Cremes

It’s been a little while since I’ve written, but lots of exciting things have happened. Well, one exciting thing in particular. I got my green card! So now I can work, go to school, anything I want… well, except vote, but that will come once I become a citizen. For now I want to get cracking on my GRE studying so I can take the test and start applying for my Library Science program. Also, I’m trying to find someone that will hire me. So far I’ve applied to about half a dozen places. It’s only been a couple of days so I’m not getting too antsy yet, but hopefully someone will at least want an interview. I’m trying to apply to as many places as possible and hopefully a couple offers will come out of it. I really REALLY want a library job (since it is, you know, my chosen career path!) but I’m not holding out much hope on it. I’ve applied to the city library so maybe they will want me. It’s hard to say, but I hope that I at least get some phone calls soon. More updates on that soon enough! For now it’s just really exciting that I have my green card.

I’ve been working more on my Clutterbug thing, and now I have a website up! Check out www.clutterbugsolutions.com! Right now there’s not a whole lot in it, but I’m working on getting it mostly complete before June 7th. That means there will actually be something on the blog, several entries, I hoping. I’d like to get some of my gift store up and running as well, but that means actual work so I need to set aside time for that specifically. I’m trying to get the scrapbook for Grandma done first so all the rest of my materials will be freed up for whatever purpose I want. I’m also going to scan the scrapbook pages (the nice ones, anyways…) and offer custom scrapbooks as well. I’m not really expecting a lot from this, but maybe I’ll get a few jobs and make a little extra cash on the side.

Anyways, I’m going to do some more site tweaking and then maybe scrapbook for a little while, so adios!

Today was somewhat productive for my fledgling little business. I’m intending to take down ye olde homepage for meags.net and replacing it with Clutterbug Solutions until I can actually afford to buy the domain, which is being held against my will from domain poachers. I had my business cards printed up today from a website called Vista Prints since they are having this 250 free cards deal and we currently have no color ink for our printer. The cards look pretty nice so hopefully they will come out looking good, otherwise I’ll have to scrounge around and see what I can come up with for business cards for the Conference. (June 7th! Eee!!) I’ve also got to finish up my website for that, and find a way to incorporate my “greetings and gifts”. I got my aroma beads stuff from the Candle Supply today so I started on my first batch on beads. Cucumber Melon is my first scent, and let me tell you, they smell really good so far. It takes a few days for the beads to soak up the fragrance oil, and I only did a small amount for the test run. We’ll see how they turn out.

I ordered a catalogue from Uline.com the other day and I spent some time tonight going through it. I found loads of awesome things in there that I want to use. And best of all, the prices are great. Of course, you buy in somewhat large quantities (like 500 mini ziploc bags…) but some things I would probably use up fast enough to buy in those quantities. If I had known about them earlier I probably would have ordered 100 bubble mailers. I would almost be through the package already! Right now I’m sort of on a eBay break. I’ve still sold some things through half.com that need to be mailed out, but right now I’m taking a break to get on with some other things, mostly my Etsy sales which still have not yet started. I’m working on finishing the scrapbook I started (ages ago… try summer 2005…) for Grandma and I would like to give it to her completed before she passes on! She’s pretty spunky though, I think she’ll be with us awhile yet! But after I’m done the scrapbook, I’m going to upload some pictures of it (and another one I’ve made) to the web as a portfolio and advertise my services as a scrapbook-maker-person too. Then I’ve got to get on with making my greeting cards. I figure once I get that accomplished and have a sizeable inventory (and maybe even sell a few) then I’ll get started with either soap making or candles. Gotta keep busy somehow!

I just realized that I hadn’t blogged about the Image Conference yet! It was really amazing, actually. For some reason I had an insomnia attack (that went away the second I got home and fell into a deep sleep…) and headaches. I assume that the headaches were a byproduct of the insomnia, but aside from those two inconveniences, I had a great time. I met some awesome people and learned a lot. Voddie Baucham was really inspirational to listen to. I checked for his book on half.com and it’s only $4! I might pick it up if I don’t get it from PaperbackSwap. I’m actually more interested in his next book, Family Driven Faith, which might be very applicable to me and Mike in a few years. I think that my absolute favorite part of the whole thing was the worship sessions that we had with the Smith Band. You could definitely feel the Holy Spirit in the building, especially on the last night. Oh, and the breakout sessions were fantastic too. Sometimes I wish that I could do my library science degree at a Christian University. I would try to take theology classes too, I find them so interesting! If I hadn’t been going through my rebellious stage in my senior year of high school, I definitely would have applied to Atlantic Bible College. Not much I can do about it now though. At any rate, it was a great conference.

Tomorrow is my library day, so I’ll be shelving books or some other such fun. After that I’ll probably get to work on my scrapbooking and such. Yay!

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I mentioned awhile back that I joined PaperBackSwap.com. So far my experience has been very positive! I’ve received several books already and they are in great condition, and sent out a bunch of book and even though I chose not to do the Delivery Confirmation thing, they always reach their destinations with no problems. It’s been two months already, and I have more books than I can read! I’ve got 5 books that I need to finish already! A couple of those aren’t from PaperBackSwap, but the point is that I’ve got loads of books and I haven’t had to pay for one of them! It’s great! Today I added a bunch of books that I had bought while I was in FYP at Kings’ (my first year of university) and I was amazed at how many of them were on other’s wish lists! I might be getting a boatload of credits over the next few weeks. It’s so great because I’m getting something of equal (or more) value. Not really on a price scale, but old books that I wouldn’t be able to sell for what I paid for them, I’m getting books that I can get use out of.

So I decided to take it to the next level, and joined the sister site, SwapaCD.com. I posted 38 CDs already. (Yeah, I have a few… but some are Mike’s.) I probably even have more CDs that I could post but I’m experiencing that “I haven’t listened to it in eons, but I can’t let go!” syndrome. But there are newer CDs that I do want and trading old for new just makes so much sense. I can’t wait until they start up their DVD site which I hear is coming through the pipeline. I’m excited! I did manage to sell a bunch of DVDs with eBay and Half.com, but when it comes to DVDs hardly selling for 99 cents it’s just not worth it to bother. I’d rather get new DVDs that I want, and just keep up the trading cycle.

If anyone wants to join up, you can list me as your referral with meags.spinney [at] gmail.com.

So today I did something different for me. I went to a luncheon held by the eWomanNetwork group. The food was great, but it was really interesting because it may be something for me to do besides catch the latest E! True Hollywood Story. I would like to turn my eBay business into something a little more profitable, and what better way to do than having other women entrepreneurs encouraging you along the way? I’m feeling a little more dedicated to my little hobby these days, and pretty excited about it. I doubt that it will be enough to ‘quit my day job’ so-to-speak (if I had one!) but I’m looking forward to maybe expanding it a little bit more. I’ve had a couple of people say that that some things they wanted me to sell, some designer and expensive, some not. I got an email today saying that I would get my mannequin in soon, so I really need to get my clothing part off the ground. I want to make a website and sort out my terms of service. There’s a lot I still need to figure out before I’m going to start putting those up on eBay. I still need to get the XBOX and the Dreamcast up there, and get another lamp so that I can take a decent picture of my Waterford Crystal piece. But really, it’s all quite fun and I hope that soon I can get my mitts on some more things to sell. Anyone have a box of CDs or DVDs they don’t want?

I might even make a business doing that - I could call it something cute, like eBay-gent or something. With a catchy slogan about de-cluttering people’s lives. I could offer a free consulation, either in person or through email to evaluate their things, and whatever. It probably wouldn’t make huge profits, that’s the big reason why those eBay selling stores don’t take things under $50 - because it doesn’t generate enough income to be worth it. But when people want to de-clutter their lives, they want to get rid of old clothes, DVDs, books, and that sort of thing. Maybe some nice jewelry or crystal, but usually not. I guess it could be a niche market, but really it’s more like a service to help someone. It feels great when you have a clean place that’s not loaded with years of accumulated junk that you don’t care about anymore. I’m still working on it with this apartment. We haven’t really made that much headway. My goal is to get it sorted out in the next few months, though.

Anyways, so I think I’m going to a conference in Dallas by the same networking group in June, so I’m looking forward to that. It should be fun to get out there and meet people, pass out business cards and maybe even make some friends? Is that too much to hope for? Maybe, but I hope for it all the same. It gets kinda lonely here, doin’ my own thing all the time. I’ve been pretty busy, but that only holds off the pangs for so long. Hopefully the upcoming events will go well and create new friendships. I’ve got the Image Conference on the 17th of this month, and then the Dallas one is next month from the 7-10th, so should be fun! I’m looking forward to both of them. Our anniversary is also coming up - less than a month away already! Anyways, some exciting things in store for me! I’ll make sure to keep everyone posted!

Last night’s update was rather hurried, since I wanted to update and yet at the same time I needed to get myself to bed. I left out a few things in my rush. Namely, how awesome Veronica Mars was last night. The whole “stand alone” episode thing was sorta lame, Mike and I both thought so. The allure is how the big mysteries are sewn together. This season has been lacking mostly because the mystery wasn’t all that big. They could have dragged out the rape mystery so much longer, or even the Dean’s murder, since so many things were overlooked and the way Veronica ended up solving it was sorta lame. But the storyline with Piz is very intriguing and I’m excited to see how that’s all going to play out. Only four more episodes, and then we’ll know the fate of the series.

It turns out that the San Diego trip is probably not happening. This is very disappointing. Every time we make plans to go to California, something gets in the way. I was looking forward to hanging out in the hotel, having some relaxation time by the pool and seeing the Pacific Ocean. Looks like our June will be spent here in Texas. Maybe by then I’ll be able to work again. It may still work out that we get to go, but Mike told me not to get my hopes up. Which means the opposite, that they’re crushed! Oh well, there may be more trips in the future that actually pan out.

I’ve got social security on hold right now trying to figure out what the heck is going on with my number. Actually, they’ve got me on hold. Or something. I still haven’t spoken to a real person yet, just played 20 questions with the machine. All I want is to open a bank account in my name. That’s it! That should not be so hard. I might head over to Bank of America and add my social to that account just so that it has some activity and it might let me open this new account. I don’t really see the point in having it if I can’t even use it. I just want a bank account! Why is that so hard? So there’s nothing wrong with my number, it’s just the bank that is slow in updating their information seeking databases. Bah, what a pain in the bum. The guy that I talked to said that it was most likely just a delay in the system and that I should be able to open my accounts in several weeks. Sigh. Too much red tape, I say.

Mike made me a light box for photographing my eBay sales last night. We used this DIY blog post to do it. I haven’t used it yet but I’m hoping to get some play out of it today. I still need to shower and eat lunch and all of that, not to mention bake cookies and clean, but I’m pretty excited about it and will probably photograph non-eBay things just to get more practice out of it. I’ve already got some subjects in mind that I wouldn’t even consider selling - like my Darth Tater! I have some things to drop off at the Post office too. Man, I can’t wait until we have a mail box. Even a USPS drop-off box big enough for packages would be nice. I’ll probably be posting up some pictures soon, should be a fun thing to mess with.

That’s it for me, for now. I hope that everyone is doing well. Leave me a comment or a message, let me know how you are doing and what’s up!

eBay sales have been very good lately. I sold a bunch of DVDs that weren’t even selling that well on according to the research that I did. I was pretty impressed. I’m still waiting on some people to get back to me with information that I need, but overall sales are good. I’m having fun with it, and it’s great to see the money slowly trickling in. I still haven’t opened my Etsy shop, but I will make sure to have a link available when I do so. I’m working on getting my clothing portion on eBay ready. I need to make some sort of web gallery for my outfit combinations and I have some promotions in my head. I’m hoping to just go for it and have loads of fun with it. I still haven’t received my mannequin, so hopefully it’ll come in soon. Anyways, this was just a quick update. Still no word on the immigration thing, but I’ll be calling in the next few days to find out what’s going on. Stay cool, yo!