welcome to Lent :)

so today's the first day of Lent -- traditionally a time of deprivation. but a thought came to me today. does it hafta be? i mean, i usually struggle with what i'm going to give up for the 40 days of Lent. it really shouldn't be something you shouldn't be doing anyway, like drugs or watching porn. but what's the point of giving up something like chocolate or coffee that you're just going to pick up again on Easter? can't we give up something that will make our lives better?

this year i really want to give up unhappiness. why not? i'm tired of being depressed. i'd really like to figure out what it is my brain needs for lasting happiness. i'd really like to spend the rest of my life doing what i enjoy and being happy doing it, instead of suffering and slogging through my days. wouldn't that be awesome? i don't think God would have a problem with it :)

our government is run by idiots!

it just boggles my mind that we keep electing these stupid people into office who have the power to ruin so many lives. i don't usually blog about politics, but this time i hafta make an exception.

i keep hearing about how there's a bill that's being considered that will take away funding for crucial things like Planned Parenthood. clearly congress & the senate are full of men & women who've never been down on their luck, without medical insurance & in need of good gynecological care at an affordable cost. now, don't get me wrong, i'm totally pro-life, but i don't feel that i have the right to tell you what you should do with your body. i couldn't imagine what kind of circumstance would compel me to have an abortion, and i'll do everything in my power to talk you out of it, but it's YOUR choice. i won't drive you to the clinic, but i'll be there for you afterward. but Planned Parenthood does SO MUCH MORE than just abortions! in fact, the 2 clinics i've been to don't do them AT ALL! what i loved about them is that they had a sliding scale. i had a job, but i didn't have insurance, so i couldn't afford to go to a *real* ob/gyn but i still needed to have my annual exam & get my birth control pills.

now i'm reading that they're thinking about passing a bill for birth control for wild horses. WHAT?!? i was sure that i'd read the post wrong, but, alas, i hadn't. i don't understand why horses are more important than women. how would these congresspeople & senators feel if their daughter was denied care becuz she couldn't afford it (since they're intent on repealing the health care bill too!) and had no other options. are we going back to back-street abortions with no aftercare and inhumane, unsanitary conditions? really? especially since they're planning on cutting more and more public sector funding, like head-start, is now really the time to cut funding for contraception? you can't just make a decision like that and not think about the long-term consequences. no contraception = more babies. do they just expect people to stop having sex? clearing they don't watch maury povich or jerry springer enough.

living on the edge of perfection

so we're moving. it's such a pain in the butt! we've got a house that we want to buy, and the sellers are willing to wait until we're ready, but we've got to sell our house first. and in order to do that, we need to keep it in pristine condition so we can show it at the drop of a hat. so stressful! and i hate to clean. i've done so much cleaning in the past month or so that i'm sick of myself! but now that everything's clean, i find myself not wanting to do anything. chris & the kids were in youngstown over the weekend, and when i came home from work i came in through the garage and went no further than my basement computer room & craft area. i don't want to cook, cuz i don't want to mess up the kitchen. i would actually prefer to not be in my house right now for fear that i'll make something dirty & hafta clean it again!

it was a shock to see the listing online. it made it seem so real! and when i came home from the gym yesterday, the sign was in the front yard. i guess we're really selling our house. the kids keep asking for toys that we've packed to take to Miss Bea's house. as long as we're not giving them away to other little ones who don't have any toys, they're cool. :)

but the kids and i took a mental health day today. it's a beautiful day & as soon as isabelle has awoken from her nap, we're going outside to play in the snow (which we probably shouldn't do, cuz it'll mar the perfection of the yard...) and i'll bake cookies & make cocoa for when they come in. thankfully the cookies are in the freezer pre-made, so there's no mess there. just crumbs to clean up afterward, but fresh-baked cookies are always worth the effort :)

technology hates me

today has been a pretty craptastic day. today we met with our realtor for the first time so that we can put our house on the market so we can move. so i spent the ENTIRE day cleaning, which pretty much sucks cuz i don't clean. but today i found myself scrubbing everything, which i hate, and vacuuming everything, which is exhausting. especially when the little shop-vac decided to stop sucking. i vacuumed my entire basement with a dirt devil on my hands and knees. needless to say, when my husband got home from school i wasn't in the best of moods :)

but for my *lunch* break (which consisted of 2 nutrigrain bars) i decided to sit & get online & list an item in my etsy shop. but my external hardrive, where all 14000+ photos are stored, decided to take today off. it's on a little vacation. totally craptastic. ALL of my photos are there. as well as all of my documents. my computer runs really slow cuz it's old, & my dad sent me this nifty little portable hard drive to free up some space on my computer's hard drive to help make things a little faster. so now it's holding my info hostage. on the bright side, we're doing shop makeovers on etsy right now, and i was thinking i needed some new photos :)

but then, i was finishing up my cleaning, and ready to order the pizza for my kids to eat while the realtor was here, and i pulled out my phone, & it's DEAD!!! i'm swimming in a sea of craptastitude! i don't know ANYONE's phone numbers. my phone is my alarm clock & keeps track of my schedule so i get where i need to be on time. how am i gonna get out of bed in the morning. i have a dr's appt tomorrow. what time is it? who will tell me when to leave? do i have clients next week? WAAAH! how did i live for so long without a phone? how do people get through the day without texting or checking the calendar to see if they're free? crap crap crap!!!

so, tomorrow will start with dropping alexander off at school, and then isabelle & i will go DIRECTLY to the sprint store to get a new phone. it won't even turn on. and when you get a new phone, they can transfer your address book, which is good, cuz i don't know anyone's numbers, but they can't transfer your calendar. craptabulous. i guess it's time to drink :)

QuiBids

so, i stumbled across this website this evening where you bid on stuff & can get it really cheap. it's called QuiBids, and it's truly brilliant! i just watched an auction for a BRAND NEW ipod nano & someone bought it for $4.34. each auction starts at $0.01 and every bid moves the price up by $0.01, BUT each bid costs the bidder $0.60 and adds 3 seconds to the clock for additional bids. so even though the final bidder only paid $4.34 (plus $11 shipping), QuiBids got paid $260.40 for an item with a retail value of $199.99. so they're able to sell stuff AND MAKE MONEY DOING IT while we're able to buy stuff for a mere fraction of the cost. and just cuz the retail value is $199.99 doesn't mean that that's what they paid wholesale. amazing!

but i don't think i have the patience to sit and bid on stuff. since each bid costs $0.60, if it takes you 20 or 30 bids to finally win an item, if you just come in at the end, you're still paying $12 to $18 on top of the purchase price + shipping. and since each bid adds 3 seconds to the clock they take forever to end. when i started watching the ipod nano auction, there were only about 15 seconds left. but i watched for about 45 minutes (off & on *smile*) before it finally ended. but even if you used 80 bids, which would be $48, but managed to get something like an ipod nano for $5, you're still getting it for more than 50% off. and all the people who lost the auction just spent however much to TRY to get the item, & the price of your bids is non-refundable if you lose the auction. so losing an auction at QuiBids sucks a LOT more than losing on eBay. you're actually losing more than just your time. cuz i'm sure the people who lost the auction placed at least 10-20 bids, which means they spent like $12 so that someone else could have the item they wanted. that blows! :)

New on Ebay! :)

I used to sell Mary Kay. I started cuz I wore it & I figured it'd be an easy way to get my stuff & I'd be able to support my habit. But I hated doing classes & parties, so I just stopped doing it. But I had a ton of stuff just sitting around my basement. Then my friend, Jara, told me about selling it all on Ebay. So about a week ago I finally got around to listing a bunch of stuff.

What a thrill! Over half of it sold, which is really awesome! And it was really exciting waiting at the end to see how much everything sold for. I've got another half hour or so for the final batch to finish up so that I can see how much I made. I've got some stuff that I listed this evening & more stuff that'll I'll try to do tomorrow, plus relisting the stuff that didn't sell yet.

Now I'm looking around my house for more stuff that I'm not using that I can sell! I had no idea how easy it would be to sell on Ebay. The only downside is that now PayPal has a hold on my account. They're holding each deposit for 21 days to make sure there's no issues. I guess there's a lot of disputes with Ebay purchases, so even though I've had my Etsy shop open for over a year & have had no problem with my account, they feel the need to check now that I'm also selling on Ebay. Oh well. Thankfully I had a good holiday season, so I've got a cushion to take care of the shipping fees until they release my funds. But it still sucks. Especially since they're not just holding my Ebay deposits. I've never had a problem with my Etsy sales, but they'll be affected as well until I increase my Ebay seller profile.

Well, I've got 20 items that I'm waiting for payment on, and as soon as the last of my auctions finishes I'll send out revised invoices to all of my customers & get that money! Whoo hoo! :)

sadness

i so thrilled with my new sewing machine & the embroidery capabilities. but any software i want to install requires at least a mac operating system of 10.5. right now my computer runs at 10.4.11 and it WON'T ALLOW ME TO UPGRADE!!! seriously!?! i'm so frustrated. whenever i try to install an upgrade it tells me that my harddrive does not meet the requirements for installation. there's enough space available. it's a macintosh. i don't know what the problem could be. maybe they just don't want me to have what i want. poopey-heads! :(