Charity Lynn

No More Shopping

Charity Lynn — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 14:19:31 +0000

Well, it’s coming down to crunch time I guess. No more shopping for me for a while. I have to start putting more effort into my jewelry and accessories business that I’m starting. Granted I realize that my state sales tax permit didn’t cost me anything to apply for, which I was sincerely amazed about, and the filing fee for registering my business’ trade name is only $10 (which I can’t do until next week, but that’s fine), I still have other expenses I need to figure in there.

I need to start making more jewelry and accessories and getting them listed. While I have a lot of materials for the jewelry and accessories here at the house, listing them is $0.20 per item, so that means I have listing fees to pay. Granted if you list just one item per day for 30 days, you’re only paying $6.00 per month to Etsy for fees, but still. If you’re adding 2-3 items like it seems a lot of the shops do, you’re looking at fees that could pay for new urban clothing!

Add to this the cost of advertising – even those free business cards I got from Vista Print and the ones I’m going to order from MOO require me to pay the postage on them – as well as the cost of internet access (can’t sell on Etsy without internet access), and any other business related expenses and it is becoming clear that I’ll have to pinch some pennies until things get going. Which is not to say that things may never get going. I know there is a large possibility that things may never get going. But I will persevere and I will find a way to make things work out.

This post is © Charity L Gamble, all rights reserved. If you have seen this article on any website other than Charity-Lynn.Com, please send an email to charity.gamble(AT)gmail(DOT)com so that I can take legal action immediately.

No More Shopping

Still On The Re-Evaluation I am still re-evaluating things in my life. Some...
Meh I have to laugh at some of the people...
So What’s Up With Me?? Ok, so I suppose you’ve noticed that a lot...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Still On The Re-Evaluation

Charity Lynn — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 01:35:22 +0000

I am still re-evaluating things in my life. Some things are easier to re-evaluate than others. For instance, re-evaluating my stance on my business that I am trying to get going selling my handmade jewelry and accessories was pretty easy. I decided to get off my duff and start working on the promotion and furthering of my business. To that end so far I have begun the process of retaking photos of the jewelry I am offering in my shop and making the photos better.

I have also ordered some business cards from Vista Print and may possibly take advantage of the free package of 50 MOO business cards (just pay the $5.00 shipping cost) that I can get as a member of Etsy. If I like the MOO cards better (I can connect to my Etsy account and get photos of my products to use on the cards – how cool is that?) I might actually purchase more of them when the Vista Print ones run out. Vista Print let me get 250 cards for free, but it took me a while to choose a design and they wanted to charge me a lot of money to use either my own photos or a “premium” design on the cards. There were only two designs really appropriate for a jewelry and accessories shop, and the one design had white text over top of diamonds, making the text really hard to read, so I opted for the other design.

I also took a big step towards getting this business solidified and going – I submitted my request for my Iowa State Sales Tax permit. I should be receiving my permit in 4-6 weeks. Apparently I can still sell even before I get the permit, I just have to make sure that I collect the sales tax on each order made by an Iowa resident. LOL

On a related note – I still have not heard anything from any of the places I have put in applications for. These are places that are listed in our local newspaper as hiring at this time for various positions, yet I have received no callbacks as of yet. Oh well, I’ll keep trying. Something is bound to fall into my lap at some point. I just have to have faith.

No More Shopping Well, it’s coming down to crunch time I guess....
MyPoints You know, I do a lot of email reading...
My Favorite Accessory I think I have to say that I do...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I Can’t Sleep

Charity Lynn — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 11:29:42 +0000

Once again – as per usual – I am sitting here trying to figure out why I am backwards. I’ve always been backwards, at least according to my mom. It’s 5:22 AM and I’m still awake. I tried to go to sleep but it didn’t work. So here I am. It isn’t like I’m up researching stuff like Ferrari parts or anything. I’m just bumming around the internet a bit on my laptop. Of course, I’m also testing how long my battery really does last, since I was told it lasts about 2-3.5 hours on power saver mode. So far, it’s been on for a bit over a half hour and it’s already down to 72% power remaining. I have an outlet handy though, so if it gets too low, I’ll just plug it in. LOL

I’m listening to a Christian CD right now. It’s a sampler CD I got way back in 1999 or 2000. I love the songs on it. Most of them. There are a couple that I’m not all that fond of, but that’s the way it normally goes. That is why the skip button was invented. In any case, going to church has been going pretty well. I’ve been to Bible study 3 times now and if it hadn’t been for BFL’s mom’s back going out over the weekend, we’d have gone to church on Sunday as well. But we will be going this week because BFL has the overhead – as she does for most Sundays. I’m considering seeing about possibly learning to run it, but the thing is, she’d still have to get up early even if I were the one “in the box.” LOL She’s the driver here – I can drive, but it isn’t my car and besides, if I took the car, how would they get to church??

Oh, and Tara, if you’ve come back and you’re reading this – I do remember you – had to go to your blog and see your picture – and still can’t remember your last name back then, but I recognize you! Let me know if you’re on Facebook – I spend a lot of time there! LOL

Power Outage? Ok, one of the things I have not yet...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Business Conference

Charity Lynn — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 05:26:00 +0000

Well, in a week and a half I’ll be attending a business seminar. LaShawn went through the seminar a year or two ago, and she actually has all the information and starter kit for it, but we’ll be attending the seminar so I can at least get the basic starter kit & attend the second conference, after which she plans on letting them know that she’s already gone through this and has the package so all we need to do is get everything set up.

Basically it’s a way to set up online stores for various things – we want to do a craft store and possibly a sports memorabilia store – but we won’t be dealing with anything like loose diamonds for anyone who is curious. Just crafts and sports stuff, if we start two stores. LaShawn’s package that she got allows the set-up of multiple stores, so we’ll see.

Still On The Re-Evaluation I am still re-evaluating things in my life. Some...
No More Shopping Well, it’s coming down to crunch time I guess....
Ok….Really? By the way, just so you know, I hate...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

What???

Charity Lynn — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 05:21:34 +0000

What on earth are people searching my site for such weird things for? I seriously have some weird search terms. Maybe it’s because I’ve talked a bit about not having a job and needing to get on the ball with my job search, but since I live in Iowa, I don’t think searching my blog for New York job search is a bright idea. :/

Of course, that’s not including all the s-e-x searches and, of course, searches looking for charitable organizations. I suppose that comes with the territory when your first name just happens to be Charity!

Ok….Really? By the way, just so you know, I hate...
Not Gonna Do It I do a bit of research online for various...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

It Came & Went

Charity Lynn — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 05:19:21 +0000

My tax refund dropped into my Walmart Money Card on Monday, March 1, just like the IRS said it would. Actually it dropped in on Saturday, February 27, but Walmart Money Card’s system didn’t credit it to me until 3:00 AM on March 1. In any case, we paid a couple bills since LaShawn’s mom got paid and then we started shopping. No, sorry, I didn’t buy anything like a sconce for the walls or anything like that. I bought toys.

First we hit McDonald’s to get some lunch so we wouldn’t be starvin’ marvin while we were shopping. Then we went to Verizon to check out new cell phones – and ended up buying the phones. The Verizon guy ticked us off though because he didn’t tell us the price for the phones (funny how the display never said it was $79.99 per phone with a mail in rebate for $50 that made them $29.99 – we looked) until after he’d already activated the new phones – and since Mom’s phone didn’t work, I just sighed deeply and paid the $224 for the new phones.

After the phones we went to the Family Christian store where I got a new Bible & a Bible highlighter as well as Casting Crowns’ “The Altar and the Door” on CD. Then we hit Best Buy where I purchased a Compaq Presario laptop for myself w/ Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit already installed. I like this computer.

Next was several trips to other places including Chili’s and Walmart – Walmart ended up providing a wireless router, 2 digital cameras, and other assorted items. I also bought groceries, another McDonald’s trip and a KFC lunch. Now I’m waiting on the phone rebates so I can get my dog groomed.

I’ll post pics as soon as the memory cards for the cameras come. I bought them online through Amazon because I could get 2 of them for $26. LOL

Take Two So BFL, her mom, and I have all been...
A Bit of Shopping Friday was pay day. I paid my rent and...
Time to Upgrade? Well, I’m thinking my iPod shuffle has about had...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Clumsy much??

Charity Lynn — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 03:20:32 +0000

Yeah, that’s me. Clumsy. Oy. So if you’ve seen my Twitter since Wednesday, you probably know that I fell Wednesday night. What??? Oh, well here, I’ll explain.

We went to the church Wednesday for 2 reasons. The first is that LaShawn runs the overhead system at the church and needed to make sure the songs were in the computer for it. The second was that Mom has been wanting to start going to the Wednesday night Bible Study again – LaShawn puts the songs in at 6pm, and Bible Study starts at 7pm. So I decided I would get dressed and go with them. If you’re curious why a Wiccan would attend a Bible Study, read this. Anyway.

After Bible Study we went out to Horizon (local place) to have dinner and then came home. Well, when we got home, I grabbed LaShawn’s laptop (she has a program on it that allows her to read the Bible and take notes on it called e-Sword – totally cool – so she took it for Bible Study) and got out of the car to go in the house. Well, the curb is still ice-covered thanks to too many snowstorms and the way the plow goes here. *Note: We do not have a concrete sidewalk all the way to the street, which is why we don’t shovel all the way to the street. We don’t want to dig up the yard!*

So I’m going up the little hill (3 steps) of packed snow/ice and slip. And fall. And drop the laptop, which was fine because it only fell about 5 or 6 inches and it was in it’s padded laptop case. I, on the other hand, was not fine. When I landed, I hit my knees, but they didn’t really hurt. What did hurt was putting my hands through the jagged ice/packed snow that was on the curb. My hands burned so badly I knew they had to be torn up, and I was right, although I couldn’t see how much while still outside.

When I got in the house, I was bleeding pretty badly from my left hand (it was dripping) but now that it’s been a couple of days, it appears that it was just because the cuts and scrapes were in just the right spots on my hand to bleed a lot. My right hand got cut in the padding below my thumb. It bled a bit, but not as much as my left hand – yet this is the nastiest looking cut. LOL None of them are very long or very deep, but they do hurt quite a bit if rubbed or pushed on.

So yeah. I’m a bit on the clumsy side here. Let’s just hope I’m not so clumsy come Monday (or whenever next week my refund drops in…it’s supposed to be on Monday but the IRS said it could be as late as Saturday the 6th). I’m getting some new toys then that I just can’t be dropping.

It Came & Went My tax refund dropped into my Walmart Money Card...
On the ‘Net Someone asked me what I do on the internet....
Upgrades? Nah! I swear, I have not met a computer yet...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

What’s In Your Pillow?

Charity Lynn — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 06:12:04 +0000

I hate being sick. I’ve had sore throats for the past few days, ear aches, etc. Ear aches during winter, generally speaking, mean that I am getting a cold. I have problems with fluid build up in my ears anyways, so when I get a cold it gets worse.

Around our house here, we seem to get a lot of colds, flu, and other “I don’t feel well” issues going on. This is probably due in large part to the fact that we’re in close quarters with each other. It could also be due to the fact that when we’re sick, although we change our pillowcases, sheets, etc when we get better, it seems that we still end up getting another round of whatever it was that we had last…cold, flu, whatever.

Then I found out that even after pillowcase changes that germs and fungus can still be living in your pillow. Both mattresses and pillows can end up with their weights doubled just due to dust mites & dust mite feces…. which to me is just nasty. BLEH. But, there are some things you can do – make sure you’re changing your sheets and pillowcases every week at a minimum, and using protective covers on your pillows and mattresses. You can see more information in this video:

Gross huh? I think this is something we need to do around here. It’s something I think we would all benefit from – because I know that a lot of our problem has got to be caused by our pillows and mattresses. We have allergies around here and I think we’d all benefit from allergen pillows and mattress covers for our beds to prevent the problems with our allergies and other illnesses from becoming even bigger issues.

I Thought It Was Winter?? Ok, I know that if I look outside, there...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Time to Re-evaluate

Charity Lynn — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 06:01:55 +0000

Over the past several months, you’ve all probably noticed that I’ve been talking a lot about various methods of weight loss. Obviously I have not fully made up my mind yet as to what path I want to take, other than avoiding if at all possible weight loss supplements simply because I hate to take pills. LOL

I am trying to see if I can get us on a healthier eating regimen around here but it sure isn’t easy when every time someone makes the monthly menu, it includes all sorts of casseroles and the like. I know that in some cases I could probably “skinny them down” as a friend of mine would say – choosing fat-free or low-fat soups for the soups, getting low-fat or fat-free cheese for casseroles that include cheese, either using baked chips or no chips at all on casseroles that call for potato chip crumbs, etc. And I am looking to see about possibly finding ways to “skinny-down” some of the casseroles we eat more often like the Five Can Casserole (fat-free cream of mushroom soup and fat-free evaporated milk would help a lot) as well as some of the other stuff we eat a lot of. I’m sure fat-free or lower fat cheeses would work just as well for things like the bubble pizza and that.

The biggest hurdle is getting my best friend and her mom to agree to the changes. I don’t think they’d have too much of a problem with it, and to be honest, I’ve seen some of the recipes “skinnied down” and people say that you can’t tell the difference. I think it is time to take stock of what we’re using for ingredients and see what can be done to save some fat/calories and see if we can’t start losing some weight here.

All three of us here need to lose weight. BFL & I are about the same size. We are huge. We both need to get up and get moving – start eating better. We also need to start remembering that leftovers can be a good thing and start planning less meals for the month and more “leftovers” nights. That would also help tremendously with the grocery budget here as well as get us to be a bit skinnier. Also we need to start getting up and eating regularly. Have our meals at the same time (roughly at least) each day and try to make them smaller – one helping instead of two.

We also have to start getting up and walking. Our biggest deterrent is the fact that where we live is a bunch of hills, some steep, some deceptive in that they don’t look steep but they really are. However, our local shopping mall offers the option to walk in the mall before the stores open, plus we have trails all around here that we could walk on, so once the weather is warmer, there really isn’t any excuse not to at least get out there and walk.

I know I’m forgetting things here, but I am going to jot them down as I think of them. Yes, this blog might just start being about losing weight more than anything! LOL

Got one?? If I had a dime for every time I’ve...
BLECH!!!!! Ok, I have to say that although I adore...
Dieting Woes I am thinking of starting another diet. I am...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I Love To Write – Although You Can’t Tell From My Blogs

Charity Lynn — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 22:52:42 +0000

Writing is something I have always loved to do. Ever since I was a little kid, I would write stories, poems, etc. My teachers loved my stories, and I was even chosen in elemetary school to do a “day in the life” article for the middle school behind our elementary school’s school newspaper. Those were the good old days – but when I moved to Iowa, it seemed that the teachers here didn’t focus too much on writing. Perhaps that’s why there aren’t many professional bloggers here and why there aren’t many journalism students at the colleges here. Could also be why you don’t ever see authors with published books from Sioux City, IA. LOL

But I love to write (as evidenced by the umpteen novels I have on my computer that are in progress) and it doesn’t matter if it’s on a blog (although I don’t write as MUCH on my blogs as I do on a story – fiction is so much better than real life most of the time), a story, an article, whatever. So yes, a lot of my writing might be about things like a natural fat burner… but that’s just the writing that you see. I have a lot of writing – fan fiction no less – that you don’t see. I write novels (not fan fiction), fan fiction, I write whatever. I am seriously considering putting these novels up on a site of their own. I don’t think they’re good enough for true publication – but if enough feed back were offered – perhaps I might do a Lulu type of publishing.

So that is one of my projects for this weekend – creating a nice website to use as my official author site. Wish me luck! LOL

On the ‘Net Someone asked me what I do on the internet....
I NEED to Write I need to start writing. As in I need...
Welcome to My Boring Life Well, life is certainly boring for me right now....

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.