Where have I been?

I'm back! Where have I been, you ask? SICK! I was completely knocked out by a bad gastrointestinal virus that had me bedridden with a high fever (and assortment of other issues) for a whole week. Wow. I hope none of you get that bug. Believe it or not, I was even too sick to get on the computer. But I'm back and feeling great! I was worried that my poor abandoned blog would wither away with no posts and no attention. However, I was pleasantly surprised when I logged on and found that my traffic had tripled in the week I was away! What is giving me this big boost? Pinterest! Are you a pinterest user? If not, go check it out. It's basically bulletin boards of pictures. You can organize them any way you like and its like keeping an online scrapbook of pictures you collect. You can go on blogs and "pin" pictures from the blog onto your pinterest account. Other pinners can the copy (repin) onto theirs. Its an easy way to do some simple design boards for your projects. I just started using it myself, but their are lots of readers who have been pinning and repinning pictures from my blog, and as a result, lots of new readers have been coming by for a look!
      More news filed under "fun stuff"~My last post before getting sick was on Amy Butler's wonderful designs. Well, she read the post and so did her staff. I got a really nice email thanking me for the post! Nice to get that kind of acknowledgement. Also, I was contacted by an editor from an online decorating site that is interested in doing a guest post, so look for that in the near future. Good things are happening and I am excited to be back.
     Now for the bad news. Notice there is no more Adsense advertising on my blog? Well, the day I got sick,  Blogger Adsense decided that I had invalid clicks on my ads and threw me out to the curb. Wow. That company really has some major issues. First of all, you need to reach a threshold of $100 in order for them to send the first check. After about 2 months I noticed I had about $115 in my account, so I filled out the tax information so they could send my first check. The NEXT day, they disabled my account saying they detected an unusual amount of activity and determined the clicks to be invalid. Huh? So not only did they terminate my account, but they took the money my blog had already earned! I get nothing. What a racket. I could appeal, but I am so disgusted, I never want to have them on my blog again. Here is the problem with there "invalid click" software program: It does not take into account that the ads are based on content. So if I do a post on an unusual fabric, or mid-century furniture or specific paint colors, for example, the ads on the page of that post will be directly related to the post, therefore sometimes generating an unusual amount of clicks! Isn't that what is supposed to happen? Well, in their world, they expect to see an average # of clicks per day. That just doesn't happen. Also, I posted info on my blog in some public places that have multiple computers. If a lot of people use the computers to go to my blog and then click on the ads, it looks like one person to the Adsense software. I know they are aware of this problem, because on their appeal form, one of their questions relates to it. Anyway, I am done with Adsense forever! Now I am looking into other ad networks. If you have any suggestions and/or any experience with ad networks on your own blog, please leave a comment. I appreciate your suggestions.
    I have rambled on long enough, I will be back later with a design post. Have a great day!