Weekend Reading

Our weekend is full of fair preparations, green beans, and blackberries. It's all good, busy, but good! I hope you are having a wonderful weekend too! Here are some carnivals and more to check out!

Make It From Scratch - Don't forget this will be hosted here next week. Submit those posts!
Green Me!
Frugal Food Series - Starches
Carnival of the Recipes
The Homesteading Carnival
Carnival of Tips
Travel on a Shoestring
All Food Natural Newsletter
Click the link for even more recipes.

Have a good one!

Places to Go

My parents have been planning to take my two oldest children and my niece and nephew to Kings Island for sometime now. A group from our church is going this weekend for a music festival. Yesterday, out of the blue, my dad asks me if I want to go instead of him. Hmmm let me think....stay home with two toddlers or get away for a weekend of fun, some of my favorite bands, and thrill. We are leaving this afternoon.

Of course after I said yes I started thinking, and realized that I haven't been on a roller coaster in a very long time. Kellen, of course has done a very thorough investigation online of all the coasters. He starts telling me about how fast, how high, and how many loops they make, and I wonder if I really got the better end of this deal. No matter, we will have fun.

Here are some virtual festivals and carnivals for you to enjoy while I enjoy the thrills of the amusement park and the music festival there this weekend.

Make It From Scratch
Homesteading Carnival
Dirty Fingers - a gardening carnival.
Carnival of the Recipes
Frugal Food Part Five - Chicken

I'm off to finish packing and try to get a few things done before I go! Have a great weekend. After all the coasters I may wish I'd just played a playstation 3 instead, but I doubt it!

Rainy Holiday Reading, Savings & Samples

Happy Fourth of July to you! Hope you didn't have outside plans for the day. It is rainy and dark here. So dark in fact, that I have table lamp on while I am typing.

Luckily we didn't really have any plans for today. I had hoped to get some work done outside, but am very content to have a quiet day in the house. It is a perfect day to catch up on some blog reading and writing, and to do a little online shopping.

Some reading material:

Make It From Scratch
Carnival of Country Living
Homesteading Carnival
Festival of Frugality
Carnival of the Recipes
Carnival of Homeschooling
Carnival of Cities

Some savings:

Restaurant.com
Now thru 7/6, Take 50% off $25 Gift Certificates. Pay $5 when you use the code LIBERTY.

Old Navy
Take and extra 20% off clearance items and get free shipping on orders over $100.

Lane Bryant
Specials include 40-50% off store wide, an extra 50% off clearance items, and Cacique Bras $14.99 and up. If you remember the discussion about bras awhile back, Cacique are the bras I ended up buying. I have been very happy with them. Shop through Ebates to earn a 3% rebate and to find other coupons.

For Caregivers
Caregivers Market Place is a place to find rebates for products that caregivers use. The site is mostly geared to those who are caring for older loved ones, but for those of us caring for young children there are rebate forms for Huggies brand products.

Free Vitamin Samples
Nature Made is offering Stop the Ride readers free vitamin samples. To get yours click on the links below

Multivitamin
Multivitamin for her
Vitamin C
Vitamin D
Calcium
Super B Complex

I hope you have an enjoyable and relaxing Fourth of July!


Photo credit: Rachel and Jess

Weekend Reading Material

Ah the weekend already! It has been hot and wet here, and the garden is going crazy. I've been picking beans; daily. So far we've been eating them as fast as we pick them, but that won't last long. The second planting of beans is blooming now too. Soon I will be up to my ears in quart jars and green beans. That is a good thing!

I've also been picking off horn worms, potato beetles, and squash bug eggs. Grrr! Could do without that kind of picking, but the chickens sure like to consume that harvest.

We've had a few black raspberries already, but most of our berry canes are blackberries. They aren't quite ready, but wow are they loaded. A very welcome state after last year's poor crop. I can taste the jam now.

Here are a few carnivals to check out!

Make It From Scratch

Carnival of Recipes

Green It!

Carnival of Homesteading

Carnival of Family Life

Have you ever seen glass sinks before? They are kind of cool looking, but all I can think is that people would actually be able to see what lurks in the cupboards below my sinks! YIKES!

Have a great weekend!

Links

This week has flown by! I can't believe it is Friday already. June is just a flurry of activity. Here are some links for you to check out.

Make it From Scratch

Carnival of the Recipes

Carnival of Green Gardening

Green It!

And for those of you who like to enter contests, especially writing contests, you may be interested in Someday Stories sponsored by Wells Fargo. You write a short essay on what you want to be able to do "someday" and how $100,000 could help. Dream big, like someday I would like to travel to Europe, someday I'd like to backpack in Alaska again, or keep it more practical; someday I'd like to be debt free or someday I'd like to build an earth bermed home and furnish it with high quality bought at a discount furniture. Those are all things on my someday list. Now I just need to write my contest entry.

Have a great weekend!

Linky Linky Linky

We are leaving for vacation today! I have a few things scheduled for your reading pleasure next week. Feel free to talk amongst yourselves in the comments, but I will not be able to respond until the 16th. I leave you with places to go and visit!

Carnival of the Recipes

Homesteading Carnival

Carnival of Family Life

Learning in the Great Outdoors

Make It From Scratch

Festival of Frugality

Enjoy your week!

Links for the Week

Earlier this week I posted about the 17 year Cicada's that are currently appearing in my area. If you are interested in learning more about them, there is a really cool and educational Cicada Video on YouTube.- hat tip to Crystal for this link!

Here are some other carnivals and memes that you might be interested in from the past week.

Homesteading Carnival

Carnival of the Recipes

Green it!

Carnival of Green Gardening

Frugal Fridays

This store has gift baskets. It is nice to look to buy or just for ideas of what to put into gift baskets.

Hope you are having a wonderful weekend. We are getting ready for a camping trip we will be leaving for in a week. I am wondering if you would be interested in any posts on camping such as our menu, equipment list or other camping information. Let me know in the comments.

Last Week's Links

The house is clean. Well, as clean as it gets. The meals are planned, and some items are prepared in advance. I'm ready for guests. (Deep sigh!) Here are links to last week's carnivals and festivals.

Homesteading Carnival

Learning in the Great Outdoors

Carnival of the Recipes

Make it from Scratch

Carnival of Modern Home Dwelling

Carnival of Family Life


Happy Monday to you!

Stop the Ride! - Lite

This week has been a busy one preparing for and extra special guest that is coming here on Monday. Despite my best intentions, I did not get any articles pre-written for this busy time. I have titles and ideas, but nothing completed. So for the rest of this week and next week too you can expect a lite version of Stop the Ride! (If you are wondering about my extra special guest you can find out about her here.)

In the meantime you will find some fabulous reading and creative ideas at The Carnival of Modern Home Dwelling. There is a new topic everyday this week. Today is Eco-Fab (as in economical and fabulous!) Yesterday was arts and crafts. I'm sure you will enjoy the entries to this extra large carnival!

Saturday Morning Link Love

After two days of rain I finally see the sun in the sky this morning. I'm not complaining about the rain though, we needed it. The rain has made the garden and the tree pop! Everything is green! I love it! Here are some links for your Saturday morning reading:

Carnival of Recipes - Spring Fling

Homesteading Carnival

Last week's Festival of Frugality and this week's edition.

Make it From Scratch

Don't forget about the Carnival of Modern Homedweling coming next week.

Looking for Chevy grills?

Have a great day!

Social Spark; Open for Business

SocialSpark is up and running? Have you checked it out? I signed up a little over a week ago, and have since been exploring the huge number of features on this site.

There is the social aspect of the site. You can find other liked minded bloggers out there to build some community with. Check out my profile on SocialSpark. I am Stephanie A. Be sure to put in a friend request and to give me a prop. Let me know if you've given a prop and I would be more than happy to return the favor.

The site also offers many resources to bloggers. You can find stats including your traffic and real rank. You can also see the demographics of your readers. You can build traffic through sparks. A spark is an opportunity to create buzz for your site by asking fellow bloggers to blog about one of your posts or topics. You can create sparks for your site or take them for another site or topic you find interesting. In many cases they will share the link love and link back to you.

Of course there is also the business side. Advertisers created opportunities. Bloggers choose the opportunities they are interested in, and get paid. Much like the PayPerPost system. There are also blog sponsorships available. These create a pop-up screen for the advertiser when readers visit your site. These pay by the day.

So many options and features to Social Spark. It is like one stop blog shopping. So stop by my profile and say hi and check out all the Social Spark has to offer.

A Winner and Some Links

The winner of the Microwave Bacon Cooker is Megret! Congratulations!

This is an upcoming carnival and contest that I thought you might be interested. Pick your best posts in a variety of topics about modern living. Submit them and winners will be chosen. For more details see TodaysHomemaker.com


Here are your links for Saturday reading material:

Carnival of the Recipes

Carnival of Money Stories

Festival of Frugality

Carnival of Homesteading

Carnival of Debt Reduction

Make It From Scratch
Make It From Scratch will be hosted here on Tuesday! Be sure to get your submissions in before Monday to be included in the carnival! Anyone have a do it yourself for detergent in steam cleaners? I need to clean my carpets and would like a cheaper alternative!

Have a great Saturday!

Frugal Cooking Carnival

Have you seen what Owlhaven's has cooked up? She is hosting the Frugal Cookin' Carnival. The idea here is to share three days of meals for your family and calculate the cost. I missed the boat here, and didn't get a post together for this, but I think it will be interesting to see what others have come up with.

Her post is the only one up now, but hopefully there will be more. For now you can see what she feeds a family of eleven for three days. Her final cost was about $0.58 per meal. Now that is frugal!

Bloggy Giveaways - Microwave Bacon Cooker

It's is here! The quarterly phenomenon where hundred of bloggers giveaway hundreds of things to readers everywhere. It is the bloggy giveaways carnival!

How do you play? To give something away post about it on your site then head over to bloggy giveaways and put up your link. To win something head over to bloggy giveaways and pick from the 100's of entries to go visit and sign up for their giveaway. Easy huh?

Okay, so what am I giving away? A Microwave Bacon Cooker. Regular readers may remember my review of this product, but for those who didn't read it, please check it out: Microwave Bacon Cooker.

Simply sign up by leaving your comment. Sorry, this one is open to U.S. residents only. You don't have to have a blog to play, but I do need an email address to contact you. So, please leave your email address in the comments! The winner will be picked, at random, this Friday! Thanks so much and happy bloggy giveaways to you!

Links for the Week

Today you get your reading material on Friday. We will be making a quick trip to visit family this weekend, so Saturday links are out.

Make It From Scratch

Homesteading Carnival

Carnival of the Recipes

Festival of Frugality

Carnival of Green Gardening

Women's Festival

Mommy Blog Carnival

Carnival of Family Life

And to see what the rich and famous like to wear on their wrist - AP Royal Oak

And if you really need more to read this weekend, it is suppose to rain here tomorrow, check out the Make It From Scratch or the Frugal Blogrolls over there on the side bar. You are bound to find some blogs with some helpful and entertaining information! Enjoy!

Saturday Morning Link Love

Here are some carnivals and festivals from the week for your reading pleasure.

Carnival of the Recipes

Festival of Frugality

Carnival of Money Stories

Make It From Scratch

Living By Design

Carnival of Country Living

Carnival of Family Life

All Women Blogging Carnival

Have a great Saturday. I'm may be working on those potato beds today. There will be a post to follow soon!

Looking for medical insurance quotes?

Page Rank and Paid Posting

It didn't take much research to find why my page rank dropped. It is because of the paid content on my blog. I do remember reading a few months back about blogs that were taking page rank hits because Google changed the algorithm to penalize blogs with paid links. This was around the time when my rank dropped from a 4 to a 3. I figured a drop of one was no big deal, and there were still plenty of PPP opportunities, so who cares. Well a drop to 0 doesn't leave me feeling so blase.

Like I said yesterday page rank doesn't mean that much to me. If Google wants thinks I don't have a quality blog because I do paid links that is their choice. I know paid blogging is sometimes controversial, but earning money is a big part of why I started this blog. So let Google rank pages how they like. Problem is PPP advertisers still want to use page rank to determine a blog's quality.

IZEA (parent of PPP) has developed what they call Real Rank as an alternative to page rank. From waht I could gather at the forum boards, PPP wants to phase out page rank, but the advertisers are still demanding that it be used. Hello. If I advertise for you, my page rank will drop, so what does the page rank mean? Can we follow the logic here?

Some, like Court's Internet Marketing School, say that Real Rank won't solve the problem, but just may push Google to stop indexing blogs with paid links. That I care about. If I'm not indexed then Stop the Ride will not show up in Google searches. That means less traffic. Not a good scenario.

So what to do? I'm not sure. I can go on as is and wait to see what happens. As long as PPP is still using page rank as criteria for opportunities, I will have little available there. I can look for alternative ways to generate income from the blog. I have seen mentioned selling links with no follow tags. That would be an option, but I'm not sure how to get that started. I'm going to have to think about this!

Where did my page rank go?

I don't pretend to understand page rank. It is a complicated thing. What I do know is the regular posting and links to your blog are supposed to help your page rank. I post regularly. I am linked to frequently. My page rank should stay fairly stable or increase shouldn't it?

Since I've gotten this blog up and running, it has stayed fairly stable at a 3. It has jumped to 4. It did take one nose dive a few months back, but that was when I switched to my own domain. The new address was not ranked for a couple months. Understandable. This latest drop I don't get.

This morning my page rank is 0! Why would that happen? I don't get it! What have I done to offend the google bots? Honestly, I wouldn't care much about my page rank except for the fact that PayPerPost opportunities often are available by page rank. So effectively a drop in page rank equals a drop in income. When I looked at PayPerPost a few days ago I had 4 pages of choices. Today I have 5; not pages, but 5 opportunities! Ouch!

So for those of you who are wiser in the ways of google than I, any ideas on what happened to make my page rank dive? And am I stuck with this until the next quarterly ranking? Appreciate your input and advice!

Are you addicted to money?

Found this quiz today. 14% addiction isn't too bad I don't think. I think the question that got me was the one about if you hear your wallet talking to you. I had to answer, all the time! I hear, "Do you really need that?" and "Is it in the budget?" and "Could you find it for a better price?" That is frugality, not addiction! :) How about you?

More fun quizzes by a structured settlement annuity company.

14%

Blog Carnivals TT #23

What is a blog carnival? It is a collection of blog posts about a certain topic. It is a place for those interested in a topic to find more information, and for those who write about the topic to share their ideas. If you are a blogger, submitting articles to a carnival is a good way to gain exposure and link love for your blog.

To get started visit Blog Carnival. There are thousand of carnivals listed there. Search by keywords to find topics that interest you. I recommend that you create a login, and then you can save carnivals to your favorites when you find one you like. You can find where the latest edition of the carnival is, and you can submit your articles for the next edition.

Here are thirteen of my favorite carnivals:

1. Make It From Scratch
This, in my unbiased opinion (ahem,) is the best carnival out there. It is even featured on the Blog Carnival homepage today! Make It From Scratch includes articles about making things from scratch. You'll find posts about food, crafts, sewing, gardening, and much more.

2. Festival of Frugality
This is a treasure chest of good ideas to save you money!

3. Carnival of the Recipes
A place to share and find recipes. Most weeks have a theme, so be sure to check before submitting.

4. Learning in the Great Outdoors
Posts from teachers, homeschoolers, and nature lovers focused on teaching our children and ourselves about nature.

5. Carnival of Family Life
This carnival draws a huge variety of topics related to family life. You'll find funny stories, parenting tips, family finance topics, health and beauty and more.

6. Carnival of Money Stories
Find articles about personal experiences dealing with money.

7. Carnival of Homeschooling
Tips, advice, philosophy, curriculum, and family life posts from homeschoolers of varying backgrounds.

8. Carnival of Debt Reduction
Ideas, advice and personal experience about reducing debt and staying debt free.

9. The Homesteading Carnival
This a fairly new carnival where you'll find articles on raising animals, gardening, recipes, and self sufficiency.

10. Carnival of Green Gardening
This is a new one too. The topic is interesting to me. We'll see how the carnival does.

11. Mommy Monthly
A monthly carnival about moms, parenting, and the issues they care about.

12. A Make Money Blogging Carnival
Tips, how-to's and more about using your blog to make money.

13. The Mommy Blog Carnival
The name says it all.

I love blog carnivals. They are very useful tools for information and for building your blog. For a larger list of the best of the carnivals, sorted by topic, see 50 Best Blog Carnivals at Blogging Sueblimely.

Thursday Thirteen