NEW resuME

I actually turned down a freelance job this morning! It was a little more of a commitment than I'm looking for since I'm amping up my search for fulltime work.

I spent the morning retooling my resume and writing a new cover letter. The job market is different than the last time I was looking and although last time, my old resume and cover letter got me multiple offers, but I decided I needed an upgrade in this market, so I took a couple of hours and really focused on it, starting over from scratch. I would hire me. I would at least interview me.

After I was done, I sent it over to this really cool job for an environmenal organization that I'm interested in. I'm so superstitious. I can't decide if I should mention jobs that I'm applying for in this blog or not. In some ways, I want to claim the job, have everything think positive thoughts for me, etc, but in other ways, due to past failures, writing about potential jobs seems like a curse. Why, I don't know.

Today is my BFF's birthday. Happy Birthday, JenniferPants. Haha. That name cracks me up.

Merry Christmas

My Christmas was very merry! The gifts were abundant, both incoming and outgoing, despite this year's financial limitations. Among the most exciting gifts were Season 4 of Lost and Season 1 of Six Feet Under. I've never seen Six Feet Under, but always been told that I would love it, so I'm excited for it. Lost, undoubtedly will be fantastic. I've gone to great lengths to remain ignorant of this season because we enjoy watching tv on dvd so much more than we do during it's run.

I also got a substantial gift card to Target and I'm trying to decide between spending it responsibly on household goods or blowing it on junk that I want but wouldn't otherwise buy.

I have a busy day tomorrow- I need to mail off the Etsy purse I sold, do laundry bigtime, apply for a job that I'm really hopeful about and possibly hit up Target to see how that whole gift card thing shakes out.

Etsy

Lauren and Heidi totally made me cry last night.

I still have three gifts left to buy and then I'm done Christmas shopping. I've actually sold two items on etsy this week, financing my Christmas spending. Two items in a week is a record for me and I need to get some new inventory up. I have couple of items sitting around waiting to be photographed, but the end of yard sale season is hitting me hard in terms of product. I'll have to check out some goodwill stores next week.

I got my Pay Pal debit card in the mail today, so no more slow transfers to access that money. Sweet. That will come especially in handy for shipping expenses. The Etsy store has actually ended up being profitable, which is awesome. I'm going to work on expanding it and I may look into some of the marketing opportunities that Etsy offers. Good times!

Extra Care

I did my first CVS Extra Care deal today and I started small. I bought two tubes of Crest toothpaste for $3 each, so $6 total and I got $4 in extra care bucks which I will spend on shampoo later this week when I run out. So, basically, I'm looking at $6 for two tubes of toothpaste and some shampoo. Not too shabby. I made sure to only buy something that I know that we will use like toothpaste and I will make sure to only spend the ECBs on something that I would buy anyway. I almost did this $15 worth of Coke products for $5 in ECBs deal too. The coke was on a super sale, so for $16, I could have gotten three 12 packs and four 2 liters. Hmmm.... I probably should have done that. I always buy soda when I grocery shop and that's a good deal and it would keep forever and then I could have gotten some free conditioner too... But, it's best to start small and $16 seems like a lot of spend on soda. So, for now, it's toothpaste and shampoo. I feel pretty good about it.

Mines of Treasure

I had so much fun making my Christmas wishlist a couple of days ago, that I've decided to make an entirely new blog of things that I love. It's called Mines of Treasure. It's simple. Just pictures of beautiful items and links to where to find them.

Christmas Wishlist

Since my husband and I are making the romantic gesture of getting each other a dishwasher for Christmas, after Christmas, when we can afford it, and my friends and I have long ago ceased giving each other gifts, this isn't directed at anyone in particular, but more of a "stuff I'd like to have" list, that may, perhaps, provide gift-giving inspiration for others who are buying for someone like me.  

For carrying around my imaginary laptop.  Available here at Janine King Designs.

Made by Red Ruby Rose.

For Doug.  Wouldn't he be handsome?  At 8PawsCollars

And of course, for Duke.  From The Mod Dog.  There are only about a thousand dog collars I want from there.  

Two of these, please.  

I keep meaning to watch this.  I love that period in the English monarchy.  At Amazon, of course.  

So I can properly thank everyone.  Here.

Origins

I am now using two pay pal accounts to appease the new eBay rule, which is bothersome, but not the end of the world. I also got my CVS card in the mail and my friend Leah made a wonderful suggestion about coupons. She said that she buys her paper from the guys selling it on the street on Sundays for a $1. I feel confident that I'd get a dollar's worth of coupons, so I'm planning on doing this, but didn't do it yesterday since it was my birthday and I didn't do much of anything.

My 32nd year will doubtlessly be one of huge change. It's inevitable since I am currently at the "something's gotta give" point on a lot of personal issues. Tomorrow, I am heading out of town to Savannah with my mom. I always say that I'm from Savannah, but that's not exactly true. I moved around a lot in my early childhood, attending 5 different elementary schools, but Savannah was always a sort of home because my oldest sister settled there and started a family. I only lived there until I was 4, but we always returned there for visits since my sister was there and my mom had many friends. Eventually, my mom moved back there and stayed until just this year where she moved to Atlanta to be near the rest of her children. I guess I'm lucky enough to have two home towns, since I also consider myself to be from Fayetteville, where I went to middle school and high school. Although I didn't think so at the time, Fayetteville was a good place to grow up. I thought it too homogeneous and boring at the time, but I made life-long friends there and somehow we all turned out to be open-minded diverse people, despite our suburban origins.

I still have much Christmas shopping to do and now, thanks to my birthday dough, I actually have some money to spend on gifts.

Today, I'm going to pick up the cable modem and self-install kit from the cable company and I need to mail out something that I sold on eBay. As much as a pain in the ass as eBay has been, it's been my most successful source of income since the beginning of my unfortunate unemployment.

31. Didn't that used to be old?