Income Incoming

Once upon a time I worked middle management at a big box retail chain. There are things I miss about that job. While I wasn't in management at the time that I left, there were things I really loved about the management position that I had once held. Unfortunately, the things I enjoyed most about the job (the need for it be perfectly done in order for the numbers all over the store not to be thrown into chaos, for instance) are also the parts that made it far too mentally, physically, and emotionally demanding if one actually attempted to do it "the right way." It was impossible to do "the right way" and meet the demands of each department it impacted (which was all of them) so I suspect that is why they did away with the position entirely not long after I left and swept it under another manager's workload where it could be much more easily overlooked (not to mention the fact they edited out many of its key components, too.) Anyway, this entry is not about that position or the fact that it drove me insane, ruined my hip, and destroyed a couple of relationships. This entry is about the fact that I haven't worked outside of the home since 2010 by choice. This entry is about how I've made a little cash over the years without selling myself back into retail.

The most rewarding way to make money from the comfort of your own home is to find something that you love to make and make it! For Christmas a couple of years ago my mother-in-law bought me some beads and supplies and said I should make some things to sell when they go to sell their honey at Groveport's Apple Butter Day. I'd only ever made one piece of beaded jewelry and that was a necklace for my mother on a whim after visiting a long since defunct bead store downtown years before. I'd played with a bead loom and and off, too, but it never "took." Something about that gift of beads sparked my imagination and I got to work. By the time Apple Butter Day rolled around in October, I had a modest collection of natural and glass jewelry put together. I've sold at that festival two years in a row now and it's been an incredibly rewarding experience. There is no joy greater than seeing someone's face light up when they pick up a piece of your art and feel it was made just for them when they've never even met you before. I love to sell my jewelry and I plan to run a booth there for as long as we sell our honey there. I've debated branching out to other festivals, but I just haven't been feeling the creative bug this year so my stock is a little low. I don't currently have my own vehicle, either, which would make making more of a go of things a lot simpler. It's an idea I toss around, though, and its still a possibility for the future. I love making pretty things that make people feel pretty. It's a good feeling and I'm glad I discovered this latent talent when I did. You can see some of my bejeweled (and beboned and bebeaded) artwork at http://www.facebook.com/SaturnineTreasures.

Finding a hobby that can bring in some extra cash is fun and rewarding, but more often than not you end up putting more money into something like that than you ever get out of it. Sometimes you just want to do, not make, and there are options for that as well --or at least there's one that really is what it says it is. There are a lot of scams out there that promise ways to make money online the fast and easy way. Of all the ones I've seen, only one site I've used really does allow you to make a little cash on your terms in your free time without scamming anyone and without being scammed yourself (so long as you spot a scam --there are more on the site as it's gotten to be something more people use, but they are generally easy to spot and steer clear.) Amazon's Mechanical Turk won't net you huge amounts of money unless you dedicate a large amount of time to it and get in with one of the higher paying firms, but it is what is says it is and it delivers what it promises. MTurk (as it's called) is a place where companies and researchers go to pay people to do small tasks for them. Some companies use MTurk to test their search keywords or score cheap written content for their webpages while others use it to have things transcribed for them or edited. Students and researchers use MTurk to gather data via paid surveys (which can be one of the fastest ways to earn the most, but are generally one shot opportunities. Once you've taken a particular survey you can not take it again.) Some of the easiest and least time consuming tasks on MTurk pay out only a penny or six, but those can add up if you're willing to put in the time. Some of the surveys or chartered content can pay out $10 or more. There is one now that is a followup to a survey (only available to those who originally took the survey --or maybe even only one specific person) that pays out $60. Short tasks that offer upwards of ten cents can be worth the time and surveys that offer more than a quarter almost always are, I've found. I've done some transcribing. Sometimes college lectures are offered up and those can be extremely interesting to transcribe, just make sure you can understand the person speaking before you take the hit. Almost all transcribing jobs can be previewed before you accept them. There is penalty for turning in hits that are poorly done in that some hits can not even be accepted if your percentages are too high in the rejected column. Turning hits back in without completing them can have the same effect, but is generally not as weighty. You are paid in REAL MONEY via Amazon Payments which can be paid out in a number of ways. I generally just leave it all in my account and use it on Amazon directly. It's a reliable site run by a trusted company and there is oppurtunity to make extra money using it. I'm sure there are even those, in with the right companies, who use it for their entire income, but that's not what's going to happen for the typical user of the site. It's all in your hands, though, which is what a lot of places promise but don't tend to live up to at the end of the day.

All too often when you tell someone you work from home they'll give you some degree of Sturgeon Face. People raised within the American culture tend to believe that if you can work then you should and if you aren't without what they consider a "damn good reason," then you must be a bad person. If you're staying at home to raise a child, this can sometimes be an acceptable situation, but otherwise it's Just Not Done. Well, I'm not a bad person and I am capable of holding down a job and even moving up the corporate ladder. I don't work because I choose not to work. It's a situation that makes my spouse and I happy, it doesn't hurt anyone, and it most certainly doesn't make us bad people. I don't need to bring in extra money, and I'm sure that my jewelry has taken more than it's given, all told, but I do enjoy the extra money for books for my Kindle that I get from MTurk and I wanted to share this with others who might find a place for it in their lives, too. Follow Your Bliss and don't let anyone thumb their nose at where it takes you.

Read More

One of my goals this year is to finish books. I'm notoriously bad for taking, I'll be perfectly honest, years to finish one book --even if I like it. Hell, even if I love it can take me months. That's gotten a lot better since acquiring a digital reading device (first a Kindle Fire and now a Paperwhite.) This is because books don't intimidate me as much if I don't have to look at all those pages left to go. I know it's a strange way to be for someone who LOVES stories. You're not telling me anything I haven't already pondered ad nauseum. It makes no sense. I make no sense.

But... I finished a book today. Here's my review:

Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook by Anthony Bourdain
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Meh. I wish I had more to say about this book. I really enjoyed Kitchen Confidential and I love what the author does on television with food tourism. I think his worldview is unique and not unimportant. This book, however, was not the best thing he's written. There were bits I enjoyed, but I found myself reading to finish it more than to enjoy it more than I cared for through one chapter then another. I may have gotten more out of it if I was well versed with the names he was dropping, but I'm not a gourmand and I doubt I'll ever get to step foot in most of the restaurants he talks about. I enjoy reading about them, regardless, but it would mean more to me if the names meant more to me because it was the names and what they mean to /him/ that he was focused on. I'm not going to "never read another of his books again," but I hope my next choice lives up to my expectations better than this one did. I think I'll go back and read a Chef's Tour. I think that might have more of what I'm looking for from one of my favourite voices.

Curious about what I've had to stay about other books I've actually finished (and reviewed?)
View all my reviews

I'm going to make this a thing. Expect reviews to pop up as I finish things. *thumbs up*

**Next up in the Non-Fiction category is Chris Hadfield's book. I have a whole blog post I've been working on about him, too. Maybe if I finish it before the end of time I'll just post the review with it, too.

Sunday Sacrifice

I've been thinking about setting up some theme days here to give me more motivation to write regularly and to help give people something to become invested in as they follow me on my journey. As with everything here, it's definitely something I want to do for me, but I like the idea of the things I do helping others become more blissful in their own lives. I'm hoping to push that goal forward a little while helping myself reach some personal goals as well.

The first theme day I'm going implement is Sunday Sacrifice. Sunday Sacrifice stems from the desire to live more simply mixed with one part the need to declutter my surroundings and one part the desire to disburse the things I have and don't want or need to others who may. The sad fact is that I just have too much stuff. I live in a two bedroom townhouse style apartment with my spouse and my cat and it is filled to the brim with stuff. We just keep acquiring stuff on top of the stuff, too. We're not exactly hoarders (yet) but it's definitely getting out of hand. I'm running out of places to store things. I brought a lot of stuff into this marriage, too, and it's time to give a good hard look to what I actually want and need and what is just taking up space.

One serious problem I have is laundry management and I realized this past Sunday that this is because I just have way too many clothes. I started thinking about this Saturday, actually, and when I mentioned the idea of Sunday Sacrifice as a theme day to my spouse they said we should both start with clothes before I could even suggest it. Either we're just that much on the same wave length after six years of marriage, or its really that much of a problem. I think there's a lot to be said for both of those, really. So, that's this weeks task and what I've been working on today. I have almost two bags ready to go to the charity shop, on top of the bag I found waiting in the closet this morning all ready to go. I also found the bag of sweaters I've been meaning to wash which will be nice because I've been wondering where all my sweaters were! 

Another theme day I'm thinking about implementing is either Meditation Monday or Mid-week Meditations. I'd like to scour the web for good guided meditations or meditation techniques and write about my experiences with them. I've also been eyeing the book on Tarot Journalling I picked up for like a dollar when Half Price Books clearanced a huge part of their Tarot section a couple of years ago, so that might turn into a theme day, as well. I've also been thinking about a crafty post a week, too. Do you have ideas for theme days that might fit in well with the feel of this blog? If you have ideas I'd love to hear them.

Step Aside, Master Yoda.

I follow a Facebook Page called Beautiful Minds and it shares inspiring quotes and poeticly thoughtful phrases. A moment ago, this was staring back at me from my feed. It came right on the heels of my telling my spouse that I need to work harder at some things and discussing with my aunt the fact that I can't even get my knees off the ground for a push-up let alone a plank. (It's something I have never been able to do. My Phys. Ed. teachers used to get pretty hostile about it.)

Maybe I'll never be able to do a plank. Maybe I am just not physically capable of getting my knees off the ground with my toes, for whatever reason, but that doesn't mean I should do nothing just because I can't do that. It doesn't mean I shouldn't do the best I can. I "try" to do things all the time, while at the same time preaching the line from Star Wars like its some gospel. "Do or Do Not. There is no Try." I say that all the time, but what does it mean? Do I live it? More often than not, I just lose steam, which causes me to come down on myself, which causes me to stall. That's not doing. That's also not allowing myself to fail and for that to be ok. It has to be ok to fail because we are never going to succeed at everything we try 100% of the time. Doing, though, is not the same as succeeding, and that's so important to remember and all too easy to forget. Maybe I will never be able to push my knees up from the floor with my toes, but there are lots of other ways to work out my upper and lower body. Just because I can't do that one thing doesn't mean I should let it stop me from doing all the other things that I can do.

I give up too easily when I start to slip. I get discouraged if I spend a day not checking anything off my list when for the past week I've been checking things off left and right. I let that one day throw me off for the next week. This is not ok. This is a vicious cycle that needs to be examined and put away. Falling off the cart doesn't have to mean struggling to try and catch it to climb back on. The truth is that when you stop, the cart stops, too. The cart is right there beside you waiting for you to climb back onto it again. It's not running away without you. It will start to roll away, the longer you lie on the ground, but it will only get ahead of you if you let it.

We are not always able to do what we want. There are myriad reasons why that might be the case. Mental and Physical Health don't always allow us to be as productive as we want every day. Life gets in the way of living sometimes. That's ok. As long as we're doing our best and not letting the cart get too far ahead of us, we're still moving forward. If I can't check off anything today I can't let that stop me from checking anything off tomorrow. If I'm not able, for whaterver reason, that's ok, too. When I can, though, that's a different story. I can't and I won't are two entirely different things. If I let I won't rule me the way I can't has to be allowed to sometimes, then nothing will ever be done. If I can, then I will. That needs to me what I tell myself, instead of focusing on my shortcomings and letting ME drag me down.

Ganbarimasu!

Spurred to Motion

It's time to move forward and as is so often the case in life something slightly unpleasant has come up that has the potential to set my life in the direction it needs to go. It is, simply, that my student loans come out of forbearance at the end of the month and I am not any closer to being able to afford that ridiculous payment this year than I was last year, a year removed from the health crisis and major surgery that caused me to put them into forbearance in the first place.

If I am honest with myself, one of my dreams is to spend my life roaming the halls of Academia. Going back to school isn't just an easy out when it comes to a hefty student loan payment, it's the nudge I need to push myself in the direction that I truly want to go. My Bliss is that way and that's something I've know for a long time now. I want to get my Master's. I'd love to go on get my Ph.D. I have things to contribute. I have ideas that need to be out there in the world in ways that I don't know if anyone else can relay them. There is still plenty that I need to learn to be able to articulate these ideas to their fullest potential. Moving forward to Grad School is not a scapegoat. It is the next logical step. My loans coming out of forbearance was just the nudge I needed to start looking into practical possibilities.

I found one almost immediately when I really started to look. You know that intuitive feeling when you stumble across something and you know that it's "right," that's what I felt when I found this program. I know that I can't put all my eggs in one basket and that just because I apply to a program doesn't mean I'll be accepted, but I know that applying to the program I found is the step I need to take to move forward into my future. It's an online program offered by a big institution in the northern part of the state. I am even entertaining spending a quarter or two on campus if some of the classes I absolutely must have, in my own mind, aren't offered online. It's two and a half hours away, so too far to commute, but maybe my spouse would be willing to let me go for a couple of months and drive up and see me on weekends.

I am not going to fool myself into thinking that everything is going to fall into place now without any work on my part, or that just because this feels right it is absolutely what is going to happen, but it's definitely opened my eyes to the direction I need to go and where I need to be looking. I can feel where my heart is calling me. It's up to me to pull myself to the challenge and follow where it leads.

8-bit Motivation

I will do anything for a gold coin. Blame the Plumber and the Hedgehog and the fact I spent my formative years punching bricks and spin dashing to collect gold coloured, shiny seeming, pixels. This isn't some new realization. I've been saying this about myself for years. My internal reward system is 16-bit at most. That's why HabitRPG is one of the best daily motivators I've found.

In the past, I used the site Joe's Goals to feed this innate urge within me to rack up points on mundane tasks. I have, seemingly always, struggled with sinking time as opposed to actually using it productively. It may be true that any "time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time," but all too often I find myself passing time without enjoying it at all, let alone accomplishing anything. This is a problem. When I discovered Joe's Goals, I found that if I could look at the bottom of a column (on what is really just a cleverly implemented spread sheet) and see a number every day that it felt a lot like collecting coins. That eternal 8 year old in my brain was instantly intrigued and the site became a useful part of my daily routine when I wasn't too busy playing video games, of course, or sinking time.

When I purchased my first real tablet back in October (a Samsung Galaxy Note, which is a tablet and a tablet, if you're curious,) I realized quickly that it could be quite useful in not only keeping me more organized, but helping me live more productively, too. I tried out a few different "to-do list" apps, but the one I found most useful (probably because it has a handy widget that I can set to stare up at me on my home page at all times,) is Google Keep. Keep is an offshoot of Drive and it's handy for a lot of things including grocery lists and keeping things synced across devices, but the really useful feature for me is its to-do lists. Having that widget there staring up at me was extremely motivating until I became desensitized to its constant unwavering presence on my home page. I still find it useful, but just not as directly motivating as I did at first.

HabitRPG, though, hits all the right buttons. The full title of the site is HabitRPG: Your Life the Video Game, and while that seems a little cheesy, it is really an extremely clever concept for a certain kind of person. That certain kind of person is, apparently, me. HabitRPG breaks tasks into three categories: Habits, Dailies, and To-Dos. You are rewarded for positive habits, completing dailies, and finshing to-dos with xp and, you guessed it, coins. You can then use those coins to reward yourself with things like pixel goodies for your avatar or rewards you have created yourself that point to real world things, like playing video games. The system gets more complex as you level up and classes are implemented. You can join parties, go on quests, and there are even bosses. Since I forgot to check myself in at the Inn over the Holidays, though, I have yet to experience some of the more advanced features. For every daily you miss or negative habit you acknowledge you lose xp and health. If you lose all your hp you "die" and  lose a level and something from your inventory. You can avoid this by checking yourself in at the Inn if you know you're not going to be able to complete your tasks for a day or even an extended period (which is exactly what I forgot to do and why I've only just worked my way back up to level three.)

Productivity is one of the best ways I've found to keep my brain from turning into a troll and keeping my mental and emotional well being at a more even keel so finding such a useful motivation tool is kind of exciting. Being productive doesn't have to mean accomplishing Big Important Things all the time. One of my dailies is to spend 30 minutes a day reading. It can be a book, an essay, a short piece of fiction, or anything else I deem worthy of that check mark. I'm not too strict with it, but I have to actually be taking time out to do it and it has to be more than a list of the 99 worst dressed octupi of 2013 that someone's linked on FaceSpace. Social Media is not always a waste of time. In fact, it can be extremely useful and fulfilling.  For me, unfortunately, it can easily turn into a serious time sink. Spending half an hour catching up with friends and reading articles is one thing, spending that same half an hour clicking refresh over and over hoping for something new to pop up on your feed because you're already caught up is something altogether different and something that I catch myself doing more often than I would ever comfortably admit. If my internal 8-bit reward system can help me ward off anxiety and depression while at the same time helping me accomplish my goals, more power to it! Here's to using one's strangely wired brain to one's advantage.

33 Floors

Today is New Year's Day, and one of the significant rites in our modern urban mythology. While drinking the old year out and the new year in might be the less productive of our rituals surrounding this turn of the modern wheel of the year, there is a lot of good vibration centered around the event as well. New Year's Resolutions are often the butt of jokes this time of year, but a lot of positive thinking happens at this time in the spirit of self renewal and transformation. Even if the follow through isn't always there and the "real world" bogs us down more often than not, the energies raised in the spirit of new beginnings is palpable and positive and shouldn't be brushed off as juvenile, overly idealistic, or pointless as easily as they are sometimes. 

For me, the turn of the year is always a little different because my birthday falls so close to it. In 11 more days I will have survived another year. That's always an achievement. This year I survived major surgery and four different tiny airplanes. Who knows what the next year could have in store. I am feeding off the positive energies generated by the new year this year (and they seem to be slightly higher this year than others to me but that could be simply because I'm paying attention) to try and override a pretty irrational fear that keeps creeping up in the back of my mind. A friend of mine had a dream once. In this dream she saw me standing on top of a building with 33 floors. That seems like a pretty specific number to dream about. I was 30 at the time she had the dream and told me about it. I've never been able to forget it. That niggly and paranoid part of my brain of course wants to say that means that this is it. I have 33 years to live. I've reached the top of my building and I'm done. As this friend has a penchant for dreams that are a little something more, that niggly bit has latched onto this idea with all the tiny pinpricks of its being. 

As the day approaches, though, I'm determined to turn that little niggly voice around. That dream doesn't have to mean that I'm fated to live only 33 years, physically. Dreams are like that. What if the dream means that this is the year that I transform. What if that dream means that this is the year I reach the top in a much more positive light. I've climbed up all those flights of stairs (or maybe I took the elevator) and now I'm on the roof. The stars are shining above me. I am there. I am at the top. There is nothing between me and the sky. 

I haven't asked my friend, recently, what she thinks this dreams means. I don't know if I ever well. I think she knows that it scares me even though that was absolutely not her intent in telling me. Maybe she could give me some insight and maybe not. Like I said, I'm not going to ask. I'm not going to rely on someone else's instinct here. I am going to make this dream into what I want it to be, and maybe that's the whole point anyway.

A dream is just a dream, right? Or it isn't. It doesn't matter. This dream is not going to be my Croak Dream. There was no Cosmic Owl (though there was an otter, but I'd been talking about them at lot at the time.) This dream is what I make of it, and right now, on the last few steps before that final floor, I'm going to look at it as a positive force. I come out of my 33rd year on the rooftop, out from the confines of the concrete and ruckus that is every day life. I am there, closer to the stars than I have ever been. My purpose does not lie in the mundane of the building but the vastness of the sky. It's time to move from one cycle to another and that cycle doesn't have to be physical. This year I am going to find my bliss. I am going to pursue it. I am going to leave those stairs I've been trudging up in that dark and winding stairwell and go out onto the roof to look out on the world all around and see it, finally, from a higher view. 

The time has come to stop mucking about and engage.