Do you know the song "Leaving October"? Probably not. Sons of the Desert sang it around two decades ago, and it's one of my favorite songs.
But I digress.
I had a good month in October overall.
Honestly, I didn't do a great job of posting or acquiring followers on Twitter this month. Most times I log on Twitter and wonder why I'm even on it. People are so nasty there! But it's a good place in my opinion to share links, and that's one primary reason why I'm there. Well, that and apparently it's a great place to market your blog. We'll see.
At any rate, I did hit my unambitious Twitter goal in October anyway. And even better, I did reach my visits goal for October!
Post Round-Up
As I mentioned when I relaunched this blog in June, my goal was to publish at least one blog post monthly, focusing primarily on printables to begin. In October I met that goal: Not including my status post, I published six blog posts that included multiple free printables.
- Free Printables: October 2019 and September 2020 Calendars
- Free Printable: Budget
- Free Printable: To Do List
- Free Printable: Weekly To Do List
- Free Printable: Net Worth Chart
- Thoughts on my 42nd Birthday
At My House
My husband and I finally got the yard mostly cleaned up for the fall, and I started working on getting some projects off my list.
But perhaps more importantly, we worked on decluttering ahead of the upcoming holidays. The biggest decluttering task we completed involved our small kitchen appliances. We started by deciding to get rid of our Hamilton Beach juicer. We loved it and used it religiously after we bought it seven years ago, but it has always been a bit of a bear to clean. (You can put a plastic shopping bag in the bin and toss the bag and pulp in the garbage (or the pulp in the compost), but that's a waste of at least a plastic bag). Then a few years ago we bought a Ninja blender and decided that smoothies were healthier and less wasteful than juicing. We also discovered quickly that the Ninja blender cleans up a lot easier than the juicer ever did. So finally, I took that juicer down to our yard sale stack this month.
While I was pulling the juicer out of the cabinet, I discovered our Hamilton Beach breakfast sandwich maker, dusty from two years of no use. This conversation with my husband ensued.
Sounds like a good reason to get rid of the sandwich maker, doesn't it? So down into the basement it went for our upcoming yard sale, too.
I decluttered some other items, too, like outgrown and too-worn clothing, some slippery IKEA rugs that we've decided aren't safe on our hardwood floors, a few books, etc. I won't bore you with all those details, but suffice it to say that we're working on ridding our home of things we don't need and/or love.
My husband and I finally got the yard mostly cleaned up for the fall, and I started working on getting some projects off my list.
But perhaps more importantly, we worked on decluttering ahead of the upcoming holidays. The biggest decluttering task we completed involved our small kitchen appliances. We started by deciding to get rid of our Hamilton Beach juicer. We loved it and used it religiously after we bought it seven years ago, but it has always been a bit of a bear to clean. (You can put a plastic shopping bag in the bin and toss the bag and pulp in the garbage (or the pulp in the compost), but that's a waste of at least a plastic bag). Then a few years ago we bought a Ninja blender and decided that smoothies were healthier and less wasteful than juicing. We also discovered quickly that the Ninja blender cleans up a lot easier than the juicer ever did. So finally, I took that juicer down to our yard sale stack this month.
While I was pulling the juicer out of the cabinet, I discovered our Hamilton Beach breakfast sandwich maker, dusty from two years of no use. This conversation with my husband ensued.
Sounds like a good reason to get rid of the sandwich maker, doesn't it? So down into the basement it went for our upcoming yard sale, too.
I decluttered some other items, too, like outgrown and too-worn clothing, some slippery IKEA rugs that we've decided aren't safe on our hardwood floors, a few books, etc. I won't bore you with all those details, but suffice it to say that we're working on ridding our home of things we don't need and/or love.
Blog Progress
As I said above, I feel as though I did a decent job in October on visits, if not on Twitter.
As I said above, I feel as though I did a decent job in October on visits, if not on Twitter.
| Goal | Actual | |
|---|---|---|
| Visits | 550 | 597 |
| Income | $0.00 | $0.03 |
Those visitors came without much social media presence or other marketing.
I don't have any affiliate links, ads, or paid printables on the blog at this time, but I somehow earned a whopping three cents in October from Creative Fabrica, apparently from links I had up on the old blog that someone somehow followed (?). I'm including the link here.
https://www.creativefabrica.com/ref/6578/
If you go there and find some planner stickers you like (lots of them are available there!) or something else and create an account to download them, I'll get another three cents. And no, that isn't much, but I'll take it. Right now, all I have to get is $13.97 to pay off my domain for the year, and every three cents helps. :)
I'm kidding . . . kinda. Well, not really.
I would like to point out that I'm working through the process of moving my blog from Blogger to Wordpress. I've started encountering some problems with images on the Blogger format, and I just feel as though this move will save me some time and frustration in the long run. The move will cost $107.88 per year, making the total blog budget $121.88 per year. I've fronted the funds for these expenses personally, but I'd like to recoup them eventually in affiliate sales and ad revenue.
That said, I've reached the minimum number of visits to join Amazon's affiliate program, so you're going to start seeing more reviews here with affiliate links beginning in November. I won't be reviewing old Sons of the Desert CD's, though, just items I've either loved (like our Ryobi ONE+ hand vac) or hated (like these gloves) in getting and keeping my home organized and clean. If you buy anything from Amazon--you know, like for Black Friday--I'd love it if you'd visit through my links. I'll report the proceeds I receive here for transparency reasons.
At any rate, my goal for November is to have 600 visits. I don't know if I'll make that because I'm straddling two platforms right now: Blogger and Wordpress. But I'm hopeful. Please help me reach this goal by sharing my posts. I'd appreciate it.
And I'll try to reach 20 Twitter followers in November, too. I won't expect to make any affiliate earnings from Amazon, but doing so would be nice, wouldn't it?
So that's it for the month. Any input on the blog or thoughts on whether I should even stay on Twitter? Leave me a comment below. I'll respond within a few days.
PS: I accidentally wrote over my "September Success!" post from last month. Sorry about that. I used this error as an opportunity to back up my blog, by the way. :)
Blessings,
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