme this is available for sale, but there are tons blogs out there using it. I wanted our blog to be unique. After about 4 hours of searching, I kept coming back to the Jello-Wala-Mello theme from WP Designer. By the way, WP Designer is for sale if anyone is interested in buying an established blog. Anyways, the best thing about this theme was it was FREE and I don’t think it looks like a free theme, but if you disagree, feel free to let me know.

I really wasn’t looking for simplicity when it came to setting up my site and I’ll be honest with you, setting up this site wasn’t as simple as setting up Down On Our Luck. I’m not a programmer or designer, but I’m usually pretty good at looking at the code of a website and working backwards to figure out what needs to be changed in order to get the look I want. That’s pretty much what I had to do with this site. I didn’t get the whole Thumbnail and Thumbnail-full custom fields at first, but after the first 3 posts using these fields has become second nature.

We are going to be looking for lots more pics, so if you have a pet you’d like to see featured hop on over and submit your picture.

I haven’t done a top 10 post in a while, but I didn’t want my blog to turn into a link farm. It seemed that the only posts I was writing during February were “Top 10 Droppers” posts. I know, I should get off my butt and write more; give me credit here, I’m improving at that. Top 10 posts will be random from now on and some observations about my traffic and Entrecard follow the list.

First things first, here’s the list:

I have been pretty active dropping at Entrecard over the last month and a half; my traffic is pretty bouncy, but sometimes bouncy traffic is better than none. In a previous post I had mentioned this concern, but I have also figured out that the key to being successful is to start out dropping heavy to get onto lists and into “Inboxes”, make sure you at least reciprocate on your inbox every day to keep them coming back. Then make sure you update your content. After seeing your blog so often the droppers that show up in your inbox will start to stick around a little and leave comments. The key to getting these bloggers to stick is to make sure you have fresh content for them to poke around on. I know when I visit a blog that I see in my Inbox every day I can tell when they have updated their content almost right away; if I see a new post I’ll at least take a scan over it to see what it is. If it intrigues me, I’ll keep reading and possibly comment. Other Entrecarders do the same thing, my bounce rate goes down by almost 2-3 percentage points when I have a new post here and at One Million Pet Pics.

My point here is, don’t complain about how bouncy the Entrecard traffic is, write something or change something on your blog to make droppers take notice and stick around.

Feel free to let others know what you think.

It just dawned on me yesterday that I haven’t written a post about my husband’s gambling in a while. This may be a good thing because it hasn’t been happening (knocking on wooden desk now). On the other hand, I almost always feel like I have to keep my guard up; if I let down and think things are OK I may bet blindsided and find him at the Casino again.

The main reason that I have stayed with Q is his desire to stop. If he was still taking out loans and doing other “suspect” things, I definitely would have left him by now.

He has sought help in the past which has helped him notice triggers and become more aware of them. This is not a professional opinion, but I know one of those triggers is boredom. Within the last year he has found out about recycling metal and other items for money. He never knows what he will find so in a way this is like gambling for him. There is the thrill of the find and then the unknown of what he will get when he cashes in. He has also found several items that we were able to resell on eBay and at our annual garage sale.

He still has his slips, but finding a replacement for the thrill of gambling has really been an integral part in helping him start down the road of recovery.

If you are in a similar situation, feel free to share what has helped your loved one.