Annndddd......we wait.  And wait.  And wait.

I'm not very good at waiting.

Two whole days ago I made the final changes to my book, Maddy's Tail.  I spent hours reading and learning how to do everything I'd only guessed at before.  (Yeah, probably should have read the crap first.)  And I fixed everything.

I received the email saying it was up and ready to go.  But still the changes are showing up in the final product.  Grrr.


And NOW I wait.

I'm really really bad at waiting.



As always, take your time leaving but hurry on back.  :)

Maddy's Tail by BC Barry

What's good?      I wrote a book!

What's bad?        I self-published on Amazon Kindle.

What's the Difference?        I learned exactly how much I don't know!!



I haven't posted on here over the past couple of weeks, and for that I apologize.  I've been concentrating on an old/new goal in life.

As the title above states, I finally wrote a book.  This is something I've wanted to do for years, since high school actually, and have finally done it!!!  It's a short story based on the life of our beloved calico cat.  While some of the events in her life are true, the details surrounding them are pure fiction, born in the nooks and crannies of my warped little mind.

I was so proud when I typed that last word, so very excited at my accomplishment.  I read and re-read this wonderful book, over and over.  I made corrections and changes, modified sentences to clarify their meaning.  Then ignored it for a week before reading and re-reading it again.  I was proud of my work and proud of my accomplishment.  Along with my confidence, my sense of self-worth was finally starting to grow again, in fact, you could almost see it through a microscope.

Then I mustered up every ounce of courage I could find, mixed it up with a little bit of stupidity and a whole lot of determination, and self-published it on Amazon.  And there went my new-found confidence....right down the toilet.

Self-publishing is not as easy as it sounds.  I had created my own cover, but Amazon wouldn't accept it.  So, a dozen Youtube videos later, I created a cover they would accept.  I read page after page of instructions and guidelines, changed my book format to follow those rules, and published.

Then I bought my own book, downloaded it to my kindle, and listened to it.  Holy typos and bad formatting, Batman!!  Lesson One:  Have someone else read your work.  I might have proofed that thing a couple of dozen times, but I knew what it was supposed to say.  And when my eyes saw tow, my brain read two, same with through and though, etc.  Lesson Two:  Learn the formatting rules before you type it.

I won't even go into all of the listing, pricing, and marketing information I had to shove into my poor little brain.

So, I'm on about my 10th upload and I think it's finally, completely, perfectly correct.  Hopefully.  Now I'm just waiting for those changes to take affect and this wait is killing me.

In the meantime, I'm learning about promoting and marketing Maddy's Tail.  And I've written about 10 pages of book number two, not sure what it's called yet.  But keep up-to-date on my progress through my new Facebook Author's page and Twitter account.

https://www.facebook.com/BC-Barry-142212806192742/     for facebook and

@AuthorBCBarry for Twitter

Anyway, thanks for stopping by and checking out why my dishes haven't been washed over the past couple of days.  I'll talk to you soon.



As always, take your time leaving but hurry on back.  :)

The Glory of Garbage

What's good?                    Garbage.

What's bad?                      Tossing it.

What's the difference?     Read on and see!  

10 Best Garbage-Picking Ways to Save Money.

Have you ever looked up and down your street on garbage day? It's unusual to see one lonely can with snug-fitting lid sitting at the curb. Normalcy is the bulging can with bag after bag balanced precariously up to eye level and the lid perched on top of it all.

We throw away so much junk. And many of us pay someone for that privilege. This is totally not necessary. There are so many ways to reuse our garbage and they require very little effort. Now, I'm not suggesting you ninja up and sneakily paw through your neighbor's cans in the wee hours of the morning. Although you can if you'd like and, to be honest, I may have been known to do so a time or two.

This is something we can do from our very own trash cans before they even hit the curb. Read on to learn some easy ways to make garbage-picking fun and cost effective.

1 – Aluminum Foil

Don't toss that foil once it's used. Aluminum foil, even used foil, has so many practical uses. Give it a quick wash once you're done with it (I just swish it around in my dish water) and set it aside to dry. (This works best using foil without heavily baked-on food product. Foil used for baked potatoes or to cover a dish works well. However, if you wrapped BBQ chicken with it, maybe not so much.)

What are those future uses, you ask? Well…

1) Scrubbing with wadded up foil really works and doesn't ruin those expensive scrub brushes. Try it on moss and fungus covered brick and concrete surfaces, dried paint and oil from your garage floor and driveway, cooked-on food from the racks and bottom of your grill, last year's dried dirt inside your flower pots, all that dried grass under your lawnmower.

2) Balls of used foil make great drainage for the bottoms of those flower pots.

3) Trying to start a camp fire on the wet ground or snow? Spread out the foil and protect your kindling from all that dampness.

4) Painting a room and need a break? Wrap your wet brush in the foil and place it in the freezer.

2 – The Shiny Silver seal on a coffee can.

You stumble out of bed, shuffle your way to the kitchen, fumble through the process of making coffee, then EEK!! The can of coffee is empty!!! Wait….wait, don't fear. The world is still a safe place to live. There's a brand new can in the cupboard. Phew! Profoundly relieved, you remove the plastic lid, peel off that shiny silver cover, close your eyes, and inhale deeply. That first whiff of a freshly opened can of coffee is sheer bliss. Stop! Don't turn towards the garbage to deposit that silver shininess dangling from your fingertips. That bit of sparkle has many more uses.

1) Glue a plastic cookie cutter to the shiny silverness and cut around the shape. Makes a pretty ornament for a tree, cute little candy dish or topping dish for a sundae bar, fill with candies and cover with saran wrap and it's perfect for the Easter basket.

2) Cut off the tab, glue lace or a nice slice of fabric around the edge, and place a candle in the center. This gives the appearance of a mirrored surface for the candle and you don't have to worry about dripping wax ruining your furniture. Plus, when it gets too gobbed up, simply toss it….you KNOW you'll be drinking more coffee.

3) Cut into shapes - circle, oval, rectangle - border edges with permanent marker, and use as labels for anything in the home. These are sharp, modern, and look like you actually spent money on them.

3 – Pasta boxes.

There's nothing better than home-made macaroni and cheese. And if you're going to make it, you might as well make a lot because it's even better warmed up. So, go ahead, be brave. Cook the whole box. Pause a moment, though, before flinging that empty box across the room to ricochet off the wall into the trash. (Because you are that good.) It's a neat little box, isn't it? Perfect shape, and it has that cool cellophane window on the front. Hmmm…..

Yes, you have yourself a perfect gift bag. Glue pretty paper or material on it, leaving the window open, cut off the flaps, punch holes in the top and make handles of yarn or string, and you're set. Is gluing too much work? Paint it. Still too much work? Steal….I mean….borrow your child's sticker book and have a blast, the kids can even help with this part. Letting some of the stickers hang over the window adds a bit of flair to the look.

Gift bags and wrapping paper are expensive…..use garbage instead.

4 – Toilet paper/Paper towel tubes.

Okay, fess up. How many of you can walk into your bathroom right now and see at least one or two empty toilet paper tubes in the waste basket? Uh-huh….thought so. Well, stop that. There are far too many uses for toilet paper and paper towel tubes.

1) Do you have a meat cleaver floating around in your drawer but lost the protective sleeve? You know that thing is just lying in wait to snag a fingertip or two, don't you? A paper towel tube can protect those precious paddies in a snap. Just smush it flat, duct-tape/glue/staple the ends closed, and cut a slit in one of the creases the length of the blade. Ta-da! Works on hatchets and axes, too.

2) Uh-oh. The kiddo has a birthday party to attend in 20 minutes and you forgot to buy a gift. No worries. Grab a toilet paper tube, cover with festive duct-tape or even that shiny silver thing from the coffee can, or decorate with markers or stickers (here's that child labor part again, let them do it). Tape one end shut and wad up some ones, a five or two and stuff them inside. Throw in some quarters and wrapped candies and you're set. You can get fancy and poke small holes in the open end, thread ribbon or string through the holes, pull the drawstring shut and tie it off. Or just tape or fold it shut….whatever your imagination, and time constraints, allow.

3) Fill with cat nip and jingle bells, wrap it and the ends with shiny duct-tape, and watch your cats go wild.

5 – Used Paper Towels.

Aren't you just so proud? You spent the morning cleaning every mirror, window, and shiny surface in your home with glass cleaner and paper towels. And the whole house sparkles. Well done! Now, just look at that mound of dirty paper towels. There's really nothing on them but dust and cleaning product. What to do…..

Here's what to do, put them in the bottom of your kitchen and outside trash cans BEFORE you put the bag in. These “dirty” paper towels will absorb any oozing created by holes in the bag, keeping the bottom clean. And the cleaning product already in them will help maintain a clean odor in the stinkiest area of your home.

6 – Empty Skittles, M&Ms, etc. bags.

We love us some fruity and chocolatey treats, don't we? And we buy the smaller bags so we don't eat as many. The problem is, we just buy those smaller bags more often. Well, maybe that's just me. But that's a whole lot of bright, colorful stuff most people can relate to and it's being wasted. Gasp! Cut the ends off those bags, cut up one side and wipe the white part with a Clorox wipe.

1) Fold in half, punch a hole in the corner, thread with ribbon, and you have a cool and unique gift tag.

2) Do you remember that toilet paper tube gift we talked about earlier? Awesome cover for that.

3) Fold the bottom up a little over a third of the way, glue the sides, then write your child's name on the white part at the top. Pin to a bulletin board and you have a great little pocket for allowances, lunch money, or chores.

4) Don't cut it up, carefully peel open one end, eat the candies yourself, place a twenty inside, then glue the top shut. Great little gag gift that's really a gift.

7 – Old Pillows.

Did you get wonderful, fluffy new pillows for your bed this Christmas? Nice! Before you kick those old ones to the curb, though, let them do some work for you. Damp basements are not fun to deal with, especially in the winter months. Place those old pillows around the basement and they'll absorb some of that moisture from the air. Don't wait too long before tossing them, though, or they'll get pretty nasty.

8 – Dish soap, shampoo, etc., bottles.

1) Finally squeezed out that last drop of dish soap? Good. Don't throw it away yet. Neatly cut it off about four inches from the bottom, peel off the label, and wash. You now have the perfect little sponge holder to set on your sink.

2) Are you as tired as I am of razors scattered all about the shower? And then they lay in the spray and get rusty. Not to worry if you have an empty shampoo bottle or such lying about. Neatly cut the bottle off five or six inches from the bottom, peel off the label, and wash. You can then attach this oh-so-expensive razor holder to your shower wall anywhere you'd like using double-sided tape. And if it starts to get gunky? Toss and repeat.

3) We all have toilet bowl brushes. And whichever style we choose to use, those things still end up inside our toilet bowl. That's something we don't want flitting willy-nilly about our bathroom. Take an empty Clorox bottle and cut off the top, then use this to hold that brush. You don't even need to wash this one since any Clorox left inside will only help matters.

9 – Kids' School Papers.

Every single week the kids bring home a mountain of papers, homework assignments, in class practice, tests…..it never ends. You oohhh and ahhh appropriately, marveling at their skill and knowledge. And then what. That's a huge chunk of their life and history, not to mention paper, to waste on the trash can. But it's just so much to keep around. Try this instead:

1) School pictures are here and oh so cute. What a wonderful gift for extended family. Now, to buy the frames and matting for every family member. Nah, waste of money. Use that schoolwork as your matting, it'll be the perfect backdrop for that treasured picture. And it'll be so interesting to watch how their writing and knowledge changes each year along with their looks.

2) Do you scrapbook? What better way to display those unforgettable moments than to place a picture on top of that test your child was so proud of. Just make sure the grade shows.

These next tips are only for those amazing individuals who somehow remain uber organized during all of life's chaos. Not for the faint of heart.

3) Wrap your child's engagement, wedding, and baby shower gifts in their grade school papers.

4) Still have all of your not-so-little one's schoolwork organized by year? Each year wrap your grandchild's birthday gift in their parent's school papers from the same age.

5) Many of these papers have blank backs. Fold it in half and turn it into a birthday, graduation, housewarming card.

6) Having a picture booth at your bundles of joy's graduation party? A montage of all those papers mixed in with some school pictures would be a backdrop they'll never forget.

10 – Keyboards.

Most of us have computers with the requisite keyboards. And don't we just love it when we spill a drink on the keyboard, completely ruining it? Time to bring in the new and take out the old, right? Well….not exactly.

Those letters, numbers, and symbols pop right out there. Did you know that? How cute is a gift wrapped in plain paper with the birthday boy's or girl's name and age spelled out in keyboard keys. Or decorate a child's bulletin board with CTRL, ALT, and DEL keys. 

Just remember, if you can buy it in a store, you can probably make it out of your very own trash.  The neighbor's trash......well, that's your call. 

As always, take your time leaving but hurry on back.  :)

A Mother's Day Story

Here's a quick little two-part story for Mother's Day.

Part One:

I opened the door to the boy's room to see if he had any dishes in there as I was getting ready to do all the dishes.  You know how boys are.  I turned the light on and Tally, our fat lady cat, jumped out from behind the window curtain, scaring the crap out me.  I jumped and screamed.  And she went tearing out of the room just as fast as her fat little butt could waddle.  

He'd left for work a few hours ago so the poor little thing must have been in there the whole time.

Part Two:

The boy only had one coffee cup in his room.  I, on the other hand, had 3 cups and 1 glass on the coffee table, 1 cup and 1 glass on the desk, and 1 cup in the laundry room.  

I'm not doing this Mom thing right.

Making SOME money.

What's good? Making money, again.

What's bad? Not much about this site.

What's the difference? Steady income, just not huge amounts.

So, as promised, here is one of the sites I use the most to keep the money flowing into my account. Well….okay…..trickling into my account. You certainly won't get rich off of this, but you can keep a steady ten or twenty dollars hitting your account every day or two.

Amazon Mechanical Turk (or Mturk)

What's good?

Most everything about this site. For me, it's especially great if we notice we're going to run out of something before next pay and don't have any money left. It's pretty easy to build up ten or twenty dollars if you keep at it.

-You pick and choose which “Hits” you work on.

Hit stands for human intelligence task, meaning they can't get a computer to do it, so they pay us small amounts to do it for them.

-Even in the beginning you qualify for a LOT of hits.

-The larger your approved hit count is, the more hits you qualify for, which are also usually the higher dollar hits. (I spent a couple of nights doing hundreds of the 1, 2, and 3 cent hits just to get my count up there so I could qualify for the higher paying hits. I didn't get paid much for them, but they were very fast and easy to do.)

-Many of the requesters pay bonuses for high quality work.

I get so excited when I see those emails saying I've received a bonus for 9 cents or 17 cents. I know….whoopie? But when you get 50 such emails all in a row, that adds up.

-After your first time, they transfer the funds FAST.

At midnight last night I reached a balance of $20, at 3 am I received an email saying my transfer was complete. It's not in my bank yet, but that's because of my bank. When they do their download Monday morning, it'll be there.

-You can transfer ANY amount you want, no limits and no penalties.

Have $2.16 in your balance? You can transfer $2.16…..and I have.

-You choose the level of difficulty you feel like.

I'll normally go for the more challenging or creative hits, because they pay more and are more fun. Yet, when I'm on that first cup of coffee, my brain doesn't work. So I'll search out the easy hits. True, they may only pay 3 to 5 cents per hit, but most of them are beyond simple.

**Example – Data Entry, you are entering the date of birth from the image of a form, it only shows you the date of birth part of the image, so no searching. But they only want you to enter the month. So, you type two numbers, hit tab, type two numbers, hit tab, etc., til all 20 items are entered in that hit. It literally takes a minute to do and requires no thought process at all. (My favorite kind.)

-Many of the hits are just fun.

I've placed stop sign and traffic light icons on maps, I've written reviews for companies I've never heard of, I've described pictures for blind people, I've listened to songs and typed up the lyrics, I've played word search games, answered math questions (made a $25 bonus on that one for getting all 50 questions right), I've looked at photos and clicked on each one of whatever item they said. And so on.

What's bad?

--And this is a big one…..only TWO methods of payment.

You can choose either an Amazon gift card or direct deposit to your bank account. Now, I won't normally have anything to do with any site that wants access to my bank account. But I've been an Amazon customer for years and years, they've always had access to my debit cards, and I've never had a problem with them.

I am NOT in any way recommending that you do this, it needs to be your choice. But I chose the direct deposit to my account because I personally trust Amazon. And so far I have had no reason at all for concern.

-You cannot make your initial withdrawal of funds until you have at least 10 days worth of approved hits.

I don't believe they need to be 10 days in a row, but you have to have worked for them for 10 days before they pay you. And the first transfer took about five days to complete. But each one after that has been within a matter of hours.

-Waiting for the hits to be approved.

I get impatient and want my money!! Some people approve the hits right away, sometimes as soon as I submit them. Others take a week or so and that can be frustrating when you know you have $20 just hanging out there.

-If you have an issue with one of the requesters, Amazon will not back you.

But they pretty much say that right up front in their guidelines. I had one that did not pay after three weeks and ignored my messages to them. Amazon basically said they could do nothing for me. So I was out that $1.25.

However, to date I've completed 1253 hits and that was the only one that gave me any problems.

WARNING: Do not think this is something that you can just click your way through and not pay attention to what you're doing. The requesters review everything that is submitted and will reject bad work or wrong answers. The higher your rejection rate, the fewer hits you'll qualify for until you're finally just booted out the door. You will have to actually earn the little they pay you.

However, if I do a hit and find it's just too much work for that small amount of cash, I'll either return the hit (this does not look bad for you) or just never do one like it again.

Hope this helps someone. And I'll keep posting other methods to make some money while lounging on the couch in your jammies.

As always, take your time leaving but hurry on back. :)

I don't know stuff.

I really don't know what's going on with the fonts in these posts.  I do the same exact thing for every post.....I think.  And every post has something a little bit different.  I obviously don't know stuff.  But will keep trying.

For those of you who are irritated by it, I do apologize.  All I can say is, "Yeah, me, too."



As always, take your time leaving but hurry on back.  :)

How NOT to make money from home.

What's good?            Money.  It's always good.

What's bad?               These sites.

What's the difference?        My mistakes and wasted time.

There are a few sites out there where you can sign up for jobs to earn some money.  Some are good, some....not so much.  Below are three of the not so good, I'll make another post for the good.

Fiverr.com

I signed up for this site about a month ago and haven't gotten a thing from them.  But I only have one gig posted, writing, and there are probably thousands of writers on there.  It's very easy to get lost in the crowd.  I have yet to find a way to promote yourself further outside of videos and creating really off the wall gigs, which just isn't for me.

I check it every day, even though they'll send you an email with any responses.  So far nada for me.  I have noticed, however, that once of week or so my gig will become paused and I have to reactivate it.  Not sure what that's about.

Anyway, nothing good and nothing bad about this one.

Freelancer

I had read a lot of good reviews about this site, yet I've had nothing but bad experiences with them.  As a result, I am currently deactivating my account.  I personally would not recommend them but, as always, make your own choice.  To help you with that choice, here's what happened to me.

I created a profile listing my skills, etc., and signed up for their free account, because I'm cheap.  You're allowed to bid on eight jobs per month with the free account.  I thought that would be enough until I started making some money, and then I'd re-evaluate whether or not I wanted to pay.

You then browse the many jobs they have available to bid on, and there are many.  Once deciding which job you want, you make a bid on it, naming your price and services.  You're also given a spot to sell yourself with around 1000 characters, enabling you to really pile it on.  You can see the bids others have made but can't see what they typed about themselves.  I liked this part of the whole process as it allowed you to pick and choose and gives you a more active role.

However, and that's a bolded and capitalized HOWEVER, I have not had good luck with the whole process.  Within a week I was contacted to perform some data entry work, and accepted the job.  A few messages passed between the requester and myself to iron out the details and I was to start the next day, having logged onto the website where the work was to be done.  The next day, though, the website didn't exist.  I contacted the requester through Freelancer, and this is when I discovered their account had been deactivated.

So, I contacted Freelancer, explaining the situation and asking if I should be concerned because I had logged onto this mysteriously disappearing website.  Their initial response to me was, "You don't have any currently active jobs."  That's it, nothing more.  I replied with all the same details and told them to look at my messages since all the info is still there.  

And here's the kicker.  They responded alright, telling me that the account had been deactivated because it didn't follow Freelancer's guidelines.  Then they spent an entire paragraph threatening to deactivate my account if I continue to work with people who don't follow the guidelines.  Nice, huh?  I chalked that up to lesson learned and continued on.

Move forward two weeks and I receive a notice from Paypal stating they paid an invoice from Freelancer in the amount of $10.48.  What???  Checking my Freelancer account, I notice I've been upgraded to a paying account with a notification stating, "Help boost your income by making more bids."  No email from them, just that notice in my Freelancer account.  No no no.

The gist of the story, they upgraded me since none of my bids were accepted and they just KNEW having 100 bids instead of only 8 would help me.  I demanded a refund and deactivation of my account.  The emails continued and finally a week later the money was back in my Paypal account.  I am currently on my third email requesting they deactivate my account.  Their last reply was that I would still be able to make up to eight bids a month.  My reply, "You people already took money from me without asking.  I don't trust you anymore.  Deactivate my account."  So, we'll see what happens next.

Speechpad

This is an online transcription company which initially seemed great.  You typed everything you heard people say on video and audio recordings for the lump sum listed.  I started out on this like a ball of fire, clacking away on the keyboard as I watched my balance grow.

The bad?  Lots.  Their software sucks, to be blunt.  You cannot slow down or speed up the recordings nor can you change the volume.  You can rewind for five seconds by moving the mouse and clicking on the rewind button, then moving the mouse back to where you were typing and clicking there to start typing again.  There is no spellcheck, unless you type it in a word document and that means clicking between screens constantly.  Or you type into their screen, copy and paste into a word document to spellcheck, then copy and paste back into their screen.

You must use their formatting, spelling, and grammar guidelines.  No problem, right?  Just click on the guideline tab.  Except, you can't do that while you're typing or it boots you out of the job and it gets rejected.  I learned that the hard way.  So, you download the guidelines......all 33 pages of them.

While typing you must insert time stamps [00:00:00:0] that coincide with the audio/video at the beginning of each paragraph, each laugh, each pause greater than 2 seconds, each new speaker.  No button to push, you have to type that out.  Each sound needs to be shown with a time stamp and tag: [laughter] [cough].  Each speaker has to be labeled, and there's a whole page of rules for that.

But they paid good, so it's worth it, right?  I thought so at first.  In fact, within five days my balance was almost $300.00.  Woohoo!  Yeah....not really.  You have to wait 14 days to be paid, no problem, most companies are like that.  They just neglect to tell you it's 14 business days.  And hidden somewhere in all that fine print is the fact that while they list the funds in your balance, you don't actually get the cash until their customer approves the work you did.  That was a month ago for me, and I've been paid $66.79 to date.

And, icing on the cake, in the beginning the jobs came fast and furious, one right after the other.  They were good jobs, easy to understand, and I maintained a high quality rating.  Then suddenly, all that stopped and the few jobs I was assigned were in foreign languages or impossible to hear anyone because of loud music, etc.  Needless to say, I no longer waste my time with them.....and it did take time.

So, that was MY experience with these three companies.  Not great, huh?  I'll admit it could have just been me.  I may not have read every little word so eager was I to start earning the big bucks.  But if you choose to give them a try, you'll at least have your eyes open a little wider than mine were.

Hope this helps.  I'm currently writing up a post about the sites that I've actually made money from, so stay posted.  

As always, take your time leaving but hurry on back.  :)