TGI..Tuesday!!

I am finally on my "weekend" away from work, and yes, it's Tuesday.   Every other weekend I spend Saturday, Sunday and Monday working.  While I am thankful for my work at home nursing job, there are many disadvantages to it as well.  The company I work for operates 24 hours a day 7 days a week including all holidays.  So last year I had a total of ZERO complete holidays off of work.  I work every other weekend during the day and evenings during the week. My work breaks are every 2 hours while I'm working but I am confined to my home office for 8 hours at a time, my breaks consist of changing diapers, helping with homework, giving baths, etc.  While it is very nice that I can be home to do these things....sometimes I need a real BREAK!!  I also feel like I have less time with my son now that he is in school than I would if I worked a day job while he was there. 

So, I am "on the hunt" to find my fit in the internet world of making money online to get out of this annoying schedule.  I have been trying to figure this out for years and have a little knowledge in how to go about it, but mostly enough knowledge to make myself dangerous.  If I had more time to focus on this knowledge then I could maybe get somewhere! My current idea is to have multiple streams of income such as my Etsy shop, blogging, and other forms of legitimate (not spammy) affiliate marketing.  I am an honest person and NEVER want spam or scam anybody!  

While I am still "working" a lot when it comes to creating these businesses, I can at least do it on my own time.  Instead of spending an entire weekend locked in my little room downstairs with the phone to my ear and staring at a computer screen, I can do a little here and there, after kids go to bed and during the day when my lovely and independent 2 year old decides she wants to entertain herself (which she is very good at).  Yet, I can still work on these things with her by my side.  She LOVES it when I work on my painting or clay creations as she gets her own set of paints or play-dough and works along side of me!  

Do you dabble in making money at home? Or maybe you are even successful at it!  I would love to hear your stories on what you do to make it happen!  

Out of Focus

Wow!  I have not posted in a very long time.  Life just gets in the way I think.  My brain train also gets derailed and I become out of focus on what I need to do.  I was thinking the other day that I think I might have society induced ADD if there is such a thing!  I used to be so focused and on top of things.  Now, with 2 kids, internet, and so many other "to do" things, I can't seem to get anything fully accomplished anymore.  My brain just goes from one topic to the next without stopping to complete anything.

So, I have spent the last year or so trying to learn a little about SEO and affiliate marketing and recently decided to attempt to build a website about the nursing career.  Now, I've learned a lot in the past year but just enough to make me dangerous.  So for the past month I was building the website, starting to get traffic to it and then I needed to change hosts and didn't do it correctly and lost my whole website!  I might try and go save it eventually as it was a lot of work but I'm discouraged with it now and wasn't really having much fun anyway.

So now I'm trying to put the focus for 2012 on my Etsy shop and building that up and marketing it better.  I find that I truly enjoy painting and it is much less stressful to me than all the other things I've been working on recently.  I also enjoy the fact that my kids are really showing interest in it and it is something I can do with them next to me.  They get to paint with mommy as they now have their own paints (washable Crayola paints that is) and paintbrushes.

I am also going to be expanding my shop to include custom designed cake toppers make out of polymer clay. I plan on focusing on wedding cake toppers but can do them for kids party's, baby showers, or any other occasion as well!  Polymer clay is really fun to work with and allows for a lot of creativity.

That's all for now!  I will continue to write about my attempts at starting a home business and about my crazy but fun family in the year ahead.  Happy New Year to you all!