Bubble Heaven

Our big Memorial weekend purchase was a bubble machine. We spent a hot muggy evening out with the kids playing with it. They had a blast.

Ebay Debacle

My husband and I have made a decision. I will only be doing ebay until right before our cruise in November. At first I was going to just take a few weeks off before and during our cruise but now the hiatus may become permanent or longer than intended. I will definitely be shutting down my store at that time. I decided to continue until then because I want to earn some extra money for the cruise but after that we will make due with my husband's job since mine was just extra anyway.

Why am I making this decision? Because ebay has changed into a monster. They have had two policy changes that have greatly hurt my business. For the first two years on ebay I just did the auction style and sold individual sets. But after many customers asking for special orders and not wanting the whole set and having a desire to just purchase one or two of several different dies I opened my ebay store. I sold my sets in there still but I listed over 300 individual dies that people could purchase 1 or 100 and they ranged in price from 5 cents to 50 cents a piece. I opened my store in October and it took me about two months to list everything. So around Christmas I was finally happy with the amount I had in there and had slowed down in adding stuff. My sales skyrocketed. Most people would buy several dollars worth of die cuts that way. They were able to create their own sets.

Then the end of February I receive an email from ebay stating a change in a policy. They were no longer going to allow store inventory or fixed price listing to be under $1. Most of mine are the store inventory kind. I freaked out because that meant most of my inventory. I emailed them with my concerns. From what I read in the policy the ones already listed would remain but just would not come up in searches after April 20. I was okay with that since I figured people would see them when they looked at my other auctions. The customer service representative that got back to me told me exactly the same thing. The ones under $1 would continue to relist until they sold out or I cancelled them, that they wouldn't come up in searches, and I wouldn't be able to add anything new for under the $1. I was okay with that. I was trying to decide to either create new sets (didn't know how that would work) or just end my store when it got down to only a few items. I figured I had at least a year maybe longer.

Than just over a week ago ebay cancelled one of my listings and when I read the email the reason was left blank so emailed them to find out why. It said that they would get back to me 24-48 hours. One day goes by. No answer. Another day goes by. Still no answer. Finally over three days later I get the answer it was because it was $1. By this time it is Wednesday night. I decide I better do something about my other listings before they cancelled them and I decide to email them to see why they misinformed me in the first place and to give me more time. But then I got the flu. I got a few of them switched over. I should have emailed them but I was afraid that might of made them aware of how many I actually had. I wanted to get more changed over before I said anything unless they just decided to be sticklers. It probably wouldn't of done any good anyway since the first one lied to me in the first place.

Well, Sunday evening I am just checking my email and I have over 300 messages all from ebay, all about cancelled items. I am furious. On top of that I have several emails from customers that had bought things the day before that were freaking out because they had already paid but the also received emails saying their items had been cancelled. I hurrily email these customers to let them know what is going on and that their items would be mailed first thing Tuesday morning.

Monday morning I email ebay a lovely little note telling them just what I think of the situation. Don't worry I know how to write a scathing letter without swearing. I also find that they cancelled three items that I had in compliance and maybe more. I have over 275 alerts still to go through. I should send them a copy of that scathing email in each of those alerts but I am not that vindictive. I demand them to refund the fees for the ones they should not have cancelled because they were in compliance. I may find more. Still not heard anything from them and we are going on two days.

Anyway, so now I have a two month task ahead of me if I am going to get those all relisted. Oh, and they only made 1/3 of them available to me to relist the others I have to start from scratch. I am feeling overwhelmed, sick (still the flu), agitated. My husband help me and we spent the entire day (Monday) cutting die cuts to make sure I could fulfill my promises to those customers. We did it. Yesterday I started picking up the pieces and started relisting some of the items.

Then I noticed that my feedback on ebay has dropped. It was 100%. I freaked out wondering who left me a negative. If something is wrong I always try to fix it. I have had some neutral that are over a month old (from people that didn't let me know what was wrong.) I open up my feedback forum and there is no negative. I clicked on the how is feedback figured and it now shows that neutrals count against you just the same as a negative. That is ludicrous. Why even have neutral feedback if it counts the same as a negative? So feeling completely defeated trying to uphold a reputation that doesn't even matter anymore since it has been tarnished by ebay itself I started to think about the whole picture. I am unhappy doing so much. I want to spend more time with my children and work on my other hobbies. I talk to my husband last night. He was helping with my business to help pay for his car payment so our budget wouldn't be so tight. But there is a couple of things we could do so we wouldn't need the extra money at all. We decided that I would work through out the summer so we can still go on our cruise and have some extra money for it and then I would shut it down. I may shut down my store before then and just do auctions depending on how my store sales are this next two months. I am only going to add back the individual dies that sold well before and put them for 5/$1 etc according to how much I sold them individually. When we get back from the cruise I may still do auctions but I think I will only do it twice a month and only things I have completely ready.

Ray and I also would like to add to our family after our cruise and so when the next baby comes I do think I will stop completely for several months. After my children go to school I will think about restarting my business and maybe I will just do my own website. I already know some of my customers are upset about the change and feel it is just ebay trying to make more money off the customers by forcing them to buy more. I will probably still do special orders during my hiatus.

Since making this decision I feel a weight lifted from my shoulders and I feel like I see the light at the end of the tunnel. I can make it five more months.

Anyway, farewell Ebay. Even though you messed with me I get the last laugh. Maybe I should send them a thank you for making the decision a lot easier on me.

The Hummer

My daughter has this annoying habit of humming when she wants something, doesn't get what she wants, or is upset. It's not really a whine since there are no words involved. It is one long note. It may be better if she changed the pitch or note but no, just one annoying sound that I just want to turn off. I know a lot of people find nails on a chalkboard annoying. Me, not so much. But this would be my nails on the chalkboard. I have tried to ignore it, put her in her room, try to get her to tell me with words what she wants, but it doesn't stop. I may start using those earplugs for more than just silencing my husband's snores.

Locked Out

Just a little bit ago I went out to check the mail. My son screams if I leave him so I carried him out telling my daughter we would be back in just a couple of minutes. I walked the 20 or so feet down the driveway gather the mail and come right back. Maybe a minute of time has passed. I turn the knob and the door is locked. Not the doorknob but the deadbolt, which can only be done with a key or from the inside. I knew my 3 year old could turn that lock but it didn't occur to me to take the key (I sometimes do.) I see my 3 year old through the glass on the front door. I desperately tell her to unlock the door. She just stares at me. My only neighbor that I knew was at home during the day has moved away. I am trying to think which house I should try to see if anyone is home so I can call my husband or the police. I don't even have my cell phone. And because of my paranoia I know the back door is deadbolted and the windows are all locked. While I am thinking I am still pleading with her to unlock the door. Finally I hear her moving the lock. But it is still locked. What if she can't get it turned completely back. But after a few more tries she gets the lock turned and I go in. I will remember the key next time.

Funny kids

I am so glad that my children usually play so nice with each. She-girl is such a good big sister. She gives him parts of her snacks to eat, makes sure he has a chair to sit on, and lets him play in her kitchen (he stuffs the cupboards full of other toys.)

My daughter loves shoes. She will wear any she can find. After my husband came home from work a few days ago and took his boots off she tried those on too.

My son loves to brush his teeth and loves to get his teeth brushed. My daughter use to fight it and throw a tantrum but now she loves to do it too so no matter when it is if they want to brush their teeth they get brushed.

A Blah Day

The weather matches my mood today. This morning I was productive. I cleaned both of my children's room; threw away a bag of garbage and got another bigger bag ready to take to Good Will. My daughter and son will never miss those toys that have been cluttering the bottom of their toy boxes for months. Also rotating the toys brought some up that they were excited to play with again. I then paid the bills, balanced the check book, and updated the budget (payday yippee!) That's when the blah struck. I had an order to get ready for shipment and it was all I could do to cut it. I usually love doing my ebay business and also scrapbooking (which I do when I don't have orders) but I didn't even feel like doing that. I tried to read but that couldn't hold my interest. Sure I could clean the rest of my house. I think the bathrooms haven't been done in a few days but I just couldn't muster the desire to do it. So I sat in a chair with the remote and channeled surf. My son also having a blah day has sat in my lap most of the afternoon just chilling. Now my husband is on his way home and it's leftovers tonight (didn't even feel like cooking) and then I will have to make myself give the kids a bath since they really need one. At least my meeting was cancelled for tonight so maybe I will at least get the laundry folded after the kids go to bed.

UMM, Cookies!

First time eating chip ahoy chocolate chip cookies and he sure did love them.

Food storage

With the state prices are in my husband and I feel that it is high time that we really listen to what the prophet has told us and get our food storage in order. We always have had some but it has never been organized. I found this great site, trackmyfoodstorage.com, and started putting in our inventory. I still have a lot to do. It takes work to go through all the stuff and write down dates and amounts. Saturday before meeting up with his family we went to the commissary for their case lot sale. We got cases of canned and boxed products that we use. We also bought a low boy freezer so we can also stock up on freezer foods. So far not much are in there but I will be reorganizing our pantry and refrigerator this week in preparation for our biweekly shopping trip and I am sure it will start to fill up. Also we are going to try to go to only one full fledged shopping trip per month to try to save on gas so it will come in handy soon enough.

Meeting the new girlfriend

I know I should have put these pictures in a slide show but thought it would be fun to explain as I go. My brother-in-law Jonathan/Kelly (he goes by Jonathan now, which is his first name, but when he was younger his family called him Kelly, which is his middle name so I may use both intermittenly but I am talking about the same person) came up for the weekend and he brought his new girlfriend, Alexis. It was our first time meeting her. They drove from South Carolina and stayed in Seaside which is about an hour from here. Friday night we met for dinner out on Panama City Beach. I hit it off with Alexis right away and got her email to send her pictures of Jonathan as a baby. I need to go through those this weekend and get them scanned in.
The next day we met at Seaside. We got to see the place where they rented. Seaside is the town "The Truman Show" was filmed. In the film the school band scene was filmed in the green circle area. Their place overlooks that. It is above all the cute little shops. This is where this picture was taken. Jonathan is the one in the white obviously. My mother-in-law and father-in-law are the other people in the picture with my little family.

We went for lunch in one of the restaurants just down the street around the circle. Here are the infamous flowers from my Mother's Day post. My daughter loved those flowers. The table had a cork in it in the middle and you could pop it up and that is where we put the flowers while we ate. My husband, being clever like he is, tried to pop one of them up and in the process knocked over his coke, which made a beeline to me. I managed to avoid getting it in my lap but my feet were bathed in coke. Luckily I had brought my flip flops along to go to the beach in so I left my sandals in the van afterwards to dry out.

Here is Jonathan and Alexis. She is very petite and cute. She is also very nice. She gives horseback ride lessons to children. After lunch we went back to their place to change in our suits and get ready for the beach. We had left out daughter's sippy cup at the restaurant so Ray went to get that as I got the stuff gathered up in the van.

We finally made it to the beach. My in-laws watched the kids as Jonathan, Alexis, Ray, & I went to play in the waves. It was yellow flag (be cautious) so the waves were nice to try and do some body surfing. I am not very good at it.

Once our daughter seen us she wanted to come out. We have never got her out in the water before. Ray had to hold her most of the time because the waves were knocking me off my feet at times. She loved it.

Grandma brought down T-man to the surf to sit and play in the wet sand. He enjoyed the waves washing over his legs although at first the coolness and suddenness of it took his breath away.

My sexy husband can make these neat sand sculptures just by dribbling sand through his fingertips. I tried to do it but mine just turned out to look like sand droppings.

Once back in the soft dry stuff my daughter got nice and dirty.

I tried to rinse my son off in the surf and right as I put him down a wave came and washed over us. Freaked him out. I brought him back up and we wrapped him in a towel and gave him his security, his bottle.

We had a good day and we enjoyed meeting Alexis.

Mother's Day

This is the Mother's Day card I made my mother-in-law. I loved how it turned out.

Since my mother lives in Idaho and I have to mail her card this is the one I made my mother. I love how this one turned out too. Inside were little tags made by my children.

I had a pretty good day. My husband had my daughter say "Happy Mother's Day" on one of those new recordable cards. It was very cute. Then he got me a nice heart shape necklace with mom written in the middle. I wore it to church that day.

At church the Primary children sang a mother's day song and then the young men handed out booklets about mothers to all the moms in the ward. My friend had her baby blessed so she had tons of family there and the church house was packed.

After church my husband let me take a nap while he watched the kids. Then he made dinner that night and we watched the Survivor finale.

My father-in-law gave me a bunch of daisies the day before. Actually he gave them to my daughter and told her to give them to me. She took them as hers. (Daisies are my favorite flowers. These were colored to be bright colors although I prefer them white they still were beautiful.) She held them all day long and when we got home that night she had a fit when I tried to put them in water. I told her they were thirsty and they would die if the didn't get a drink. She let me put them in water for her but I had to put them in her room. Over the course of the next two days she started picking off the petals and filling the vase with the colored petals. Today she really went to town on them and got them all over the room so we took the flowers away and I was able to salvage a handful of blooms and put them in a smaller vase on the counter above my sink. Maybe I will get to enjoy them for a few more days after all.

Clothes Bomb

On Friday I am busy about the house getting things done. My children are happily playing in their bedrooms. Playing with toys, so I think. I walk in to check on them and this is what I find.

It looked as if a clothes bomb had gone off amongst the toys scattered around the room.

My little helper

My daughter loves to clean. I have to wait to really clean anything until my son is asleep because trying to clean with a little helper and a little not so helper can be difficult to manuver. Today as soon as little boy went down for a nap I attacked the guest/kid's bathroom. My daughter was right there. She scrubbed the tub, toilet, and sink. Of course, I had to go behind with elbow grease to get what she missed but I really try to encourage her since I want her to grow up with those skills and do it while it's not a fight (hello, teenage years.) The only problem is she wants to help with all the jobs, even the ones too big for her. After that bathroom I started on our bathroom but that room is just too small to have a little helper trying to get at the toilet at the same time so I will finish it some other time while she is playing or my husband is home to watch them as I sneak off.

My kids birthdays are both in the middle of winter near Christmas. So my husband and I were talking and we decided that we would get them an unbirthday present for the summer. My daughter will be getting a toy vacuum since she uses her brother's tonka crane as a vacuum. My son will be getting legos since he loves his sister's and she is not always willing to share unless we threaten to give them to him.

More sad news

Thursday a T-38 crashed during approach at Sheppard Air Force base in Wichita Falls, Texas. I heard about it but didn't think it would be anyone I know. Two pilots were killed, a student and an instructor. Sunday we learned that the instructor was Brad Funk. He and his wife, Jennifer, had been a member of our ward for about 3 years. They moved in about the same time as my husband and I did. His wife and I served together in the Young Women's Presidency and also threw a baby shower together for a friend. When they left the ward just over a year ago they had 2 daughters, one was just a baby. My heart goes out to his family and his student's family.

Finally clean floors

Yay, my vacuum part came in yesterday. It got here right before Ray got home from work so he fixed it and then vacuumed the entire house. Finally my house feels clean again.

My little artist

My daughter loves to draw. She can draw on this or paper or chalkboards for hours. She makes the most intricate circles. This is clearly a cat.

Dead to the World

Sometimes kids can sleep like they are dead to the world. The way my son fell asleep the other day both my husband and I made the comment that it looked like we could draw lines around his body like a crime scene.

Clock

At bedtime we told my daughter it was time to go to bed. She said something that sounded like "cawk" and started pointing up, looking up and saying "Tk" "Tk" "Tk" moving her little finger while she did. My husband and I looked around to see what she was pointing at and we couldn't figure it out. Her daddy took her into her bedroom and when I came in he said, "Clock. Did you teach her that?" Now she was in her bedroom she was pointing to the clock on her bedroom wall and she said "clock." Then pointing and moving her finger as she said it she said, "Tick" Tick" "Tick." Neither of us knew she knew the name for the clock. We were very excited because she is just now showing how much she really has picked up. She has always been quiet and reserved and we started to worry that she was falling behind but now she is surprising us almost daily with new things that she knows.