Cats and Coupons

I found out today that I have the opportunity to take part in another online Treasure Hunt sponsored by Jewel Elegance this week. I was in one of their online treasure hunts last month and had a lot of fun. Unfortunately, it looks like I won’t be able to join this one because it’s in the middle of the day and I’ll be at work. I heard there will be more online treasure hunts coming up, so it’s ok if I don’t get in on this one. I did learn something new just by receiving an invitation. Jewel Elegance carries military rings and other military jewelry, which is something I’m sure my brother in the Navy might be interested in. Go check out Jewel Elegance. They have lots of nice things. Don’t forget, Mother’s Day is almost here! Are you ready? If you still have shopping to do, be sure to use coupon code THTM10P801321 in order to receive 10% off a purchase at Jewelelegance.com. Happy shopping!

I am tired of seeing keyword and business names in the comments so I am instituting a published blog comment policy on Cats and Coupons, as I have on several other blogs.

I appreciate it when anyone reads my blogs, and love comments. If you’re leaving a comment please be aware of these things.

All comments are moderated.
Who are you? All comments are welcome, but you must use a real name. No keywords or business names will be accepted.
Is your comment on topic? Only comments of value will be accepted. Comments should be relevant to the topic of the post. I will not allow personal attacks. Comments must be in English.
Links. Comments saying something like “nice job” or something like that that are linking to commercial sites will be deleted or have the link removed. If all you want is a link to your commercial site from mine then review my advertising page and contact me to discuss and negotiate a price.
When? Comments for all post will close 30 days after the post has been written unless it is an exceptionally popular post generating a lot of conversation.
Change. This policy is fluid and subject to change without notice.

Well, I mentioned a little while back that I was thinking about changing themes on this site. I have been downloading, uploading, extracting, and messing with themes and code for a couple of weeks in my spare time (of which I don’t have a lot of). After going through about forty different themes I have decided to try the one called My April Reloaded. I’ve turned the theme on so you can see it and should be finished making minor changes by tomorrow. If you see anything weird, please leave me a comment. Or, leave me a comment and let me know what you think of the new look.

Two of my blogs have been nominated for Bloggers Choice Awards.
I know EVERYTHING - just ask my hubby was nominated for The Blogitizer, which means blogger who can write about anything. Val’s Views was nominated for Best Blog About Stuff, it’s my review blog. If you’ve read them and feel they are good, please consider submitting a vote for me. If you haven’t read them, what in the heck are you waiting for?

A question for the bloggers out there. The bloggers who blog regularly, that is. I just now, today, decided that I’m not thrilled with the theme on this site. I must have looked through hundreds to find it. When I found it I made some adjustments and have had it up on this blog since. It’s been up since early November. One month. Have any of you other bloggers out there decided you didn’t like a theme quite as much as you originally thought when you put it up?

Are you a blogger that would like to get paid for blogging? Are you a company or business that is interested in blog advertising? If your answer to either question is yes, then check out Smorty. Smorty is a network for advertisers and bloggers. If you want to get paid for blogging you have to submit your blog for approval. To be approved your blog must be active and at least three months old with at least two posts a week, and indexed by the search engines. As new opportunities become available the blogger receives an email. The blogger logs in and accepts the opportunity or ignores it. Once accepted, the work must be completed and submitted within three days. Submitted work should be unique, contain 150 words or more, and include whatever one link was supplied by the advertiser. Submissions are approved within a couple of days and payments are made weekly by Paypal.

I have been trying to decide if I want two separate checking accounts, the one we have now and another just for my blogging money. I think I’m leaning towards opening a second account, which means I have to decide what bank to open it with. I have been seeing WAMU commercials more and more on television. I went to their site and they have decent free account features, such as no minimum account balance,  free outgoing wire transfers and the Mastercard debit card. I almost signed up but there aren’t any branches convenient for me. Back to the thinking chair…

I’m a blogaholic. I have recently realized I am addicted to blogging. I love getting a new blog going. When I think of an idea for a potential blog, I start wondering what I’d call it. I wonder if I’d like writing about it, would I be good at writing it, could I offer decent content and all sorts of other things. Once the idea gets into my head, up pops another blog. I have blogs now in niches I am interested in, and have promised myself I will restrain myself and not start any more new blogs than what I’ve got now. I know of a few other bloggers that have posted they’re addicted to blogging as well. I wonder if there’s some kind of blogging addiction treatment out there for people like us.

Well I played around with the Newsprint theme some more and got the right sidebar to do what I wanted it to do. I even put together a collage style picture for the featured area. The picture is supposed to represent some of the many things I blog about - home, reviews, shopping, money and cats. The theme still needs a fews more minor adjustments that I’ll work on tomorrow. I like it, but it isn’t as cutesy as the wall sitting cat. And yes I still miss the paw prints. Please let me know what you think of this look.

Well, a few days ago I mentioned I was going to change the look of the site. I have begun searching, so don’t be surprised if the page changes a couple of times in the next few days. It may even change while you are in the middle of looking at it. I’m trying the Newsprint theme right now. It’s not bad. I do miss the paw prints though. What do you think of it?

I’m back. It’s been two minutes. The theme is aggravating me. My sidebar is only showing up in posts and other pages, not the index or archive pages. If I can’t fix it it’ll have to leave. We’re going to basketball practice now, so I’ll have to tackle it another time. Back to the wall sitting cat.

When I started this blog I thought I could easily have a good time writing content on pets and money (saving money, shopping, coupons, budgeting, deals ). Nobody is going to come here to read a few sales all the time, not when there are well known sites that cover nothing but sales. So I am doing a little bit of a blog revision. I thought about what I want from the blog, and am adjusting accordingly. I still plan on writing about pets and saving money. I’m also expanding just about to cover some surrounding topics affected by pets and money, such as home and life. I will also be doing some reviews.
With this revision I feel a re-vision is in order, so I have begun the search for a new look. Check back to see what I come up with.

I plan on monetizing this blog to some degree, partly for the experience of writing and partly to make some money to pay down debt. So I’ve submitted this site to Blogsvertise for approval. If this blog is approved they will email me offers for work from time to time. If I accept I’ll have five days to complete the work which is pretty straightforward. All you have to do is write about the topics you’ve been assigned. When finished, submit it to Blogsvertise and you’ll receive payment after 30 days. I’m waiting to see if this blog is approved.