Listed March 31, 2008

I’ve gotten 5 pieces of fabric listed on eBay now. I really hope they sell. I stopped at the post office and picked up a handful of flat-rate boxes. If someone wins just one auction, I can use those. Otherwise, they will be shipped in something else. Shipping rates have gone up a lot in the last few years. I suppose everything has though. The woman I’m selling for is excited I think. She’s stopped selling the bags of fabric for $10. LOL I think she knows she can potentially do much better through eBay. Fabric is very popular and it moves better than many other things on eBay. I hope having huge yardages will be a big selling point in my/our auctions. She said she has patterns and trim and books to sell too if things go well w/ the fabric. I could be doing this for a long time!!

Report cards came home today. I was disappointed to see that Madeline didn’t do well. She had 4 grades go down! And most of it is from neglecting to turn in work. Grrrrrr That irritates the heck out of me!!! I think I’m going to have to do the ‘grounding from privileges’ thing. Until they go up anyway… Samantha did okay. She has really struggled this year academically. She should pass to 3rd grade but she’ll have an IEP. She is behind in math and reading and grammar and spelling and writing. Basically everything. She isn’t behind enough to be considered leaning disabled but enough to need help. Next year they’ll hand pick her teacher based on her needs. I worry for 3rd grade though. Unless she’s on meds for ADD, I don’t see her having an easy time of it. I want to get her into a year-round school next year. It’s a lottery process so I am waiting right now. Hoping her name gets picked. She’d have 9 weeks on and 3 weeks off and I feel that she’ll do much better getting that break from time to time. It’s all overwhelming to her sometimes. Homeschooling would be best I think but I couldn’t handle it. I’m just not cut out for that kind of lifestyle. I really, really wish I was. But unless I become a totally different kind of person between now and August, homeschooling won’t happen.

Speaking of homeschooling- one of the main reasons I couldn’t do it was because I didn’t have my GED. Well, I am taking the GED test in 2 weeks!! Yay me!! I can’t believe I passed the pre-GED test. I didn’t do well in the math (I passed) but I did super in the other subjects- I got none wrong or one wrong. I was shocked. I guess I AM smart!!! LOL

We have company coming next week and I need to start some real cleaning. No more fake cleaning!! Dave’s parents are coming for a few days. They haven’t been down for over 2 years so it’s a big deal. We need to do some room rearranging to make room for them and all my fabric piles. We have two tons of laundry to deal with still. Man, I hate laundry. It never ends and it’s always everywhere. If I ever got wealthy, I’d pay to have laundry done- wash, dried and folded. I need to do some scrubbing of floors and walls and doors. Toilets and showers too. Basically, I need to do it all. I hate doing it all. I hate cleaning. I’m lazy. Being lazy has consequences though. The house is kinda dirty. But it’ll look awesome when his parents show up!!! How long it stays looking good is anyone’s guess. LOL

Money Maker March 31, 2008

I saw an ad on Craigslist last week that said this woman was selling a bunch of fabric she had been amassing for years. $10 per hefty bag! I contacted her and was able to buy 2 bags worth of fabric. She had so much fabric, she could have opened her own store. I was stunned at how much she had. Bags and bags and bags, all over her living room. She said she didn’t have time to do more than let it go for $10 per bag. I suggested eBay to her but she said she does not have time to mess with it. Being an eBay enthusiast, I saw an opportunity for her to make a decent amount of money off of her collection (hoard?) of fabric. So, I offered to do all the work of listing and shipping for a cut of the profit. She agreed!! Hopefully I can do well for her. She has so much beautiful stuff and tons of yardages of each fabric piece. It’s going to take several days to go through the few bags I took home and measure it all, photograph it and list it all. And she still has probably over 20 bags still at home!! This woman had a serious fabric addiction. LOL I hope to make a decent amount of sales for her. I hate to see her giving away bags of fabric for $10, when she could make the $10 per piece for a bunch of stuff. And I’ll make a bit of money on the side too. I hope.

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My brother and fiance went home today. We had a nice visit. We didn’t do as much as I thought we would. I ended up with a wicked toothache for the last several days so that has made it hard to do anything fun. I’ve been sticking close to my Vicodin. LOL We’ll have lots of time to do stuff in a few months. They plan to move down here this summer and I do look forward to it. I miss having family around to visit with. And my kids miss having cousins to play with. My brother only had one child but she’s same age as Samantha so at least one of my kids will have a playmate. I also have another brother and his girlfriend moving down here this year. Just a few more siblings and we’ll all be living in NC!

We ordered pizza last night from Dominos for dinner. When my brother left, we stepped onto the porch to say goodbye and I looked over and noticed that the pizza guy left the insulated bag on my porch. I called the store and offered to return it today. They said they’d give me a free pizza if we did that. So, yay! Free pizza!!

Oh, I wanted to mention the ‘play’ my daughter was in. Turns out it wasn’t really a play. There is thing they do around here Every couple of years called Best Foot Forward. A bunch of schools in the area participate. There were 20 different acts by 20 different schools. Each school has a group of kids do a small act set to music. Those kids did a phenomenal job!! I was amazed at how awesome they were. We weren’t planning on buying a DVD, but after it was all over I just had to get it. I can’t wait to get the DVD because we ended up on the very side of the auditorium, next to the stage and I want to see how it looks from straight on. Plus I think it would be awesome for Samantha to have a record of what she was able to do. She should be able to show off a bit to her grandparents too. ) Of course my camera batteries died after about 4 pictures. !!! I wanted to record it w/ the camera but that didn’t happen. We were in horrible seats so it wouldn’t have looked all that great anyway. I can’t wait to get the DVD and sit and watch it all again. It really was an awesome night.

Fake Clean March 27, 2008

My brother and his fiance’ are coming in from out of town today. I am looking forward to seeing them again, it’s been about 6 months since we visited last. They are looking to move here at the end of June so we’ll get to see each other all the time. I suppose that’s good and bad. Mostly good though. I think. They are staying through Sunday so we only have a few days to run around and do things. I know for sure we are going to a chocolate store in town. Friday evening is fondue night. We didn’t have to think twice about that one! Just say chocolate and I’m there! Actually, nevermind. I keep forgetting that my daughter is in a play and the big show is Friday night. (Stellar parenting there!) Not sure why I keep forgetting about it. I guess the idea of watching a couple hundred elementary kids on stage is just so thrilling my brain is unable to deal. Oh well, so much for chocolate fondue. I’m still taking her to the store, we must get our chocolate fix. You can’t stop me.

I am doing a quick once-over in the kitchen and living room. I will present a fake clean house. ‘Fake’ because it never looks that good after company leaves and only looks that good when I am expecting company. I hate housework, I only do it when forced to. Right now the living room is being over-taken by laundry. Right now, you have to push a pile of childrens’ undies over to find a seat on the couch. We’ve let laundry slide for just a few weeks too long and now we are playing catch-up. Except- I also hate doing laundry, so it gets washed and dried but more often then not, it stays in the baskets. Unless we pay the kids to fold it. Two birds, one stone. The laundry gets folded, I don’t have to do it and they make money. So I guess that’s three birds, one stone? Win, win, win? Whatever works, I say!

Right now I’m stalking an auction on eBay. It’s for 23 pieces of fabric remnants, from a high-end interior design company retiree. She has awesome stuff and it’s soooo cheap. And she offers so much fabric per auction! Like, 10 yards or 8 yards or 12 yards of expensive fabric for next to nothing. The remnant auctions don’t have huge amounts of yardage but she’ll have like 4 yards of this, 2 yards of that, 1 yard of that over there- times 23! Some stuff isn’t even a yard but for me, I’ll take it. I have patterns for my daughters where the outfit needs a contrast fabric and I don’t need a ton of it. So I like to have a lot of littler pieces on hand for those kinds of projects. I feel like I’m letting a big secret out, talking about this. I don’t like too much competition on eBay auctions. I want to WIN, WIN, WIN!! (I hate to lose.) 21 minutes, 20 seconds……and counting. I must win this.

Okay, must bathe child and myself. And win an auction.