I’m sure most of you have thought about what it might be like to stop working your day job and find a way to make an income using the internet. There are quite literally thousands of ways to make the net work to your benefit. You just have to find the one way that is right for your personality, comfort level and area of expertise.

How aggressive are you? How web savvy are you already? Do you like to take on the role of salesman? Do you feel OK getting friends and acquaintances in on business projects? Do you know how to find a target audience and sell a niche product?

So many questions and just as many solutions: that’s the way of internet businesses.

One option that many people choose when they are at the bottom level and have no internet experience at all, is to go with a package like the ones sold by www.StoresOnlineSuccess.com. They deal in seminars, local training, and complete packages that they say will walk you through running an e-commerce site. They are not the right choice for everyone, since we all know that in business it is never one size fits all. Nonetheless, they are an all-inclusive way to step into e-commerce. You still need to work at driving sales, but the product and the software are there for you.

Do your research. StoresOnline might be what you’re looking for. On the other hand, there are endless ways to make an income online, and this is just one of them.

You can usually trust retail stores to pull recalled item off their shelves. That is helpful for people who do not follow the news and may not have heard about the lead pain in a Dora the Explorer toy or the choking hazards of a baby sling.

Thrift stores, flea markets and some eBay sellers are a whole other story. According to a study from the Injury Prevention Journal, recalled children’s products are turning up on eBay and in thrift stores.

During a 30-day period, the study found 190 auction items on eBay that contained or were suspected to contain a recalled children’s item. Researchers culled the list of items from U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission press releases from 1992 to 2004.

This is despite eBay’s formal policy prohibiting the sale of recalled products. The study found that 70 percent of the eBay auctions of recalled items resulted in a sale.

Rely on your own wisdom and eagle eye. Be aware of what has been recalled and don’t buy at thrift stores, flea markets and on eBay before first checking online to see if the product is safe.

If you bake, and I mean REALLY bake, then you know how much easier life is with a stand mixer. A little hand-held just doesn’t do the trick when you want to power through several dozen cookies. Plus, a hand mixer cannot knead your bread for you or turn the bowl to keep the mixing even. I’ve even burned out a Hamilton Beach® Mixer (the regular hand mixer style) when I was making a particularly stiff cookie dough last Christmas. Most stand mixers don’t even bat a proverbial eyelash in that kind of task. Plus, the Eclectrics® Mixer looks hip sitting on your counter.

For example, my infamous Perfect Chocolate Cake is one of those recipes that work best with a product like the Hamilton Beach® Stand Mixer, because you need to get that batter super smooth and you have to make whipped cream that is stiff enough to hold up between the layers.

This cake, by the way, is addictive. I have more requests to bring this to gathering and parties than anything else I bake.

Perfect Chocolate Cake

1 cup unsweetened cocoa
2 cups boiling water
2 3/4 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup butter
2 1/2 cup sugar
4 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Combine cocoa and water with whisk until smooth. Sift flour, soda, salt, and baking powder. Set aside.

Mix at high speed butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla until light (5 minutes) at low speed. Add flour mixture alternately with cocoa mix.

Bake at 350º in three 9-inch pans for 25 to 30 minutes. Cool 10 minutes. Remove and cool on racks.

To Assemble: Use 1/2 filling mix on first and second layers. Place third layer on top and frost (frost the sides first) Refrigerate.

Perfect Chocolate Cake Filling & Frosting

Filling:
1 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla

Frosting:
1 package (6 ounce) chocolate chips
1/2 cup light cream
1 cup butter
2 1/2 cups powdered sugar

In pan, combine chips, light cream, and butter. Heat until smooth. Remove from heat and whisk in sugar.

In bowl set over ice, beat all filling ingredients until they hold their shape.

Usually when I am ill, I just focus on getting better. My daughter is a pretty healthy kid and doesn’t usually pick up colds and flus from me. In fact, I suspect she carries them home from school sometimes and sails right through, leaving me to be the one who weathers the actual illness.

Things are different now. We are living with my mom. Although I do not talk about this a lot and may not have ever mentioned it before on my blog, she has cancer. It’s a non-curable blood cancer and she’s been living with it for several years now, due to the fact that she got through the first aggressive bout and came out on the other side where science was just then discovering new treatment methods. She was blessed to have lived into the days where doctors better know how to deal with her illness.

All of this is to say that here I sit with a VERY bad cold. My gums are sore. My throat hurts. My head feels like it weighs 50 pounds. And, all I can think of is obsessively washing my hands and spraying Lysol on everything I even thin of touching. Mom’s system cannot power through the colds and flus Gigi brings home with her like my system can. If I could just rent a hotel room for the duration, I would.

We had our own Thanksgiving traditions when I was growing up in the DC suburbs. We often did not have extended family with us, since everyone lived at least six hours away. It would just be the four of us and mom would put on the entire traditional spread: turkey, stuffing, gravy, yams, pies, cranberries and so on. One of the things we did a little different was to use cranberry juice frozen into a sorbet as a side. It was lovely and unique and just a little sophisticated.

When I was married, we started some our own traditions, like making the turkey super spicy and bold. It was a tribute to the Mediterranean food my ex was used to eating. He grew up in the Middle East and turkey was not the common holiday dish. Actually, Thanksgiving was not a holiday they observed in his family, as it’s American.

Now that it is just me and Gigi, I want to start over and make all new traditions. We will be eating with my mom and my sister and her family, but I’m going to take charge of the preparations. My idea is to go all out on the details: special serving dishes and fresh flowers and good wine. I want Thanksgiving to be small, but elegant.

I found a large soup Tureen I like on the Villeroy & Boch website. It’s from the Audun Ferme line, which is a modern take on classic toile. It’s actually based on Villeroy & Boch’s original design from over 200 years ago

Villeroy & Boch is an impressive company. They are close to 260 years old and to this day they are still family owned. They are the largest porcelain manufacturer in the world, and seeing that their products adorn the tables of the Pope, crowned royalty, and renowned restaurants the world over – I figure they are certainly good enough for my Thanksgiving table. I’m thinking one new serving piece a year from them might be a good Thanksgiving tradition. Plus, I can build up a little cache of heirlooms for Gigi.

They are running a 20% off special on serveware through the end of the month, so my timing is perfect.