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Mar 25, 2007    |       11 comments

Some of the Best Free Things On the Net

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(NOTE: Well, it’s time to get back into the groove of things. I started compiling this list on Thursday and planned to finish it up on Friday and post it Friday but that didn’t happen. So, I finished it up today. I hope you find it useful.)

Some of the Best Free Things on the Net

I’m not talking about signing up for freebies. I’m talking about sites that you can use every day that can make your life a little better and they are the best price of all…FREE! Here are some sites I either use or plan to use.

Pandora.com – Pandora.com is your own personal jukebox on the web. You tell the site a name of an artist that you like to create a channel. The system will play music that is related to that artist to try to generate songs that you will enjoy. I have multiple channels varying from country to hard rock. If you’d like, you can even take those channels and make mixes out of them to shuffle up the music. I love having tunes going while I am working.

Blingo.com – Blingo.com is a search engine powered by Google that offers random prizes. You can win movie tickets up to a brand new Ford Escape (or $20,000 cash). All you need to do is use Blingo.com to search for things like you normally would. If you happen to search at the right time, you can win! If you decide to sign up and would like to be my friend, use this link (otherwise use the first link I gave). What that means is that if you win, I will win as well. Once you join, you can invite your friends and then if they win you can win. It doesn’t cost a dime to join, and you can win awesome prizes for what you often do anyway (search the internet).

Google Calendar – Google Calandar is a free service from Google that lets you set up a calendar that can you can open from any computer with a web connection and a supported browser. I recently learned about this site and it is perfect for me because I often am on different computers. I can easily pull up my calendar wherever I am and I can set up email reminders. Sometimes remembering when balance transfers expire is difficult and this will help me keep track of things 😉

Freecycle.org – Freecycle.org “It’s a grassroots and entirely nonprofit movement of people who are giving (& getting) stuff for free in their own towns.” My area doesn’t have too many members as of yet but it’s slowly growing. I’ve given away some older exercise equipment and have received some craft items. And it’s all free!

MIT Courses – Massachusetts Institute of Technology has many online courses that you can take for free! You can’t earn a degree with the courses, but if you are looking to further your knowledge then this might be the right thing for you! Once I have some more free time, I’m interested in taking some of their writing courses.

If you’d like more free things, you may be interested in a great article that a reader sent me: 23 Surprising Things You Can Get for Free.

Enjoy! 🙂

Mar 24, 2007    |       63 comments

Some Very Sad News

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A lot of you are probably wondering where I was yesterday since I usually post daily. I spent most of the day at the doctors taking a battery of tests and I have some very sad news to report…I miscarried.

Throughout all of the tests, I remained hopeful. The last test they did, the ultrasound, left me staring at the ceiling hoping beyond hope that perhaps the technician would declare, “Would you like to see the heartbeat?” and turn the monitor towards me. Just like how it was when we first had a glimpse of our son in my womb. It wasn’t meant to be.

The whole day yesterday felt so surreal. Walking from test to test I felt like I wasn’t even walking. I felt numb. When it was time to say goodbye to the doctor after he gave me the results of all the tests, he said that he was glad to have met me but he wished it was under better circumstances. I thanked him for fitting me in his schedule and giving me so much of his time and I started balling. I had been fighting it earlier because I wasn’t prepared to give up hope. The goodbye was it. There was no more hope to be had.

I wiped my tears and went out to my son and husband in the waiting room. I had one more thing to go through, and that was to get a shot of RHOGAM since I am RH negative. All I wanted to do is go home, but the disorganization of our health system made a single shot take over 45 minutes to complete.

When I told my mom yesterday, she reminded me that everything happens for a reason. I know I often say that myself, but sometimes you forget when you are in the midst of something very sad happening in your life. It was nice to be reminded of that for I do find it comforting.

I retired early last night and I spent a good time thinking about what happened and why our beautiful gift was so suddenly taken away. I know in my heart there is a reason and given time I’m sure I will begin to feel better and heal after this loss.

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