Getting a good loan

We have been self employed for close to 20 years. When you are self employed you NEVER qualify for those great rate loans. The only loans that you can qualify for are the "high risk" (what the creditor calls them) loans.

If you support yourself you are penalized. It is not easy to get a home loan, car loan, personal loan, or even a good credit card.


Many years ago we tried to purchase a house in Syracuse. The only way we could qualify was to fudge the numbers. No thank you. We chose instead to buy property (owner financed) and put a mobile home on the property. In the end that turned out to be a HUGE financial disaster for us. (Another story for another time) We didn't feel we had a choice. Why? Because we created our own job, money, and didn't rely on someone else to give us a job. High risk should be the people that cannot support themselves, not the self employed.

But as I stated in my post before, that is the path we chose. It is not the creditors fault. The should be rewarded for giving people like us a chance. I hope that someday we will qualify for the best loan possible

Happy Anniversary

Jim and Rachel, I am real good at letting you know when you have "upset" me, but not so good at letting you know how much I appreciate all your help.

The both of you are very "special" to us. I hope that during the coming years we can become more of a family. I know that is going to be an uphill battle but I think we are all strong enough to try.

I am sure we will continue to have disagreements and arguments but let's not let differences of opinions be the death of our relationship.

Take care and have a great day.

Debt

Debt seems to be a popular subject for me on this site. Most of you (if you have been reading my site for long) know that our business of 18 years has not been doing that well recently. Some days I feel that everything is going to be OK, and other days I feel like we are NEVER going to survive. Today I am OK.

Our debt is mostly our fault. We definitely over extended ourselves while business was good. We never could have imagined our 18 year old business going downhill like it did. That being said we made our own bed.

I think it is too easy for people to walk away from debt these days. Too many people just do not take care of their responsibility and use the excuse that the creditor is the bad guy. Many say that they were easily influenced by marketing and advertising campaigns. The problem is these companies live off our greed. It is not the creditors fault that we are greedy people. They provide a service that is DEMANDED.

I know the only way that this family will survive is to increase business and decrease our need and greed.

We are not quite in the position that we require debt help such as an IVA. But debt consolidation would be an attractive option. I do wish there was a plan for individuals (like are available for corporations) where you can file for creditor protection. You agree to pay the loan you just need a year or so to get back on track.

No more TV for you.

So we are sitting here watching TV. And my son asks “so how do you get someone pregnant.” I immediately tell him that he has to ask his father. His father starts to tell him. I about died. This is not something he needs to know right now. So I start talking about the commercial on TV. It is for Long John Silvers. CAL listens and when the commercial is over he asks the question again. The next commercial is for tampons. I said “tampons now let’s talk about tampons. I would rather talk about tampons than what we are talking about now.” My husband laughed and then gave CAL an abbreviated talk.

We really have to turn the TV off. We are watching REBA and they are talking about a vasectomy, and now he wants to know about that. Usually we can watch TV and he does not question any commercials or “other questionable material”. He is just growing up way to fast.

What I won't be doing on November 23rd.

What will you be doing on Friday November 23rd? I know that I will NOT be getting up at the crack of dawn to go shopping. I have never been able to take advantage of the black friday ads. I cannot stand the crowds this is something that seems to be getting worse for me as I get older. I just cannot force myself to go shopping on the weekends let alone on the busiest shopping day of the year Black Friday. If it were up to me I would do all my shopping online.

Now there is a web site that gives me a sneak peek of Black Friday ads before they arrive in my Thanksgiving Day newspaper. This site will let me purchase Black Friday items online without the hassle of crowds, getting up at 5 a.m., standing in a line outside a store in the freezing cold, and fighting with the rude people that insist holding items for their friends that are “coming”. If you sign up, they will send you an email when new ads are posted. Today I just received an email letting me know about a Sears ad for their specials. As of today the site had over 55 stores listed. Sign up today and you can save money and more importantly sleep and time.

There are so many to choose from, BestBuy specials, B.J's deals, and Walmart ads just to name a few.

It said I should vote for Fred

Who am I to argue. Brandon's Puppy has a link to a Select a Candidate test. Take the test. When it first showed the results (for a split second) it showed a picture of Hillary. My heart almost stopped. But it was just loading and good old Hill was at the bottom.

Fred ThompsonScore: 47
Agree

Iraq

Taxes

Stem-Cell Research

Health Care

Abortion

Social Security

Line-Item Veto

Marriage

Death Penalty

Disagree

Immigration

Energy

Sick

WB is sick today. How about going over there and giving her a little love. It is no fun being sick especially when there is no one at home to wait on you and hear you complain. I hope you are feeling better soon. Get lots of sleep and drink lots of fluids. Remember that Gatoraid is full of good things but it also contains lots of sugar. Not good for sleeping.

Finally!

I am totally changed from my blogspot address to my domain name http://www.lukiesludicrouslore.com/. What a project. Payperpost took the longest. Honestly it should not take over a week to change a setting. I then did my three paid blogs because I didn't have many available to me during the past few weeks. I thought that by changing from blogspot to my domain would make more opps available but unfortunately it did not. Now that I am not working at the school I really need to make up those funds somewhere. I guess I really need to work on improving my Google ranking. A lot of the opps are open to higher ranking blogs. If you have not added me to your blog roll I would really appreciate it.

Former Life

When my husband and I were first married I insisted that he declare bankruptcy. I didn’t want to be paying for his life with his former wife. His ex did everything possible to make sure we started our life in the hole. Looking back I cannot blame her, but at the time I wanted to scream.
If you are one of the millions of people with bad credit you know how difficult life can be. People automatically assume that if you have bad credit you are a bad person.

Badcreditoffers.com is a great site that can help people with bad credit. They offer resources that help you get back on your feet financially. Not all credit is the same and this site will help you view offers and find the best to suit your situation. One mistake that we have made is accepting any and all credit that has been offered. I wish this site would have been available to me at that time.

Badcreditoffers.com will help you evaluate credit card offers, home loans, auto loans, and personal loans.

Carving Pumpkins

We are not big on carving pumpkins but when we went to Hanafords the other day they were practically giving pumpkins away. CAL bought a huge one and is carving it right now. I have never roasted pumpkin seeds before so I will pass this time. I will have to talk to WB to find out how she does it. I love sunflower seeds and have had pumpkin before but.... Do you eat the entire shell or what?

I could spend an entire paycheck on batteries.

I cannot believe how many batteries this house goes through. My son goes through batteries for his Wii like water. Then there are batteries for his IPOD, portable DVD player, and the walkie-talkies that we use when he walks home from school by himself. I use my fair share of batteries too; there is my camera, cell phone, and three laptop computers.

I recently ran across this web site: Allbatts. Not only did they have Laptop Batteries that I needed for my computer they have the batteries that I need for my DeWalt Power tools. Now that is variety! Allbatts carries AC adaptors, printer adaptors, and of course batteries for almost any gadget you can think of.

My first purchase will be a battery for one of the laptops. I have been without a battery on that computer for almost a year. You don't realize how much you use the battery until you are without one.

The Red Sox are World Series Champs

Now I can get some sleep.

Now a personal note to Theo Epstein. (because I know he reads my site.)

DO NOT SIGN A-ROD. We do not need, nor do we want, Alex Rodriguez.

Please resign Mike Lowell. I know you don't like to sign older (34) guys to long term contracts but hey it has paid off with Schilling. Give it a try. I have a good feeling about it.

My husband has a theory about A-Rod. He has never been to the world series. He is a curse. The Red Sox just broke an 86 year curse we don't want another one.

Dental Nightmare

Many moons ago (shortly after the birth of my son) I had to have a root canal. It was a disaster. At first they “tried” to just refill the cavity. After several trips back to the dentist with him trying to readjust the filling, he decided I needed the root canal. I knew that I needed to have a crown after the procedure but with the bad experience I had, I put it off. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

I let it go until after we moved from New York to New Hampshire. Then the tooth broke in half and I was forced to have a crown. Again the entire process was a disaster. The first dentist I went to was a crook. I didn’t have insurance and stressed that I would have to make payments. He told me his secretary would discuss the charges with me. When I left the office I was under the impression that the entire crown would cost $750.00 which I paid. The dentist also told me that I had to have this surgery to remove some of my jaw bone to install the crown correctly. It had to be scheduled several months down the road.

I went home and a few days later the crown came off. It was during the weekend and I had no idea what to do. It was very embarrassing. I looked like a “momma from the trailer park”. I called my Mom who works for a dentist and she said that if it was installed correctly it should not have fallen off so soon. She also gave me some ideas on what to do until I could get back to the dentist.

I tried Polygrip but if I would have had Dentemp temporary dental repair, I would not have panicked (just a side note here.... Dentemp OS is a temporary way to cement loose crowns and provide fast relief of pain and discomfort. There is no mixing or mess it is ready to use. Not only can you cement loose crowns you can also replace lost fillings. The best part is it fully complies with FDA regulations for Oral Care. Now back to my story) Mom also suggested that I get a second opinion. She thought everything sounded a little shady. On Monday I started calling around for another dentist. I got an immediate appointment but he had to start from scratch with the crown because he said it was so poorly made it would never stay on. The new dentist took good care of me. He also stated that I did not need the jaw surgery and my crown has been in place for 8 years now without a problem.

A month later the first dentist sends me a bill. The $750.00 was apparently a down payment and I still had two more payments of $750.00. What a disaster. Long story short I didn’t pay him another cent but I did lose the initial $750.00.

Yesterday was a bust.

I had so much to do but didn't accomplish hardly anything. What a crappy day. We went to Lowes and bought a bunch of bird seed, some food and accessories for the squirrels. One thing I hate about shopping is the wandering around after you have everything you need because you might remember something more. I became very GRUMPY. I just wanted to leave.

The main thing that we had to do yesterday was grocery shopping. After Lowes we headed to Hanafords. This is a new store to us. We have been very tight on money recently and have started watching every penny. Hanafords is MUCH cheaper than our local Shaws store. The store was very crowded and picked clean. Their meat selection was horrible. Normally it is fabulous. I went from GRUMPY to down right mean. I just wanted to get what we needed and leave. Unfortunately, we needed everything. I have noticed that in the past couple of years I just cannot stand crowds. I don't become scared I just get very grumpy. This happened at the store.

Then the fun began. We came home and unpacked the groceries. CAL decided to become the devil child. I have no idea what happens. He goes from being this perfect child to being a devil child in seconds. Yesterday is was over his fathers new computer. He was so out of control. For 7 hours he was like the devil. I cannot go into details because that would not be fair to him or my family but by 8:00 p.m. I was ready for bed. I didn't even get a chance to watch my Red Sox win the world series.

I hate when we do that....

Yesterday we stayed home and did not get anything accomplished. Not even my normal house cleaning. It was raining really hard and I convinced myself that the things we needed to to this weekend could wait. Now I have to do everything today.

CAL went to a birthday party (yes in the pouring rain-it was in some corn maze) I didn't really want him to go but..... Long story so I will just say we all felt obligated.

Today is here and I cannot put all of these things off. (I am sure some of the them will not get done)

• We need to go pick up books that I have on hold at the library.
• I have to finish two books that I have started so I can return them. (I should be doing that now instead of telling y'all how much I have to do)
• Grocery shopping (this is going to be a big one. We are out of everything)
• Lowes for bird seed and a heat lamp for the geckos
• Sams for school store shopping
• Walmart for school store shopping.
• I have to clean the geckos cage. It needs to be taken outside and scrubbed.
• The house work that I neglected yesterday.
• CAL has homework that he avoided yesterday. (I always get pulled in on the homework)
• The weather is beautiful outside, I know we will have kids ready to play football around noon.
• I really have to get to work on my company's new website. It is going so slow. We have paid for 3 months that we having not even used because we were not ready. If we are not ready by next month I will cancel the subscription until we are.
• I know there are orders to get ready for tomorrow. (Again I should be doing that now instead of this)

I cannot put these things off any longer. I must get myself motivated. I will see you later.

Teenage Drivers

A few years ago when we bought our Jeep we joked around with our son that in 10 years that would be his car. Since then we have discussed that his first car should be a two seater that way he will not be able to pile a bunch of friends in the car and cruise around. CAL stated that he doesn’t want a two seater because he would only be able to fit one girl.

Teenage drivers scare me so much. It breaks my heart when I hear about an accident and it involved a car full of teenagers. As parents you want to give them freedom but you cannot put that above their safety.

There is a new Silicon Valley company,GreenRoad . They have developed technology that measures driving safety and has lowered the accident rates of its customers by 54%. GreenRoad’s technology can detect driving maneuvers and then it lets drivers see where they need to improve.

Dustin Pedroia

Dustin may be a little man but he can swing that stick better than most. I cannot believe this guy is a rookie. He has preformed time and time again. This year is not over yet and I cannot wait to see what next years team looks like. Think about it Red Sox fans. We had Dan Duket (don't know if I spelled that right) for years and he brought us Nomar. That is it. Theo has brought such a great team to Boston.

Football

We have been playing football after school this week. It is usually several of CALS friends and then both my husband and myself play. I have to be QB quite a bit because frankly I cannot run to be a receiver. I am not bad as a QB. My team usually wins. Tonight my kids could not catch a pass and I was definitely not on the top of my game. It is the first time I have lost. I am taking it quite hard.

A little FDS and all is well

Earlier today my son, while playing wiffle ball, was "attacked" by one of my rose bushes. It is a climber so once it was attached it would not let go. He has a few cuts on his leg.

Tonight when I asked him to do his homework suddenly these cuts were so painful that he just could not focus or function. He is such a drama queen. He is yelling at me about how much they hurt and if I will spray something on them he would be ok. We usually have bactine in the house but of course I could not find any.

The only thing I could find was FDS. It was in a spray can just like the bactine. I thought "hey if it is gentle enough to spray "there" then it certainly will be gentle enough for a couple scrapes/cuts.

I spray it on. He gets this look of relief on his face and says "ohhh that feels good" and that is the last I heard about the cuts.

At this rate...

I will get an answer around Christmas.

I emailed "customer love" for a support issue. This was on Sunday. I was 233 in line. Over the next few hours that number increased to 239. Don't ask me how, but it did.

Today it is noon and that number is down to 224. I am assuming that they open at 9 and have been working for 3 hours on requests. That means that they are answering about 5 emails per hour. At that rate it would take me 45 hours to get a response. But I assume that are not working 24/7 so if I assume they work on an eight hour day..... It will take me six days to get a response. Then they will not answer my entire question but just ask another question in return and the process starts all over again.

There are days when I want to ......

reach through the Internet and rip someones head off. We have a store selling Electronic Components. I just had a guy email me and ask if he can have a discount on an item if he purchases 5 pieces. As with every offer that we receive, I do research. How much do I own it for? How long have I had the part? and whatever else I can think of. I try to accept every offer as long as it is reasonable. This one was a no brainer. The part is worth $1.25. That is a $6.25 order and he wants a discount? Plus he wants it shipped to Canada which requires no less than 15 minutes of additional paperwork. (customs forms, and what not)

My husband usually does not allow me to respond to customers because I am not always the "nicest" person to someone who is a total idiot.

I tried to be polite but.... come on. A $6.25 order and you want a discount.

Oh it gets better. I just received an offer from another idiot. He wants $39.85 worth of parts and he is "willing" to give me $16.00 for them. How generous. This guy wants to buy two and get three free. Wow that is some kinda deal.

November 1

November 1 is right around the corner. What is so special about November 1st, for me it is the start of my holiday shopping. I like to have it completed by Thanksgiving. Why you ask? Because, we live on the boarder of MA and NH. NH is a tax free state. We have no sales tax, or income tax. This makes us a shopping haven for MA shoppers. Once Thanksgiving hits, forget it, you are not getting anywhere near Daniel Webster highway, where 75% of the stores are located.

I don’t know about you but if I have a store locally, rarely will I purchase from their web site. There are a few exceptions Old Navy is one because the have a very limited selection of sizes in the store, and the prices are always better online.

I am very excited to have CouponChief.com available. I noticed that they have Discovery Channel Store coupons. The DCS has been out of my mall for about two years. They have very unique gifts. CAL bought his teacher a bug ball from there last year. She is afraid of bugs but LOVED the ball.

While I was scanning through the stores I came across LEGO coupons. CAL has a ton of legos and I will NOT purchase anymore but it made me think of when he was younger. Each year for Thanksgiving we would buy the Lego Advent calendar for him. The first two years he was so much fun with it. He would wake us up every morning wanting to open the next door. If you have kids age 5 to 7 I highly recommend the Lego Advent calendar. I miss it.

Try CouponChief.com for coupons for hundreds of stores.

New England Sports

I blog a lot about sports. I love being close enough to Boston to be a part of the excitement. The Red Sox are doing really well this year. I don't want to jinx us so I will stop talking about them. The Patriots are 7-0. What more can I say there. Brady threw 6 touchdown passes today. Take that Manning. The Celtics have FINALLY decided to build a powerhouse team again. For years the Celtics management didn't care if they won or lost because they sold out the Garden every night. The past few years however they started to lose some fans. They woke up and now we have a team. The Bruins, I don't know I am not one for hockey. As my husband says "we went to a fight and a hockey game broke out". I am not a hockey fan. I do know that the Bruins have not had a winning season since we moved here nine years ago.

Innovative Tutor

In the past 5th grade, at my son’s school, has been known as the homework grade. I have been very worried about his year because my son has NO study habits, or even a good homework routine. Homework in this house is difficult. CAL takes forever to complete the simplest assignments.

So far this year it has been a breeze. CAL has not improved regarding homework, his teacher is just not assigning any. I have talked to his principal because I think it has a lot to do with this “work to rule” attitude the teachers have. I have expressed my concern about how behind he may become next year if homework is not introduced gradually. She understands my concerns and wanted me to see if it increased after NECAP. So far it has not.

I really have been pleasantly surprised with CAL’s teacher this year. I have worked with her for a couple years and we just didn't really click. She has impressed me in several areas, this year, just NOT homework.

My husband and I are starting to talk seriously about an Innovative Tutor. His math is slipping, his writing skills are non-existent, and as I said I am mostly worried about his homework/study habits. Score Learning Center has what we need, should we decide to go that route.

Productive Weekend.

We had another productive weekend in the Lukie household. Today the first projected that I started was to clean out our freezer. I had to transfer everything to our drinks refrigerator. Yes we have a refrigerator that we have just for drinks. It is in our heated garage next to the freezer. Then I moved the freezer outside to defrost, and gave it a good cleaning. The next project that had to be completed today was to take the roof off our screen house and move all the furniture to the shed. I took down all the lights and prepared the inside. Hubby did all the hard work by taking the furniture to the shed and finding a place for it. My husband mowed the lawn while a vacuumed the Jeep and gave the interior a thorough cleaning and put the doors and top on.

Yesterday I vacuumed the entire house and did a lot of dusting. Mostly we worked on the stupid computers. Then of course we ended our day watching our beloved Red Sox.

Mortgage Mayhem

Back in 1998 when we purchased our house it was a VA foreclosure so we didn’t really have to apply for a mortgage. A couple of years later we decided to re-mortgage to get some equity out, because the value of our house doubled in just a few years. I have never jumped through as many hoops in my life. They wanted information and explanations on everything that had happened in our life for the previous ten years. Some of their questions were not even related to our finances. I told my husband that the next time he wanted to refinance, I refused to be involved other than signing where necessary. Right now, with the mortgage market collapsing, we could never get approved. We are considered a high risk (and we are penalized) for being self-employed. We will never qualify for the cheap mortgages that you see advertised on TV. They want the perfect borrower. Mortgage companies right now are not writing the mortgages they did several years ago.

I will keep my fingers crossed.

I have a web site issue that WB and Sherlock have been trying to help me with for weeks. It is so frustrating for all of us. It is the type of thing that you make changes to and then have to wait 24 to 48 hours to see if that worked. Nope didn't work more changes and then another 24 to 48 hours.

I finally said to WB I am going to play with it. (because I now how frustrated they must be at this point) After about an hour of making changes that only made the problem worse I decided to give customers support a try so.....

I called customer support at about 10:30 this morning, told them what I wanted, and he asked for my blogger address and then said "can you hold one moment" put me on hold was back within 30 seconds and said "ok it is done. You should see changes with 24 hours"

I was speechless. I didn't know if he understood me or not so I repeated my request and he said "yes I just took care of that"

We will see. He did say that changes could happen within a few hours but definitely within 24.

Nothing has happened yet...... I really hope he knew what he was talking about.

PS. Yeah me. I am a horrible speller and this is the first time that I have spelled definitely correctly. Speller checker (if I remember to use it) catches me every time.

Sinking

If you have been reading my site for long you know that our family is in a world of hurt financially.

One of the many reasons, but not the only reason, is that we have a ton of credit cards.

Many people refer to credit cards as the necessary evil. That is so true. You must have credit cards for so many reasons. You need credit cards to rent movies, make online purchases, reserve a hotel, and many everyday activities. I don’t even carry cash with me anymore, but I usually use my debit card and not a credit card for everyday needs.

The problem for us, is business. We have many cards in our name but they are used for business needs. When cash flow is bad we end up taking cash advances to get us through the bind. Our problem is borrowing from Peter to pay Paul. It is a fact of life.

Our life has not always been like this. In the past we have had control over our credit and if business had not gone south we would not be in this position now. We are not irresponsible people. We have plans in place for the unexpected. We NEVER expected business to stay so bad for so long. We never could have planned for this situation.

We also have the problem that we have done several balance transfers with all intentions of closing those accounts when the new interest free credit cards were opened. Then we decided to keep those "just in case" Well just in case has lasted for a year now.

When it rains it pours.

75% of our business is over the Internet. My husbands computer decided to bite the dust. Thank God we have a staples card that is not maxed out. We bought the computer a couple days ago and have had tons of trouble because a lot of our software is not compatible with Vista. Buyer beware, if your software is older than 2007 it might not work with Vista. So far we have spent a fortune but really don't have a choice because I will most definitely be out of business without a computer.

We have purchased a new shopping cart for our company web site but we have to totally reformat our inventory before it can be uploaded. We have had it for two months but still do not have the inventory ready it is a HUGE job to reformat 3,500 line items.

I am sorry...

I miscalculated my volunteer hours.

12 hours per week on the school store, I guessed at 36 weeks of school. That would be a total of 432 of volunteer hours for that.

60 hours for the yearbook

10 hours for the book fair

20 hours of miscellaneous

18 hours for cup stacking

25 hours for pizza night

I am very sorry that is mislead you with my incorrect information.

I guess I am starting the healing process because I am starting to get real angry. That is pretty good for me. I was fired Tuesday at 3:05 p.m. I am only starting to get angry and it is Thursday at 8:00 p.m.

Headhunter gone wrong.

A little over a year ago the School Superintendents position became available in our city. Our Board of Education went on a very in depth search for the right candidate. They started the long, slow process of working with a "headhunter". One of the important details of the search was they wanted to search outside of our city and bring in someone new and fresh.

That in theory was an excellent idea. The city was ready for a change and the school welcomed our new Superintendent with open arms. The mayor and other elected officials did not welcome Dr. E in quite the same fashion. She had an uphill battle from the beginning. She was the first "outsider" hired and the first woman.

This city is always in some type of contract crisis. Whether it is with the teachers, firemen, or police. There is always something. It is a very political environment.

In the beginning Dr. E "appeared" to be a Godsend. It didn't take long, however, for everything to start to fall apart. Her first mistake was to try to call the bluff of the city. She decided that she needed to eliminate (I forget the number but I think it was hundreds) of teachers. This was not her fault she claimed but the fault of the city for giving her such a small budget. The city was quick to point out that the budget was larger than last years and there were several other ways in which she could cut her budget without eliminating teachers.

Then the local newspaper decided to start looking at this wonderful choice of the Board of Education. I don't have the exact facts but.... from memory I will continue. Dr. E had taken several (7 to 8) personal trips at the schools expense. While on these trips she wined and dinned with the best of them at the schools expense. Most of these trips were to her home town and she stayed with friends and didn't require a hotel so she thought that the city could pick up the rest of her vacation including airfare. Now please remember that she knew the city did not have the funds to cover the schools budget. She didn't care. I believe the number was over 8,000 for these trips. The also discovered that she had hired several friends to fill newly created positions within the school where the starting salary was 50 to 80K. These positions where not in the previous years budget that the city was referring to.

The newspaper then ran a credit check on Dr. E. She owed everyone and their brother money. $150K to the government for back taxes was the largest but the list was endless. The city was furious. Why didn't the headhunter check her background? The Board of Education didn't want spend the additional $750 that's why.

After a long legal battle, Dr. E is gone. The city was sued (they settled out of court). In the end the city paid Dr. E all the money she was due on her contract (2 years), and additional money just to make her go away.

Maybe if the Board of Education had used Trovix Recruit resume find things would have been different.

My personal opinion the headhunter should never be used again, the Board of Education should have been eliminated, and Dr. E should have been charged with theft. She was investigated by the local police to see if charges could be filed. That was part of the go-away package. We won't file charges just go way.

Feast or Famine

I have not had an opp available to me in days. Tonight I log on and there are three. Now I learned my lesson that you cannot reserve more than one at a time. I took the highest paying opps first, of course.

But the game is on and we were watching a movie that was pretty good, I had to yell at my son to finish his homework, my husband was trying to purchase a gift for his grandson (which he has no idea how to do) and I just couldn't concentrate. I didn't catch all of them.

Oh well. I am trying to earn enough money to pay for ticket to the Globetrotters, and a birthday party for my son. The Globetrotters is not until March so I have plenty of time. CAL's birthday is in December and I want to give him a Morty's party.

Coupons, Coupons, I love Coupons.

I love coupons. I buy the Sunday papers just for the coupons. I get my scissors and cut them out and then NEVER use them. They are in my kitchen junk drawer. I just can not remember to take them when I go to the store. I would probably save my family $50 a month if I would just use the coupons that I cut out.

There is a new site called NCNatural that offers Free Coupons online. No cutting, no remembering, just quick and easy. The site is update daily with new offers from hundreds of stores. NCNatural is so easy to use and you can locate the coupons you need quickly and with ease. When you visit the site you will save money using these coupons. Another advantage of the site is that most of the stores will pay NCNatural.com a referral fee. It is a win win situation

One of the things that I go through like water is ink cartridges. We print color fliers to stick in our boxes that we ship out. 123 Inkjets coupons offer free shipping, 20% off your order, or even $50 off your order.

Another store that I noticed was Kohl’s. Kohl’s is a new store to my town. It has been here for a year or so. I love the store and have a very difficult time walking out without spending less than $200. If I had the Kohls coupon for 15% off that would save me a chunk of change.

Once again I will blog about Old Navy coupons. If I have a store locally, I won’t check online. I would rather shop in the store. Old Navy is an exception. Their clearance section makes shopping online worth it. I have seen items in the store at $29.50 and then purchased it online for $15.00. Go to the store, try in on to make sure it fits properly, and then come home and purchase it for a discounted price online.

Oh NO!!

My Sox are in trouble. They lost the other night in extra innings. Once again they brought in Gag Me to lose a game for them. I just don't understand managing that is for sure.

Have you ever wanted to be famous?

Have you ever wondered how some people became famous? There are the obvious ones like Anna Nicole Smith, Paris Hilton, and Nicole Richie. But I am talking about the people who have some talent but seem to be more of a star than their “talent” dictates. Shania Twain is one for example. The lady sings through her nose. She is a nasty dancer. Frankly I think that she looks like she is trying to insert a tampon on stage. She had the ugliest “stance”. Shania can release an album and it is virtually an instant hit. Then you have real talent like Mark Miller. Do a Google on him I’ll wait. Yes Mark Miller is the lead singer for “Sawyer Brown”. You might even have to Google that. Mark Miller is one of the best country artists I have ever heard. I don’t even like country but I love Mark Miller. If you have never seen him dance you are in for a treat.

What is my point? My point is without exposure and a fan base; you can end up a nobody even if you have a tremendous amount of talent.

Now there is a service, IndieMV - Musical Intercourse, that brings together independent music artists with fans. IndieMV is a video marketplace, and a social network service for students, music lovers, and just people who want to connect. IndieMV offers great features like vlogging, web-cam messaging, photo sharing, and access to much more.

I am orange. (my family's favorite color)

Thank you to Ack! THBBBT for this little diddy. I think it was on with me. I am definitely borderline obsessive but that is not limited to relationships. The only part that I am not sure about is that "I am hot as a flame." I can be a real firecracker but I don't think that is what they are talking about.

Your Love is Represented by a Orange Rose

When you're in love, you tend to be overwhelmed and consumed by desire. You develop fascinations with people easily, and they're sometimes even borderline obsessions! You tend to come on strong. Your love is as hot as a flame.

What Rose Represents Your Love?

Is $85 really worth dying over?

Especially when the $85 isn't even yours.

Animal control employees had told Henderson he owed $85 in impound and boarding fees to get back his dog, which was picked up as a stray. Champagne tried to stop Henderson from leaving by getting on the car hood but was forced to hold onto it when he drove off, police said.

I would have to seriously doubt this "officers" good judgement. For crying out loud. It was an $85 bill. Not worth losing your life over. In her defense an $85.00 bill is not worth dragging an Animal Control officer for 2 miles on the hood of your car either. I think this little stunt might cost him a little more than $85.00.

Click here to read the entire article.

I am so proud.....

of my Hubby. Yes you read that right, my hubby. Usually I complain about him so I am sure some of your are shocked.

I was surfing blogs today and ran across this at Say No to Crack. I read it to my husband and with seconds he had the solution. He then posted the answer under my name so I look like the smarty pants.

I really enjoy this commercial

When I first saw this commercial, I hated it. As a matter of fact I think I orginally complained about it. I have changed my mind, it has grown on me.

$11.50 for a hamburger? Y’all must be crazy.

Just a random list of what we did yesterday.

This should have been posted yesterday.

I was a cleaning maniac today. I vacuumed the house, mopped the kitchen, bathroom, entry way, and office floors. I used my Hoover Floor Mate Plus and I absolutely love it and cannot live without it. I dusted a little (I didn’t go crazy here. I hate to dust.) I cleaned the spare bathroom. That is the bathroom that gets 90% of the use and it was not pretty.

We did a little business. We had a couple small orders that had to get out in the mail today.

CAL, hubby, and I played football catch for a while and then I made dinner, Shepherds Pie. It was the best ever.

CAL had a few friends over to play Wii. He rented MySims from blockbuster and they played for a while, then played outside for a while, and then back to Wii.

We also had a football game in the middle of all of this. Hubby and I, against CAL and his friend. The boys won.

After darkness set in we watched Air Force One. That is one of those movies that you have seen several times but never from beginning to end.

Now our night begins. We are watching the Red Sox vs. Indians. I must confess I am a little concerned with our chances tonight. Right now it is one nothing.

CAL is now showing his father how to use the internet and we are biting our nails.

What did you do today?

Question?

How do you know what your minimum Google page rank is?

Happy Halloween!

Scary very scary! I am not sure but I think this is the scariest Halloween Custome that I have ever seen. A couple years ago we had a neighborhood party and a couple came as Bill and Monica. They were go good. They stayed in character the entire night. No! There was nothing foul. Good clean fun.

17 1/2 years and counting.

We have been in business for 17 1/2 years.

When we moved to NH we dissolved the NY Corporation and started the NH Corporation. Some small business owners have no idea how important it is to incorporate. Sometimes people also forget that you have to meet certain requirements when you set up your corporation.

One of the important requirements after you incorporate is to hold monthly meetings of shareholders and directors. My husband and I usually do this over a nice dinner (tax deductible - business meeting) Just remember to keep records and minutes.

Another important requirement is to adopt bylaws. When we started the NH Company we hired a lawyer to take care of all this for us. It was ridiculously expensive. Now small business owners have another option, Incparadise. Incparadise is a company helping small business owners start their own shelf corporations. This day in age, job security does not exist. The only way to be in control of your own future is to be your own boss. It has its down side believe you me. Especially when you work with your spouse ;-0 It also have many advantages but you must do it correctly. I cannot stress how important it is to get some advise and do it correctly.

Incparadise offers you free forms and they can prepare the whole set of documents for only $20-$25. I can tell you from first hand experience this is significantly less than the lawyer charged us for the same work. They have many options to offer: They can get you a tax id number for only $25.00. You can get your tax ID number for free but.... $25.00 is very cheap to have them make sure the form is filled out correctly.

They also have one of the lowest prices for corporate kits. Incparadise has an excellent FAQ section to help you make the best decision regarding incorporating. There are several differences between LLC and Corporations. They will help you decide which one is best for you. (Try this with your lawyer - but only if you have an extra thousand dollars to waste)
Incparadise has their own blog where they try to answer question. You can email them with any questions that you may have.

Another 15 seconds of fame.

A while back a wrote a letter to the editor of our local newspaper. It was published. Today I was trying to find some information online that required me to google my own name. When I did I found this. Don't Tell The Donor.org If you scroll down to Thursday, September 27. They say "a" nice thing about me and state I would be a good guest blogger. I thanked them very much but the ad to purchase the new Bill Clinton book is not my style.

Abortion Ticker

is gone...... If you know of anyone who may be picking this up, please let me know.

12 emails and counting

I have sent a person (who shall remain nameless) 12 emails today. She/He has sent me 11. I am so lucky. 1. to have someone who would want to talk to me that often (she/he might dispute that statement) . 2. to have the time to answer each email. I NEED TO GET A LIFE.

Go and congratulate CAL when you get a chance

He has been learning the 50 states and capitals. He knew the states (or most of them) from last year but.... He has to correctly spell the state and capital or it is wrong. So the test will be 100 questions worth 1 point each (obviously). Today they had a competition in his class and he won. Yahhh. He is so smart. Of course I do have to take some credit because CAL will NOT learn anything unless you make him learn. He has been taking a test every night. Last night he took the test and spelled 4 states wrong and got all the capitals correct. He is only one letter off when he does get something wrong. It has been quite the struggle because it is usually not the the same one wrong twice. He has been having trouble with Virginia and Louisiana. (Opps i spelled Louisiana wrong and spell checker caught me) I guess I have to work on my spelling also.

How is your day going?

This is mine:

We have our own business selling electronic components. We have been in business 18 years. The last couple have been very pathetic and very stressful.

Three years ago we decided to start selling on eBay. It is for the most part very profitable and rewarding. Then there are days like today.

We just received a "message" from a customer. It follows: Hello. We received this part; however, it is not the correct size. This part is too large. Could you issue an rma so we can return it for credit. Thank you.

I immediately start to panic because we had a large order go out the other day for what I thought was this number. I check the eBay listing because each listing describes the part in DETAIL and even provides a pictures and most of the time the picture even contains a ruler for size reference. Yep the ruler is there and the part is what we call an 8 pin dip. In this industry and 8 pin dip is an 8 pin dip. No SIZE. The size is the 8 pin dip. The idiot probably needed a surface mount part which is a whole different animal and you can definitely tell by the picture and the part number (suffix on the part number tells you the package) that this is a 8 pin dip. Occasionally there are exceptions but this is not the case with this part.

Now for the best part: The order was for 1 piece of a $1.25 part. Yes you read that right. A $1.25 order and he wants me to issue him a RMA.

Are you working today?

We are but in our PJ's. With the post office and bank closed we have no reason to go out. Therefore, we will be working in our PJ's the entire day. UPS comes in the afternoon but he won't care. How about you? Are you working? Are you busy if you are?

My husband asked a stupid question

What are we going to do today? My reply. First we will go to church. Second we will go to the grocery store. Third you will make me dinner while I watch the Patriots at one, the Sox at two, channel surfing back and forth until the Pats win. Fourth watch the Yankees and the Indians. Notice I didn't say watch the Red Sox win, and Yankees lose because that would be a jinx. Last go to bed.

PayPerPost problem

I am not sure that having my blog on blogger is the major problem. My Alexa score is unreal and my Google rating is non-existent. Any ideas on how to improve those? I have not had any new opps in three days. I want to do a Carnival but I really don't understand that whole concept so I am trying to educate myself on that.

What did you do today?

I trimmed "a" bush. It took me four hours. The bush is a HUGE forsythia bush that sits on the border between my house and peeping Tom. I had to put my ladder on his side for about an hour. I don't think they were home. Thank goodness. The neighbor before him would trim my bush whenever she saw fit. Because of this she had the bush growing all out of shape. Today I was able to get the shape back. It was a big job and CAL helped a lot. There were about five branches that I could not reach. He climbed up the bush and cut them. He is such a good boy.

My husband decorated my son's tree. This is the tree that we bought when CAL was first born. It stood about four feet tall. His poor tree has been moved three times. You would never know it. It is huge. I will try to take some pictures tomorrow. Anyway, it took my husband six hours to string the lights on the tree. I have no idea how he is going to do it next year. We will have to rent a "cherry picker" because this was definitely the last year for the ladder.

So what did you do today? I hope you had more fun that we did. It was hot and I was so grumpy by the time I was done.

Can you believe these bugs

I have not seen so many bugs since I lived in upstate New York. (The Cleveland vs. Yankee's game) When we lived in upstate they were worse than this and they would bite you until you were bleeding. It does not look like they are biting the players.

The Indians win, the Indians win. Yeah Baby.

What did I do?

Were have all my readers gone..... Long time passing. My hits are down. My comments are down. I guess I have to get into another argument with my neighbor lady to attract y'all.

Democrats.... I hope you have your eyes wide open.

but the chances you have your eyes wide shut. The latest in the democratic nonsense. Obama won't wear American Flag pin! Why??? To me there is no reasonable explanation. Obama told a KCRG-TV reporter this week that he has made a conscious decision not to wear the pin. Then this idiot said "I decided I won't wear that pin on my chest,” the Democratic presidential candidate told the reporter in Iowa City, Iowa. "I won't".

I would love it if a Obama supporter would explain that to me. Correct me if I am wrong but only citizens get to vote. I think that Obama has found the loophole in this. He is actually targeting the "foreign vote". This scares me more than the thought of Al Gore or Hilliary Clinton being President.

If you vote for Hilliary because she is a woman, if you vote for Obama because he is black you do not deserve to have the right to vote.

Is that a light at the end of a tunnel

Nope is was a freight train, ready to run over my HUGE butt. Oh well. I have my eye on the bridge in downtown. I have to say close to the soup kitchen. If anyone out there has a huge box that can sleep three please let me know.

Paintball-ing is that a word.

Several weeks ago we watched “Man of the Year” with Robin Williams. It was a pretty good movie but not what I expected. In the movie there was a paintball scene, and ever since then my son has been begging to get into paint balling. My nephew has played several times. He has talked about it with CAL (and knows that it can hurt like the devil), but CAL still really wants to try it. My sister’s best friend married a cop and he is very active in the sport. I don’t know much about it but….. I would love to try it. I recently saw this web site pntball.com. It has all the paintball gear that I would need in a nice little package. I saw the price ranges from serious to occasional users. They sell equipment from Tippmann, Spyder, Smart Parts, Dye, Draxxus, and many more. Some of their best selling paintball guns are Tippmann A-5, Tippmann 98 custom, Smart Parts Ion, and Spyder Pilot ACS. Pntball.com sells many packages and . I like the ones that have the full helmet. The Spyder MR1 Military Tactical Paintball Set looks very interesting. This website is definitely the Ultimate Paintball Store. I think I will have to wait until I can get together with my sister to have her help us make the best choices.

Is that a light

that I see at the end of the tunnel. I know that I have worried several people out there recently with my doom and gloom. Things "appear" to be getting better. We still have a LONG way to go before we are out of danger but we are at least heading in the right direction.

My fall project!

I need to get into my attic and clean. I cannot do it in the summer because the attic is so hot that you cannot be up there. The fall is the best time. I have to get the Halloween decorations down anyway. The one thing that I know I have to do real soon is get up there and clean things out. We have a ton of business paperwork along with our personal items. What I really need is to get some storage bins and organize everything. If I could get storage bins or boxes that are uniform instead of mismatched it would help so much.

The are so many things that I can use storage bin/boxes for. If you have a need try CarGuyGarage.com. Take a look I found some bins that I needed for my business. I also found some bins that I could use in the school store. They also have instant coupons on most of their items.

Red Sox

Go Sox. "My" Red Sox are playing tonight. I just saw David Ortiz hit a home run as I was typing this. The ump at first is being paid by the Angeles. Two BAD calls in the first two innings. But it doesn't really matter because we are going to sweep the Angeles. I have been watching a lot of baseball this summer and I am wondering if we should go to instant replay. There have been so many bad calls. What do you think? Instant replay in baseball?

Insurance

Health Insurance is a sore subject in this house. The only way that we qualify is because we are self-employed and can get it through our company. We have pretty good coverage.

Last Christmas I received my annual renewal letter. (I HATE THAT IT COMES AT THE HOLIDAYS) They were doubling our rates. At that time we paid about $1,000 per month for the three of us. Blue Cross & Blue Shield were taking away benefits, adding additional deductibles, and doubling our rates. When I opened that envelope I screamed, cried and threw the papers. I called the agent and cried to him. It was horrible. They finally calmed me down and said we did have other options but not with BCBS. They started shopping.

They got us an excellent rate (under $1,000) with MVP Healthcare. Now $1,000 for three people is NOT a great deal but at least I would still have coverage that I could afford. We absolutely cannot go without health coverage. My son has allergies, my husband has cluster headaches, and I go to the doctor once a year. If we self insured ourselves we would probably come out ahead until we had the ONE accident, or illness and then, we would go broke. Going without health insurance is not an option.

I know that this Christmas we will get another letter. I hope and pray that they stay within reason. I just might be checking out the health insurance rates with SecureInsuranceQuotes.com.

I am sure that eventually we will not qualify under our business then we will have to start looking for individual insurance. The rates are not as good and the coverage is half what you get under a business policy. You have to decide what you want to be covered for. How do I know what I want to be covered for until I need coverage?

I also noticed that SecureInsuranceQutoes.com can give you quotes for other types of insurance. You can get your auto insurance, home insurance, health insurance, or term life insurance quotes through them.

Paraprofessional

That is what we call "babysitting" in New Hampshire. I have been working in preschool for the past three days. It is my favorite place to work but I am so tired by the time I get home. Tuesday was the first day for the three year olds. What a day. I arrived home and was here for about an hour. My husband said "Hon, what is that all over your shirt" I looked and said "Oh I forgot I had a child throw up all over me today, Sorry" How can you forget that you have throw up all over your shirt? When you are so tired that you can't think straight. So what did I do? I went to Bunco. And are you sitting down??? I had a drink. Yes for those of you who know me you know that I have not had a drink in several (almost 18) years. Well that is OVER.

Mortgage History

My husband and I have been self employed forever. When we lived in New York we could not quality for a mortgage. We lived in mobile homes (which are more like a car loans) finally my husband had an idea. A VA foreclosure (he had one before but we never looked to see if they still existed.) When we started looking in NH that is exactly what we looked for, and that is how we purchased this house. A couple of years later we tried to refinance. The first attempt was a success. But the paperwork was unreal. I remember sitting at the mortgage companies office and signing about 100 papers. That was several years ago and we have not qualified to refinance since then.

During the refinancing process I stayed out of the loop entirely. I do know the process was about a month long. What a mess.

If we were to ever qualify for a mortgage again I would definitely try the Electronic Mortgage or emortgage. Basically they are eliminating the paper. There are so many documents that have to be created that have repeat information. If they could take the repeat information and plug it in where needed, it would save so much time and money on the paperwork end. The eMortgage process, converts loan documents into an electronic format known as a SMARTDoc. This process should cut down on the closing costs associated with a mortgage. I know when we did our mortgage I was horrified to hear how much the closing costs where. My husband and I fought for days before I finally agreed to sign the papers. The closing costs alone are enough to scare people away.

This entire process is very interesting and please go check out emortgage for yourself. The technology is amazing and I love to see it finally being used to save us money.

What kind of person am I?

I missed Monday Night Football and my beloved Patriots were playing. I am so ashamed. I don't miss many games. But I totally forgot about the game. I just space out. The Patriots are a good team and the whole cheating thing has me a little off.

I will be there with bells on next week to watch them win. What is up with Maloney? This guy is always injured.

Taking the night off

I just don't feel like reading/commenting on blogs tonight. Sorry I will try to catch up tomorrow.

Life seems to be a roller coaster for me at this point. One day is excellent and that is followed up by two to three days of "high stress". I love my family, neighborhood, and life. But there are the days that I wonder if moving to the deep woods and never coming out would be a better opition.

I will catch up on reading and commenting tomorrow. I hope you all have a lot for me to read.

Jack of all trades!

Another hat that I wear at my son’s school is co-creator of the annual yearbook. Last year was my first year of dealing with all the details.

I took about 50% of the pictures with my Sony Cyber-Shot camera. (which is so old that you cannot even buy the camera anymore.) I must have taken about 500 to 600 pictures with it. As we all know, one of the main issues with digital cameras is the fact that they are hard to keep focused. The cameras are still trying to focus while you are taking the picture and then your picture if ruined. My big problem was the fact that I was taking most of the pictures under the florescent lighting and you didn’t always realize that the picture was blurry until you tried to use it in the yearbook. My Sony did quite well. It did much better than the schools camera. Almost all the pictures taken with the school camera had to be retaken.

I have been trying to get the school to upgrade their camera. If I have my way they will purchase the Nikon D40X. This camera was recommended to me and I think that it would solve all my problems. It is fairly expensive but with the money that we make at the school store I think they should purchase it. They don’t always do what I want. What nerve.

Personally I would love the own the Nikon D40X for myself. I am sure it has more whistles and bells than I would ever use, but……

One thing that I will probably never use my camera for is scrap booking. I just don't understand that hobby. I would rather go to Walmart and make a photo book. I will not need any scrapbook page ideas. I do use my camera for everything else. I use it on vacations, day trips, videos, and of course the yearbook.

I think the next time I purchase a camera, I am going to use Ritz Camera. They are very knowledgeable. I have looked at cameras in BB stores and the sales people cannot answer your questions. They don't have a clue. At Ritz Camera they can answer almost any question that you have. I highly recommend them.

Walking with CAL

I asked CAL to walk with me the other day because I am just tired of being fat. My husband will NOT do anything that is remotely related to exercise. (well..... he will play an occasional game of kick ball but that is about it) CAL would only walk with me if we could throw the football around, I agreed. We walked around the block and when he passed his friends house he, of course, wanted to dump me and see if he could play. I said "sure" and continued to walk. A few moments later I see that CAL was trying to catch up. The friend was not home. I waited but as soon as CAL saw that I was waiting he kicked it into slow mode.

All the sudden I hear CAL say "MOM will you please come back here and walk with me, I just can't stand to see your HUGE butt anymore." Now I am sure all of you are thinking what a brat and that was my first thought also until I saw that he was serious. He would normally say something like that to me to tease me. See I don't help myself. I constantly talk about my HUGE butt or how fat I am. I have DEFINITELY given him the impression that this is acceptable.

I turned around and gave him a glare but stopped for him to catch up. He then had to expand on his comment. "Mom, I am sorry but I just couldn't stand it anymore. It looks like you have a party going on back there. Everything is wiggling"

The fact of the matter is, he is right.

I don't want him to be mean but as my husband pointed out to me I talk about myself like that so he naturally thinks that it is OK.

Honey I am home

I had to work today. I don't think I missed much. I love working in preschool. The kids are at the right age where they listen and are not too defiant YET. When I work I am soooo tired when I get home. Those kids take it out of you. The hand washing is the hardest for me. Try washing 13 to 14 sets of hands 6 to 8 times a day. They have no hand washing skills at this age. It really makes you wonder what happens at home.