Social Media

The wonders of modern technology. Though I have been updating with facebook, and typing away on here for a few months, I still am having trouble with the point of twitter. It's just gotten to a point where the regular "social" updates seem so self-absorbed. Does anyone out there really care that I just took out the garbage? Or that some guy is at target, or doing the dishes? Facebook makes sense to me, and as much as I hate it, to a lesser extent myspace serves the same purpose. Those people I am connected with are people who I know in my real life, away from the computer. It makes sense to me. Twitter, on the other hand, makes me feel like an egomaniac, putting my daily life out there for people to notice, or, you know, not. It's almost lonely. I understand that some people actually do know each other, and it serves a useful purpose for them to keep up with the comings and goings. But there's just so much, it seems indicative of a larger, 'look at me' kind of 'hurry up' ethic out there. Maybe I'm coming at it from the wrong direction. I can't lie, It does sort of make me feel good when I get new followers, but at the same time, it's strange that people are interested. I guess it's the same thing as blogging, but these posts are longer and it's a little more deliberate to read something like this. Ah, maybe I'm being silly. It shouldn't annoy me like it does. Maybe I just need a nap...

We're off the rails here...the last several weeks: hard drive crash, offline for 10 days waiting on new one, no word about house, party planning, Eagles abysmal games, and did a 2-week detox. So, now, everything is coming back to normalcy. Detox was useless, but did put both of us on some kind of workout regimen, (and gave us a new appreciation for pizza!) Craig fixed my laptop all on his own (he's magic!), and our pre-Thanksgiving sleepover party was great (lots of dogs, though!) And the Eagles had an amazing, amazing game on Thursday.

Craig is recently preoccupied with candle-making (we have lots of old, half used candles) and I am hoping he doesn't decide that we should try to sell them. I prefer to stick to the reading as hobby-of-choice (unless wine drinking counts). I have read so many great books lately!

We've also started looking for housing in San Diego, that isn't going as well as planned, but at least we have a temporary place to land once we're there. It will be easier, I think, as our move approaches, as most places will have a better idea of what their availability will be at the end of January. It's still just a little far out.

Best of all: All the contracts are in, and the appraisal, and all the bank-stuff. So we can go to settlement in the next week or so, as soon as the signatures are collected! It's so exciting. And as for all the work we're doing everyday, all of our websites are live, and we've started promoting them! You can check them out at the main page: http://www.crazywebcash.com

This is really scattershot today, isn't it? I will maybe try again a little later. Oh, and if you live in GA, go out and vote today for Jim Martin!

No word on the house yet. So torturous! The appraisal hasn't even come back, so I really can't even be happy about the contract. I don't want to be a chicken-counter! Just continuing to go through the days, focusing (or trying to!) on all the other stuff I need to be doing...sort of.

On that note, the election is finally over but I am having politics withdrawal. Thankfully, I can still rely on HuffPo for lurid tales of Joe Lieberman's traitorousness and Sarah Palin's clothes...all of which makes me feel kind of petty, because, well, Obama won, but whatever. It's like junk food. I'm kind of pissed about Prop 8, especially since we are planning on moving to CA (San Diego) in January. Sort of a blot on the impeccably liberal record of my chosen new home :( but I can't complain about any of the other results (well, except Michelle Bachmann's win, and if Chambliss wins in GA, but I don't live in either of those places, so, eh. Whatevs.)

Anyway, it's been a long week, maybe I should post some pictures of the fun campaigning day we had in Philly on Election Day. It's nice to not be totally stressed out about the election, and it'll be interesting to see just how much more I can accomplish in a day. I haven't done much as we've had houseguests almost all week. So tomorrow will tell. Until then, it's just football...and the Eagles don't play until 8:15! Going to get ready for the game...

waiting...

So we found about 3 weeks ago that we may have a buyer for our investment property in Baltimore, and were able to contract the house. But it's taking for-ev-er to get a closing date because the buyer's bank is just slow because they can be. They're one of the only banks in the area that will loan to investors, first off, and one of the few who will hold notes on city properties. (B-more's RE market has been bad for awhile, but the economic downturn is making it feel like nothing short of a miracle that anyone even wants to look at it!) It's so nerve wracking! So many loose ends will be tied up when this house finally sells. Not only will we no longer be paying outrageous interest-only payments on it, but it will just free us up to worry about other stuff (namely, the marketing thing.) I hate to even talk about it for fear that it will jinx the process and it will somehow fall through, although I guess at this point no news is good news, as they say.

On a much brighter note, I have managed to begin breaking my day into far more manageable pieces; getting up earlier is helping. I still get my Huffington Post and Dear Abby in first thing in the morning, though, and have my CNN for breakfast! I can't help it, I need to know what's going on in the world, and I think that working from home intensifies that. It's sometimes hard to feel connected when you don't leave your house all day! At any rate, making a schedule that is realistic is having a positive effect (so far!) and I'm not feeling so overwhelmed by all my tasks when I only have specific things set out to focus on. I will even have the first batch of shirts on eBay tonight! So that's exciting.

So, back to work, and I just read that the Phillies won't be playing tonight after all, so I won't have that distraction. But the Rays checked out of their hotel in Philly yesterday before the game, and had no place to go back to when it was suspended...they ended up in my hometown of Wilmington, DE. I wonder if we'll see them around town if we go out to dinner...and hopefully, when I'm in Philadelphia tomorrow, if I stay late enough I'll get to see the victory parade down Broad St! :)

ack.

I just found out that Project Mogul is what the Air Force was calling some late 40s top secret project involving hot air balloons and Soviets. Ha!

priorities

So as I spend yet another day glued to CNN and Huffington Post blogs, I think about all the dozens of other things I could and should be doing. I sometimes find it completely overwhelming to prioritize my day, especially when I get up so late. I think I should start making appointments early (like before 10 am) with real people so I am obligated to get moving. The new tshirt business should be helpful with that, as I have to physically leave the house to do almost everything shirt-related. But that doesn't help the affiliate marketing stuff, and our mounting frustrations with the lead generator that we've purchased. It is still not operational after almost 10 days. I know it takes time, it just gets tedious when it takes so long, not to mention the aggravation and frustration of going down so many paths that don't seem to lead anywhere. It's difficult to determine a time limit: how long do we pursue one path (an ad campaign, an affiliate program, any of it) and have it generate no revenue before we move on? We are trying to set up multiple streams simultaneously so as to mitigate some of that loss of time. But it can get expensive, and sometimes it's hard not to feel like you're beating your head against the wall. Not to mention the nagging feeling that you're devoting too much time to a losing proposition and 'if I just gave a little more to this other thing, maybe it will flourish...'

I think I need to take a deep breath here. I sound a little frazzled, and I'm not, yet. I just need to focus. I like having lots going on, but I am also easily overwhelmed by it. It's just difficult for me to see the big picture right now, to have a clear idea of what my priorities should be to make this successful. I need to clear out the background noise during the day (namely, the politics that dominate my whole entire day because I'm so stressed out about the election and addicted to any and all election coverage, and facebook. I love facebook.) I need to be more disciplined. Easy for me to say. Time management tips, anyone? Tricks for compartmentalizing and prioritizing my tasks for the day?

In the meantime, it's back to work. After Rick Sanchez.

the joys of having no schedule at all

We've changed course about 57 times over the last several months, which has been awesome in that we get to explore all manner of money-making ventures but also kind of terrible because it's made us both have job ADD. (Which is not so great for me with the real ADD. It's like double ADD!) We have arrived solidly (for now...) in the world of online marketing, which has plenty in it to keep you entertained, waste all of the time in the world (literally) and have you lose everything in your savings account in one afternoon's time. It's a good time so far, I have lots of fun new projects to keep me occupied, from affiliate marketing (kind of complicated and boring) to design work for shirts and other wearable stuff (the highlight of my day). So I cannot complain about that.
I'm just happy to have arrived in a place now where I feel like we've moved beyond the total ripoffs to maybe a territory where more people want to be helpful. There are so many scams out there, it's nearly impossible to know who to trust. The anonymity of the internet almost incentivizes bad behavior. It's like all the seedy used car salesmen just moved to web addresses (and trust me, I know lots of them...)
But I digress. I need to get back to work, my favorite way to spend a Friday night. Woo!