A New Year With New Changes

I have been approached numerous times in the past regarding placing advertisements on my blog.  It is something that I have seriously considered for quite some time, but I just never took the time to make a decision one way or the other.

In all of our thinking about the possible move back to South Carolina, I began to think more and more about the possibility of placing ads on this blog.

No, I'm not expecting to make enough money to support our family, thus resolving the issue of us not having employment in the States!  But it would be nice to be able to make some extra money, however small it may be, to help supplement any future immigration costs or moving costs.  And if we don't decide to make the move, then it would still be nice to make a little extra money to help support by Starbucks addiction!!!

Or, it would be nice to use it to help pay for my own website.

That was the real reason that I started doing all of my research.  I would LOVE to have my own domain name instead of using the blogger platform as I have always done.  But owning a domain name comes with a monthly fee, where as blogger is free.  So I'm having a hard time justifying the decision to purchase a website.

I did a lot of research, and I ulitmately decided to go with Google's AdSense for this blog.  And, so far, I have been very impressed.  Once my blog had been approved, I was then able to limit what types of ads I would or would not allow to appear on my page.  I could then also chose where I wanted the ads to be placed.  They currently are located at the very top and very bottom of my right hand side bar (above "About Me" and below "Buttons") and also at the end of the most current post in this main body.

Many of the ads that have appeared thus far have caught my eye, and I've been tempted to click to see what they are all about.  But, to follow the rules established for me by Google, I can't do the clicking!  That would be unfair, because then I would be tempted to just sit at my computer all day long, clicking on my own ads and making money for doing so.

However, that rule does not apply to you my readers!  If any of the ads that you will now be seeing on this blog should catch YOUR eye, please feel free to give them a click to check them out for yourself!  By doing so, you will be learn about whatever cool new product or service that caught your attention to begin with, as well as you will be helping put a few extra pennies in my pocket.

Just in case you are wondering, I can let you know that the ads don't pay much!  So far, I have yet to make enough money to pay for my signature $7.00 Starbucks drink... my Quad Venti Caramel Macchiato!

I must also make a side note here.  I am sure that there are a few of my readers that love me and my family very much that would love to help us as much as possible and are currently reading this and thinking of ways to click and click for us to watch those pennies add up.  Please don't do that!  Google will get very upset and no longer allow me to have ads of any kind if they even suspect that something fishy is going on.  So, really, please only click on the ads that you are interested in!

In the process of deciding to advertise, I also decided to add a few features to this blog to make it easier for you all to keep up with any changes or new posts.

You can now subscribe to receive my posts in your specific reader of choice... Yahoo, Atom, NewsGator, Bloglines, Netvibes, Google, FeedDemon, etc.

You can also subscribe to receive an alert to your email address notifying you of whenever a new post has been published.

The link for either of these choices is located in my right side bar, under the section for "Followers".

One last note of instruction, and then I'll wrap it all up with this post.  I have started linking back to previous posts within my current posts more often now. So, if as you are reading, you should suddenly come across a few words in pink it is not because I like to colour coordinate my posts!  That simply means that you can click on the pink words to go back to the exact post of whatever I am referring to.  For example, there has been one other time that this blog had some major changes to occur, and that was back when I decided to stop letting it be a blog about Reagan and more or less let it be a blog about any and everything in our lives.  So, Paging Doctor Mommy was created.  And if you want to read all about how that came about, then just click on the words in pink right above and it will take you directly to that link!

I'm hoping that all of the changes and additions will make it a little easier for you to follow along!  And I'm hoping that I won't lose any of my current readers by making any of these changes!