Money From Home, Spaghetti, and Furs

When my kids were small, I would have given anything for a way to make money at home. Now with a computer, it can be done. Of course, back then, I didn't have a computer.
So now I do a few different things to make money.

I write for Associated Content. They pay per page view now, and I get about $40 a month for articles I have stored on there (haven't written anything new in awhile.)

I enter stories on fieldreport.com. That is where I recently won a $1000 in their writing contest for October.

I do secret shopping for Marketforce and Shoppers Critique.

I sell things on Ebay occasionally.

And I do surveys for Mindfield. (The surveys pay $1-$3 or so each. When you get $10 in your account, you can request a check, or you can let it build up more and get a bigger check. I usually cash out every $10.)

And this sounds so cheesy but my husband gives me an allowance....He has a direct deposit going into my checking account every two weeks, not a lot but some spending money. We also keep a joint chkg for bill paying, but he pays the bills and I don't use it very often. I like having MY money.

Now and then, I think of going back to work, but thankfully, it's a fleeting thought that passes quickly. :-)

My middle son still has not found a job. He had a telephone interview yesterday, so hopefully he'll find something soon. I'm really worried about it. My daughter says being in Management Info Systems is a good field, and he should find something.

My best friend's ex is getting married this weekend. Their divorce has been final for about ten months. The new wife said my friend did not respect her husband because he said she didn't keep the house clean enough. I want to go over there and knock some sense into her. However, I rest assured that being married to his butt will knock some sense into her quickly enough. ha. I asked my friend how she felt about him getting married, and she said she couldn't care less. I don't know if I really buy that, but I hope for her sake that it's true. He's a royal JERK.

We watched Obama last night. Here (Don't know if it was nationwide), the audio and video feeds didn't match. Drove me crazy trying to watch it. I'd want a refund if I paid out that much and it was messed up like that.

I ordered a faux fur coat on Ebay. It's long and white and looks like ermine. I love it. I put it on and feel like a movie star. Then I look in the mirror and feel like a polar bear. Not sure who will win out but I know I'm going to enjoy wearing it. It's warm, too! No, that's not me in the picture. That's the Ebay photo.



My youngest son bought a new red convertible. He's really a big deal now. ha. He sold his motorcycle and truck to get it. I was thrilled the motorcycle was gone.


Well, Tuesday is voting day, and it's the first time I really don't want to vote. Yes, I will though. I have to go cancel out my husband's vote.

Well, I'm actually cooking tonight, so have to go start the spaghetti sauce. Me, cooking...what is the world coming to?

Dippety Do and Helmet Hair

I got up this morning early to color my hair. I've had good experiencing with coloring my own hair and some nightmares. Although I have sprung for coloring in a salon a few times, most of my life, from the age of fifteen, I've been doing my own. Believe it or not, Avon used to sell hair color, and my mom used to sell Avon. All my friends were using Sun-kissed (You spray it on, lie down in the sun, and gradually end up with really brassy blonde hair), but I wanted something not so drastic. My mom bought me some Avon Dark Blonde, which was a shade lighter than my normal light brown. I loved it. The next time I colored, it got a little lighter, then a little more, until I spent all my teen years as a medium blonde. Long, straight hair was the fashion. That's good, because my hair was long, extremely straight, would not hold a curl, and I had no idea how to style it.

I watched what other women in my family did with their hair. My grandmother sat at the kitchen table while my mother put in a Toni Home Permanent and then rolled her hair into pin curls secured with bobby pins to style it. (All the time my mom was perming and setting, she would yell that Mom was pulling her bald-headed.) Then she would comb it straight back, making waves with her fingers, and put on a white "invisible" hairnet. At least once during all this, she would swear she wished she was a man, so she could wear a crewcut all the time.


My sister slathered her hair in Dippety Doo and used wire rollers with pink piks to hold the rollers. Then she put a gigantic elastic cap over this, hooked a hose from it to the dryer unit, and turned it on.

It would blow out bigger and she'd sit with this contraption on her head until her hair was dry. This was followed by a lot of teasing (with a rat tail comb of course), curling up her flip with her fingers, and then spraying with a lot of Aqua Net hairspray. After this, no hair moved on her head, even in the wind, even when she moved her head suddenly.

My mom went to the beauty shop every week, where they colored, "washed and set" her hair. She always fell asleep under the dryer. They kept walking by and shoving her head back under the hot helmet so it would dry.

This was followed by a lot of teasing, a lot of Aqua Net, and polyester pillow cases to keep the hair from getting messy.

Drying hair was interesting. Usually, I just washed mine, combed it, and let it dry. I couldn't see sitting under the huge plastic cap my sister used, and I hadn't yet seen a handheld dryer. In the winter when it was really cold, I would flip my hair upside down in front of our floor level space heater and brush it while it dried. Yes, this left it slightly frizzy, but it dried.

My girlfriend, Dolores, said she would kill for my straight hair (in the early Cher days), and used to roll her hair on the cans that frozen orange juice came in to keep her red curls from curling.

Then came frosting kits. We all had to try this. I did my own and then two of my friends. Mine and one friend's hair turned out great. The other friend turned out green, and she spent the next two days at the beauty shop trying to fix it. (You notice I still referred to her as friend, as she knew my home treatments had no warranty, and I am almost positive she lied about having color on her hair already.)


I remember the Christmas I got a bright orange handheld dryer with brush and comb attachments and a set of hot rollers. I switched from the space heater to my new "Orangie" and was so happy that I could now wash my hair when something last minute came up. The hot rollers were a nightmare. The little metal hoop pins didn't hold the roller in the hair, the rollers got really hot, and the metal center (if you were so lucky as to stick your finger near it) would end up with a roller tossed across the bathroom and me in trouble for cursing.

Plus, my super straight hair really preferred to be super straight, so the electric roller curl only lasted about twenty minutes ( I refused Aqua-net "metal helmut" Spray.)

I remember the first time I found hairspray that let your hair still move, Velcro rollers,and curling irons. I recently found a little gadget that lets you do a french twist on your own hair with only two bobby pins (and the gadget).

So what did I do to my hair this morning? I made it straight, and blonde, and am letting it air dry. Guess I haven't come such a long way after all.

Another Pre-December Gripe Session

It's turned very cold today in Seattle. It is cloudy every day, even the so-called "sunny" days. My son likes it cold, but I've been freezing all day. The fact that he leaves the windows open doesn't help. He said it helps to keep air circulating so mold doesn't grow around the windows from all the rain and humidity.



Christmas is coming quickly, and Thanksgiving even more so. All the kids are coming home Christmas, as is my hubby's mom (although my Seattle son may not be able to come if he has a new job then.) My daughter wrote today to ask what days we are going to have our holiday dinners. I need to get my butt in gear and figure all this out, but right now, all I am doing is dreading dealing with the whole thing. I know that's my typical Scroogie-ness coming out, which it usually does this time of year. Maybe once I get home, I'll be able to wrap my brain around all of this and make some plans. But not right now. No one is coming Thanksgiving except for my daughter and her family. We may just do Cracker Barrel for Thanksgiving this year. I can spend more time with them and the baby if I'm not cooking all morning. I don't know why I hate the holidays. I always feel so overwhelmed by them. I always dread the whole season. And I always feel so guilty for feeling like this. You'd think after 52 Christmas days, I'd figure out what my problem is and get in the flow of things, but it seems to get worse every year.

We went to a park today and had fish and chips for lunch, and we bought chowder to bring home for dinner tonight. That's good, because I'm already getting sick of cooking.
Ok, this is sounded like one big bitch session, so I'll stop this post here.

My Not On Ambien Post

I said I wasn't going to write anymore, but I've gotten several emails saying don't stop, so here I am. Thankfully, this time, I am not on Ambien when I write this. I've been taking Ambien for several years, every night, to sleep. All those reports you hear of people eating, driving, having conversations they don't remember are all true. Ambien works great as long as you take it and go straight to bed. It's when you think you can stay up until you get sleepy that you get into trouble. No I haven't driven, or wandered out of the house, but I have had conversations I don't remember the next day, have bought things on Ebay (that arrived and I had no memory of), have sent emails, and now, evidently, have posted to my blog. But like I said, not this post!
When it does happen, it totally freaks me out, and I swear I will never try to stay up again, but will only take it once I'm in bed and the light is out. This time I decided to start trying to wean myself off them altogether.

See, I remembered posting to my blog. I remembered saying that my son in Seattle had lost his job, but I didn't remember anything else. Evidently, the Ambien kicked in during the middle of my post, because it started out sounding rational and then went to hell in a handbasket about 2/3 of the way through.

So, here's the update. I'm in Seattle, visiting my son. I've been here since the 7th. He lost his job about six days into my visit. He's gotten a tentative offer from a guy he used to work with, but it doesn't start until January or so, so right now he's trying to find something until then. I bought groceries and have been making dinner every night to keep him from spending his on eating out. This week we've had meat loaf, burgers, spaghetti, and barbequed chicken. I'm trying not to tell my hubby much about my new interest in cooking because I plan to lose interest quickly once I return home.

I miss hubby, miss home, miss my daughter and her family, and miss my dogs. We had to board them during the first week I was here, because my husband also came to visit for the first week. Then he had to get back to work. He picked them up and kept them at home a few days and then had to board them again for a business trip he leaves on tomorrow. I bet they are really confused and mad at me. They are stuck at pet camp while Mom kicks back and watches Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live. (I thought this week was not nearly as good as it has been in the last few weeks.)

My son has a fantastic view. Right now, curled up in the recliner, I see the mountains, trees, a lake, and a cop giving a guy a ticket on the road below. Poor guy.

In the other post, I said I won a writing contest. Biggest payout I've gotten from my writing. Much better than I got from writing for Chicken Soup. My husband has been watching the mailbox for it every day, as I got an email saying it had been mailed this past week. I'll probably just put most of it on paying on credit cards, and the rest back into our savings account for money we used on the trip.

I lost 42 pounds, gained fifteen back, and have lost ten of that back off since I've been here. I think what did it was all the walking and sightseeing we did last week. I'm just glad it's getting back down. I quit the low-carb thing because I was feeling so tired all the time. I think low carb works fine, but I tried to cut out all carbs, and after almost a year of that, I had no energy at all.
Now I just try to eat what I want, but only half a portion, and only at mealtime.

The trees here are turning red and gold. It's really pretty. I didn't bring my camera this time, but my son did take some pics while my hubby was here last week. I'll get those from him and try to post some. I really like Seattle, but it's very expensive to live here.

Coming to Seattle with a Southern accent seems to open the door to a lot of conversations with strangers. The grocery delivery guy talked to me about my trip, the cashier in Target picked up on my accent and wanted to know my opinion of Seattle versus Alabama. (Very different. Although both have a lot of things to do and see, Seattle has a lot more traffic. The houses here are built two feet apart. The McDonald's dollar menu Double cheeseburger costs $1.29. Gas is less. Rent and real estate are MUCH higher. A house here for 200K is a 55K house in Alabama. Our 200K houses in Alabama would run about a half million here. Here voting is done by mail. The postman asks you your name here before he will leave a package, and then looks at you suspiciously anyway. At home, they bring the mail, wish you a good day, pat your dog on the head, and bring in your newspaper, AND you know their name. If I'd asked the guy here for HIS name, I think he would have had me arrested.) Anyway, a Southern accent seems to give people the impression that you are friendly and approachable, which I guess I am, even though I didn't think I was.

Since I stopped working a couple of years ago, I've gotten to be an All My Children addict, especially the last week or so, since they've had the "Tornadoes hit Pine Valley" episodes. You can tell the writers don't know much about tornadoes. For one thing, in Alabama a tornado watch means nothing. You still go get groceries, go visit the neighbors, go to the movies, and kick the weather radio for going off for a stupid WATCH. A warning means you get under something, but only when you hear the silence after the hail and before the train sounds. On AMC, a tornado watch meant the Chief of Police ordered everyone off the roads and back to their homes. If I stayed home for every tornado watch, I'd never get to go anywhere. Anyway, their reaction to the tornadoes only reinforced my husband's name for them, the "Dope Operas." Regardless of his opinion, I can't wait to find out what happens tomorrow. Or to kid him about the fact that even though he's got a name for them, he has recorded and watched AMC the last few days at home.

Well, I guess I'll hang in there with the blogging....

Don't Let Her Have the Keys

If you happened to read the last blog post from last night before I deleted it, and thought I sounded spacey, I was. I took my Ambien and stayed up too late. Everything I said was true but I sounded like a blithering idiot. Sorry about that.