Out of The Cave!

...and the sun shines bright! Yes, I have stepped out of the cave and made my very first purchase on Amazon. Just recently. I guess I have been in the very very dark ages, as I have heard that there are decent bargains on the site, but never actually bought anything. Until recently. However, I didn't buy anything too terribly exciting, just a phone battery.

A little backstory: My phone decided to go *pop* last July without any reason or notice. Guess it was just too stressed out, as was I at the time, but that's beside the point. At first, super glue did fix the thing. However, its efficacy wore off way too quickly, about a couple of months later. Needless to say I just started winging it, replacing the little piece of plastic whenever it cracked out of line. It worked. Until Wednesday evening, that is. Earlier in the day it started acting a little weird; not closing correctly a couple of times, but I had been able to pop the plastic back into line when it popped out.

I placed a call to the DH and after that it was all over. It didn't close correctly again, in fact, the little silver ribbon connecting the display to the rest of the phone tore! The display quit working altogether, and I eventually learned, with the help of DH's phone, that mine had quit working, period. I attempted to call myself using his phone, but all that happened was the keypad would light up for half a second then nothing. Even if the ringer had been inadvertently silenced, the keypad should have stayed lit. fml. Here I was, without a phone and very importantly, without an alarm clock. (It's not very often these days that I wake up without the thing.) fml. What was I going to do? A search of the house for a spare clock came up fruitless. fml.Was it time to run to the store to grab the cheapest one on the shelf and use that?

A brainstorming sesh over dinner revealed a little-before remembered fact: I had another phone lying around. Found it. Charger? Check. Used DH's phone again to call customer service and 7.5 minutes later I had a semi-new phone that worked. TG!

Fast-forward to the next day, when it was *supposedly* fully charged. Eight hours later, the message my phone had so proudly displayed proved to be a boldfaced lie. The thing died, when I was trying to call the DH. Go figure. A quick search of the phone manufacturer's web site proved fruitless; they wanted fifty-someodd dollars for an extended life battery and probably more for a new battery door that wouldn't have matched my phone anyway. Um, no thanks, dudes. A quick search of the internet pointed me to some havily discounted sites. I bought the exact battery I wanted and needed, for about 98% less than what those other guys wanted. With shipping, I paid a total of ten bucks and change for a new battery, with expedited shipping.

Hopefully, in a few days' time, I will have a phone battery that actually holds a charge reliably. Tonight, it seems OK; it is currently going for the record at 12+ hours strong (the past couple of days we've been lucky for it to hold a charge for 12 hours. Yes, 12 hours.), but we'll see what time tonight it wakes me up with its low-battery beep. Nah, it won't. Knowing my luck, it'll wait until we're in the car or already at grammy's house to decide it's tired and wants its recharge.

So much to say...

So little energy! I'll explain in detail a little later, but I have been really dragging. Two full time jobs is really getting to me. One of which, of course, I enjoy more than the other. ;)

Which brings me to a quick ramble. I have several business ideas to generate some extra money, since we're poor as all getout, but the one I reeeeeally want to get started ASAP is a crafty one. I just have no idea where to start. Obviously I can get supplies from the good ol' crafting store, but then what? How do I price stuff? I think I could just do shipping via USPS- those little flat-rate boxes have to be good for something, right?

Anyone have any ideas on how to set prices? Suggestions are very welcome!!

Overwhelmed: My confession

Wow.

I have a confession: I have been working on a project lately to see about all this making-money-off-your-blog business. There are three websites I am going with (for now): http://inpostlinks.com/, http://socialspark.com/, and https://payperpost.com/. I find http://inpostlinks.com/ the most intriguing because all I apparently would have to do would be to slip a link into my blog entry about a particular subject. Hmmm... I was logged into my homepage on one of these sites (I think it was the inpostlinks one) and there is a "top earners" box, showing who earned the most $$ last year- one of them was $27k and some change. $27k... off of blogging?? I could do that. I know it will take alot of work but it's work I'm willing to do, especially if it eliminates my childcare dilemma I would have upon returning to the rat race.

Second, I set up Google's Webmaster Tools (I was finally able to make it work!) to (hopefully) improve traffic- now if I can figure out how to actually do that.. LOL And by the way, I certainly wouldn't mind a comment or two if anyone has experience/tips/tricks with this stuff! ;)