Midnight Goddess

I spend way too much time playing WoW. For me, it’s fun, exciting and a way for me to relax and get away from a dull existence. But I think I take it far too seriously to be considered just a casual WoW gamer. I’m not a freak like some people. There’s a guy out there wiht 35+ separate accounts on WoW! No, not 35+ separate characters. 35+ accounts! That could mean upwards of 350+ characters! Now that’s insane. I won’t get that far. There will probably be 2 separate accounts… one for me and one for Memphis. I’m sure he’ll love playing when he can better understand the game. It’ll be fun going on quests with him ;).

Anyway, I had come to the harsh realization that I can’t depend on a steady income from selling graphics to the Myspace site owners community. Especially when a good portion of my “competitors” are high school kids that don’t have any real financial responsibilities. They have Mom and Dad that support them. They sell their graphics for pennies. I will not stoop to that level and sell myself short. It’s absolutely degrading and I won’t have that. I have a family to take care of.

So I told Marty a few days ago that I was going to contact David at a webmaster forum that I used to frequent that I want him to close down my shop. I only made one sale there. There is a requirement that I have to produce 2 new packs per month to keep my shop open. And I just can’t do that when I can’t make enough money to warrrant creating new packs.

But even though I made the conscious decision to let go of the Myspace community as a way to make money, I still felt butt hurt and downright bitchy that night when I finally logged into the forum and got an email from Anne stating when I last posted a pack, when I last made any sort of post in the forum, and reminding me of the rules. She also said that I was given until Oct. 26 to notify the admins of my decision or the store will be closed. Lo and behold, when I checked the members shop, my shop was no where to be found. I felt like I was stabbed. I was absolutely angry. I didn’t respond to Anne’s email. Instead, I removed links to both forums where I used to sell my graphics. I don’t need them.

My plan to begin a legit business from home has been a dream I’ve had for almost a decade. It has been a concrete plan ever since I had Memphis, and even more so now that Jasmine is here. I am going to be a stay at home mom but I need to make a steady income from home to help Marty and our family. I’ve thought long and hard about what I want to do and over the decade, I’ve had some ideas. One of them I spent almost 8 years trying to make money. I made a little bit but not enough to depend on. I did the eBay thing and made some money but again, not enough. I’ve bought and read all kinds of ebooks on how to make money from home. I’m one of those suckers that keeps falling for the how to make a shitload of money from home trap. I guess I thoroughly enjoy reading about the people who make money online, whether it’s true or not. I also like seeing the “proof” of income generated, even if it’s Photoshopped.

I spent a lot of time over a long period finetuning my plan of action. I even went so far as typing it up and putting it in paper protectors inside a binder that I can look at. Yes, that’s my organizational skills at work. My organizing habit keeps me sane, calm, relaxed, and in control of at least some aspects of my life.

I took a small step towards financial independence by signing up for a premium shop at Cafepress. I’m sure most people can’t see that as a step towards financial independence. But to me, it is. I don’t have personal concrete proof that I’ll make money from having a Cafepress shop. But I know there are a lot of regular people who are successful with their stores. It’s not a huge risk to take. After the 2 week trial, it’ll be about $7 a month to maintain the shop. Cafepress will deduct the $7 first from whatever I make. And if that does’t cover the cost, they will then deduct it from my credit card. Cheesy easy.

I took a look at some of the products being sold in the Cafepress marketplace. Even though there are some really nice, intricate designs, for the most part it seems that the average, simple designs are also being sold. That calms my nerves a bit. There’s a shop that sells really cute, but very simple stick figure drawings on products. Cafepress seems to allow shopkeepers the abililty to sell products that are even racy, dirty, and sarcastic. I should be able to fit right in. Now all I need to do is get over my “creative block” and start drawing! I found a site by a guy named Marty who wrote a script that allows you to implement your Cafepress shop into your site and make it look like it’s 100% part of your site. And it cost about $20, right up my alley.

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Halloween’s less than a week away. We’ll be taking the kids to one or two of the malls this year as we have done for the past several years. It’s safe and we’re surrounded by many other families who trick or treat at the malls. We have yet to take the kids to the neighborhoods to go trick or treating. We did that with Memphis when we lived in WA. I think when Jaz is a little bit older, we’ll go from house to house.

Since Marty was off this past weekend, we went to the Spirit Halloween store on Stevens Creek to buy costumes for the kids. I figured it’d be the only time we’d have to go as a family to the store. When we got there, the store looked ransacked. I expected that because it’s so close to Halloween. We went to the girls’ section first. I didn’t even bother suggesting girly costumes to Jaz. I saw a race car driver’s costume and showed it to her and her face lit up. I knew at that point that I picked the right one for her.

It was slightly more difficult to find a costume for Memphis. He first wanted to be a toilet. I didn’t see the costume that he was referring to but I wasn’t too big on walking around with a toilet following me. Then he wanted to be Po from Kung Fu Panda. But I know he’s very sensitive about his head and rarely wants to put objects on his head for any reason. The costume required him to put on an insanely large Po head. Then Marty saw Iron Man and suggested that to him. When we were on our way to the store, Memphis had mentioned that he wanted a costume that had a mask to cover his face. He didn’t want people to see the sore on his face. The Iron Man came with a mask perfect for that. So Memphis agreed to be Iron Man this year.

To keep it simple, we grabbed two identical pumpkin buckets for the kids. It was the cheapest ones at less than $2 per bucket but the kids care. So I was happy about that.

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Marty was the first to get sick but it looks like he’s going to be the last person to fully recover. I think it has a whole lot to do with the fact that he is back to working hard everyday and he’s out in the elements. Jasmine had a bit of a runny and stuffed up nose as well as a slight fever. But she’s over it now. Memphis has been coughing, sneezing and blowing his nose. Today it seems he’s better but he has a very bad small patch next to the left corner of his mouth. A few days ago it was very raw. Now it looks like a nasty cold sore that burst open.

I was the 2nd person to get sick. And although it was pretty tough running the household and taking care of the kids while I was sick, I didn’t get nearly as bad as Marty. I didn’t get any sinus headaches. I got random cold chills, a stuffed up head and the occassional runny nose. But I’m pretty much over it now.

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It’s been long and hellish. Why? Because ever since Marty got home last Friday, he’s been very sick. Not sick like in WA when he was blowing chunks for over a month. But he’s been having seriously bad sinus headaches, coughing, phlegm, sneezing, fever, and cold chills. It’s been a rough road for him. Even though we could use the money, I insisted that he stay home to get better. So far he’s been home since then. I’d rather him take a few days off instead of him going back to work too soon and not working for a week or so thereafter.

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I survived another year of life and I’m very thankful. It’s been a tough year as my birthday marks a year since me and Marty went through a very painful, trying time. We’re still healing from it and I expect that it will take awhile before we’re completely healed.

We didn’t do anything “special” for my birthday because we didn’t have any money and Marty had to work all day today. But I’ve gotten many phone calls throughout the day from my family: aunts, uncles, in-laws, grandma, Mom and Dad, Marty, and Sean. It was great hearing from everyone. I even got bombarded with birthday greetings from my guild friends on WoW, thanks to Sean who told them that it was my birthday ;). Thanks Sean. I also got a lot of automated greetings from various forums, including ones that I forgot I was a member of.

The kids were being good for me. They weren’t stressing me out or pissing me off which was good. Memphis had drawn balloons and cake for me. Him and Jaz torn off a bunch of bright colored post-its and put them in a pillow case. They tossed them in the air and pretended that it was all confetti. We sat down at 8 PM and watched “Who, Bob, What Pants”, a gift from Memphis to me ;).

Last night, Marty gave me a really sweet birthday card. I knew he spent a lot of time picking out just the right card for me. He said he had to read about 15 different cards before he found the right one. It was really sweet of him. He included a scratch it ticket. I was close to winning $25,000. Only needed one more number. Oh well. Maybe next time.

Last night and part of this evening, Memphis has been bawling his eyes out because he doesn’t want me and Marty to die. We tried to explain to him that we have long lives to live. We talked in depth about God, death, the after life, Heaven… It was too much for Memphis. He kept crying and crying saying that he didn’t want to be alone and that he wanted to go with us when we pass away. I tried to comfort him the best I could. He’s such a sweet boy with a big heart. I love him.

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