Her Blog

As A Star is participating in the Ultimate Blog Party for the first time ever! I don’t really know what to expect, but I’m excited to see how this turns out. I guess the idea of this post is for me to tell the visitors from UBP about me and my site, so here we go.

Me & My Love & 3DG

My name is Amy and I’ve been building website since 1997. In 1999 I began my first real website, Lala Land, while I was pregnant with my first son. It was all cute and pastel, I was in the baby mood. I had a lot of time on my hands being pregnant so I began making cartoon dolls and graphics and layouts for others who had personal sites. Over time, Lala Land grew to be such a huge site that I eventually bought my own server because there were only two choices in hosting: expensive OR unreliable. Shortly after I bought the server I set up a website where others could buy from me, too, and that would help pay the server cost. My friends told their friends and my website visitors wanted their own sites so it grew and grew and enabled me to stay home with my kids and raise them without going to a job, or paying for daycare.

Tombstone, AZ

My world is basically my kids, my husband, my business, and my dogs. Yes, in that order. As my kids got older I found I had less and less time to devote to websites (and let’s be honest, less interest). I joined the PTO, became a den walker, and became pretty much obsessed with my kids lives. I wouldn’t trade it for the world, but I did become a little dependent on them after that. I have a hard time spending time by myself and I definitely can’t leave the house without dragging one of them along with me. But they don’t mind, usually.

In January of 2010 I found out that I had a tumor and got it removed very quickly. By the time we found it, it was already the size of a cantaloupe!  I know what you’re thinking, “How did you not notice that?” Anyway, I fell into a depression that my doctor tried to medicate with anti-depressants, but it was really only a band-aid effect. That medicine helped me not to obsess over negative things, but it also helped me not to worry about all of the money (credit) I was spending. My life was basically all about eating out, buying things, and spending money. It got so out of control that I’m now saddled with tens of thousands of dollars of debt and about half the income I’m used to.

I know I got really heavy for a moment there, but that’s to explain to you the purpose of this blog. This has been my personal blog for years, but it’s been very on again, off again. Why? Because it wasn’t really of any interest to me. I was blogging for other people and that isn’t what a personal blog should be. So I’m reformatting the blog posts to include the things that are important to me. Those things are health/fitness, business, websites, kids, and money. My life needs some real work and with only 6 months left until my 30th birthday, I am determined not to reach it depressed about where my life is. Instead I intend to be proud of all I’ve accomplished and well on my way to the peace of mind I’ve been searching for my whole life.

Haha. Okay, okay. So I just had an epiphany.

I posted yesterday about the debt snowball and how I’m going to use that to eliminate my credit card debt. Well, I just realized.. there’s no reason I can’t apply the same theory to my workload issues. I usually tend to do a little of this and a little of that, with neither this nor that getting fully completed. Meanwhile, there’s also a little nag in the back of my head for things that I need to do, but have gotten really behind on.

So, let’s give this a try. I am writing down everything I need to do and listing them in order of how much time they will take to complete. Priority is completely going out the window because I’m not listing anything that doesn’t need to be done this week and everything on my list should have been done a long time ago. I know that judging how long something will take is a little difficult, but I think it can be done. So here’s my list.

• Post on As A Star (to be done daily) CHECK
• Finish ARLtG coding/content
• Modules 4-8 for Web 182
• Finish E-Starr relaunch site

And these are listed in order. I can’t tell exactly how long they will take, but I think I can knock out ARLtG today if I get started now. Then modules 4-8 for my PHP programming class could take from 4-48 hours, but it would be fantastic to be able to get started on that one today. Meanwhile, I don’t want to let E-Starr fall by the wayside, so I will probably take some breaks here and there when inspiration hits me to spend some time on that.

If I get all of these done by this weekend (not likely), how do you suggest I reward myself?

Update 04/05/2013

I did not get everything done by the end of the weekend, but that would have been incredible. Instead, I mostly got the E-Starr relaunch done and it’s up, but it has a couple of kinks I need to work out still. I also didn’t post on my blog daily. Why not? Well, because I didn’t have anything to say. My world was consumed with my site and I was content with that. On my Web 182 class, I did complete modules 4 & 5 yesterday, and currently have an email in to the instructor about module 6, so that’s coming along. As far as ARLtG is concerned, I’d like to say it’s done, but it isn’t. It is my next big goal after I get caught up on my homework.

So I’ve decided it’s officially time to do something about this debt and stop complaining about it. I’m only going to get out of this situation if I make some sacrifices (eat out less) right now and it won’t take too long to pay off.

Basically, I have a high level of credit card debt that requires me to work two jobs on top of my business just to stay afloat. I could go into a whole long story of years of depression that led me to stop taking care of my business like I should have and going on wild spending sprees, but how I got here isn’t really important. Now that the depression is over and the excitement is back, it’s time to make some progress.

So the method I am following is the debt snowball. This is where you pay the minimums on all your credit cards, except the smallest one. Every extra bit of money you get goes into the smallest card until it’s paid off. Once you pay off that credit card, you celebrate your victory. Then start the process again on the next smallest card.

Now, this isn’t really efficient, considering that smaller card is charging you less interest. You really should start with the card that has the highest APR.. but if you don’t see some progress quickly, you’re likely to give up. So we’re going to start small with our American Express card, which I’ve figured I can pay off in two months if I pay $50 per week on it. I know $50 a week is a lot, but this card is the bane of my existence. This card is so hard to deal with I usually end up paying late fees and I just cannot wait until I don’t have to worry about it anymore. Once this card is paid off, it’s also a $50/mo bill I won’t need to pay anymore.

The second card has a low APR, but it’s the second lowest balance and therefore will allow me to have another $50/mo payment gone. That’s an extra $100/mo in bills freed up. I’m thinking that this card will be paid off within 4 months after the first one. Maybe sooner if I can stay on track.  All of the other cards will be harder, they’re all over $1,000 – but I’m sure that once these two are out of the way, the bigger ones won’t be so bad.

Wish me luck!

All of these posts are falling into the Daily Journal category because, truth is, I have no idea what I’m doing here. Every day I get a new, inspiring idea of what to do here on my blog and each one trumps the day before. So last night I was working on content for this site (adding lyrics to Egypt Central’s Home) and I opened a page I made called Start Your Own Business. I feel like I have some valuable insight to this and I want to share it.

Then I realized, this content really should be its own site! But sadly, I can’t manage another site. Between the relaunch of E-Starr, trying to rebuild Lala Land, and working on this site while trying to work 2 jobs and maintain a family, I really feel like adding yet another site might be spreading myself thin. I truly wish I hadn’t gotten myself in the situation I’m in now with my credit, then I would be able to just stay home and work on my sites and my business.. but alas I made some bad decisions (due to some medication I didn’t really need) and here I am trying to dig myself out of the debt ditch.

So I say all that, to ask you this: Should As A Star be a personal site? Or should it be about building your own business? Do you think anyone would be interested in the insight I would have to share, owning my own business for 11 years and doing direct sales for nearly 3 years?

The plan for Lala Land is to basically be an HTML help site like it used to be. I feel like people still need something like that. I could, technically, put the fun content like lyrics and such there.. or maybe even make a personal blog as a subdirectory of one of my other sites.. there are options here..

Thanks to the alignment of the stars on my birth, I am a libra, and therefore incapable of making my own decisions. So I put it to you.

As A Star… personal blog or entrepreneur blog?

This post was inspired by Chiklita (I actually found her from Twitter) and Bookish, who both posted about 22 things they’d like to accomplish toward a bigger picture change. It’s a bit less overwhelming when you break it down into smaller tasks that you can achieve. The problem with their posts, for me, is that 22 is a big number. Yep. And considering that and that it’s the year 2013, I’ve decided to bring my list down to 13 things.

Before my list, I’d also like to challenge you to list your 13, or 22. It’s up to you.

1. Blog daily
2. Stop using credit cards (completely)
3. Promote business daily
4. Make more time for my dog
5. Catch up on homework
6. Take steps to unclutter house
7. Worry less
8. Surround myself with positive people
9. Stop eating processed foods
10. Kiss my husband more
11. Take more pictures
12. Let go of negativity
13. Drink more water