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So over a week ago I received an email from Google AdSense informing me that my account had been shut down. I hadn't noticed any changes in my earnings, no suspicious trends upward, nothing. But what can you do? Appeal the decision! So I filled out their appeal form and sent it in, confident that they would give me another chance since I'd never had any infractions in the rules prior. Sadly, I was wrong, and a small (yet at once significant) source of income has disappeared for good. They will not reconsider once you appeal their decision once, nor will they ever allow you to set up a new account. This has put an end to my writing for Natural News, and really dampened my enthusiasm for blogging (which I know is sad and pathetic because I'm not blogging to make money, that was just a nice little aside). We are allowed to use David's code on my sites, but I'm hesitant to do so in case the "click-attack" that ended my account was malicious and somebody, somewhere has it out for me.

This isn't all bad news though. As much as I will miss writing for Natural News, it has forced me to reconsider other options for bringing in a little extra income each month. Right now my focus is on Etsy.com. I have had a shop there in the past but had little success. I made jewelry at first. It was fun, but not a passion, and not really good enough. Etsy.com is just packed with unique, amazing items, and my jewelry was mediocre at best. I was careful to make everything to the highest standard of quality I could, but it was nothing special or  unique. Anybody could make what I made with a trip to Hobby Lobby or Walmart. I also tried to sell prints of some of my photography, and even had one of my drawings up for a while (incidentally it never sold, and a good thing too; during the move from Texas to Missouri it got left in a storage pocket in my in-laws car after they picked us up from the car rental location and somehow it was torn before I got it back). I also made felt ninjas, which were fun, and I actually sold enough of those to cover a fair portion of our Christmas gifts we purchased last year. But that died off after the holidays and it was back to never making sales. So now my focus is on setting up a new shop, which will be devoted to low-carb, sugar-free, grain-free treats! My older sister has had amazing success with her shop Softly Sweetly, and while I have no expectations of enjoying the same level of success, I do think I could be moderately successful since the sort of healthy diet David and I follow and promote is growing in popularity. And if there's one thing people on this sort of diet miss, it's the sweet treats! Cookies and cakes and candies. I'm not sure how extensive my shop will end up, but time will tell. I've already tried a fantastic peanut butter cookie recipe and sent half a dozen off to a friend for her to critique them for me.

And they do taste as good as they look, so the challenge is going to be whether or not they ship well and still taste good and fresh after a couple days in the mail! They have never survived around here long enough to know what they're like after 3-4 days.

I also spent all day yesterday in the kitchen, making up a new grain-free, sugar-free bread recipe. I can't wait to try it again once I get to the store for more yeast though. I did a similar recipe with yeast a few days ago and it gave it a nicer crust, though this one did turn out quite yummy, especially toasted and with a bit of cinnamon-xylitol sprinkled on top. I'm running low on my healthy baking ingredients though, so I may have to postpone further experimentation for a while. I also made a chocolate cake yesterday, but that was nearly a disaster it came out so strange (though the icing was GREAT!). Perhaps I need to just stick with my usual method of not using other peoples recipes. Apparently I have a very unique style in the kitchen as I seem to have much better success when I "wing it", versus using someones written out recipe. This is even true for baking more often than not, which is unusual, considering baking really is a science, and easy to mess up!

My husband is currently putting up shelving in our furnace room/closet. Organization, here I come! I'm also planning on reorganizing one of our bookshelves today, and there may be pictures to prove it if my method is successful. We shall see.