On the rainy, blustery days that fill December and January here in Oregon there is one thing that Works for Me on a little 2 year old with cabin fever…the trampoline.

We have a small garage, we can fit the car into it but it’s a pain to get out of the car once it’s in there. Plus we lost the remote to the garage door, so we just don’t use it. Until we got this trampoline for Zane’s birthday.

Now when I just can’t stand Zane making another running lap around the kitchen bar I send him to the garage to burn his energy on the trampoline.

One reason I know this is a good idea is that my neighbor came over with her 4 year old and when she saw it she ran out and bought one to put in her garage also.

We also have a huge power wheels in the garage, that doesn’t work. That Zane loves to play on when he gets bored of jumping. We have also considered putting a swing in the garage also.

So if you live in an area where you get stuck in the house for months on end, consider converting your garage or part of your garage into a little play area. (Just make sure you childproof your garage if you are going to leave your little ones unattended.)

Don’t forget February is Freebie month here at Pepper Scraps. You can find all kinds of free printables throughout the month! Check out my previous post for play doh labels that you can use to turn little mini containers into valentine’s for your little one’s (or for you to hand out to your friends and co-workers).

WordPress is one of the largest self-hosted blogging systems out there. One of the best things about WordPress is the ability to personalize it. You can create a beautiful site with little HTML, CSS, and/or PHP knowledge. And if you have a little skill with these coding languages you can make an amazing site.

It’s amazing how many people think that it is hard or expensive to have a self-hosted wordpress blog. I had one person that said they didn’t want to get into the expense of paying for a host yet they already had a domain name they had purchased and were just redirecting to a blog site. (Domain names usually cost around $5-10/yr to give you an idea of overall cost.)

Hosting

Hosting doesn’t cost very much the company I use, ComfortHost, only charges $32 a year for a blogging account. I use them because I knew the lady who started the business, I know they are reliable, and they treat me well. I know that there is a current small company, VoNetwork, that is only charging $12 a year for a blogging account. Only $12!!!

Loading WordPress

But then you may say you don’t  know how to load wordpress onto the server or how to do any coding. What you may not realize is that a lot of places you may purchase your hosting have these amazing things that just load the code for you and you are ready to get started. It’s usually just a press of the button and fill in your name, email, and name of your blog and you are set. (I will let you know you can upload and install wp in 5 minutes with there step by step instructions also.)

Making WordPress Beautiful

Making your wordpress your own is not that hard. It is all setup for you to just log in and be able to load and change your themes (templates) straight from the control panel. You don’t need to know anything about coding or ftp. You just go into themes and browse till you find what you want tell it you want to install the theme and it does it for you. (You do  need to know your ft log in information which you can ask your host to help you are just email me and I can give you pretty easy step by step instructions.)

I have actually worked with both wordpress.com and blogger and I will tell you self-hosted wordpress is so much easier you would be amazed and probably fall in love with it.

Making WordPress Work for You

One of the other benefits of WordPress is two special items they have. Widgets and Plugins. Both of these can help you personalize your wordpress and make it do the most spectacular things.

Widgets are used to setup your sidebar. They have a widget for recent posts, categories, archives, pages, your own text, etc. You just drag and drop them into the places you want them on your sidebar and then customize them filling in a few fields to make them perfect just for you and your blog.

Plugins make wordpress work so hard for you you would be shocked at the things it can do. There are plugins for ads, comments, stats, images, new widgets, slideshows, spam, and so much more. Some of the plugins can make your wordpress work as a photolog, can make it work as a shopping cart, or even a vlog.

You can upload Plugins just like you do themes into your wordpress with just a click of a button and your ftp log in.

Why should I change?

You may be doing great with your blog on blogger, wordpress.com or blogspot or any of these, but I will let you know that you are loosing visitors by being on a non-self-hosted website. You have people who may be interested in what you would have to say but you have to remember that people will make an opinion about your blog within the first few seconds. And you will have people see that you are on blogger, wordpress.org, etc (even if you have your own domain it is obvious) and just leave.

I will admit half the time I just leave a blogger site because it is so annoying to leave a comment and try to link to my site it’s not worth my time to read the blog. And if you have it set up so that I can’t enter my name and URL then you will probably never see me again no matter how much I love your blog.

What if I run into a problem?

There are so many resources out there for wordpress blogs! Just google “help wordpress” and see how many hits you get (I got 196,000,000 when I did the search). If you run into a problem or are wanting wordpress to do something special for you just google wordpress _____ and you will most likely get a few tutorials on how to do it and/or a few articles on the subject.

Or if you need even more help you can visit wordpress’ forums and ask for help. The wordpress community is all about helping each other out and they love to help newbies. Plus you can just search the forums and find your answer most likely.

Or if you want more one on one help email me, I’m always happy to help someone out. I enjoy meeting new people and being a help to them so don’t be afraid to ask. And if you need some major help or are just afraid to get started or if you want a personalized design contact me. I try to make my prices reasonable and if you are in real need you can just let me know what you can spare and I will work with you. I always am happy to offer help and/or a discount to a fellow mommy blogger.

WordPress is What Works for Me, what do you think of WordPress now?

This is not a Christmas gift for my mom, but a birthday gift for her birthday in December. If you want to see the whole thing check it out here. I do think this would make a great gift for Christmas. I’m going to try and make one for my mother-in-law for Christmas. The best part is that the books are free. All I had to pay is $4.99 for shipping.

One reason I love ArtsCow.com is the great coupon offers I get all the time. I can just plug in a code on my Credit & Discount page and I have books, photos, 8×10 photos, calendars, key chains, all kinds of things for free.

A current  code that they are offering is for 12 free 8×8 photo books: Coupon Code: FREE8X8BKS (Expires on 11/26/2009). A new coupon code is for a 30 page 5×7 photo book for $4.99: Coupon Code: 7X5PBKS499. When you join (if you use me as a referral) you will get 1200 free photos, 3 free 8×8 photo books and some free gift items. So ArtsCow.com works for me for Christmas gifts.

If you would like to see some more gift ideas check out Works for Me Wednesdays at We Are THAT Family!

]]> http://PepperScraps.com/2009/11/wfmw-free-photobooks/feed/ 2 http://PepperScraps.com/2009/11/wfmw-pill-boxes/ http://PepperScraps.com/2009/11/wfmw-pill-boxes/#comments Wed, 18 Nov 2009 04:06:42 +0000 Pepper Ferguson http://pepper.uniquehorn.net/?p=489

Works for Me Wednesday

As part of getting ready for the holiday season I am trying to get more organized. I got my calendar set up and ready to start adding parties and events as they come up in the holidays. Now I am working on my to do lists.

Remember the Milk is one of my favorite tools to help me with my to do lists. RMilk (Remember the Milk) is a free service to help you create to do lists. Some of the great features of RMilk are Syncing with Google Calendar, you can access it offline, you can use it on your iPhone or Blackberry, it can be used with Twitter, you can add it to your gmail account, you can email your tasks to your list, you can share your tasks with others… I could keep going but let’s start seeing how to get started using Rmilk.

Creating Your Lists

You will want to start by making your lists. (The Inbox and Sent Lists are defaults you use for some of the more advance features.) To add lists click “Settings”, click the “List” tab and above your current lists you will have a bright blue button that says “+ Add List”.

These are my lists I have created:

• Boyz
• Christmas (my to dos and present list)
• Church
• Home (things that need to be done around the house)
• Meals (Meal planning things, grocery shopping, etc.)
• Online (Posts I want to write and when)
• Personal
• Work (this is archived)

You can archive a list if you are not using it at the moment. I have “work” in my archives because I only work part-time now. I just pulled my Christmas List out of the archives this last week. You can archive and unarchive your lists in this same settings section. You can make as many lists as you want.

Adding Your Tasks

Now that you have created your lists you can now start adding your tasks. You can make your tasks as simple or detailed as you want. On RMilk part 2 I will go over a special feature called “Smart Add” which makes adding your tasks even faster and more advanced.

Adding tasks is simple type in your task and hit enter. It will show up in your list. Pretty easy. You can sort your list by priority, due date, or alphabetically. Now for the fun part, using some of those great features.

Editing your Tasks

If you click on the checkbox next to the task you will get a menu to the right. In this menu you can change many things about your task.

To change the name of the task click on the little pencil.

You can change when your task is due. One nice feature of this is you can type in the date, tomorrow, or Friday and it will automatically find the date for you.

You can set how often the task repeats. If you always go shopping on Thursdays you can make sure that it will be on your list every Thursday. In this field you can write it however you need also like daily, biweekly, yearly, after 1 day, etc.

You can also put in how long you think this task will take you so you can make sure you don’t overbook yourself.

You can Tag your task just like you tag your blog entries. That way if you need to do a search on everything that deals “food” your tags will pull those items for you.

You can enter a location for your task. This doesn’t have to be an address, this could be in your kitchen, the library, at home, etc.

You can connect a URL to the task also. Which is great for putting in URLs for recipes, crafts you want to do at a party, or a meme you want to participate in.

You can also see how many times you have postponed a task, who you have shared it with and if there are any notes.

If you click the top tab that says notes you can write yourself a note about the task. Maybe a place to write a grocery list or a list of participants, lots of possibilities.

Please stay tuned for part 2 and part 3  where I will go over some of the Special Features of RMilk:

• How to add your to do list to Gmail
• Sync tasks with Google Calendar
• Learn about the Twitter app
• How to Smart Add

This post is linked to WFMW.

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I think through the holiday season I am going to make sure I always have some muffins made up. As you can see my new obsession right now is muffins. I’m not much of a cook or baker but I’m trying to stretch myself and I have decided to do it one dish at a time. I’ve gotten really good at muffins and have found some great recipes along the way.

Why did I start making muffins? I had some old bananas that had gone bad and as usual I was feeling guilty about it. So I was going to make banana bread. I got everything mixed up and realized I don’t have a bread pan, what was I thinking. But I had won a muffin pan set a few years ago and left over muffin cups from Zane birthday so I poured the batter into that. And that is how Zane started on his muffin addiction.

Zane is the muffin prince! He loves muffins. He cannot get enough muffins. They can be any flavor or shape and he will eat them. We have even called non-muffin items, special muffins and he chomps them down, too. LOL

Muffins are a great toddler treat. They work for me in a pinch when I need a quick breakfast or a quick snack. I have savor and healthy recipes to supplement into his diet when he is not wanting to eat healthy. And for a bonus most of the muffins I make for Zane are not super messy.

How will muffins Work for Me this holiday?

• Quick and easy snack/breakfast to grab as we rush out the door
• I can get my toddler to eat something healthy when surrounded by sugar
• Great last minute gift for a hostess, teacher or neighbor
• Great treat to bring to a potluck

The one recipe my husband requests the most is Put the Lime in the Coconut Muffins. I found it when I wanted to use up a bag of coconut in my pantry. These are the best even though they are a little messy, mmm, toasted coconut everywhere. And they are great when you are looking for something out of the ordinary when you get tired of holiday food.

Please make sure and take a look at the contest to WIN A FREE custom photo card design and the special I am offering for $2 designs!

I know what you are thinking, I could never live without TV. I felt the same way, but now I don’t even miss it. But I’m not asking you to give up your TV all together, I’m suggesting you try out streaming your shows. Did you know you could hook up your computer to your TV and watch your computer shows on the big screen?

Our bill for cable was pretty high and we really needed to try and cut out some things. I was deep into my TV addiction. I was used to having it on in the background forever. I couldn’t imagine life without it. But I was willing to try it and we will never pay for cable again.

That first month we setup the upstairs TV with the computer. We purchased a wireless mouse and keyboard for our remote. And my crafty hubby created our setup just for that room. (If you don’t have a crafty hubby you can purchase special boxes online or at a computer stores that do the same thing.)

I  love watching new shows on Hulu like Heroes, Stargate: Universe, FastForward, Kings and more. But I can also watch old shows like Highlander and 21 Jumpstreet. It is tons of fun to watch a show episode to episode. We also have gotten a Netflix account which I enjoy a lot because we can get movies on our TV instantly. They have some fun things for Zane on Netflix also like Barney, Blue’s Clues and Mighty Machines. (We also watch Disney channel on their website, because that’s Zane’s favorite.)

The best part is that I have broken the addiction. I do not need anything running in the background just because. I also realized how much junk I was watching. Now I can watch the shows I want and miss all the crud that is out there that I wasn’t really interested in anyways.

This works for me. What Works for You?

Do you use Hulu or Fancast? What are your favorite shows on them?

My two year old loves anything that starts with the word special. My two year old is also a very reluctant eater. Which seems to be a common two year old ailment. So I thought I would share what Works for Me!

The other night my son did not want to eat anything for dinner.  I was about to give up when I remembered a special meal I had pre-children at a pasta place. Glitter Mac-n-Cheese. It was on the kids menu but we were curious. The edible glitter was sugar sprinkles.

I know it is hard to see in the picture above but I just put a dash of orange (because that’s all I had) sugar sprinkles on his macaroni. Suddenly a boring meal became a “special” treat.

If you are having trouble getting your kids to eat or if you just want something fun and “special” one night just add a dash of sprinkles to your meal.

For the first day of fall I put leaf sprinkles on Zane’s macaroni and cheese to make it a little more festive and to make his quick meal a little more fun. He ate the whole dish, which is rare for him.

What works for you?

As a child I was highly alergic to anything that  had perfume in it. This included shampoo, soap, laundry soap, and lotion. So my mom always had to make sure and use special soaps for me with no perfume. My options for shampoo, baby shampoo. My options for soap, Ivory. And we could never use fabric softener because I would break out into a rash.

Luckily my allergy is not as sever any longer and I only have problems it my skin is dried and cracked or on my legs after I shave. I was worried about my boys getting this also so made sure we were really careful with the soaps we used and stopped using any kind of fabric softener. But I will say with all the soft and fleecey blankets out there that is hard to do.  Try drying two fleece blankets, it’s amazing the static you get off those things.

So Works For Me? These spiffy Anti-Static Balls that my mother-in-law bought me:

Very awesome product (and even though I’m not into being green, they are green). I just throw them in with my clothes and dry away. I have had them for a couple years now, since Zane was a baby, and they still work for me. My clothes come out with no static and no alergic reactions for anyone.

My mother in law also just bought us the Green Wash Laundry Ball. I will have to let you know how that works as I just have started using it.