What is Ma's Biz?
Hello,
My name is Mary Alice, but my friends call me Mary. Most of my kids friends liked to call me Mom. As I aged, young co-workers would call me Mom. I like Ma, better. My daughter-in-law called me Mary-Mom for years, before dropping the Mary. My son-in-laws call me Mary. I sign emails Ma. Informal is a good word to describe me. Not able to come up with an imaginative title for this site, I named it Ma's Biz, informal for business.
In August, 2004 I started living on the streets of Long Beach, California. I consider myself homeless since November 22, 2002. Long story, that one. In August, 2005 I went home to babysit the dog and 5 cats while my daughter was on a business trip to Europe. She was getting married and her boss paid for her future husband to go along. Consider it a pre-wedding honeymoon. It only seemed right that Ma stuck around for the wedding. Son-in-law's father and other family members were visiting them for the first time since they moved to Pennsylvania. First time seeing their house.
You can imagine the damage the pets can do to a home. The town made them get rid of two cats due to a city ordinance that limits the number of pets families can own. While they were at work, I painted the rooms and organized cabinets and closets. Mike had more chores for me to do than my daughter, such as re-staining the cat fence that did not keep the cats from getting out of the yard as it was supposed to do. I did laundry, vacuumed, moped floors and other household chores. Oh, those litter boxes! In return, I had a roof over my head, food and unlimited internet access.
I decided to turn my lemon into pink lemonade, by starting a website to post Affiliate banners. Will not bore you with that history. When I decided to buy a domain name, there was a sale and I bought four. I broke my gypsywoman (homeless) site into two. Had no idea what to do with the dot biz domain. Living with all those pets and having so many photos, plus a scanner available Ma's Biz became a family pet site. It has changed and evolved over time to it's present version.
Questions?
A professional business site should contain a full name, address and telephone number, right? Why does Ma's Biz not have that information?
Spam! After a year at my daughter's, I returned to the streets of Long Beach. Rather hard to have a business address on the streets. Post 9/11 regulations makes it impossible for homeless people to meet the requirements for PO or other mailboxes. I removed my e'dress from sites due to spam.
How can we get in touch with you?
Why would you want to get in touch with me, now that is the question. I added a blog and anything anyone might want to say to me, can be posted there. I had notes on my sites, requesting customers to leave a comment when they made purchases from my affiliates, stores and such. I wanted to thank them personally. I get paid by commissions and customers belong to the companies. That information is not shared with me. No one ever did, so I removed the requests.
What exactly is my business?
I consider myself an Independent Contractor or starving artist. In March, 2007 I became a paid published author. Now I can say I am a starving freelance writer.
Why not get a job?
That takes too long to tell, but stick around. I talk. A lot. I decided not to renew my other domains and websites. One site had 572 blog posts that answer this question.
What time is it?
It is 12:10AM by the computer clock. Did not look at the clock when I started working on this site tonight (1202/2007), perhaps 7ish. Enough work for tonight. Come again for updates!
Thanks,
Ma
Long Beach Articles
Associated Content had a call for local summer activity articles, or maybe I just wrote on the subject, will check to see if I got paid. I decided to list them on this page, rather than on the article page. Freewebs site changes and IE irritations (and seems Firefox is only slightly better) put a damper on my passion with working on my websites. I hope to create the links some other time.
- Pier Daze Seafood Pirate Festival
- The Great Beach Treasure Hunt
- Bayou Festival Raises Money for Impoverished Children
- Free Summer Concerts
- What Is A Sea Festival Without Boats?
- Free Things To Do In Long Beach
Yikes, I have no idea writing that last one or what I wrote.