Nix9to5

Overnight Trip: The Sequel

// April 17th, 2010 // No Comments » // Life in General

Tonight, Hot Husband and I are going out of town for a friend’s 40th (*gulp*) birthday party. Bear’s Grandma and Grandpa came down, and they are going to stay with him overnight. This will be only the 2nd time in almost 18 months I’ve been away from my little guy overnight. I’m a little nervous because after a week home sick with Mommy, Bear is a little clingy. I hope he doesn’t miss me too much, and I hope he doesn’t have any “relapses”–I think he’s finally over that nasty tummy bug.

I also hope this doesn’t happen:

That’s what we came back to after the last time we took an overnight trip. A water line broke and the city came and fixed it, leaving a huge mess. I guess Grandma and Grandpa didn’t get to take showers that day.

Here’s hoping the Bear stays well and the trip goes off without a hitch.

OKC-Area Moms Needed for Focus Group

// April 15th, 2010 // No Comments » // Family, Life in General

MindsEye! Advertising in Edmond, Oklahoma, is hosting an informal focus group for one of their clients and needs some on-the-go moms to provide feedback about the client’s social media efforts.

The client is a pizza chain, and MindsEye! will be providing wine and pizza for the focus group participants. MindsEye! is looking for moms, either single or married, working outside the home or stay-at-home moms, who fit the following demographic:

aged 25-45
at least one child aged 3-18
active Facebook user (3+ times per week)
eat, pick up, or order pizza at least once per month

If you fit the description and would like to participate in this chance to get away for a couple of hours and share your opinions, contact sjones@mindseyeads.com.

Today’s OKC Groupon Deal: Blend Spa Bar

// April 14th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // Couponing, Life in General

With all of the stomach bug issues that have been going on at the Nix9to5 house, I have been doing a lot of hand washing. A lot. My poor hands are starting to get dry and chapped and really unpretty. Today’s Groupon deal has me pretty excited. Get $35 worth of products for $15 from Blend Spa Bar–that’s 57% off!

What is Blend Spa Bar? It’s an online spa products store that allows you to customize your own beauty and home products. Simply pick a product from the category of your choice, select up to three blend-ins (powders, dried flowers, moisturizing oils), add a fragrance, name your Blend, and indulge!

I’m trying to decide if I need to choose something from the “Moisturize a Lot” category for my poor little hands, or if I need to choose something from the “Take Care of Home” category to combat the germs and odors circulating around here.

Aha! You can purchase up to TWO Groupons at this price for Blend Spa Bar. My house and my hands will both be smelling pretty.

To get in on today’s deal, or to check out the Groupon deals in your city, click here. If Croupon is not yet available in your city, you can sign up to receive notification when it hits your area.

The Diaper Fairy Strikes Again

// April 14th, 2010 // No Comments » // Children and Babies

In an earlier post, I wrote about how convenient it is to order diapers online and have them delivered to your home. Well, I have another reason to love Diapers.com (referral code NICCI gets you $10 off of your first order and gives me credit on my next order) and the Amazon.com Diaper Store. The Bear’s stomach bug has headed south, so to speak, and we went through ten diapers in two and a half hours last night. This morning’s pace has slowed, but we go through two diapers immediately following each meal. Or I guess I should say each mealtime, because a couple of bites of bread, a few noodles, and a couple of licks of a popsicle hardly constitute a meal.

Anyway, with the speed with which we have been going through diapers, I have been really grateful that I stocked up. At first, I thought, “Oh, no! What if we run out? I can’t take a baby with diarrhea on a car trip to the store!” Then I remembered that even if we got low on diapers, a replacement supply was just a few clicks away. No hassle, no mess.

I thought I had a big mouth, but . . .

// April 12th, 2010 // No Comments » // Opportunities, Work at Home

. . . I seem to have bitten off more than I can chew.

I mentioned before that I would be doing some at-home scoring for Pearson in May. It is temporary work, and the assignment will last approximately two weeks. The job requires that I work 20 hours per week, and recommends 30 hours in order to get the required number of assessments scored within the time frame. Now, I’m not sure where I’ll find an extra 20-30 hours per week, but I figure for two weeks, I can make it happen. Who needs sleep anyway, right?

Well, today I was looking over the job requirements again, and I realized that there are only specific hours available. For example, on the weekend, the online scoring system is only available from 9-5. That just made finding 20-30 hours a week a lot harder, since I figured starting work at 8pm after Bear goes to bed. Hmm. I guess Hot Husband is going to have to pretty much take over on weekends while I’m scoring.

The hardest thing so far about trying to work from home is that I have to actually start working from home while I still have a full-time job away from home. I’m feeling a little overextended, but it will be worth it in the long run. I’m getting opportunities, and I’m padding my savings account for any shortcomings there may be.

In the meantime, while I was lying in bed recuperating today, I managed to send out three more resumes, so maybe something good will come of that. Wish me luck!

Grroooaaan . . . .

// April 11th, 2010 // No Comments » // Life in General

1 Sick baby + 1 sick Mommy = 1 blog post completely devoid of both length and wit.

Okay–that was kind of a pun, so I guess there was a little wit.

No length, though. I’m off to enjoy my 7-Up and crackers. I’ll catch up with you later.

Work at Home job leads

// April 9th, 2010 // No Comments » // Opportunities, Work at Home

I’m going to keep this pretty short tonight, because I have a lot of (paid) writing to do, and I need to revamp my resume to try to get a few more (paid) writing jobs. Before I do that, I’m going to share with you one of the places I go look for work-at-home job listings.

WAHM.com is “the online magazine for work-at-home moms.” WAHM.com has relevant articles, including work-at-home options, time management strategies, work/life balance, recipes, and tax tips for the self-employed or independent contractor. I haven’t spent a lot of (any) time reading the articles, though. I spend most of my time reading the job listings and browsing the forum for other job openings or ideas. In fact, I found two possibilities from the WAHM.com job postings today–the ones for which I need to update my resume. I’m not going to tell you which ones, because I don’t want you stealing my jobs.

The forum is a great resource not only for getting ideas, but also finding out about different companies. For example, I thought about applying for one particular company–one of the online question-answering sites you’ve probably seen commercials for–until I saw employees posting in their forum that they weren’t getting paid on time. You’ll read about companies that are cutting hours and companies that pay well and offer plenty of work. It helps to know which ones are legitimate and which ones are a waste of time.

If you are thinking about trying to work from home, or even just adding a little supplemental income, browse the forum topics. You’ll be amazed at the number of different types of things you can do from home.

I’m off to polish my resume and do a little copywriting. Don’t be jealous of my rock-star Friday nights.

And the winner is . . .

// April 8th, 2010 // 2 Comments » // Children and Babies, Life in General, Opportunities, Work at Home

ME!

Recently, I entered a contest on Simple Saving Savvy to win a giveaway from Ruffles and Fringe. Despite the fact that I never win anything, I somehow managed to win this time.

I went to Nicole’s Ruffles and Fringe Etsy shop to pick out my prize, and chose this charcoal grey headband:

Cute, huh? I usually don’t wear anything in my hair, nor do I generally adorn myself with big flowers, but I thought it was pretty and figured if I didn’t like it when it arrived, I’d give it to my nieces to fight over.

Well, it came today, and it really is pretty. Still, I’m not sure if it is my style or not, so I tried it on for Hot Husband and asked him what he thought.

He looked at me, tilted his head, and said, “I don’t know. It kind of looks like Ally Sheedy.”

I have to admit, it made me laugh.

Still, I think it’s cute, and I am not sure if I can relinquish it to the nieces or not. While I’m deciding, head on over to Ruffles and Fringe and check out the other headbands, necklaces, earrings, and scarves Nicole makes.

While I’m on the subject of Etsy, I think if you are a crafty kind of person, it might be a good work-at-home option for you. I am not nearly as talented as I sometimes imagine myself to be (the words, “Oh, I could totally make that,” have often ended in disaster), so I don’t think an Etsy shop would do me much good, but I have a couple of crafty, talented, creative friends (and one crafty, talented, creative sister) who really ought to look into it. I also have a friend who needs to hurry up and let me promote her on my blog (Hootiemomma, I’m looking in your direction).

Oops. I just promoted it. Totally an accident, Hootiemomma–seriously.

One for the Grown-Ups: Hamburger Stroganoff

// April 7th, 2010 // No Comments » // Cooking

I’ve really been getting into freezer meals (to quote a friend, “Cook once, eat thrice”). Tonight I tried a recipe for Hamburger Stroganoff. It tasted pretty good, but I have two complaints:

The recipe is too small. Instead of dividing it in half and freezing half of it, I should have just made it all and had leftovers tomorrow. Next time, I’ll either double the recipe, serve half and freeze half, or I’ll not treat it as a freezer meal.
It looks disgusting: (more…)

Toddler Meals, Part Two: Baked Butternut Squash

// April 7th, 2010 // No Comments » // Children and Babies, Cooking

Before I give you this recipe, I feel like I need to come clean about something. In “Toddler Meals, Part One,” I said that I didn’t want Bear to eat a steady diet of mac ‘n’ cheese and fish sticks. Well, the very next day, he had macaroni and cheese for lunch and fish sticks for dinner. I felt like I had lied to you, even though I didn’t say he never ate those things . . . just that I don’t want him to eat them all the time. We even keep Gerber Graduates toddler meals on hand for when Mom is too busy (or too tired) to cook something, even though I think they have too much sodium. So while I want to feed Bear nothing but super-healthy things, I am–just like you–a busy mom doing the best I can.

Okay, now that’s over, so here is the butternut squash recipe. I adapted it from a recipe I found on Cooks.com. I thought the recipe had too much butter and sugar in it, so I tweaked it a little.

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