I’ve been thinking alot lately about my various online commitments… And I’ve come to the sad conclusion that I’m tired of most of them. Or, if not tired of them, just too short on time to continue them. The PTRs I’ve been doing for the past few months take up about 4 hours of my day. That’s 4 hours that was previously used for TCG stuff, site update stuff, dolling stuff, QBee stuff…

Stuff that I enjoy, to an extent, but that I’m not able to fully involve myself in. For awhile there, this holiday season, I got back into the QBee, and determined to be active and an all ’round fantastic little member. But that lasted less than a month. I finally decided to close my own TCG, Bibliophile, and put myself on hold in the one TCG that I’m still in - that is still active, anyway. I’m probably going to leave that, as well. My dolling has dropped off sharply; while I still enjoy doing it, I just don’t have the urge to doll that I had when I rediscovered it ages ago. Its more of an occasional hobby now, at best.

Things with Nepheliad seem to have stalled. I haven’t contacted Carole, nor has she contacted me, in ages. I’d still like to do it - we had some really great plans for it, between the two of us, but at the moment, I’m just not moved to do so. Its sad. I was really excited about that for awhile. Part of the reason it stalled out, though was internet connection. I got the idea for it right around the time I switched form DSL to dial-up, and that just made anything TCG-related unbearably time-consuming.

I never did manage to upload all the pictures I’d wanted & put them on this site. I probably won’t get around to it. Its the sort of thing I might go back and do when Keslyn goes to school, but for now I’m going to keep them on my machine and just spend the time that would have taken enjoying her.

I haven’t gotten in touch with my best friend since… Christmastime. Which is a shame. I’d like to know how she’s doing, and how big her daughter has gotten. I just never seem to remember to squish stuff like that into the day. Truth be told, the PTRs take up so much concentration while I’m doing them that, by the time I’m finished for the day, I just don’t even want to look at my computer anymore.

And I’ve missed two birthdays. Or will have, by the time its a reasonable hour back in Michigan tomorrow. So, happy birthday to my brother Freddy Fred. And happy birthday to my friend, Derick.

And here’s hoping everyone else has more free time than me.

Halloween-Type-Stuff - Keslyn’s costume arrived, and we tried it on her… Can I just say she’s probably the most adorable little witch I’ve ever seen? Will post pictures after Halloween, but geez. So cute.

And Joe & John are going to dress up for Halloween, as well. I probably won’t be… The theme is EQ characters, and Joe really went all out and bought himself armor and ears and a sword and face paint… John got a staff (which Keslyn refers to as “The Ooga-Booga”, since that’s teh sound John made when he showed it to her), and is working on some sort of kilt idea. Dunno. It would have required too much effort & money to recreate one of my old EQ characters. If I go as anything, it’ll likely be a witch - all I’d need to buy is a hat, that way.

Work-Type-Stuff - I’m doing some volunteer work for The Bigfoot Discovery Project. Volunteer? Yes, volunteer. Why, you may be wondering, am I working for free when I could really use cash? Portfolio, people. Its good work experience, and its an… Unusual project to be working on. And, actually, the whole museum thing that they’ve got is only an hour or so away in the Santa Cruz mtns, so if I got itchy to get more involved, its not outside the realm of possibility. Mostly the portfolio, though. Its incredibly difficult to get work when you haven’t had work in the past. Especially when you’re self-taught and don’t have a degree to back you up. So. I’ve been surfing Craigslist awhile, looking for people who need web work done, and volunteering my time.

Housing-Type-Stuff - We still haven’t gotten in touch with the guy that John said wanted to rent to us. So. Its all still up in the air. I really want my dsl back.

Free-Time-Stuff - Free time? What free time? I’ve been making more dolls. They’re up on the Blooms section. I’ve been working more on Nepheliad, and I expect to have that functional and ready to go by December 1st. Carole’s been a huge help, making card sets. I hate making card sets. Quilting, too, lately. I’ve nearly finished Keslyn’s quilt. John hooked upt he sewing machine for me, so that’s going a little faster. I’m also crocheting a hat. Its… An experience. Heh. And I’ve been coloring a lot, Keslyn LOVES to color, but lately she’s figured out how easy it is to break crayons.

The biggest downside to that is that I’m very anal about my crayons. I like to have them all put back in order, all UNpeeled, all very neat and tidy and NOT broken. I’m a crayon-nazi.

But I’m trying to relax. A little. I draw the line at chewing on them!

Anyone else doing any PTR, PTP, PTC stuff? I got scammed… SCAMMED, oh my geez, did I ever, but it was partially my own fault for not checking out the company I signed up with.

Since then, though, I’ve signed up with a few others, and have actually been paid by these (within days) so far - if anyone’s interested:

GainMail
GainPay

Didn’t have much luck with affiliate programs, as I don’t really get that much traffic to my site. Adsense was/is a bust for me, too.

Tried doing the paid surveys, too, but I don’t qualify for many of them. I have to say - this trying to earn money from home is kicking my butt. Anyone got any better ideas (better than PTRs)? I don’t have anything to sell, I don’t have a valuable service I can offer, and I don’t have a fast internet connection. But. I still wanna bring in some extra spending money. So, if you have any ideas, or methods that work for you - shoot ‘em at me!

And so do we… Just how we do it is a…

Nevermind. I get that song stuck in my head all the time!  Its a commercial right now, in Grey’s Anatomy, which means that I have about 3.5 minutes to blog. Lucky, because that’s about all the time this update is going to take.

All that PTR stuff I’ve been doing for a couple weeks? Paying off. Sort of. If things keep on the current track, I should be able to steadily make enough to at least pay for my webhosting, which is nice. One little worry I can forget about. If I get really lucky, I may make a few bucks extra to begin putting towards other debts. I have a lot of little debts. I just need to collect them all so I can pay them off. I’m talking really little. Like 9.99 for a magazine thing. 15.00 for a book club thing. Tiny little debts that I could have paid off ages ago, but forgot about, or misplaced, or whatever.

Oh. Show’s back on. G’night!

Sooo. I heard back from MBladez, who is the admin that informed me of the whole FF situation. Long story short, I’m not back in. But. That’s alright.

I feel confident that I got my side out, at least, and I hope that anyone who stops by from there, who knew of the situation can keep an open mind and not hold against me what was, essentially, a huge misunderstanding. You can be sure I’ll be alot more careful choosing my words from now on, though - lesson learned the hard way.

I’ll miss FF, I was having tons of fun there, and my biggest regret about the whole experience is something that was never in my control: I wish that when the issue first arose, the powers that be had contacted me for an explanation first. It would have saved a lot of people a lot of time. Not to mention a lot of anxiety (especially on my part).

Happy ending? Not really. But it could have been worse. They could have been right. ;)

And I’ve joined a new forum to take the place of the old, and am hoping that this ugliness doesn’t follow me over there. Fairytopia, here I come!