Yet another business update

We decided to put the business dream on hold and do everything possible to sell our house this spring. That means we are spending the winter (and extra money that I need for the business) getting this house in excellent shape. I'm upset that I can't work on my business but I really want to get out of this house. The neighbor kids are taking over.

business update

I have decided to try to open up a booth at our local flea market next spring to sell the clothing I am buying off clearance racks now. I have to do more research on the licenses and things needed but so far the flea market website says all I need is a vendors license. I have several reasons for starting at a flea market:

Around here everyone goes to the flea market
I can test the waters
Renting a booth for a weekend is reasonably priced ($50)
It's only on the weekend (I haven't decided it this is good or bad)
I don't have to deal with websites and shipping and stuff like that
I might be able to enlist the help of my husband, either here or at work. =)

I'm really excited about trying this. I went to JC Penney and Khols yesterday and bought 44 items and spent $79. My total savings were like $500 some. I put pics on fb. That is less than $2 per item and I will be able to sell them again for more and still keep the prices considerably cheaper than what anyone would pay full price or even on sale!

Now I just have to find a way to make more money right now so I can buy more clothes!

starting a business

Every once in awhile I get on a start-my-own-business kick. That first "kick" came many years ago, probably when Hannah was little, or maybe even before she was born. I can't recall now, as she is a whopping 7 yrs old. =) Anyway, back then I was working and wanted to start my own walmart for pets. I was going to call it Everything Pets.

Since then the "kick" has come and gone many a time and I had many a reason not to let the "kick" push me over the edge to my own business. I was working, I had kids, Brad wasn't fully on board, I didn't know even the first step, didn't want to risk taking the first step. I could go on.

If you haven't already gotten the drift of this post....I'm feeling like I want to start my own business again. Only this time, it has nothing to do with animals. It all started when I decided to put some of the kids nicer clothes in a consignment sale that comes through the area a couple times a year. At the same time I was doing some end of season clothes shopping for my kids for next summer.

I rarely ever buy any of my kids' clothes at full price. Everything comes off clearnace racks. So I was thinking, I can't be the only one who is looking for nice clothes at a fraction of the price, especially in this economy. So what if I bought tons of reaaly cute stuff for super cheap and then turned around and sold it for a profit all the while keeping it cheaper than you would pay elsewhere? My sister and I have talked about this before but now I'm really considering all my options.

Brad does not want to invest a lot into this until he knows it will be profitable. I can't say that I blame him! This is when i really wish my s.i.l lived closer! I could really use her brain, time, and organization for this project!!

Since I need to start small and convince my husband (and myself) this could work, I am thinking I should buy a bunch of stuff and then see how much a local consignment shop would give me for it or doing the traveling one again with all new items, or maybe even renting a booth at the flea market. I'm also considering starting an online business or just going through ebay.

All I know is that it has been on my mind a lot lately and I'm really going to look into it.

Opinions, please!!

Worry

Isn't it funny how in an hour you can go from worry-free to stressed out and worrying about everything? I have those days. All the sudden I'm there. I feel like I am worrying about so many things right now and I'm having trouble handing them over to God and trusting him. Isn't it also funny that we know exactly what we need to do with our worry but we just can't seem to do it? I'm also there. I just need all my fellow bloggers to say a prayer for me. I know you are wondering what in the world I have to be worried about so I'll go into it briefly.

One of my dogs, Patches, has been acting weird for quite some time now, since I had the baby, to be exact. She is progressively getting worse but we just don't have the extra money to spend on vet bills. I hate not knowing if she is suffering or in pain.

Remember when I had mastitis not long after having the baby? I would put a link to that post here but i don't know how to do it so if you want to read about it you'll just have to go back to my blog posts at the end of May to find it. Anyway, I have a feeling I'm getting it again. I think it's odd to get it now after 5 months but I definitely have a tender spot in the same place it occured the first time. So far I'm not feeling sick like I did the first time so I'm just waiting on something to happen.

Hannah has been bringing home some bad grades from school and I don't really know what to do. She has math homework almost every single night and she just can't get it. Same with spelling. She writes her spelling words every single night and we do practice tests and everything and she still gets bad grades on the tests at school. They are working on the different parts of a sentence (the subject, predicate, etc) she is doing horrible in that as well. I know I wasn't working on that stuff in second grade but that's a different subject.

Abigail was supposed to have a third ultrasound on her belly button in Aug and I canceled it because we are still paying on the $1300 for the first two she had. She needs to have the other one done soon. Our $5000 deductible (hence part of the reason we don't have extra money to take Patches to the vet) is about paid for now so we need to do it before the new year but I do not want to find out that she needs surgery!

Those are just a few of the worries I have right now. Sorry I have bored you with my problems but say a prayer for me please! =)

changes

I always said I wanted to do things differently with this child. Not that I did anything bad the first two times. It just seems like a lot of things have changed since I had Hannah and Ryan. The biggest difference was that I would be staying at home this time.



I wanted to use that as an opportunity to do some other things that I hadn't done, long anyway, with the other two. Breastfeeding was high on my list this time. I also did lots of research on the "how, what, when" of feeding a baby.



My plan was not to feed any solids until Abigail was at least six months old. There are lots of reasons for that. Comment me if you want me to expound on all the reasons. And then I didn't want to feed the commercial baby cereal. I had decided to start with avacado.



And then Abigail got to the age where she was watching us eat and showing interest in what we were doing at the table. I started getting the urge to feed her something. It didn't take me long to give in and buy the avacado. She didn't love it the first couple times but now she is an old pro and I have just introduced sweet potatoes. She is still deciding if she likes them.

I have moved on to my next attempt at difference by making as much of her food as I can myself. So far its been pretty easy and I was sticking with it until I happened upon a bunch or green bean baby food for cheap at Big Lots. If you know me, you know I loathe even the smell of green beans so this was actually a blessing to me. I don't have to cook any myself! =)

Much to say

Tomorrow is the last day that I will ever have one child in school. Monday is a holiday and then Tuesday is Ryan's first day of preschool. He will have the same teachers that Hannah had, which is good. I'm going to miss my little boy! He keeps me on my toes.



Speaking of the devil, I told Ryan I wanted to wash him off while he was in the shower tonight because he had dirt in the cracks of his neck and armpits. When he took off his shirt I saw a big bruise and scrap on this shoulder. He is always getting banged up but this was a big, fresh place that he hadn't told me about. Upon further inspection I found scrapes on the back of his head and elbow also! Come to find out, he was doing flips on the trampoline (not unusual) and flipped off!! He never came in crying or hurt or holding his head or anything! Before you say anything, we used to have a net arouond the trampoline but it didn't last one season with my kids and I could buy a new trampoline for just about the same price as a net alone. So we've been taking our chances and this is the first injury.

Also, someone out there did their good deed for the day (not that I believe in that or anything). A man pulled in our driveway this afternoon and yelled "Are you Elisabeth?" Of course I said yes! He held up my phone and asked if I was missing anything. I hadn't noticed it gone before then but apparently when I went to get Hannah from school I left it on the truck. He said he saw it in the road down the street, in several pieces, and stopped and got it. He looked thru my contacts and called "dad". My father gave him directions to my house and the man returned my phone to me! It's alittle beat up now but at least I have it! I took that as an opportunity to make sure the kids knew he didn't have to return it but he was nice and made a good decision and so on.

That's all folks!