I stumbled upon this Etsy while browsing Craftster and I have fallen in love. I’ts no secret that I am a purse addict. I love buying new purses and I especially love when I can support people who make it themselves (like this great set that I purchased from Sarah last year). When I have some money saved up I might have to look into buying some stuff from Bliss By Heather.

I’ve been wanting to make some changes/additions here on the website for awhile, but just haven’t had the time/patience to sit down and do it until this weekend. Things I’ve worked on:

 1. Progress Bars for the projects I am working on. I’ve been wanting to do this for awhile now, to help encourage myself when I’m working on projects that take awhile, like Sam’s granny square blanket that I am working on right now.

 I found this progress bar at http://needle-exchange.ca/. It’s the only progress bar plugin that I could really find for wordpress that worked the way that I wanted it to. It’s really awesome and you can do several different progress bars at once. I’m really impressed by this plugin.

2. IM online plugin. I’d had this installed on the site for awhile, but finally took the time to figure out how to incorporate it on my sidebar. It’s really neat, because this will show you if I’m online or not, so if you want to chat just let me know!

 3. About Me page. I revisited my about me page. I didn’t change it today, but I did acknowledge that it’s out of date and I hope to update it more soon.

 4. Categories have been moved to the bottom of the sidebar. They were taking too much space at the top, because they keep growing.

 Are there any other changes or additions that you would like to see at this site?

Unfortunately the Walmart tax free weekend won’t be happening at a store near me this year. When I went to Tennessee for my bachelorette party it was tax free weekend in that state. It was really nice to not have to pay taxes on certain purchases. That tax money added up and let me buy some other purchases that I otherwise would not have been able to. I’m posting this because hopefully it will be applicable where you live. I’m all for families being able to save a little bit of money here and there.

I’ve been a subscriber of the Hungry Girl for probably a couple of years now. I love the daily emails that are sent out - filled with healthy food tips, gadgets, recipes. But all things that are practical and yummy looking, not like some other health sites and emails that I’ve seen in the past. And the articles are written like magazine articles, which I like. The best part is that you get these completely free, all you have to use to sign up is your email address. I’ve never received any spam from the site either.

 Right now Hungry-Girl is trying to reach their 300,000 subscriber mark (woah!). If you’re interested in possibly being their 300,000th subscriber, simply visit their site (http://www.hungry-girl.com) and click Subscribe. Be sure to mention my email (meredith [at] aformentionedthoughts.com) in the “How did you hear about Hungry Girl?” box. It’s that simple!

 this post was semi-sponsored, meaning that I could receive prizes if you sign up under my email address but I wasn’t paid or compensated in any way for this post.

An amazing amount of television shows on the weekends surround the true crime stories, especially ones involving people trying to kill their spouses. Creepy, and a bit of a sad statement about our society.

Some of you may have noticed some new ads that are up on my sidebar from PayPerPost. I wanted to take some time to explain about those and about my philosophy on blogging.

I orginally made this blog as a school project. It was also something that I’ve always wanted to do, but just never had the time to do. Making it part of a school project made it something I had to do and therefore, got it off the ground. I really enjoy writing this blog - it’s a huge mixture of things I like and the person I am. I have fun meeting new friends online and sharing stuff that I think is just great. I’ve enjoyed reading blogs for many many years and I love the fact that now I am a blogger.

That being said, I’d also like to be able to use my hobby as a way to make some extra money for me and husband. Google ads have been a part of this site since Day 1. Since returning from the honeymoon I have looked into some other ways for this blog to make some money and have explored the site PayPerPost, which gives bloggers opportunity to earn money by writing about sponsors’ products. Being a former ad major myself, I think this is a great way for people to advertise and create a buzz about their product. I also think it’s a great way for me, as a blog reader, to learn about new products that might be of interest to me.

I’ve talked to several people that do PayPerPostings and they all seem very happy with the service. I’m excited to try this out myself.

I do not currently qualify for PayPerPost blogging on this site yet, because of the hiatus that I took around the wedding. (You must not have more than 30 consecutive days without a posting.) Until this blog is approved for posting, I am taking advantage of the PayPerPost direct marketing (meaning that companies directly can pay for a post on this site). After my 90 posting period is up, I plan to begin taking opportunities that apply to this blog. The opinions that I express in those posts will be my own opinions. I will let you know if a post is sponsored. I will continue updating about products I like (that are not sponsored), pictures I take, and bits and pieces about my life. You can trust that the content of this blog still expresses who I am and is just taking part in what I consider creative advertising.

Feel free to check out some of the things I advertise, they may be products that you’re interested in. If you are interested in PayPerPost for your own blog, check out one of the following links:

**This post was inspired, not sponsored by PayPerPost, however I may receive compensation if you sign up through my website links. Thanks!**

In the short time I’ve been married and doing my housework myself (yes, thank you mom for raising me and doing the dishes for so so many years…) I quickly found out that time goes really slowly when you’re staring at a blank wall doing dishes. The time goes much much quicker when listening to a book on my iPod. It’s a gimme tip, I know, but I’m so thankful to have discovered it!