How's Your Credit?

So, anyone who reads this blog has seen that Matt and I aren't currently in the best financial situation, but I stumbled on this and may use it to start re-establishing our good credit. The website is credit cards for bad credit and it's purpose it to show the top 10 credit cards for people with bad credit and provides their application links so that you can just go and apply. It's just good to know that there are places out there for lost souls like us, who have good intentions, but not such good practices at the moment. Check them out, it may be your best chance, just like it could be ours.

Todays Cool Finds.

So, today my friend Julie invited me to go to a Craft Show. The first one we went to was at St. Linus in Dearborn Heights and to be pretty honest, it sucked. I would say about half of the booths were not "craft" items, but rather, those home party items like Tastefully Simple, Cookie Lee, Home Interiors crap that if I was a crafter at that show, I'd be pissed. Aren't those people missing the point of a "Craft" show, they should have just called it a Crap Show. So, needless to say, we bought edible goodies there, probably the only good stuff at that show. The next one we went to was at the Lutheran High School in Westland by the mall. That was really good and I even bought a VERY unique bracelet there. Here is a pic of it. I warn you, it's sorta creepy, but I thought it was Oh So Cool! Yes, that is a real dead beetle. This is the exact bug that appears in my bracelet. I just thought it was such a novel idea. I've always wanted that piece of jewelry that everyone is like "Oh my god, where the heck did you get that." Her website is www.natureisbeauty.com and she has really cool stuff and she lives in Ann Arbor, I may be buying more stuff from her, just because it's so different. Maybe as gifts for my peeps, who knows. Also, today we went to Reuse Ann Arbor, SO COOL. I found two old screen doors that are about 1.5' x 5' that I'm going to put up on my wall and mount photos, Stella drawings and bits of ephemera to. I'll be sure to take pics later on tomorrow and post them. I'm really hoping that it comes out uber cool. I LOVE ART! I really like that my husband is so cool about what I like to do too, that definitely helps. He absolutely does not care what I do, as long as I don't touch his basement. I could care less about any room that dips below about 60 degrees in the winter time, you won't catch my anemic ass down there for long periods of time during these cold Michigan days. Well, until I have more randomness to speak of, peace out.

Creative Friends.

Just want to write a little bit about someone that someday soon I'll be able to say I knew her when. I have been lucky enough to become friends with this woman whom I call Mars, but she will also be known for her CactusMango Designs. She is a truly amazing up and coming designer of digital scrapbooking supplies and I have been lucky enough to collaborate with and bounce ideas off of this truly talented woman. We actually make a pretty good team! We rock! I took a pic I had of Stella and added her cool doodles, you soon will see much more of this awesome chick and her ingenious design work. For now, you can see her work in shops such as Cafe Press and Zazzle at http://cactusmangodesigns.com/ and at the bottom a little something that will be revealed in time called Dreaming With Pixels. Check her out, she's a can't miss, then you'll be able to say, you used her stuff when she was just starting out.

Holiday Shopping, Already Thinkin' Bout It.

Was reminded of this by Matt the other day as we were discussing Christmas time. Don't know if anyone has heard of other sites like this one, but this one seemed the most helpful. It's called Black Friday and you can find the site here bfads It basically collects all the data from almost any store you could think of and shows you all their Black Friday Christmas shopping ads. Better yet, they let you buy them over the internet from the comfort of your home for those of us who can't get there sorry butts out of bed at 4am the day after Thanksgiving like myself. All I did was pick out all the stuff Stella talked about through the weeks and started figuring out who had the best prices. Then when I heard about this place, they had the ads up ahead of time and I began shopping. I was even able to had things held at Walmart and just waited till things chilled out at the stores and picked them up from the store when I felt like, that way I saved on shipping too. I am definitely gonna do that again next year. And, I know how all you ladies like a good deal.

Sorry, all this snow lately has me thinking about Christmas, not feeling festive AT ALL, just thinking. Come on spring!

Vicodin Good!

OK, this is sort of fun. Hopefully it is coherent, I just took a vicodin. Today I woke up and I couldn't stand up straight without pain. I didn't think too much of it but as the day wore on, I still couldn't stand up straight. I have never been to a chiropractor but something in me said, you really should go, so after about 7 hours of slumping over I carted myself and Stella to Dr. Jary. Of course my lovely HMO is not accepted, but luckily they only charged me $40 for my x-rays and $10 for my appointment. So, I really expected them to say nothing was wrong, but to my shock, I was informed that I had a pinched nerve in my back. The doctor asked me if I'd been in a traumatic accident and I couldn't recall any, until later when I talked to my dad. I now remember about 8 years ago I was rear ended in Plymouth on Ann Arbor Road in front of the Einstein Bros by a DTE cube van and it pushed me onto the front lawn of EB and my seat broke and I fell backwards. At the time, I was not hurt and nothing happened after that. Well, apparently until today. So, anyway, I need to go to the chiropractor 3 times a week, I can no longer sit on any comfy chairs until I'm healed and I have to put ice on it 3 times a day for 20 minutes and I can't lift anything over 15 pounds. What a pain in the ass. Not that I wish anything on Matt, but damn, can this be it for me for a while. Also, I can't sleep on my stomach anymore, this is my preferred position if you must know. The neat thing though is that tonight about 8pm, the doctor called to make sure I wasn't in too much pain and that I understand what he wanted me to do. That just never happens anymore. I would recommend this guy to anyone. The thing that sucks though is that I'm only 30, I thought this was the time in your life where your supposed to feel your best so that you know what your missing when your in your 50's and dealing with back pain and heart disease and glaucoma just to name a few. I really feel like I'm being jipped or something. So, bout half an hour ago I popped a vicodin and I am feelin good. I think however that my painting expedition that week and a half ago aggrivated it and made it come to life. The doc said that he was surprised that at this stage I wasn't having tingling, numbness and shooting pains in my legs. Scary! Also, this was an interesting tidbit I learned at the doc today. All those nerves in your spine basically tell your body what to do, so if one of those nerves is pinched, then parts like your sexual organs, bladder and what not don't always work properly. Now, the bladder thing made sense, but the sexual organs??? The woman who did my x-ray said that a patient of theirs was having difficulties getting pregnant, they found she had a pinched nerve and once it was corrected, she went on to have 4 children. This was interesting to me as Matt and I have been trying for about the last 8 months with no success and possibly even a miscarriage last September. So, this gave me some hope that there is another baby in our future.

Tonight I watched two movies, Disturbia and Premonition. They were good, I think Distrubia was the better of the two. That's all I've got for now it's time for beddy bye.

New Opportunity, Maybe You Should Try It Out.

Just so everyone who does read my blog knows, I have been accepted as part of this amazing new site called Pay Per Post located at www.payperpost.com What I am hoping that it will do is really just give me more income and as you all have read, we can really use that right now. My co-worker emailed me about this woman who has multiple blogs and she runs multiple things on her blogs that earn her extra money. You will notice new content in my blog such as product reviews and general chit chat about different subjects than I have tackled before. The cool thing about Pay Per Post is that this has so much potential to earn EXTREMELY great money. I am watching a video and they have a panel of Pay Per Post bloggers talking about all the money they earn. One woman has earned something like $17,000. I find that truly amazing and if I could earn a $1000 I would thrilled. So, if any of you would like info on this, please contact me and I will fill you in. I guess my goal for taking this on really is to 1. either pay my car payment each month, or 2. heck pay my mortgage each month. So, hope that I will not disappoint anyone, but I can't wait to see where this opportunity takes me!
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Lesson Learned and Lives Passed On.

So, the other day I decided to kick my new job hunt into full gear, mostly due to panic. I am 30 years old, with 8 years of graphic design experience, there is no reason for me to be struggling this much. I have experience in web, print, marketing and illustration I should be able to find a good job! Not to mention worry about being able to make my house payment. So, I decided to look at all the job boards I could find, there are more out there than I knew of just by googling. Well, to tell you the truth, there aren't many jobs out there for graphic designers that don't have both print and web and flash and html experience, which actually isn't totally fair as all those jobs require specialty training and skills. However, due to Michigan's current economic status, many companies want an all-in-one kinda employee and to be honest, they don't want to pay for it. Sadly, in my current job, I have positioned myself to have much flexibility and decent pay, enough to be the breadwinner of the family and pay the bulk of our bills. But, when suddenly work drops off and because I'm working mostly from home, it becomes a case of out of sight, out of mind with my boss. Don't get me wrong, he's a nice guy for the most part and he's really come a long way in the organization department but you just simply can't make a life on 20 hours a week, not with any kind of home and certainly not in Michigan these days. So, as I said I was looking on all those wonderful job boards and decided to return to old trusty Monster. I hadn't updated my resume on there in a couple of years and decided to go ahead and do that. Well, let me just tell you, not that it's been a complete turn around, but companies have been looking at my resume left and right and I have been contacted by 2 recruiters for ACTUAL JOBS THAT REALLY EXIST TODAY, RIGHT NOW, NO KIDDING! To me, this is so exciting, I was starting to really worry that nothing was out there for me, but I have been redeemed. There is hope out there, at least that has been restored. And, just a tip, to get your Monster resume back at the top of the pile, make small changes to it and save them and that updates them as if they are new and more new employers will see yours. Good tip huh? Got that one believe it or not from my MIL who has never used the internet, but talks a hell of alot with the ladies that work at the dentist office. Thanks mom!

On a different note poor miss Stella is dealing with the croup again, uh, and so is mommy, not daddy so much as it is momma. We are on day 4 of this wonderful thing that is causing me, to have to sleep in her bed, which is ok, but I bought a cheapy mattress from Ikea, which works just fine for her, but for me on the other hand, I'm so worried I'm gonna ruin it because of my weight, not sure of the weight limit. So far, so good. Also, on Wednesday, I was heading to my MIL's late as usual but today we were going to her fave scrapbook store, so it was OK. I was supposed to be at her house by 10:45, which would mean I would leave our house at 10:30. Well, we didn't end up leaving our house until 11:15 but in the process of trying to take our normal path, we were blocked off by police cars in that direction due to some horrific accident. All I said to Stella was "God, I hope there were no kids in the car." A few hours later, our neighbor Cindy is knocking on our door with a card in her hand. I invite her in our home and she proceeds to tell me that the elderly gentleman that lives across the street with his wife, died tragically today in a car accident. I was paralyzed, I said "don't tell me it was the accident I saw this morning right off our street?" And she confirmed that indeed it was. By her understanding, he was hit head on and died on impact. It took the paramedics 30 minutes to remove him from his vehicle with the jaws of life. So sad, I didn't know Mr. Price much at all, but Bob and Cindy did, and Bod was Mr. Price's buddy. Always over there from what I could see, no matter the weather. Matt wonders if maybe this Spring and Summer, Bob may wander to see him if he's muddling in the garage, I think he really wants a "buddy" so this would be good for Matt. It's just scary about the accident, because who knows if it could've been Stella and I that got hit if I'd actually been on time that morning. I think my lesson here, at least to me is find the signs in your life that indicate that you need to slow down, it may just be the thing that saves your life.

Here's just a little before and after of Stella's first real haircut.