Month: April 2009

Categories
MetaBlogging

Eight steps to make money off Amazon

Do you ever mention books, CDs, movies, baby products, clothes or even more any of the other thousands of products you can buy off Amazon on your blog? Did you know you could make money from those products?

Amazon is one of the biggest affiliate marketing sites in use today. To put it simply, when someone clicks on a link with your tracking ID in it, Amazon pays you a (very, very) small commission. You’re basically acting as the sales man, so Amazon is happy to pay you a commission.

And yes, these commissions are very small, but if you have enough of these links and clicks over time, you can see real dividends. All you have to do is sign up and make the links with your tracking ID.

Sign up for Amazon Associates

1. Amazon calls their affiliate program “Associates.” If you’re in the US, UK, Canada, Germany, France or Japan, to join, go to the bottom of any Amazon page and click Join Associates:

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2. On the right side of the next page, click the “Join now for FREE!” button:

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3. If you already have an Amazon account (ie you’ve bought something there before), you can sign in with your email and password. If you haven’t, you’ll sign up for a new account:

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If it’s a new account, enter your info to register.

Once you’ve signed in to your account, you go to the welcome screen.

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Making Links

4. To make the links, click on Links & Banners:

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5. The first option in the main part of the page takes you to the product link builder. Click on Add Product Links Now:

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6. This takes you to the product link builder, which does most of the work for you (Woohoo!). Use the search to find the product. Here I’m looking for a book called Ghost of a Chance:

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7. Apparently there are a lot of books called that, so I added the author’s name to find the right one. Once I found it, I clicked on the “Get link” button:

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8. This takes you to the link builder. Here, you get to select all kinds of cool options to customize your link. You can choose from a text and image link, and image only link and a text only link.

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The other options there allow you to set a custom color for the text and links (to match your blog, for example), decide whether the price is displayed and how, etc.

You can customize these options to your liking. Personally, if I’m inserting the link in regular text, I tend to use text only links; if it’s a full-fledged product review, I like text and image links.

That’s it! Here’s a text-only link: Ghost of a Chance. Here’s the text and image link: If you click either of these links, they’ll take you to Amazon. If you purchase this book or anything else from Amazon, I get a small percentage of that purchase. (So thank you!)

Note: I recommend that you disclose somewhere on your blog that you are an affiliate or “Associate” of Amazon. My affiliate relationships are on my disclosure page.

Categories
Kids/Parenting Fulfillment

Finding that sweet moment

kids-feb-mar-2009-036smallAs of yesterday, I’ve been a mother of two for nine months. It hasn’t been everything I expected—or maybe I should say feared. Yes, at times it has been very stressful (especially lately with both children suddenly thinking they need to make sure I wake at least every hour during the night).

But, as I always seem to find, enjoying motherhood is less about what my kids do and more about who they are. Of course, that’s also manifest in their actions, but their little personalities are some of the biggest joys of this life.

Especially when their little personalities get along so well.

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Naturally, Rebecca is fascinated with Hayden. She can’t keep her eyes off him when he’s in the room. She laughs easiest at his antics. Even his mere presence can be enough to elicit a giggle.

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And for his part, Hayden loves his little sister “Werbecca” very much. His favorite things to do seem to be helping to sing a lullaby before her naps and bedtime (“Baby Beluga”) and being there to wake her up after her naps. (Of course, since she finds him so interesting and entertaining, sometimes his efforts to help put her down aren’t so helpful after all, but it’s still sweet.)

A recent comment here really struck me. Mom on the Go said:

Don’t wait for the day that you can say it’s worth it. Wait for the moment. Grace comes in all lengths of time. The short ones seem to come with the small kids.

A few weeks ago, I let Hayden go in to talk to Rebecca after she woke up from a nap, while I was finishing up something on the computer. I came in to get my giggling children and I found one of those moments just waiting for me:

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What moments have you found lately?

Categories
Fulfillment

Reevaluate your expectations

I think that at some point during their first pregnancy (and probably all subsequent ones, to an extent), most mothers have a moment of brilliant clarity, wherein they realize:

I have no idea what’s about to happen.

stepping_stonesParenting is one of those things that we can’t truly understand until we’re in the trenches, raising children for whom we are ultimately responsible. Before we’re there, it’s easy to say “Every Monday, I’ll take my kids to a different museum, Tuesdays we’ll have three hours of music lessons and Wednesdays we’ll perform the complete works of Shakespeare from memory.”

While I didn’t exactly have such grand designs, I still had a major adjustment period when I became a mother. I went from working full time to lying flat on my back (literally) overnight (literally). Suddenly, I had to relearn the most mundane tasks: finding time to shower, cleaning one-handed, enjoying me time, sleeping.

With each new phase and milestone, it was the same story: I had to discover an entirely new routine, and find a “new normal.”

But as hard as it sometimes has been to constantly readjust, reevaluating those expectations are a vital part of motherhood. We learn that the baby isn’t going to sleep until 6:30 anymore (okay, that’s one I’m going to be fighting this week), that dragging three kids under three all over town every day isn’t a good way to inculcate them with culture, that the baby won’t eat baby food, but loves saltines.

We have to learn to let go of old expectations when we realize that they’re truly not reasonable for our present circumstances. We have to see our lives as they are and set reasonable expectations for our families—and most importantly, for ourselves.

How do you set reasonable expectations for you and your family? What expectations have you abandoned?

Categories
Kids/Parenting

Evolution works! (Or: Five reasons why babies are cute)

I’m not really going to get into a theory of evolution debate here—really, the more appropriate headline would be “Natural selection works.” I totally believe that and I see evidence of it in my everyday life (“natural selection” is just a lot longer than “evolution”).

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Genetics at work: my mother and my daughter

As a mother of very young children, I can tell you exactly how demanding and frustrating babies and toddlers can be—but I’ve come to believe that a babies’ cuteness is, in fact, an inherited defense mechanism against some of their most motherly-frustration-inducing behaviors. My evidence:

  1. Cuddling: Although waking me for the eighth time in six hours is decidedly not a good way into my good graces, a quiet, sweet, snuggling baby is pretty tough to stay angry at.
  2. Gurgling giggles: It’s five AM and the infant thinks it’s time to get up for the day. But before I can burst into tears, she sees my face and wham—instant gales of excited laughter. Even if I’m not quite as happy to see her at that hour, it’s hard not to forgive her when she’s just so happy to see me.
  3. Nap time: When I reach my wits’ end, I know it’s time for a nap (for me and/or the kids 😉 ). This can be a double whammy, especially if the baby or toddler is obviously tired but still averse to said nap, and spends half an hour screaming—because when they finally succumb to the much-needed sleep, it’s all the sweeter to peek in on the peacefully slumbering angel (and pray it lasts!).
  4. Baby talk: Sure, you can argue their articulatory muscles aren’t fully developed enough to appreciate the nuances of the lateral approximate, but let’s face it: somewhere in his DNA, my son knows that “I yub you!” melts even an annoyed heart faster than plain old “I love you.”
  5. Stoic tears: Okay, this one might not be entirely genetic, but who wouldn’t forgive a tantrum from tiny child who bravely insists that he must wipe his own tears?

What other naturally cute behaviors have you seen that totally take the wind out of your frustration?

Categories
Fulfillment

Thoughts on motherhood–from people other than me

Surprisingly enough, I’m not the only person out there thinking deep thoughts/wallowing in existential angst about motherhood. I come across blog posts that really inspire me or challenge my way of thinking about motherhood, I bookmark them to blog about later and . . . I forget. So, today I’m catching up on some of these great posts, with excerpts to show you some of the reasons I bookmarked them in the first place.

Stress and fear from Conversion Diary:

I am very likely to get in a mental state where I just give in to anxiety and stress and self-pity and all sorts of other negative emotions — not because I have actually been given more than I can handle, but because I because I see a long day and a longer week stretching before me, and unless something changes I’ll reach some kind breaking point and I will have more than I can handle. In other words, I’m afraid.

Why my life is better since becoming open to life also from Conversion Diary

A product of secular society, I’d fallen into the common notion that the way to find true happiness is to focus on yourself more and other people less. It makes perfect sense, after all: doing pleasurable things for me is fun, sacrifice and hard work are not fun; ergo, the secret to happiness must be to live for myself as much as possible. Right?

How shocked I was to discover that I was wrong — dead wrong. Part of fully understanding the concept of vocation was understanding that a vocation is not to be thought of as “what you do” as much as it is “whom you serve.”

Beyond Mommy: Knowing Who I Am by the fantastic Annette Lyon on Blog Segullah

Laura made it clear in no uncertain terms that once you had kids, wanting to be anything but their mother was selfish, wrong. She was thirty years my senior, a mother of ten. I was an 18-year-old college freshman. What did I know about motherhood and womanhood?

Maybe I was off my rocker. Maybe losing yourself was something good mothers did.

I struggled with the issue even after becoming a mom. I’d carved out a “me” area but worried it made me an inferior mother. . . .

Joy in the Journey from a member of Jane’s ward on What About Mom

I remember one particular time when I just HAD to clean out the refrigerator. My then three-year-old son was lonely because his sister was in school. He kept whining and bugging me to pick him up. I resisted and ended up getting angry at him and making him go take a nap, because I had an “important” job to do. Now I realize that HE was my important job. That certainly is not the only incident I could relate. I DO feel those pangs of guilt and remorse for not making Tyler the most important chore of the day.

Lessons Learned from The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes by Scribbit

  • Moms have dreams too and not only is it okay to have interests outside of your children it’s a healthy thing that usually makes you a better mom if you don’t let it take over your real job.
  • Motherhood takes amazing skill to be done properly but it can be done.
  • Motherhood, while eternal, won’t always require the same things of me as it does now–it will change as I do.
  • There are plenty of people who value motherhood so don’t undersell your talents or abilities or think you’re alone.
  • Women can do most things just as well as men though usually in their own unique way.

These excerpts are only the beginning of the wisdom about motherhood these wonderful women have imparted, so be sure to check them all out!

What are your favorite posts about motherhood, from this list or from anywhere on the Internet?

Categories
Faith

Happy Easter

Enjoy the holiday today. We’re trying to focus on the real reason for this Easter season (though, don’t worry, we have candy). This message was shared by an apostle last Sunday in the semi-annual worldwide conference of the church and I simply cannot say it better than this special witness of Christ.