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Don’t you adore her on Downton Abbey?

This weekend I put on FB and Twitter that I was opening up the blog to ads with Passionfruit. I’ve had ads on and off on here for a while now, the BlogHer one is steady and then several companies and small businesses as I’ve worked with them over the months.

But because Passionfruit is different (and bloggers are welcome to advertise – you can see some have already on here), I wanted to explain a bit about it and where the money I make is going. (more…)

For a long time, no matter how much money Sam and I made, we struggled with our finances. Every month was simply buying things until we ran out of money.

We’ve made really terrible decisions with our money – buying cars we didn’t need, a home we couldn’t really afford, not having any kind of budget, and using the credit card as a “freebie” account. In the 9 years we’ve been together, we’ve had to face some tough wake up calls when the time came for us to pay up.

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Last month I got paid. Really paid. For my writing, for the work I did on here. It wasn’t just “WOOT – 2 Starbucks runs!” anymore, and it felt DAMN GOOD.

I’m not bragging – I understand it’s peanuts compared to many other bloggers. I’m being honest about something that has eaten away at me that I finally came to terms with for what I love to do.

When I started blogging, it was because I wanted to write about my day. I didn’t care about HTML or my design, I had no idea that typing each paragraph in a different colored font was not the best way to have people come back. But as time went on, I became more and more blog savvy, and I began to love the other part of blogging. The part beyond just writing. (more…)

When Sam was at his worst drinking point last summer, I used to think every day, “If he would just stop drinking life would be perfect.” I couldn’t imagine wanting one more thing than for him to come home and announce he was done. And really be done.

So when he stopped, the best thing we could have done was to see our marriage counselor again – one month into his sobriety. I remember him saying that while we were all giddy and happy and willing to change our whole lives and personalities for each other at that moment, that down the road we would start to notice things that would bother us, and we would have to adjust to living with each other sober. (more…)

Branson is a stay at home mom who blogs at My Reflection of Something. She not only has the most adorable, eye catching blog around, but also a cute kid to boot. Branson does inspiring posts; ones that make you think about how you really feel about yourself, motherhood, and life in general. Be sure to visit her when you’re through reading her take on how she made it work to go from a full time job to staying at home.

When I realized I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom, the idea seemed impossible. I looked at our finances, and thought there was no way we could make it work. Eventually, though, I just couldn’t spend another day trying to figure out how we could save up so that someday I could leave my job. So, I quit. Crazy? Maybe. Fortunately,  I had some great support, and quickly found out that what had seemed impossible was not so hard. (more…)