I have an addiction. I’m a PLR-aholic. It’s true. I can’t resist it. I have piles and piles and piles of it on my hard drive. Over the years, I’ve gotten PLR from all kinds of different sources and boy howdy have I ever seen some horribly written articles! There are a small handful of PLR providers that I’ve come to trust and one of my all time favorites is EasyPLR.com by Nicole Dean. I have never once been dissatisfied with an article from her and I’ve been buying them from her for several years! And she has some really great ideas about how we can incorporate PLR into our online efforts. Here’s an article from her that I just love:

What Can you Do with PLR Articles?
by Nicole Dean

You may have seen the term Private Label Rights or PLR articles
being tossed around frequently lately. PLR articles are articles you
can buy (usually in packages or as part of a membership) that you may
edit and use as you wish. Unlike free reprint articles, you are not
required to link back to anyone else’s website which makes them
appealing to many web publishers.

Once you understand the concept behind PLR articles, you can see
why they are appealing. Most people can envision the value of adding
the articles to their websites. But, did you know there are more ways
to use PLR articles than that?

1. Add them to your blog.

Similar to adding PLR articles to your website, you can take
excerpts and use them on your blog for fresh content. Whether you take
a portion and use it as a “tip of the day” or use the entire article,
PLR articles can be a huge time saver for you.

2. Send them in your newsletter.

Need content for your newsletter? PLR articles are an option. Of
course, if you’re developing a relationship with your readers, you may
wish to edit the articles to make them your own voice. However, you can
pull a section from a PLR article – use it as inspiration — and whip
out a newsletter in minutes.

3. Start an ecourse

If you purchase a package of PLR articles based on a theme, it’s
quite easy to turn them into an ecourse simply by adding them to your
autoresponder. Something as simple as “Five Ideas for Kids Lunches” can
become a 5 day ecourse to grow a big newsletter list.

4. Use them in your podcast

Take a PLR article and use it as inspiration for a podcast. Add the content and you’re done.

5. Send them in a print mailing

Direct mailing is huge. If you have a list of postal mailing
addresses, put together a free report from PLR articles and send it
out.

6. Create a special report

Simply bulk together some PLR articles that have the same topic,
and make them flow into a special report. Turn it into a pdf file and
give it away to your website visitors.

See how easy that is?

The only hard part is finding a high quality PLR service
that fits your niche. Look around. Make sure the
PLR package or membership you choose provides you with high quality
articles so you can create something you’ll be proud of.

Nicole Dean welcomes you to check out EasyPLR.com – where you’ll find high-quality PLR articles on niches sold in very limited quantities.

I highly recommend this PLR site for the best PLR on the web.

I just love Nicole’s ideas about using PLR, I’ve learned so much from her! One thing that she talks about that I really like is that we shouldn’t work so much to change the PLR articles, but, that we should work to enhance them. What can we add to them? I love that!

That was really cool that the birds were not so ‘far trained’ that they couldn’t still respond to kindness. The ones you see on Animal Cops (that have already been fighting) are just so far gone that they have to euthanize them. So sad. So it was wonderful to see these birds respond to human touch and the soft voice the man was using with them.

Press release:

February 16, 2010
The HSUS Assists San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department in Raid of Alleged Cockfighting Operation

National organization praises sheriff’s department for swift action

YUCAIPA, Calif. — The Humane Society of the United States supplied key intelligence that led to the raid of an alleged cockfighting operation by the San Bernardino County Sherriff’s Department. Authorities impounded more than 500 birds.

“According to published reports in a cockfighting magazine, the owners ran an operation encompassing the United States and Mexico,” said Eric Sakach, senior law enforcement specialist for The HSUS. “The actions of the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department send a clear message to the community that San Bernardino County takes allegations of cockfighting activities seriously.”

Tuesday’s raid was a multi-agency effort that included the San Bernardino County Animal Control, San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office, USDA Office of Investigator General and others. Animal fighting experts with The Humane Society of the United States supplied professional expertise and assisted in the identification of potential evidence.

“Our Rural Crimes Task force is committed to investigating agriculture related crimes and animal abuse,” said San Bernardino County Sheriff Rod Hoops. We will not allow this blood sport to flourish in the County of San Bernardino.”

The HSUS offers rewards of up to $5,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of any person involved in illegal animal fighting. Anyone with information about animal fighting criminals is asked to call 877-TIP-HSUS (877-4787). Your identity will be protected.

About Cockfighting:

* Tens of thousands of people are involved in cockfighting nationwide.
* Common cockfighting practices include breeding birds for viciousness, drugging them to heighten aggression, and fitting their legs with razor-sharp knives or gaffs, which resemble curved ice picks.
* Law enforcement raids across the country have revealed that cockfights, which are frequently attended by children, often involve firearms and other weapons due to the large amounts of cash present for gambling.
* Law enforcement officials have documented a strong connection between cockfighting and the distribution of illegal drugs.

-30-

Follow The HSUS on Twitter.

The Humane Society of the United States is the nation’s largest animal protection organization — backed by 11 million Americans, or one of every 28. For more than a half-century, The HSUS has been fighting for the protection of all animals through advocacy, education, and hands-on programs. Celebrating animals and confronting cruelty — On the Web at humanesociety.org.

Way to go, HSUS! Thank you so much for all that you do!

I’ve been tracking/logging my food with Sparkpeople for eleven days now. I’m keeping track of tracking my food with HabitForge. So I bet your smartypants next question is – How are you keeping track of Habit Forge? LOL (That reminds me of something I read {totally OFF topic} in a magazine yesterday. You know the awesome online data back up services? They really are great – and usually free or very low cost. But – but ….who’s backing up their data? Hmm….) Yeah, so …anyhoo – back to fitness and getting healthy crap. I’m working hard on it and it is so hard!!!! Hubby’s helping out, though – he did not buy me any candy for Valentine’s Day! Wooohooo! Thank goodness! He bought me gorgeous flowers, a balloon, and a singing card with one of my favorite singers.

I’ve been pretty pepped up the last few days, over the weekend really, since we had a snow day on Friday. It’s just been a pumped up, kind of exciting weekend. Give a southerner a little snow and they go coo-coo! Ha! So I’ve really wanted to exercise and I’m slowly jumping into a little of this and a little of that. One of my favorite things to do is listen to some of my favorite podcasts and ‘do my thing’. What is ‘my thing’? Well, I’d say you could call it “Mrs. Klutzy Cardio”. Yep, that’s what you can call it, for sure.

You know, I don’t do any of those flirty girl fitness moves. You know the ones I’m talking about. You go to the health club and take an aerobics class and the girls in the front couple of rows look so cute. They are rockin’ this aerobics/cardio thing. You know? And there is clunky ol’ me in the back row, looking a little more like a chick with concrete shoes on, trying her best to keep up without tripping herself! Well, and that is just what I do while listening to my favorite internet marketing podcasts.

I get some grapevines in – and oooh, are they graceful. And I get some marching in place in. And I do all kinds of things to just get myself moving. Hey – “Mrs. Klutzy Cardio” with concrete shoes is a lot better than doing nothing. And who knows – with enough practice, I might just look a little less klutzy. Now wouldn’t that be cool?

I’m so glad that I finally got to see some episodes of this show that my daughter keeps telling me about. I was offered a review copy (for free) so that I could check it out. What I received was the last two episodes, “Mattress” and “Sectionals”

Episode Twelve, “Mattress”

In this episode, the Glee Club gets omitted from the school yearbook. Rachel, one of my favorite characters, gets the team cast in a local commercial for mattresses to help them climb that evil social status ladder. Unfortunately, that gets them disqualified from competing at sectionals. The director of the Glee Club, Mr. Schuester, finds out that instead of actually being pregnant, his wife is wearing a fake baby bump.

Episode Thirteen, “Sectionals”

In this episode, the last of Season One, the Glee Club goes the big competition at Sectionals. They pull off an amazing feat there and it was awesome to watch. There is also plenty of romantic drama, some of which surrounds pregnant Glee Club member, Quinn, and her boyfriend, Finn – and the boy who is really the father of her baby, Puck. Let’s not leave out the teachers, though – there is plenty of crazy romantic chemistry going on there, too!

Along with the two really fun episodes, this disc also has a pretty big list of extras. Check ‘em out:

• Welcome to McKinley!
• Glee Music Video
• Full Length Audition Pieces
• Fox Movie Channel Presents Casting Season
• Deconstructing Glee with Ryan Murphy
• Dance Boot Camp
• Jane Lynch A to Glee
• Meet Jane Lynch
• 5 Things you don’t know about Cory
• 7 Things you don’t know about Cory
• 6 Things you don’t know about Amber
• 7 Things you don’t know about Chris
• Video Diaries

That is a lot of extras! I’m really enjoying this show – it is so funny! And the woman that really piqued my interest when I saw the commercials was, you guessed it – Mrs. Grumpypants! She is Sue Sylvester and she is the head coach of the cheerleading squad and she got it in for the Glee Club! Just look at her uber grumpiness:

One of my favorite lines from this show so far is one of hers. She is talking about her latest cosmetic surgery (or, I should say – gloating, bragging, being a bitch about!) and she says,

“And while they were in there, I told ‘em to go ahead and yank out those tear ducts ….wasn’t using ‘em…”

Crazy cranky pot woman! I guess she’s kind of the female “House”.

Let me tell you what, though, some of these kids CAN SING!!! Oh my gawd!

The show is definitely a lot of fun to watch and you can get the whole first season, including the disc that I was talking about here: Glee, Vol. One: Road to Sectionals

Image credit: Wikipedia

I am now six days in with my food logging. Wow – this time it has been really hard to get ‘back on track’. What I do over there is make note (log) every single thing that I eat. So when I’ve become a gluttonous fool and I’m just getting back in there, this is how I ‘handle’ myself. I say, “You can eat whatever you want, as long as you make note of it. And it generally takes me about three days to get back within my suggested calorie range. When I’m seeing all the food listed there, it becomes a fun challenge to get to that magic calorie range that I know is good for me.

For some reason this time, it is not going quite so smoothly. I mean, I guess I am doing well – now that I look at the days all together in the reports, but, it does usually seem faster and easier for me. I did lose two pounds, though, so that’s definitely cool.

The one thing that I’m not able to do, is exercise. Which is rather frustrating, as I’ve joined up with an amazing online marketer who happens to be a personal trainer and does virtual personal training. His name is Scott Tousignant and his business is called Fat Loss Quickie. I had started working with him back in August of last year, at which time I was having a lot of migraines. So when I started I was having trouble doing the exercise. I figured a way to kind of ‘work around’ my headaches, bought an exercise ball, made sure to have my hand weights handy – and I jumped right in with both feet! Then in October, I broke my durn foot.

Every time I think that my foot is feeling pretty well and maybe I can just do a little bit of exercise – I wind up making it really sore. So I’m a little frustrated about it lately. I wish I could just have crunchless abs. That’s right – magically gorgeous abs that required ZERO crunches! And all of the rest of it, too! I had told Scott at one point that I would do some kind of exercise in my office chair – you know, like twist, and flail my arms about and who knows! Just get moving! Well, when I tried that, guess what? For the twisting and anything else that I could figure to do in my chair, it required the use of my foot!! And all of that twisting did not feel good on it.

So now I’m back to just push ups. There must be something else besides push ups that I can do. I’m experimenting to see what all I can accomplish, but, in the mean time, I’m committed to logging into Sparkpeople every day and logging my food. And that is definitely helping. And while at times it feels quite depressing, for the most part, I’m feeling pretty good about it! I lost forty pounds with them before, so I know what’s possible. And I aim to get there again (to a 40lb loss, I put back on about half of it) and beyond!

And would you like to guess how they (allegedly) got that way? Have a look at this heartbreaking video to hear all about it!

To say that I am sickened by this does not even begin to describe how I feel.

Ugh

More later on the topic….

I said the other day that I was going to start back logging my food at Sparkpeople.com ….and I started to do just that. Really, I did. I think I logged my lunch yesterday and that was it in the last two days. Dudes, I’m just not there yet. My head is not ‘back in the game’. I can feel myself mentally getting closer, though. And I think I’m getting closer in terms of the amount of food I’m eating, as well. I need to get back on the Getting Healthier Train. Man, it feels amazing when I do. The mental, spiritual, emotional pick-me-up from doing so is a total kick! And my business (all of the various stuff that I do online) is doing better, so coupling that with making a new commitment to myself would ROCK!

Oh – you know what I should do? I was involved in a challenge on Sparkpeople. I failed when I gained weight one of the weeks. They still let you stay ‘in’ – you just log your weight every Monday in a different spot from the people still ‘in the game’. So you are still challenging yourself, working towards your own personal goals – they didn’t just boot me out on my tuckus, so that’s cool. And they do other challenges within the challenge that I can still participate in. Anyhoo – one of those mini-challenges early on was to join a site called HabitForge.com and set up a habit that you wanted to work on – a certain thing that you wanted to become a habit.

I’ve gotten out of the habit of hitting my knees every morning and night – so I set my first challenge up as ‘hitting my knees every morning’. They send you a daily email to ask you if you ‘did your habit’ the previous day. So I just had the idea that maybe I could piggy back Sparkpeople and HabitForge – just to get me back in the groove. I’ll set up a habit in there of ‘logging food into Sparkpeople for the whole day’. I don’t know if you can have more than one habit at once, though. Well, I’ll just set up another account with another email if not.

Hang on a sec…. gonna go do it right now…. in the middle of this post….. Ok, I’m back! You can have multiple habits. I set this one as ‘logging food at Sparkpeople.com”. Awesome! I’m going to get back on track!! I already feel that old familiar excitement about doing right by myself food-wise. It’s kind of a little rush, you know?

The other thing I’d been having trouble with is exercising, because of this stoopid broken foot! I had started doing some exercise videos and walking with Puppy again, I had even bought an exercise ball, kind of like this bender ball. And then I broke my durn foot. Chair – meet foot. Foot – meet chair. Urgh. I’ve been trying to ‘concoct exercises that I can still do in my …uh… slightly debilitated state. I’ve come up with a few, not a whole lot of cardio stuff, though.

Tonight after driving my daughter fifty miles, round trip, to the orthodontist – with my foot achy, tired, and sore – I thought of a way that I could actually exercise my legs! Why with my foot hurting I thought of it, I’ll never know. I don’t know how much cardio it will be, but, I can lie on my back and do bicycle ‘pedaling’ in the air. Cool, right? I’m excited I thought of it and I’m going to try it tomorrow.

I’d already thought of push ups and something else…hmm… I’ll remember tomorrow! And of course I can do sit ups and supermans and anything on the floor pretty much. I had told a personal trainer friend of mine that I’d wiggle around in my office chair – kind of dancing, twisting – whatever I could do! But when I tried it, I needed my goofy foot for balance and sort of ‘lift off’ so that didn’t work out very well.

I have rambled on far too long tonight – we’ll see if I can’t get my crazy self BACK IN THE GAME tomorrow! Wish me luck!

Ahhhh… Twitter in the morning! What’s not to love? I personally love Twitter in the morning – it is my all time favorite Twitter time! I have so much fun talking with people and getting our days started together. This morning, while I was schmoozing on Twitter, I happened to go check my Google Adsense earnings from yesterday. Whoa! They were a’ pumpin’!! And I do mean PUMPIN’! Yes sir – on Tuesday, February 2, 2010 – I made a whoppin’

ONE CENT!

I’m swimmin’ in it now, ya’ll! And I was so excited that I just had to share the news with all my Twitter buds, of course! It went something like this:

@LisaMarieMary DUDES!! I made ONE CENT yesterday in Adsense! I’m rich! I’m rich! Want me to to take you out to lunch??

@DB Ferguson Whoo hoo! Now Grandma can have her operation!

@LisaMarieMary I know!!! Isn’t it just wonderful??

And it also went like this:
@TraciKnoppe Congrats!! Sure you can take me out to lunch! What time will your limo be here to get me?

@LisaMarieMary Be ready by 11:30 wearing nothing but your best – u KNOW we’re going someplace *EXPENSIVE*!!!!

@TraciKnoppe Squee!! Does the meal come with a surprise inside.

@LisaMarieMary Why sure baby – a diamond ring, but, of course!!!

So funny, right? Then this afternoon, I head over to my Gmail to check my emails and what do I see? I see this:

***************
From: Google Adsense Subject: Gain insight into your AdSense revenue with Analytics reports

Hi,

Could you be earning more from your AdSense for content ads?
***************

BWAHAHAHA! Classic! No, no really, I’m just fine. I’m totally happy with the exorbitant amount of income I’m making from Adsense! Thanks for the offer to help, though!

On my Naturally Lisa blog, I have a post I wrote about my headaches, Icepick Headache, and I recently received the loveliest comment spam on that post. It was so lovely, in fact, that I had to pop in here and share it with you:

I inclination not acquiesce in on it. I over warm-hearted post. Especially the title-deed attracted me to review the whole story.

Um …yeah. Read it. Then read it again. Then read it aloud. You will laugh more every time.

I get a lot of ‘it’s oh so obvious you’re just comment spamming me’ comments on my blogger blogs. If they have left a reasonable comment and their link is not for a questionable site – I will generally leave it.

That one got zapped by my magic delete key!

Ha!

It seems I’ve gotten myself into a little bit of chocolate trouble. Or a lot, perhaps, depending on your viewpoint. I was choosing healthy food to eat, I was logging my daily intake of food at Sparkpeople.com and I was doing well. Then I went to Nashville for a conference with a friend and we indulged ourselves. It was quite fun, actually. We had a blast!

Ever since then, though, I’ve been having trouble getting back on track, getting my head ‘back in the game’, if you will. I want Peanut M&M’s every day. And I have been obliging myself. It’s ridiculous. I don’t think there are any shapely secrets hidden in that bag of M&M’s. Well, that is, unless – you want to count the shape ’round’. And I’m really rather tired of that shape.

But you know – actually, I was eating M&M’s prior to going to Nashville. I was just being a lot smarter about it. I was only buying the regular size bag – not the extra large or super size or whatever it’s called. And I was dividing it up into two snacks – and that was totally fitting in my calorie count for the day. Now, though, I’m buying the large and I am absolutely having trouble not eating the whole bag at once. And the large bag has a LOT more calories in it!! It hardly counts for a ’snack’ when it is taking up a whole meal’s worth of points!! Or calories, as it were.

I’m getting really sick of being such an M&M drunk’! I so hope I’m ready to give it up soon. I tell you what, blog readers, I’m going to promise to you, right now, that tomorrow – I will go log my food at Sparkpeople. No matter what I eat – I’ll take responsibility for it in black and white on my Sparkpeople profile.

And now I’m going to take my full tummy (full on dinner, but, it was too high in calories, too) and go to bed. Goodnight – thanks for reading my whining!

Image credit: Wikipedia