It got a little worse....

I remember an old Bill Cosby routine titled "Never challenge 'worse'", and today is so far one of those days...

Still no sales of any of my new items, and now the "check engine" light came up on my van. My husband ran the code at the auto store and it said it was a "misfire on cylinder 2", which is an engine problem. Great.

Harry ran the numbers and it will be about $200 to do a tune-up, which should take care of the problem, hopefully. Problem is, we don't have $200 now, and payday is not until Friday. Praying that the van can hold until Friday.

In the meantime, I've made the decision that I'm putting my Ebay store on vacation for a week and am going to take that time to try and get this house in some sort of order. I feel a leading to get the focus off of increasing income and just using my energy to cleaning up in the house.

On the good side of things, I have enough groceries to last until payday, so that helps.

Sorry to whine....

But I just feel like I have to get this out.

We are drowning here. Financially. Spiritually. Emotionally. I'm ready to raise the white flag.

My house is a total trash heap. I am hopelessly disorganized. Molly is still in a crib (she'll be 4 this month), because we haven't saved up the money to get her a new mattress. Ruth is on a mattress on the floor, because we never did save up for a box spring. Heck, we are on a mattress on the floor because we threw out the hopelessly broken box springs and did not save up for new ones. We owe the hospital about $1,500 from Harry's sleep study, we owe a total of other debt of about $18k, most of which is sitting with collection agencies, who are simply waiting under the radar for a chance to attack. The phone rings all the time.

We have, above all else, an income crisis. Harry is on salary, so the only increase we can get from his income are bonuses that he is eligible for, but those do not happen on a regular basis. For me to work full time would mean after school care for everyone, and by the time you add up the $$ for that, we would probably be breaking even. I was hoping to do well at Christmas with toy sales, but with the economy being what it is, who knows if that will happen.

Please don't get me wrong, I know that there are others who are a lot worse off than we are, and I am very thankful that we do have a home, Harry has the best job he's had since we've been married, we are all healthy. But it seems that no matter what we do or what we've done in the 12 years we've been married, we have always been in some sort of financial crisis, and I'm just tired of it.

None of this is God's fault, obviously. We have no one to blame but ourselves. I'm praying that we are finally able to turn the corner and really change the direction of our lives.

Thanks for listening to me whine.

Sometimes I just don't get it.....

A couple of posts back, I mentioned that I had found a couple of dropship opportunities that looked like they could prove to be profitable. One of the companies got me started right away...I listed some items on Ebay, even used Featured Plus on a couple of them....and....

nothing.

Now, to be honest, I don't have a lot listed yet, so I know that's part of it, but gosh, not even one sale? What is up with that?

Now, the second company, I emailed their rep, she sent me some information in PDF form to fill out, so I print it, fill it out, scan it and email it back.


nothing.

So, I wait a day, and re-email the rep. She's very nice, said she didn't receive it to go ahead and email it again, so I did.


nothing.

This time, after waiting a day, I give her a call. She's confused, too..she still hasn't gotten it, it hasn't bounced back to me, so she gives me an alternate email to use. I send it again.


nothing.


At this point, I'm starting to ask "What is God trying to say to me?"

So since all the emails are going to a cyperspace black hole, she asks me to fax over the information. So I fax it through an email-to-fax service, because I don't have a fax machine. I decide to call and make sure that the fax actually came through. I joke with the rep who answered the phone that I wondered what God was trying to tell me. She replied, very nicely, "Hmm...maybe not to give up?" "Yeah," I said, "I have a tendency to just give up after the first couple of trys."

I admit fully to God that I am dense. I don't get it. You have to spell it out for me sometimes.

So do I keep going? Just list like heck on Ebay and pray that something sells? If not, then what else I am supposed to do?

I just don't get it.

More election prayers

Continued prayers for our country and the new President which we will elect tomorrow.

Another praise report!

I am so happy! I heard back from two of my dropship companies, and as soon as I get my sales tax certificate, I will be approved. YAY!!! These are legit companies, they are the manufacturers, not the middlemen. I think they will sell well, so we shall see. I really think we are headed in the right direction, and it feels good. Praise God!

Follow up and praise report!

Just a follow up and praise report to my Paypal dispute....

I was all set this morning to refund my buyer, but realized that I was short on time, so I decided to do it after dropping off the kids at school. I logged on to find that my buyer had closed the dispute - she had just received the item today! And she left positive feedback right away on Ebay. Thank you, Lord!

Developing a spirit of giving

I am ashamed to admit that our family has not developed a spirit of generosity over the years. :( I've been praying for a way for us as a family to start giving more, and to actually make giving a priority. When the paycheck comes, it's always been bills first, and whatever is left over...well...who knows were it goes... But that has to change! I can feel it in the family - we have become selfish in our individual selves as well as selfish as a family. We argue more - we don't think of others. Ugh.

So today our church message was "Rethinking Christmas". The church is partnering with local ministries in order to help them with their needs. I just downloaded the PDF file from the church website which has ways to help, and I'm praying for us to incorporate this into our family.

Praying for a giving spirit!