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Mother’s Day Came Early

by Amy on May 4, 2009 in Daily Journal, Family, Work with No comments

This past weekend was supposed to be a trip our to Savannah for Michael to thank him for helping me move clients over for E-Starr. I switched from the old, outdated Modernbill 4, to WHMCS and they said it would cost $50 to move clients’ billing information over. I figured, I’d rather give $50 to Michael. So together we moved everything over and so far everything’s pretty much been flawless. So anyway, we picked up the  boys a little early from school and headed to Savannah where I had intended to spend some time at the mall, spend some time at Putt Putt, and then go down to River Street for dinner and ice cream and to watch the fireworks. Basically the only thing that went right was the mall.

We went to the mall and had lunch at Macaroni Grill, then went in through the bookstore. I got some new books! The sequels to my favorite books are out so I picked them up (The Awakening and Stargazer) and then I grabbed another book that looked interesting (Bad Girls Don’t Die). I also picked up this month’s issue of Advanced Photoshop because it has a vexeling tutorial in it. I don’t think I have the talent for vexeling, but I want to give it a shot anyway. Plus, they always come with some nifty brushes and stock photos.

Then I went to get my hair cut. Man, was I scared. I haven’t had my hair cut in a while because they always mess it up. So I went in and told the girl what I wanted and exactly how scared I was. She assured me it would look cute and went to work. When I saw the 8 inch pieces of hair on the floor I nearly cried. The shortest my hair has ever been was when I was 5 I had it spiked (what were my parents thinking?) and it’s been long ever since. So when I was paying Jay said he looked up, but he didn’t realize it was me standing there. He really seems to like my hair. I like it. I especially like not having to put it up all the time  because it’s so hot. The hottest part has always been my shoulders and my back right below my neck. It’s really great to have it uncovered.

We stopped in at American Eagle and I got some new tank tops and a couple of nice shirts. I ended up going out yesterday and getting some new laundry detergent because my favorite shirts are looking trashed and I don’t want that to happen to the new ones. After that we went and got my favorite Pomegranate and Berry smoothie from Orange Julius (which I can only find in the Oglethorpe Mall) and headed out to River Street to try to beat the crowds. When we got there Jay took a lot of pictures, then we went off the river to eat at Outback. We went back to the river to watch the fireworks, but gave up on them about 30 minutes after they were supposed to start and went to the candy store. Then we headed home.

On Saturday we went to A Taste of Beaufort and taste tested the foods from all the restaurants in the area. It was pretty good, but we ended up wasting a lot of money because you have to buy tickets and we bought too many. The boys didn’t get to play, either, because it was $10 to play on the bounce houses. Crazy! Jay talked me into getting a Mojito at the Budweiser tent and it was terrible. He decided he was going to drink it and about threw up when he tried it. It tasted like I had just brushed my teeth and then drank Sprite.

After that we headed to Hilton Head to the Verizon store. My mother’s day gift was a new BlackBerry Storm. I was really frustrated with not being able to do any work when I was away from the house and getting lost at times. I tried to get my iPhone back (as you probably read before) but that wasn’t going to happen. Not that it would work here anyway. The only thing missing for Mother’s Day is my card, which I assume will magically appear this Sunday.  Speaking of, I need to get the ones I bought out!

Explosion of Motivation

by Amy on April 20, 2009 in Work with 3 Comments

I can’t think of any way to describe it other than it feels like a motivation bomb has exploded in my brain. I’ve been working on getting E-Starr redone lately and I’ve run into quite a few obsticles. The other day I realized I could put the whole site into WordPress and utilize its SEO plugins to help get the site noticed better. So I’ve been writing up lists and making flow charts, anything I can think of to get my ideas in writing and organized. I have quite a few ideas on what I’d like to add, but they go as fast as they come and I don’t always get them written down. My goal has always been to make it the best hosting company, and this time I want to do everything right.

So I set up a WordPress on a domain I’m not using and I’ve been trying to work it out so that the index page is static, but another page is the blog. It looks like I’m going to have to use conditional tags to pull this off, so I’ve been reading into it quite a bit. I’ve had a few brain bursts on the design idea I originally had, and I have a feeling that the end product is going to look nothing like the original. I was thinking about adding bbPress, too, for a small message board. I don’t know yet if I want to allow people to sign up for that, or if I just want to use it as a FAQ/knowledgebase.

I’m trying to get others to pitch in and tell me what they like about my site, what they like about other sites, and what they wish hosting sites had. I’m thinking about maybe putting out a survey so everyone can tell me what they think.

Working on this, time is really getting away from me. And I feel really fat. I’m going to go out tomorrow and get some new running shoes so I won’t have an excuse anymore. Mine got ruined by the pollen because I left them outside and now I have nothing to run or walk in. One very important part about working from home on your computer is that you have to remember to get out and get exercise or you’re going to be very round and very uncomfortable. I don’t ever want to be as big as I was before again.

Is Everything Okay?

by Amy on April 1, 2008 in Family, Work with 7 Comments

Recently I took a trip to visit my brother. His wife is having twins and she’s 4 months along. This past week they were moving, but the week before that my sister in law ended up with phantom kidney stones. They say kidney stones, but she has yet to pass one. They surgically implanted a tube from one organ to another to help her, but she’s still in so much pain that she has to take pain killers regularly (still). I took a week and I went to help out. When I come home I have messages from people I don’t know asking me where I am and messages from my friends asking me as well. Only one person out of anywhere asked if everything was okay. Another person on her blog says she doesn’t care if anything’s wrong, only that her brother’s site is up.

I’ve been taking care of my company for 6 years now. When my family needed help, I decided to go. The time off would have been noticed by no one, if not mentioned by a client who happened to have her account suspended for not paying before I left. I completely understand where she’s coming from and I apologized for the timing. But since so many people wanted to know where I was, I wanted to let you all know. Everything is okay with me (physically), but I fear my little niece and nefew won’t make it.

I know I’m not online anymore and I don’t answer my own IMs and I don’t blog. There’s a good reason for that. I simply don’t have time. Nor do I want to. In November I decided I wanted to get a part time job to get out of the house. I needed it, trust me. I started working at Kohl’s in December and it was great. In January, Jay was separated from his job and my company, along with Kohl’s, became our sole source of income and it scared the death out of me. So I’ve been trucking along, taking care of E-Starr, the kids, and working part time (because now I actually NEED that job). My blogs have become wastelands and my online friends have moved on. Even as I sit here and type I’m thinking about the emails I need to get back to, the bills I have to pay, and the thousands of dollars I need to pay my taxes, which have to go out today.

So in short, yes, life has caught up with me. But E-Starr is a huge chunk of that life. My mind is running a mile a minute, 18 hours a day. I needed to take some time out to be there for a family member, to help him save his babies and move into the bigger house they bought just for those babies. I don’t ask for a whole lot in this world, but this one week I took to do what I needed to do. I’m very sorry for anyone this affected, but I seriously doubt it affected them like it did me. I needed this. In 6 years, this is the only time I have taken time for myself, and although I’m sorry for issues I may have caused others, I’m not sorry that I went.

A Nifty Idea

by Amy on February 27, 2008 in Work with 4 Comments

Wow, where have I been? Working my patooty off, that’s where. I’ve been working hard and often because right now I’m the sole breadwinner in my house. It’s hard, man. Especially when you only have a part time job that pays $7/hr. The past two weeks I’ve been called in nearly every day, and the days I stayed home I was either working hard there or passed out. I really need something that gives me more for my time.

I’m guessing you all saw this place, Hire A Helper? I haven’t had a moment to myself to play online and I’ve heard of them, so you must have as well. Anyway, I’ve been looking through that site quite a bit. It’s a nifty idea. But I started thinking.. What skill do I have that I could offer? Because, really, even just cleaning someone’s house you can make double what I’m making at a traditional job. I have a lot of love for yard work, maybe I could do that? Should I give it a try?

So I’m reading up on it and it’s really very clever. A person picks a helper, the helper calls them back. The person pays on the website with a credit card, then after the helper is done the person gives them a code to put in at the website to get paid. And it looks like they deposit it directly into your bank account. I don’t see info on how long that takes, but even if it’s two weeks.. it’s money. I’m always concerned about someone not giving me the code, but I’m sure this site has people who will help you with that. Always take before and after photos!

They also have people who do day labor, provide moving help, cleaning help. I might take advantage of that as well, because my house needs a lot of things done and my husband isn’t the type. He has to be really interested to actually do it and usually, he’s not. I don’t have the extra cash for it right now, but maybe if this site works out for me, I will.

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