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Not defunct--just not all that active. We are busy women, so we tend to fall away sometimes for a while. Glad to hear from you, though, Laura! Maybe we can get the others back again, too.
BTW, I have lots of articles planned for my site, but I can't post them just yet because I am having all my sites professionally redesigned to include Google Ads. I have been accepted by Google Ads and maybe can make a bit of money from my sites, since
counting all my sites together I actually have millions of readers worldwide. I also plan to start an online "store" where I can sell products (local and as an affiliate for bigger companies). Fortunately, my professional web redesign won't cost me, since a friend (a former student whom I tutored through his college career) won't let me pay for it. I made him promise, though, to accept a small percentage of my after-tax sales once we get it all off the ground.
I am also planning to produce many ebooks for people to purchase and download from my sites--mainly on grammar and usage, essay writing, reading skills, child-rearing, and such. Eventually, once I get together the production capacity, I also plan to make print versions of some of the books. I get so many requests for ebooks and print versions of these things that I figure that, with my large reader base, I probably can make some money. Also, I can produce one or more ebooks in a single day. For example, although I plan to revise and expand it this summer, my 77-page grammar handbook took me just 6 hours to write. I wrote it overnight in 1984, as a handbook for my own students.
I am going to sell totes made by a woman here in Lawrence, a line of specialty cards designed and made by a 24-year-old artist here who used to be a child in my daycare, and things like that. I also hope to hook up with major companies whose products I believe in as an affiliate for their products. I am already an affiliate for WhiteSmoke, a program that helps people with their writing. It is like an
enhanced Word grammar and spelling program, but its different versions also include templates for various kinds of writing--legal, medical, business, etc.
I occasionally also get requests from businesses to put text link ads on my articles when they are related to the product. I only have 4 or 5 of those so far, but I get paid $200 each time a company does that, and I am hoping that as more marketing people see these ads, they will contact me with requests for more products.
Anyway, my plan is to become a multimillionaire within the next 5 years. We will see whether it works, but I honestly believe I can do it, since I already have the readership to reach millions of people.
I write and post my articles because I love to, but if I can also make significant money from my sites, I would be delighted! I have so many people I love and want to help that I have decided that I need to become wealthy enough to do that. I also have other projects I want to fund.
For example, if I can succeed in this, one of my intentions is to use some of the money to set up a hearing help aid fund for people who need aids but can't afford them. Right now I need new aids desperately myself, but I can't afford them because I used all my spare money to support my daughter in her last year of med school. She needed help with rent and bills, as well as having to pay for trips all over the eastern coast to interview for her residency. I ended up paying $10,000 over a 4-month period to keep her afloat, plus another couple thousand to help my son and his fiancée out during some rough financial patches they sufffered last year.
I live very
frugally myself, so although I don't make that much money (in fact, until 3 1/2 years ago, I made less than $20,000 a year!), I have been able to help them since I have been doing better with my freelance writing and editing, plus tutoring, on top of the salary I now get for the full-time lecturer position I was given 3 years ago at KU. Prior to that they had no full-time salaried adjunct positions in my department, so I was a part-time adjunct lecturer, as were all the others. But the full-time position gives me not just a bit more money, but also a bit of security, since it is a 3-year appointment rather than a 1-year, and I just got renewed for the next 3 years (YAY!).
Another
thing I hope to do if I make some real money is to set up a fund at my vet's office to help people who can't afford it to pay for necessary treatment for beloved pets. I have already been doing that for a couple of people I know whenever I can afford to, but I have such a limited capacity to do that right now, and I want to be able to help more. I remember what it was like to need to get vet care for beloved pets but not have any money. Fortunately, my vet was always willing to let me run a tab and pay it off in small increments, which is why I would set up such a fund with that clinic specifically. Right now, for example, I am slowly paying down a $1000 vet bill because I got exploratory surgery for my 15-year-old cat Lila. Turns out that she didn't have cancer as we feared, but rather treatable inflammatory bowel syndrome. If I had just assumed cancer and had her put to sleep, which was one of the options presented to me, I would have missed out on perhaps many more
years of her loving companionship, but since my vet lets me pay large bills over longer periods, I was able to get the exploratory surgery for her. I want other pet owners to be able to do this sort of thing rather than giving up and just letting a pet die.
I also want to be able to make larger donations than I presently do to the local Humane Society and also to the rescue society in Leawood, Kansas, where I got one of my current three kitties.
Unfortunately, I
have been drastically slowed down this past year because the pain meds I have been taking for ruptured discs have made me very sick and have drained my energy. It was like having mono! I would sleep for 12 hours or more, work 20 minutes, then have to take a two-hour nap! I took myself off the strongest of the meds (Fentanyl—80 times stronger than morphine!) early in February. (I went through some very unpleasant opiate withdrawal symptoms.) I have spent the past several weeks since then catching up on work I let slide during that time. I am still using hydrocodone for the pain, but since my discs are better (not "good"--but much better), I can manage with just the hydrocodone, and fortunately, it doesn't affect me as badly as the Fentanyl did.
So that's where I am right now and what I am doing. How about the rest of you folks? Wanna check in and catch us all up on what you are doing and how you are doing? I miss my friends on this board, and now that I have more than a few minutes at a time of functioning in me, I can pick up again on old activities that I had to let slide because of illness and lack of energy.
(Oh, and BTW, since the Fentanyl made me so sick, I have also lost 35 pounds over the last 10 months. I sure didn't like being sick all the time, but since I had gotten quite fat, I am glad to have those pounds off me. I am still fat and hope to lose another 50 pounds, but I weigh less now than I have in maybe 7 or 8 years!)
readerwoman5552 <readerwoman@...> wrote:
Haven't seen any posts except spam lately, but in case there IS
someone out there still getting message emails - I wanted to tell you
about another group I recently joined - Bella Online
(www.Bellaonline.com) it is a women's site, like Ivillage, but is so
user friendly and so easy to get involved with that I thought I'd
share it...
their deafies page is at:
http://deafness.bellaonline. com/Site. asp
and their discussion forum at:
http://forums.bellaonline. com/ubbthreads. php?ubb=postlist &Board=207
I have taken the hat of Senior Issues editor (the deafness page
already being taken...) so you can find me at:
http://www.bellaonline.com/site/ seniorissues
Hope to see some of you around! I am on the forums as "Laura-Senior-
Issues"
Laura (formerly loluv, and cl-loluv of the deaf/hard of hearing
Ivillage site!)
http://www.grammartips.homestead.com/index.html
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