AdSense, Amazon, SpongeBob, and slide whistles

Frank and I have been experimenting with some new blog stuff for the new year. If you are a regular reader at his blog www.deafchefatlarge.com you might have noticed he recently added some Google AdSense spots.  He's had some of his favorite cookbooks listed on an Amazon widget on his site, and after jonesing on his widget I added one here, too.

I'll experiment with the Amazon links here, but don't be surprised if you see some weird things show up. I'm kind of attracted to totally random, silly stuff. Either way, if I come across something amazing and think you might want one too, I might blog about it here and include a link for you to get your own.

For starters, (and I'm experimenting here) Rachel and I are huge (albeit closeted) fans of SpongeBob Square Pants. We quote lines from one episide or another so often... well this morning she was saying that the fog we've been having makes us feel isolated. In the nanosecond pause we both pictured Squidward when he went into the future and ended up nowhere and everything was white. (You know exactly which episode I'm talking about, don't you?) So as Rachel was talking about the continued fog we both looked at each other and said

"Alone. alone... alone      alone   ..."

Now if I told you we really really want slide whistles really badly, you'll understand, right?

I'm gonna have to get a couple. I think the 59c variety will do. Oh look, here's a link.

I think we could stir up a good bit of mischief at the mall food court with these things, don't you?

Don't worry; I'm too thrifty to spend $9.99 on shipping for a 59c item, but next time I order something you bet I'm throwing a couple of these babies in my order.

Allrighty, so I wanted to let you know we're playing around with different ways to monetize our blogs. Just to see what happens. Of course, some days I think my mother is my only reader... Hi mom! How deep is the snow out there on the farm? Hi to John. Frank and Rachel say hi!

Portland isn't as weird as it thinks it is...

Well, I guess I can hang my head in disappointment now.
Both Korinne in NE and Deborah in Orlando, FL have pointed out that their town/state are weirder than dear old PDX.
Here's Deb's email - hot off the wire.
-Pam
PS: I still love PDX, so there.
------------------------------
Science has now proven what we knew all along! ;o)
Happy weekend, eh!
Luv yuz all, ya know!
Deborah

-----Original Message-----
From: News Release
Sent: Wed 11/18/2009 2:42 PM
To: Deborah
Subject: Florida Named Strangest State; NYC & Lincoln, NE Named Strangest Cities
PRESS RELEASE
Florida Named Strangest State; NYC & Lincoln, NE Named
Strangest Cities
(MMD Newswire) November 18, 2009 -- Tableseed.com, a new
service that helps restaurants get more customers using birthday
email clubs, has analyzed nearly 2,000 Associated Press (AP)
"strange news" stories that were released in the past year. After
segmenting all of the news stories by location, the state of Florida
was the runaway winner of Tableseed.com's strangest state award.
Further analysis led to the conclusion that the three strangest cities
in the US over the past year were New York City, New York; Lincoln,
Nebraska; and Madison, Wisconsin respectively.
The rankings were calculated by collecting all of the AP's strange
news stories released over the past year, segmenting them by the
location where the stories took place, counting the number of stories
in each state and adjusting for population.
A sampling of the 169 strange stories that came out of Florida this
year were:
* Man calls 911 after eatery runs out of lemonade -- Boyton Beach,
FL
* Florida lotto winner seeks to open a nude dude ranch --
Brooksville, FL
* Dead shark left in Miami street after failed sale -- Miami, FL
* Man wearing sleeping bag as cape attempts robbery -
Gainesville, FL
* Man allegedly flings jellyfish at teens at beach - Madeira Beach,
FL
Here are the top ten strangest states in Tableseed.com's rankings:
1) Florida
2) New Hampshire
3) Alaska
4) Wyoming
5) Maine
6) Wisconsin
7) Vermont
8) Pennsylvania
9) North Dakota
10) Ohio
The strange news data was also broken down by city, which
resulted in New York City easily winning the strangest city crown. A
few of the strange news stories out of New York City included:
* Businessman accused of demanding dentures with gun
* Turtles crawl on runway, delay flights at JFK
* Goat wanders into nursing home in the Bronx
Here are the top twenty strangest cities according to
Tableseed.com's rankings:
1) New York City, NY
2) Lincoln, NE
3) Madison, WI
4) Philadelphia, PA
5) Chicago, IL
6) Cinncinnati, OH
7) Boston, MA
8) Detroit, MI
9) Dallas, TX
10) Pittsburgh, PA
11) Columbus, OH
12) Salt Lake City, UT
13) Des Moines, IA
14) Portland, OR
15) San Antonio, TX
16) Cleveland, OH
17) Sheboygan, WI
18) Fairbanks, AK
19) Denver, CO
20) Tampa, FL
The full rankings can be found on the Tableseed.com website at
www.tableseed.com/strange/
*** Contact Information ***
For more information on this story, contact:
Aaron Quinn
Email: aaron@tableseed.com
Phone: (888) 345-9376
Website: http://www.tableseed.com/
###

----
This press release distributed by Mass Media Distribution LLC.

Come see us at Salem Saturday Market!

It's official!
After a nail-biting wait during the jury selection process at the Salem Saturday Market, Pass It On Plates will have a booth at the market. Whoo hoo!
Our first day there will be Saturday July 25, 2009.

This coincides with the unveiling of our new product line - HAND-PAINTED plates.

If you're in the area, please come see us and say hi. We'd love to meet you.
Mention this blog post for 10% off your purchase.

...Get Set...

Last week I mentioned that we're having a party to celebrate the completed blog renovation.

This week we finish up the preparations and get the invitations sent out...

Get ready...

We have a big even planned here at The Adventures of Pam & Frank.

The blog renovation is almost done and to celebrate, we're going to have a party!
Stay tuned for details...

A little renovation...

As you can see, the blog is kind of a mess today. I'm giving it a face lift but have to go do other things for the rest of the day.

If things are out of order or duplicate or otherwise in a state of confusion, sorry. I'll try to get the remodel completed over the next few days.

Meanwhile, I highly recommend that you check out one of both of the following blogs:

Fake Interviews with Real Celebrities, especially these two recent posts:

• My Failed Top Chef Dishes
• Bad Stripper Names

Stuff White People Like
(Pam's disclaimer: Don't be offended by this blog. It's parody; kind of like Norwegians telling Sven and Ole jokes...)

Both of these blogs make me laugh so hard my face hurts, tears stream down my cheeks and I nearly pee my pants.

I'd like to share that experience with you.

We're moving!

That got your attention, didn't it?

Don't panic, mom...
Happy April Fools' Day!

Ok, on a serious note, I wanted to announce that I'm going to be moving a lot of blog posts from my Pass It On Plates blog over to this one.

Why?

• The PIOP blog will focus more on PIOP stuff and less on crafty stuff.
• The crafty stuff (tutorials, creative lifestyle stuff, lookie-lookie kind of posts, etc) fit in more with our overall lifestyle, which is what this blog is about.
• The marketing posts have already been moved from the PIOP blog to PamHawk.com, and this is the last phase of each of my blogs finding its identity and settling into its niche.

I'll re-post those older posts over here bit by bit so as not to dump an overwhelming amount of stuff into this blog.

In addition to all that, it's time this blog had a bit of a remodel, so I'll get the construction permits, hire a contractor, and start the demolition to make way for new cabinets, countertops, flooring, and...

...oh wait. It's the blog that's being remodeled, not the condo. Too bad for that.

Stay tuned to see the upgrades and changes over here!

The "Before" Pictures: first floor

We had gotten the key earlier that day and were given the go-ahead to enter after 5pm when all of the mortgage funding had been completed. (A little different from how things went down in Mpls, but... whatever.) After I got home at 9pm, we grabbed the dog and walked over to check it out. Rachel and I took a collection of pictures while we were there.

I love Rachel's pictures. She laid on the dining room floor and shot picture after picture of Caesar. Look at his wagging tail. Funny pooch.

Yes, there is a resident family of elves living in the cupboard under the stairs.

Without giving you captions for each individual picture, I'll explain here. What you see is the living room and stairs to the second floor.

Beyond the living room with the hideously gigantic mirror (that we asked them to take with them but I guess we bought it - anyone want a mirror?) is the 8'x8' dining room, sliding glass door to the patio, and the kitchen sans refrigerator.

We'll have to get our extra fridge out of storage this weekend.

(Yes, that is a burned out light bulb. You are very observant.)

No, our fridge doesn't fit in the spot - too tall, at least. This means we get to learn quickly how kitchen cabinets are installed so we can un-install the cabinet over the fridge space. I think we'll just move the cabinet up. On the other hand, there is a water line going to the fridge so for the first time ever we will be able to hook up the ice maker. Yippee! Now nobody (all of us) gets blamed (by me) for being the idiot who put the empty ice tray back in the freezer!

Rachel was smart to bring dog toys which she tossed for our hyper pooch to gladly run after.

Frank checked out the instructions left on the counter and then became his goofy self, catching my eye in the mirror and daring me to take pictures of him, then hamming it up and flexing his muscles, then lifting his shirt to check out his pecs. Yah, right. Ok.

You know that look that wives give their husbands? The one where the wife rolls her eyes and shakes her head and you just know she's thinking,
"Good grief, how many kids do I really have?!"

I do that a lot.

Here's a link to the rest of the photos from this flickr set: Home Improvements

It's a done deal!

Our schedules were a little off Friday morning when we closed on the condo, so I signed all the paperwork before Frank could get there and sign. After I signed, I drove over to Frank's work and announced to him in front of his boss and co-workers,

"I have something you don't have."

By the end of the day he had signed everything and all the issues that originally delayed the process had been ironed out and resolved to everyone's satisfaction.

We move on Saturday, October 4th.
Y i p p e e ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

Another moving update

It should be no surprise to anyone that our closing was rescheduled from this week to next week. Unfortunately, that means we are not moving this weekend, but next weekend. Good thing we have until Oct 8th to vacate the apartment. If we had told them we would be out by Sept 30th, we'd be really stressed out, since we will get the keys to the new place by 5pm that day and our landlord is evil and we don't trust that they would let us extend our stay by a few days.

Isn't that how the mortgage funding process works, though?
Sheesh.

I'm a little naiive to the process, but I guess someone was processing the paperwork and decided to cut out $2700 of the closing fees included in the paperwork, then sent the documents on to the next stop without checking with our realtor/mortgage broker. Bottom line: instead of the fees coming out of wherever it was supposed to come from at closing, the buyers end up with more money than originally agreed upon, and we have to ask them to refund it to the closing process. Kind of unorthodox, and at this point either the buyers agree to do this, or the various fees don't get paid, or we walk away from the sale.

Am I stressed? Nah.
We made the offer after the condo had been on the market for 4 months. There is another (identical) condo for sale in the same complex.

Besides, the buyers have already moved out. They've moved on. They don't want to have to re-list the condo again.

Just in case, though... will you cross your fingers and say a little prayer?
Thanks.

Two minute update

We move on Saturday. I can't wait. The apartment is a total disaster area as far as mess goes at this point, and I'm sure we're not really ready, but I want to get it over with asap.

This is our patio at the apartment, taken two years ago, about a week after we moved in. Frank's domain.
This was before the gas grill arrived and hogged all remaining space, and before the herbs were killed. From left to right, we had rosemary, sage, and three kinds of thyme in the large box on the bench. I don't remember what was in the other pots near the thyme, but they're all dead too.
The sunlight in the picture is pretty much all we get on the patio. That, and a little overzealous watering guaranteed our black thumb success!

Back to moving.

The books are mostly packed, and that's the biggest job. The second biggest task is packing up all of the Pass It On Plates inventory, craft show display stuff, and supplies. Not a problem now that I have almost a dozen big bags from Ikea to hold all the tote boxes that organize everything.

I'll take pictures throughout the day and post them in the middle of next week.

Typical Pam here, I've already got most of the paint colors figured out for each room and am itching to get started on personalizing the white walls. That comes later, though. Gotta get moved in first.

Snagged it!

How cool is that? Look - I have my own domain at pamhawk.com

Whenever I google myself I find other women around the US named Pam Hawk. One is a realtor in the LA area, one is a controller for Perodik in the Bay Area. There are others, too, but not as active online (with their real name anyway) as the two in California.

The gmail address bearing my name has already been taken, but I feel so smug and clever to have bought the website which bears my/our name.

Smug cleverness for only $10.

And after attending The World's Greatest Marketing Seminar last week in LA I have a ton of reasons to need my own domain. Just wait and see . . .

Go ahead. Click and visit www.pamhawk.com to see what I'm up to over there.

Moving ! !

It's officially official. We're moving.
Yay! Good riddance, evil landlord - we bought our own place.
(It's just across the parking lot, so most everything can be walked from point A to point B.)

Ok, it's a condo so we still have to follow someone else's rules, but there is a good chance that the enforceable rules will be written out so the residents know what the enforceable rules are. *Ahem* This will be a luxury not available at our current place since the new owner took over earlier this year.

Yeah, yeah... don't comment here about tenant's rights and various laws. It doesn't matter at this point. I'm not wasting my energy on those dopes.

HALF the books I had to move, originally uploaded by bitterpea.

(This photo is not ours, but is approx what we're going to be dealing with when it comes to moving the 10'x6' bookcase, which is full. I think we have 4x or 5x that many books.)

We move at the end of the month. This month. It happened really fast, if you haven't noticed. But that's just how we roll, I guess. Frank and I dated for two months before he proposed - and obviously I said "yes" - so we can go from pulling a credit report to find out if we qualify for a mortgage (really to decide if we would go for a mortgage vs. college student loans for Pam) to setting a closing date within TWO WEEKS.

Yeah, very fast. From mortgage inquiry to getting the keys to our new digs in 5 weeks.

Awesome.

Anyhoo, this blog may be a little quiet during the next few weeks as we scramble to organize, clean out and move our huge pile of crapola precious belongings. Once settled, we'll take you on a tour, complete with before and after photos.

Come, follow our adventures

Check out the new doohickey on the sidebar.
←
We added a "Follow Us" widget. Click that and our blog's RSS feed will appear in your blogger dashboard. If you use a different blog, I'm not sure where it will end up - maybe in some sort of blog reader, maybe outside your back door begging for a hot meal and a glass of water - but either way it's like a mini subscription doohickey thingamabob.

Click it. It won't hurt.
You just may have to set the dinner table for one more.

My True Love

Today I am announcing the official launch of my new blog!

It doesn't have a name yet, but it does have a specific focus that you may find interesting... and useful if you have an Etsy store or other small business that you want to either get off the ground or that is ready to grow.

The new blog is all about my true love, Marketing.

Yah, you may be saying "Ho hum... Business stuff is so boring," but I promise you this will be full of neat little tips, easy activities, and great ideas you can use to get noticed and make your art and crafting business really bloom.

Ok, enough talking about it. Go check it out!
http://pamhawk.blogspot.com/

.

The wheels are in motion

We made an offer to buy a condo yesterday.

Cross your fingers, hold your breath, and do whatever other voodoo you think may work to help our offer be accepted.

Did you know we did the EXACT SAME THING 13 years ago this week? That was our darling little 720 sf Fremont house.

This condo has almost 200 more sf.
Is that called "Moving up?"