That's MONEY Honey

People keep telling me making money is so0o0o0o easy.  Really, if it's that easy why are we still forcing children to attend college?  In the digital era however, it is true that is has become ridiculously easy to build up that nest egg.  We have places like e-Bay and Amazon Marketplace that make it stupidly simple to take photos of our merchandise and there are even business for the busy (like myself) that will handle the packaging and shipping of the items.  Piece of cake.

I went to school for International Relations and Economics.  Economics = money right?  Well, really only if you get your masters or if you had enough foresight to intern for the company you wanted to end up at every year so they never forget how valuable you are.  I didn't do that.  I admit to dicking away my summers and my schools years enjoying my teens/twenties.

This has cost me an $80,000 starting salary with any decent qualitative company.  I'm now in panic mode desperately looking for a new job.

My women's business group, ABWA, meets once monthly and our guest speaker this time was Gail Perry-Mason.  She and Oprah are tight so she must know what she's talking about right????  Aside from telling us the story of her adoption and meeting her birth mother (a hilarious story btdubs) she gave us some great financial advice for making money doing nothing basically that I feel I should share.

Her first suggestion was to attend school for legal mediation.  Eight hundred bucks a day those suckers get paid to sit and watch you and some other party bicker.  I could use $800.  The course work is pretty rigorous but if you work somewhere with good vacation pay, why not flood the bank?  I'm gonna be off my parent's lease here pretty soon so she suggested paidride.com for those advertisement cars you see on the roads or swapalease.com for taking over a lease.

istockphoto.com which I had previously been unfamiliar with.  Apparently, you upload your photos and people pay for the shots they like.  Awesome!  Love taking pictures, love getting paid even better!

I could go one but I haven't investigated these all yet.  I participate in e-rewards, e-miles, bzzagent, 20/20 research panel and NCP scanning.  My e-survey habit feeds my app store habit.

Here are the rest of the sites:
westathome.com - work from home website
pinkpanel.com - try out make up for free
ebates.com - buy something, check ebates, get paid. 'nuf said.
recycle.org - free things your neighbors are trying to get rid of
-freecycle.com (more of the same)
cashmoneylife.com - not sure I remember
howtoshopforfree.com - really?
thepennyhoarder.com

DIAL 911 for Europe*

Every year of this whole early twenties thing has gone from meh to "holy uncanny photographic mental process batman" in a manner of days.  I get that the midlife crisis is a very real thing but I'd like to focus on my pre, well, barely pre, quarter-life crisis escape plan.

Quarter life - that period of life that spans from late teens to mid thirties.

Simply put, this period of life makes up a good portion of the outliers on my mental health scatter graph and I can't ride the ups and downs for much longer.

My Escape Plan: Part 1

1.  Create a minimalist wardrobe

This would involve a great deal of work on my part.  I have made many strides in the whole 'stop being a hoarder' part of my life but, um, I still have a major thrift shop problem where I can't stand to leave without buying anything.  A minimalist wardrobe is easily portable and has enough of an array of mix and match pieces that I could survive on 20-30 things and have endless outfit possibilities on the go.

2.  Account for all liquid assets

No, I don't want the be the idiot that had her crisis, blew through all her saved funds and now has to work as the 84 McGreeter with that painted on smile at the local Wal-Mart until the government says I can finally retire.  My parents thankfully gave me a pretty decent step above the rest of the Gen Y kids because of the stocks and bonds in my name.  I've already blown through the majority of my bonds sadly and now only have stock but cashing in a few of those means waiting a few more years for the returns to even out.  Not a big deal if I have a chance in the future to reinvest.

3.  Create a well thought out escape plan

I have some maps saved to my computer that should provide me with basic rail between countries in the EU.  That isn't enough this time.  I wouldn't want to just get over there, have only the money and clothes on my back available and then start wandering willy nilly throughout Europe.  I'm way to Type A for all that.  I need a plan.  I want my first flight booked open ended with no return date in sight but then I want real details.  Like how long would I spend in France?  Would I au pair there for a year, sight see for a little while in nearby areas and then switch countries or do I want to spend a month somewhere with locals?  Do I want to learn to be a chef and attend a three year culinary program in Turkey learning to cook...whatever the Turks eat?  I don't know.  I'm allowed to not know because after all, I'm floundering in my twenties.



And here is where we end.  That is all I have so far for my escape plan to Europe.  I know I'll probably fly Delta or British Airways.  I'm a stickler for those kinds of details but aside from that I'm headed back to the drawing board or cartography school to determine how I want to plan this great escape.  I think I want to throw an epic "I'm getting the eff out of here party" like two weeks before my official leave date.






*Dialing 911 will not get you Europe, but it will get you a nice hefty ticket!

Essay Questions - What's Up With That?

I love writing, obviously.  Why the hell else would I be attempting to blog if I didn't? What gets me every time are essay questions.  I think essay questions are just as pointless as interview questions.  I'm sorry, God blessed me with dyslexia and I'm pretty sure the rise of spell check has left me an even worse speller.  It's not fun to answer those short essay questions.  I'd be in the Peace Corps or working in Chicago with AUSL if it had been!

We put a lot of thought into these three and four paragraph essays that you read through with such the fine toothed comb.  We look back after we sent them in, after our rejection letters start rolling in and all we find see that we forgot to put a period at the end of the second sentence on the intro.  Suddenly, to us it becomes clear why we never heard back from anywhere.

We are all human and to be human is to make ALL SORTS OF errors.

I'm (undiagnosed) dyslexic and it has only gotten worse over the years.  Things you say all the time don't look right on paper when you finally realize that the phonetics don't match up with the lettering.  Phrasing is different in our minds than when we finally sit down to let the thoughts flow.

I have so many friends with other learning disabilities: the boyf, yes boyf,  and family have all have ADD and its happy happy happy hyperactive cousin, my cousin is on the Autism spectrum and so many more of my friends are on adderall just to focus on getting their basic tasks done.  How does this leave time for me to fill out your online auto formed disabled app and get other things done?

I understand that the reasoning is to deter lazy people and congrats, you've definitely accomplished that but at the same time, you deterred valid application with mental disabilities that find essay questions as time consuming as they do intimidating.

Love The Way You Lie

Really though, why are all facets of life based on how well you lie?

I've applied for so many jobs and haven't heard a damn thing back besides the sea of rejections emails I am currently burning to stay warm in my office.  My resumes means nothing to me.  Black and white words condensed to as close to one page as possible that with the help of a thesaurus captures a minute amount of the tasks I accomplished at each job.

But what are words on a paper without a voice to back them, right?
We now enter the realm of interviews.  Thirty minutes to an hour of nerves sitting in a room that may as well have white walls and padding to catch all the crazy that enters it.  You sit around a large table with one to four other individuals hoping they will ask you the questions to which you have the best canned responses prepared and offer you the position on the spot.

There are some really awful people that continue to be hired and promoted based on how they look on a sheet.  Why can't I be judged on my abilities, perseverance or resourcefulness?  My third grade teacher had be hook up her power point system.  The old women at the office go nuts for my work ethic; that can't be described on paper.

My GPA is not an accurate reflection of my aptitude and neither is my resume.  If you want to hire a skilled liar then I hope to god you are filling a sales position.

Demi - Is Demi Lovato Going to Give My Heart a Break?

There are no cliches.  There are no amount of Ben and Jerry's Brownie Batter pints for me to sink into to drown my sorrows.

I'm single.

How strange.  After four years of bullshit, I'm free.
It doesn't feel good.  It doesn't feel awful.  It just is a state of being.
free

This didn't even seem like a possibility when we were in our first month of dating.  There was affection and passion in our relationship.  We used to spend nights together after work that didn't end until six in the morning, thirty minutes before he would leave for work in Ohio.  I used to look at him and then back and me and never understand how I got so lucky, how anybody in their right mind could choose me.  Now, I recognize see the naivety of a depressed twenty year old with low self esteem.

The first sign of trouble in our relationship didn't start for a while.  Granted, he was still texting his exes with some fever when I did look in his phone the following May.  We cuddled and laughed like other couples but enjoyed our quirky evenings of N64 and taco dinners.  I had friends that new him before we were together that couldn't understand why I wanted to get myself his life.  But I didn't.  I wanted to have a fun summer after sophomore year, and I did with you added to the picture.

We stopped doing things together.  We didn't talk.  It became a situation where two people just coexisted pretending that they could hold onto what they once shared.  I'm happy to not deal with your lies.  I'm happy to soon be rid of your piggish behavior but most importantly, I'm glad I never had to do weight watchers to lose about half my body weight in fat like the person that is the reason I've had enough.

May you think of me often and it pain you.  May you feel the pain I've felt for years.  May the next girl experience with you all that you've done to me and then some.  May she worry about your drinking and unfaithfulness.  And may you never, no matter who it is or how much I dislike them, reign upon them the physical pain that you inflicted upon me.  How could I have lived like a fool for so long?  I hope I never have children to explain the last four years to.  These 1460 days will be a permanent reminder of my strength and character; I hope they reflect that I was dedicated and a passionate lover in my ignorance.

So you can keep every I'm sorry you have left for me.  I don't want it.
You can take ever picture we ever had together and burn them.  I will be.

I believe it was once misquoted about fury and women:
Hell hath no fury like me scorned
http://8tracks.com/wildmilk/he-s-gotta-go

You were a boy when i met you and a cheater ever since,

How did I do something as stupid as give you the first kiss?

I hope that one day when you're angry you remember what you did

And you muster up the courage to call me up so I'll forgive

Keep your I'm sorrys and the I'll change to your self

It's time for me to face the world and recaputure my health

Google Maps Told Me I Could Get There By Walking, I Drove Instead

How epic was the road trip I just got back from?  

So friggin' epic that I'm already planning my next one and learning from my mistakes.  The s/o and I took the long weekend I already had off for Lollapalooza (sold the tickets, line up was less than stellar) and headed out to the open road on a Pure Michigan road trip.  My initial plans were to hit Grand Rapids, Holland, Ludington, Traverse City, Mackinac Island, the U.P. and Frankenmuth.  And surprisingly, everything was done except the trip to Frankenmuth which is fine because that's really a day trip from my house.  Honestly, we could definitely have made it to Frankenmuth Sunday and spent the night to see the things we would have missed due to such a late arrival.

I think we definitely had the right idea.  The decision to take the trip was really rather last minute and some major improvement can be made between now and the next road trip.

We didn't have an actual map.  We picked up the local touristy maps at each hotel we stopped at but you really needed that to help plan out your trip initially.  I kind of broke the trip down to like two major cities everyday.  Since the trip was so spur of the moment, it didn't even occur to me that I needed to really plot out things to do once we got there and travel time between cities.  Thankfully, we went during a perfect time of the year; all the little quaint downtown areas had sidewalk sales going on and of course Traverse City had another record breaking year for their 9th Annual International Film Festival.

I also think I should contact some of the Big Three and see if they would let me test drive a car for the long weekend while I complete another road trip.  I could blog about the performance of the car, note how many times I need to fill up in this vehicle, how many total miles and the total drive time for the trip.  Come on Ford, wouldn't you love to see your C-Max in action this year?  Road tripping could totally be my new niche, if I wasn't so exhausted all the time.  

Taking this trip really had me forgetting I was even in the state of Michigan anymore.  Everywhere had it's own distinct beauty that I started to forget that I was still in the United States.  Have you seen Traverse City?  There isn't a colour in the crayon box that perfectly captures how blue it is up there - breathtaking.  

My goal in completing this trip was to be able to really call myself a  Michigander.  How can you if you've never gotten your fudge straight from Mackinac Island while listening to a horse empty its bladder?  

The Best Way to Pet a Cat is with Your Eyes

I think I am pushing crazy cat lady status. 

I've even contemplated starting a cat themed Pinterest board but I'm afraid that might actually cement my eccentric status.  Now that I'm older not living under my parents’ roof I've wanted to go animal crazy.  Both my rents had dogs growing up.  But dogs?  They require way too much work.  Don't get me wrong, I could use an animal in my life that actually responds, knows its name and cuddles in bed rather than tearing apart the sides of the mattress but I do not want to take the damn thing for walks all the time.  My life is already exhausting.  Dogs are way more work that cats. 

I mean but look at this sucker?  Doesn't he just scream cuddle bug?

My two cats, Benny and Eva, are quite the opposite. 

 They don't really cuddle unless it happens to be a completely inconvenient time for you.  I have noticed though since moving to the couch I have become the center of the cuddleverse.  Before Eva there was Bella but I don’t know if I’m ready to share that crazy/sad story yet.  Eva was adopted from a t-shirt shop in Ann Arbor after my friend Nicole secured her kitty who for months was known only as Furball.  Later she would be bestowed an appropriately cute name as well, Penny.  When Nicole moved out of her apartment and into a house she could no longer keep Penny so I said screw it, why the hell can’t I have two cats?! 

The first night these two litter mates came to live in my apartment was like a scene similar to 300.  Kitties were fighting and nobody wanted to stop and drink water for fear of being attacked.  I mean seriously, you have never heard two cats growl or pant harder.  Eventually they started eating and drinking.  For the most part, they get along now fine.  I often fawn over their brother/sister grooming time.  Oh, I said brother.  Penny is actually a Benny.  He grew a big old pair of fuzzy nuts that were clearly unmistakable markings of boy parts.  I mean, I was the one to say that Eva was a girl; her color pattern proves that.  But again, I only had suicidal fish growing up, how would I know what to look for on a teeny yelping kitten?!

Saturdays are Caturdays.  I know this because Animal Planet gives me all the Too Cute!  (there is a free kitten episode on iTunes this week) and My Cat From Hell I could possible ever hope to watch!  Come on dude, they have a kitten cam!  KITTENS! Penguins too if you swing that way. Have you seen a ragdoll cat?  They are like straight from fluffville.   These cities only exist if you are cat crazy like me.

I see other unabashed cat people on Pinterest going nuts with these things.  The people I’m closer friends with also have cats.  And not just one cat, some of them have houses full of cats.  I won’t get that crazy.  Fingers crossed.

I seriously just need to own something cuddly.  Did I mention I've always wanted a gecko?