The truth about MTurk

If you have been looking into work at home jobs, one that you have probably heard a lot about is Amazons Mechanical Turk known as MTurk. MTurk is a crowdsourcing marketplace where you an earn money by completing short tasks such as doing web research, data entry transcription and various writing jobs. Pay for these jobs depends on the task you do. Sounds great to a stay at home mom since you can log in anytime and do a task or two and get paid. Right?



Well, in my opinion it falls into that 'if it's sounds too good to be true, it probably is' category. Reason for this being as they don't seem to approve new workers. In order to do these tasks you create an account and sign up at their site. Then you wait 24-48 hours to hear if you have been approved.

So being a stay at home mom, this sounded good to me and I signed up. I have been a customer on Amazon for years. I used my log in and filled out the form they gave me and received a message that I would be notified by email.

Here is the email I received.

I was denied with no explanation at to why. It says they cannot disclose the reason but if the criteria changes I can try again. So I looked around to try to find the criteria. I was not able find the criteria anywhere.

You are able to log in and view the HITs, however if you try to do anything with them you get this notice:

There is nothing telling you if or when you would be able to try again. I searched and found that most people who have tried to get on with MTurk have been denied. This is one I would say try if you want, but don't get your hopes up.

**Update:

I did receive an email about being approved a little while after this and am now able to do the hits. I will be writing a review on my experiences with it.


If there is a website or app you would like me to test, feel free to send me the name of it at sjacobs206.purple@blogger.com.


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How to survive Colic

The way to make a screaming colic baby happy again

Having babies can be a task, especially if that baby has colic. My son, who is now 3, had colic.  Poor baby would just scream for hours and it seemed as though there was nothing I could do. The only thing he seemed to like was being in the tub. I had the Fisher-Price Bath Tub for him that I set in my stand up shower and filled it to the top.

Even from 2 months old he would splash until the water was cold and about gone from his tub. And as soon as I took him out, he was back to screaming. I lived with really lose neighbors at the time and told them if it was about a certain time, if they heard him screaming it was because I took him out of the tub.

I called his doctor to get help for him. After three days straight of him just screaming, I called the OB department of the hospital where I had him, held the phone so they could hear him, and said "Hear that? help!!" They told me I could take him into the ER but it probably wouldn't do much good, he just had colic and babies with colic scream.

I remember growing up and my mom talked about my older sister having it. I even called her asking how to help him. Her advise was to just put him in his swing and take a lot of showers because the the water would drown out the screaming.

There is a lot of back and forth about whether or not to let babies 'cry it out'. However in my opinion a baby cries for a reason. They either need something or want something, mainly to be held, which is comforting to them. I believe you cannot spoil a tiny baby. So I do not let my babies 'cry it out'. And in the case of a baby with colic, I find it cruel.

Colic is defined as a severe, often fluctuating pain in the abdomen caused by intestinal gas or obstruction in the intestines and suffered especially by babies.

So basically a colic cry is a pain cry. My baby was in pain and was screaming from it. I tried so many things to help my little guy. All from holding in different positions to finally my life saver, gripe water. After searching I found Mommy's Bliss Gripe Water, Liquid, 4-ounce bottle

I can tell you this stuff is amazing! Before I bought it, I would come home from work and pick my little guy up from the baby sitter. For the next two hours he would do nothing but scream. Getting him to bed was a relief.

Once I picked up Mommy's Bliss my nights go so much easier. As soon as we got home from the sitters, I would give him just half of the recommended dose, which he loved the taste of, and he instantly calmed down. It was like my miracle water. Once he was calm, I was able to help him more by doing a little song and 'dance' with him. I would take his little legs and lightly bounce his bottom on the floor as he was laying on his back, then I would lightly 'shake' his legs and the 'squeeze' him.

Doing this, I had my hands at the tops of his legs, and I would sing, 'bounce a, bounce a bounce, and shake a shake a shake and squeeze the baby.' And as I would squeeze him by gently pushing his knees into his tummy like I show here.



He would fart and relieve the gas that was built up. I would continue until I squeezed him three times straight without gas. And I tell you, doing this made life with a colic baby so much easier.


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