Midnight Goddess

Current Mood: Esctatic & Esctatic & Esctatic & Esctatic

For about 22 months, Barack Obama worked tirelessly to gain the support and votes of the American people. He had only become a US Senator 4 years before. When he had decided to run for president, not very many people knew of him. There was little money when he began his steep, uphill campaign. But as he trudged along, people started to take notice.

Yesterday, a record breaking number of people came out to participate in this historic event. Many people who may have never voted before because they felt that their votes wouldn’t count. Young people. People who had long ago given up on the government. White, native American, Asian, Middle Eastern, and especially African American. Many cast their votes early via mail. Others waited in impressively long lines early in the morning even through the cold and soaking rain just so they could vote.

In the beginning of this race to the presidency, there was very little hope that the American people would vote in favor of the nation’s very first African American president. But last night the people spoke. And loudly at that. It wasn’t a neck and neck race. It wasn’t a close race. Halfway through the day, it was quite evident who the majority of the people were voting for.

I was at the edge of my seat as I watched the results pouring in on Fox News. Normally, I don’t watch the news. I don’t read about it. I don’t watch it. I have no interest in it because usually the news is depressing or makes me angry. But yesterday it was different. I wanted to know who American was voting for. Every time Obama gained another state’s electoral votes, I loudly and proudly cheered for him, especially when a particular state had many electoral votes. I do admit I booed McCain when he gained a state. But it really didn’t matter. Early on it was quite obvious that Obama was winning the majority of the states’ electoral votes. When he won California’s staggering 55 electoral votes near the end, I screamed, jumped, cheered, and made all kinds of noise. I was extremely ecstatic. And this had happened after me, Marty, and the kids walked next door to the local church to cast our votes for Obama. We had also voted No on 8 but it looks like the majority of CA is voting yes. Very disappointing.

Around 8ish in the evening, Fox News called it. Barack Obama was the next president elect. The 44th president of the United States of American. The first African American. I was in tears as my heart swelled in pride. Obama had rightfully earned the hearts and support of the American people. He managed to convince all kinds of people to come out and vote.

The news said that McCain had conceded and privately called Obama to sincerely congratulate him on his victorious win. Then he came out to make his final speech to his very disappointed crowd of Republican supporters. I personally don’t like his ideals or what he had planned for America. But last night when he gave his final speech, I was impressed and he earned my respect as a genuinely sincere person. He made a great speech and even teared up several times. Whenever he spoke of Obama positively, the crowd booed. But he responded by raising his hands at them to stop. He definitely earned my respect.

Here is the video of McCain:

And now I present to you (if you hadn’t already seen it), Barack Obama’s acceptance speech:

read comments (0)

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.

read comments (0)

Awhile back Marty gave Memphis the opportunity to earn money for crushing the soda cans that we save. He jumped on it. He proudly did it almost every day when I would hand him a plastic bag of 12 or soda cans. Towards the end he started to slack off. He didn’t actually stop doing it. But he wasn’t always willing to stop what he was doing to crush cans. However, I never forced him to do them. I just reminded him that he always has the choice to stop. The consequence was that me and Marty would keep all the money.

This morning, Marty had a small window of time to take Memphis to the recycling center to get paid for his work. Marty wanted to do this because it would give Memphis the incentive to continue crushing cans. But he wasn’t awake yet. He normally gets up between 10 - 11 am, depending on how late he stayed up the night before. So I went into his room and gently woke him up. I told him what Dad wanted to do with him. At first, he didn’t want to get up. But then I mentioned that he was going to get paid for the cans he crushed. That helped him get moving a bit more.

Less than an hour later they came back from the recycling center. Memphis was beaming as he showed me his money and told me he earned $33. I was so proud of him. I think that this should help him continue to crush cans now that he has proof that he can earn money from doing them.

read comments (0)

Just like missing pieces to the puzzle I call Life. Not all pieces are there but I was “given” some pieces to put into the puzzle. And I strongly believe that it’s all God’s doing. He hasn’t handed us everything on a silver platter. Because I think he wants us to learn because that’s what people do.

For many months we have sweated over how we were going to pay the $1700 taxes that we owed to WA Revenue for having a business there last year. Unfortunately, it wasn’t much of a business but Marty did make some money. We didn’t have $1700 to pay to WA Revenue so we have been putting it. It was a monstrously stressful weight that we were carrying on our shoulders. But a few days ago, we got a letter in the mail that the IRS owed us $700. Imagine that! We also found out around the same time that we actually owed WA Revenue less than $700. A few days later, we received a check in the mail from the IRS with about $730. We immediately deposited it and I turned around and paid WA Revenue what we owed them. A huge weight was lifted.

Recently, one of Bart’s newer employees bumped into Marty’s truck with Bart’s tractor. It caused a sizeable dent which pissed him off. Bart said he was willing to pay for the damages this time around but that next time, it would be solely Marty’s responsibility because it’s part of owning a business. Well Marty went to State Farm the other day and talked with the insurance rep. The guy was nice and said it was worth about $2200 in damages. After the $500 deductible, Marty received a check on the spot for $1750!! Isn’t that awesome?!? God’s work in progress… We were going to use all of that money to pay down our F350 truck debt. But Marty offered to let me use $1200 of that to pay off my 1 debt to Capital One. So I chose that route. Now I no longer have any debts to my name. 1 debt down, 6 more to go! My credit score should go through the roof in a few months! It’ll be like 700+, ideal for awesome mortgage and loan rates.

Marty also found a truck on Craigs List that is a commercial truck with a box and a GVW of 24000, exactly what he wanted. It’s a newer vehicle too. The guy was asking $11k+ for it. At first, we thought it was the same guy who sold us the Jeep. But they both are in the same building. Marty took the truck for a test drive and said it rides nicely. He told Bart about it and he likes the truck. Bart also said that the guy came down on the price to $10k+ out the door. So Bart’s having a dealership check the truck for any mechanical problems at his expense. If everything is ok then Bart and Marty will go in on the truck. Marty’s cost would be about $6500, $3500 less than what Bart originally wanted him to pay. Great news! They’ll find out by Wednesday if Bart is going to buy the truck. I’m crossing my fingers!

read comments (0)

Here’s a story that I received in my email this morning. It’s called Love and Loss:

I was lucky. I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation - the Macintosh - a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started?

Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn’t know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me - I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT.

I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple’s current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I’m pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been fired from Apple.It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers.

Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking.

Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.

Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs gave this as his second story of his Commencement Address at Stanford University on June 12, 2005.

read comments (0)