I Promise This, Promise This

After the morning I've had, I am so ready to just get away from it all. My 9 year old Shih Tzu dog decided to take himself for a walk when I opened the door to get the newspaper. Now when he does that, it normally means he's got to go potty and so I leave him alone (I stand outside), and let him do his business. But he didn't come back. (He goes around the other side of the bushes to go, he doesn't like me to see him go potty for some reason.) I went looking for him and couldn't find him. Anywhere. 

Three hours later, I finally found him. He had gone up the street, hung a right, and went all the way down and around the curve in the road. I found him on his way back on the curve. At this point, I'm seriously thinking of booking one of those Costa Rica vacations so I can just relax and de-stress. I really need it now!

Well, if I don't get my W-2 form from my old job pretty soon, I'm gonna have to see about getting an extension just to DO my taxes. If I had to, I would hope it would be granted. It's not like I'm trying to find receipts to show I purchased fitness equipment for a gym or something - I'm waiting for a tax document! I know that if the company filed an extension they can wait until March 1 to send them out, but still. I'm thinking they tried to send it to my old address even though I told them the new one. Even so, I'm still getting mail forwarded from the old place, and I know for a fact that they'll forward W-2 forms, because mine was forwarded from Texas back in 2006 for the 2005 tax year. 

I just want to get my taxes over and done with. I want to know if I'll get money back or if I'll have to spend every dime of what doesn't go to server costs for my other blogs to pay in to the IRS & the State. I'm almost positive I'll have to pay the State of Iowa, so I'm actually hoping that I get a refund from the Feds so I can use that to pay Iowa. And I'd better get a job soon so I can ask for an extra amount withheld so I can make sure that I have myself covered for my 1099s next year. Ugh. I hate tax time.

A lot of my books come to me through PaperBackSwap, BookMooch, and contests that I've entered. This is mostly due to the fact that I am currently jobless and usually broke. So this is a great way to get books without having to pay anything for said books. However, that being said, it drives me nuts as I was told that I must now put the books in the Goodwill box after reading them so they won't clutter up the house.

Yes you read that right. I, the book worm, must now put my books in the Goodwill box - or ship them off via PaperBackSwap or BookMooch. I am not permitted to keep the books anymore. I realize that space is somewhat limited here - but that is because BFL and her mom will NOT get off their asses and declutter their crap from the house so we can have more room - then I'd be more than happy to take what little money I do have and buy a bookcase. But no, she wants me to put them in the Goodwill box as soon as I'm done with them.

1) I review these books. I might have a giveaway on the blog for them later.

2) I re-read books I love down the road. I don't want to have to find another copy later.

3) These books are MINE. I am 34. It is not right to tell me what to do with MY belongings.

I can't wait to find a job and a place of my own.

I swear, disorganization should be my middle name. I am so disorganized it isn't even funny. I want to do some new blog layouts as well as create a new blog/site for Eternal Stardust Jewelry. Now I had someone tell me that I shouldn't give up my Etsy shop yet, because I won't get much traffic to my own site for a while at least. I don't know about that, but we'll see. ;)

In any case, as much as I've got going on - books to read and review, blog layouts, etc, I am starting to think I might need some project management software to help me get it all organized and get it all done. :( Seriously, it's becoming a pain in the rear and I'm spending a lot of time on the computer instead of reading the books for review or crocheting/making jewelry. I need to get my rear end in gear and start getting this stuff done. 

I swear, if the weather forecast doesn't improve, we may not have some of our meteorologists anymore! Not that I'm going after them, but I think a lot of people here in town are sick of forecasts that include rain, freezing rain, ice storms, and snow storms. Lately that's all we've gotten. It kind of stinks. It's not their fault of course, but I'm thinking that maybe just maybe they might want to look for some good insurance quotes to make sure their families are taken care of! :/

Seriously, people around here are really getting irritated with the fact that we've had so much ice and snow. We haven't had this much snow and ice in one winter for years. In fact, my first full winter back in Iowa, we never got snow at all until New Year's Eve and then not much to be honest. A couple of inches at best. We got slammed that year on March 1 with a blizzard but that was it. After that, no more snow. This year - we had a blizzard over Christmas, plus another snow storm a week later, and the other night we had an ice storm. I'm sincerely hoping it is finished - but the forecast shows snow tomorrow. Ugh. :(

Lately I have been working on getting my blogs back into shape. I am working on posting more often, and about subjects that interest me. I posted my first book review in months today, and I have some more books to read and review soon as well. So that blog is getting off to a decent start again. I flubbed up and stopped doing my Daily Tarot on my Wicca blog, but figure that come Sunday I will start that up again - possibly with a video blog of that particular card (whatever it may be). 

I've made a new theme for my friend Annie's website, and am considering new themes for my blogs. I made a new web set for Eternal Stardust Designs and just need to upload it. After that it will be creating a website with shopping cart for Eternal Stardust Jewelry & Accessories. I like Etsy & Artfire, really I do, but I would like to be able to have my own site with a shopping cart as well, one that I have more control over the design of the site with. 

After I get all that done, I might just look up pricing on a Branson vacation for me and my best friend. BFL is going to need a vacation after listening to me gripe about how hard it is to set everything up! :)

I will say this 1000 times. I am interested in losing weight. I am well over 300 pounds, I need to lose weight, I want to lose weight. There are a few things, however, that I am not going to say. While you may hear me say that I would like to have gastric bypass, it is not because I am looking for quick weight loss. That type of weight loss (quick) generally does not produce lasting results. At least not in my experience.

I have used diet shakes - lost a bunch of weight, yes, but it came right back on as soon as I stopped buying and drinking the shakes. I couldn't afford to keep buying them though. So I lost out on that. Pills and powders - they don't really work any better than good old eating less and exercising more do, it just seems like it does.  It drives me nuts to see people who just want a quick way out. I just want to finally lose the weight. I've done the other options and they didn't work for me. Now it is time to do something that will help me.

It never ceases to amaze me the ads I find on Facebook. I just wonder why it is that some people are so intent on these things. One of them is for umpteen different online dating sites, including one that is actually an app for MySpace and Facebook called Zoosk. I always click those ads off and say they're irrelevant, because for me they are. I am not looking for a date on Facebook or MySpace.

Another big on is ShoeDazzle. Ok, I hate shoes. Yes, I am a woman and I am saying it. I. Hate. Shoes. I have no earthly idea why people, women especially although I've seen men with shoe fetishes before, like shoes. I can't stand them. I have as few pairs as possible because I just can't stand wearing shoes. In the house, I am barefoot. No socks, no shoes. I don't like anything on my feet. *shudders*

Then there are the ads for all the various makeup and anti aging products. What the heck? Yeah, I'm 34, and yeah I know of people my age and even younger who are already looking for that stuff. But I am not. I don't really care. Getting older is part of the deal here. We don't live forever and we don't stay young forever. Sorry. Just the way it goes. 

Any ads that you get on Facebook or MySpace that bug you?

A friend of mine asked me to help her update her WordPress (she was using 2.6.1 - yikes) and her plugins, as well as give her a new look. So, I pulled on my thinking cap and made a new theme for her, got her upgraded to 2.9.1, fixed a few plugin issues, etc. Now she is sitting pretty on her blog. :)

Now I need to start gearing up to do some work for a new place that I signed up with. My only problem is that they're asking for stuff that frankly, I'm not so sure I can write. I mean, they rate you on a star scale with 5 stars being the highest, and my writing was rated at 3 stars. There are a fair number of assignments, but doing research for an article is hard when you factor in that if you try to write about strivectin sd and your article even appears to be like other articles already on the internet, they'll say you copied the article. Um, hello? There really are only so many ways to put things, and if I say that such-and-such is a great product to use or whatever and it looks like another article (which I probably never even read), then I'm sorry that my writing style might be like that person's. 

Oh well, I'll get the hang of it or I'll get my account closed I suppose. I'm hoping for DirectOffers from that place though besides the content that I can submit for otherwise. The payouts aren't great, but at least it would give me a bit more income.

One of the things I've been trying to do lately is teach a couple of friends about WordPress. These are online friends, which makes it a bit more difficult since I have to try and explain things via email or IM and sometimes, well, they don't get it. I mean, sometimes they get things, but other times, they do not. The friend I'm making the theme for and updating her WordPress for her is not one of the ones I am trying to help. :) She knows enough to use WordPress, the ones I'm trying to teach can barely log in and post, much less do anything else, and one of them is constantly having problems just posting. 

I commend them for wanting to learn more about how to work with WordPress because their websites are powered by WordPress. I adore WordPress. I power the greater majority of my own websites with WordPress. Yes, this blog is on Vox. But that doesn't mean I do not like and use other blogging platforms as well. WordPress is my favorite self-hosted blogging platform. I also use Blogger and LiveJournal, but if I am going to self-host, WordPress is the way I'll go every time. There are several reasons for this, all of which involve the ease of use and installation, as well as the flexibility of the platform.

Unfortunately, it seems that on occasion, WordPress just isn't that easy. Of course, sometimes the easier something is to do, the harder it is for someone to grasp how to do it. :)