Last paycheck in 2010

Well today was the last payday for the year.

worked:43.26 hours...$136.20
year-to-date: $12,496.49
minus housing:$614.12
========================
taxable gross:$11,882.37

Money taken out for the state of NH was: $4,400.18
Total net pay for the year: $6,100.16

ok, now I will have to find my W-2's from past years but I'm pretty sure this is the smallest amount I have made here. But how many people can say they actually live on $6,100?

As usual with any new year coming up...I have made it a goal for 2011 to save $$$. I hope to get a job in Alaska for Late Spring-Early Fall. Which means I will need to save lots of money from now to April to move.

Back to work

Well I finally started back to work at Yavapai cafeteria yesterday. It was my fist day back since October 30th. 23 days off work & I really didn't do much in that time.
I didn't get most of the stuff done that I wanted to when I started that little 'time-off'. In fact, if you were to walk in my room now you would think it was a disaster.

Obviously my laziness has nothing to do with money or time...guess you can't pay me to do things or give me time off to do them either. So how in the world do you motivate someone to get something done? Something that they just don't want to do or feel to over-whelmed to do.

Christine Kane - Right Outta Nowhere

I found this song while I was on coolworks.com which lead me to look it up on youtube.

Now I was on coolworks today, because I was looking for info about jobs in Alaska.

I have been daydreaming about going to Alaska for awhile. Usually I check out pictures here on coolworks & different job sites but always whimp-out about sending in the job applications.


Well right now I am on a sorta LOA at GCSR for the next 2 weeks....while I have the time off, I am totally cleaning out my room. Decluttering at its best. By the time I get done, I figure it won't be so difficult to travel

up to Alaska.


I am making a physical folder for jobs in Anchorage, Fairbanks, Talkeetna, Girdwood, Seward, & Coldfoot Camp, Crows Nest.

I have found plenty of jobs available up North starting next May...Bus Person, Host, Cashier,Barback, Cocktail Server, Tour Desk Clerk, & Front Desk Clerk. Now I have never had a tour desk job but figure there is a first time for everything.


This desire to see Alaska isn't going away, and I ain't getting no younger. So I might as well head up there while I can. Yes the rent will be more then I pay now at GCSR, but I really think it's time for me to get out of the rut I seem to have found myself in. Besides who knows...by next May I will have lived here at GCSR for 4 yrs, which is the longest I have ever stayed in 1 spot. So maybe I will like Alaska enough to stay for 4 years...course not in 1 spot because some jobs are only open during the Summer. But some other jobs are open during the Winter if you know where to look; and luckily I do.


So 2011, will be my year to share Alaska stories with everyone

November~Payday

Well I just checked my bank account online. My paycheck is in...all $297.00, biggest paycheck in awhile. Good thing seeing as I am on LOA for now.

expenses that I foresee this month are:
Liz's birthday
Art show~frames & mats
Food
Laundry soap


I might edit this later & add more to this blog

LOA

Well I have been out of work since Saturday afternoon...and today is Tuesday.

Sunday was halloween, so I mostly did halloween stuff. Yesterday was my day to
rest & relax...mainly sleep.
Today I will start my long list of chores:

Today/Tuesday~Laundry (organize dresser & get rid of unwanted clothes or clothes that just don't fit in the dresser cuz I have way to many clothes). This will take awhile as we only have 1 washer & 1 dryer working now for the whole building.

Wednesday~Books (oganize bookshelf & throw out unwanted books). Today is also flu shot day.

Thursday~Pantry area (wash dishes, organize food stuff)

Friday~start on closet

Saturday~Grand Canyon Marathon

Sunday~Closet day again...or I might go to Flagstaff with Brenda, and if I do then closet day will be moved to Monday.

Payday

YIPPEE, Yesterday was payday!
I worked 64.66 hours and my paycheck was for $259.16. Now let me explain that again.
I get paid $7.87 an hour, so I earned $508.87
but the state of NH got $162.88
my rent was $25.86 (for 2 weeks)
and then the rest taken out was for taxes

So bringing home $259.16 might not seem like alot, but when my rent & utilities is only $25.86 for 2 weeks then I ain't complaining. In the Winter months my paycheck
& rent will go down.
What good does it do to get paid $2000 a month if you have to pay over $1000 just for rent in some city then also have to pay for utilities, transportation to get to work, insurance, internet service and food. Seems like that $2000 would be gone faster then my $500.

Seeing as I already know that work hours will be cut and paychecks get alot smaller during the Winter here, I have overpaid my Quest bill so that I should be all set with internet service until the end of January 2011. I have also ordered food from Amazon.com & other sites. It has started being delivered to my post office box. I am stocking up on instant oatmeal, peanut butter, coffee, rice,& microwave popcorn.

I am also trying to figure out where I want to go for next year's vacation. Yes even with $500 a month (most of the time with less $$$) I can even save money for a vacation. Course I won't be sending my son money for school during the winter...I sent him $200 on Monday and that will probably be the last time until Spring.

Time

24 hours in a day = 168 hrs in a week.

I usually work 5:30-1:30==8 hrs (with a 1 hr lunchbreak in there)
work 5 days a week=40 hrs minus the breaks everyday

I usually catch the shuttle at 5am to go to work and get back home around 2:30pm.
So that's 9 & 1/2 hours taken away caused from work. Which would leave 14.5 hours left-over during every workday. I normally sleep between 4-6 hours a night (without an alarm clock), which leaves me 8.5-10.5 hours everyday to do whatever I want...not counting my days off when I have even more free time.

I was reading a site which got me thinking of all this today.
http://www.my168hours.com/time-management-spreadsheet.html

I've decided "again" that I need a little more structure...little more productive activities in my free time. Otherwise I can spend a whole 48 hour weekend awake and online. I have 1 of the worst internet addictions of anyone I know. I have been known to give up sleep, food, coffee, showers, cigarettes, rides with friends and everything else JUST so that I can sit on my butt in the same spot all weekend with my laptop. In fact my laptop is on while I sleep so that the minute I wake up I can just reach my hand over to touch the keyboard and have the screen come back on..

I need some magic genie to give me a kick-in-the-butt everytime I am online for over an hour at a time. There is plenty I could be doing (and want to get back to) besides being on my laptop:
hiking
taking photos
cleaning my room
yoga

How many is to many?

Now whenever I want to wash my hair early in the morning before work, I sometimes have a hard time finding my shampoo. Well this week I found 7 (thought I had more a few days ago)open bottles of shampoo.

Also when I am in Flagstaff with Brenda, and wandering around a store waiting for her to finish shopping; I will get bored and just buy more shampoo & deodorant. As there are 4 deodorants in this picture...all being used at this time.

Now I really need to find another way to beat boredom while I am in Flagstaff. I also need to find a way to keep these things organized in my room so I know exactly
how many I own.

My cost for new license

Finally after over 6 years, all the court fines are paid...all $1480+.
Now after getting that fine paid off, the court had sent me a letter to take to the DMV and get my license reinstated. I went to Flagstaff for a coule days last week but
forgot to bring the paperwork with me, so I didn't even bother to go into the DMV office.

But this week I was packing for a trip to go visit my brother and as I was looking for my old "suspended" license, I realized that I couldn't find it anywhere. About the only thing I use it for is ID to get on planes. Well I had to go down to Flagstaff again last night so I could get to DMV the minute they opened. I brought with me my old expired NH license from yrs & yrs ago, my social security card, my work ID badge, Visa debit card, and the paperwork from court. Well I didn't need any of the ID at all....they never asked to see it. I didn't even have to take the eye test even though I now have glasses.

$24~Shuttle down to Flagstaff
$20~1 night at hostel
$25~DMV
$24~shuttles back to Grand Canyon
======
$93...is what a license really cost me

Then of course there was money spent on breakfast & lunch
I had to spend extra money just to take an extra trip down to Flagstaff, just because
#1: my room is such a mess I can't find anything
#2: I'm scatterbrain and can't think of everything, the first time I go to Flagstaff.

Now before I had sorta made myself a "plan" and wanted the court fine to be paid off by the end of Autumn and had said I would get my license reinstated by March...well I'm early on both things. YEE-HAW!

Reporting online scams

Yesterday I got a messege from someone telling me I should make a blog about different scams that people can find online.
Then I found an interesting article
http://www.blogstash.com/10-signs-of-online-money-making-scams/
well I decided to put the site I am now having trouble with, to the 10-sign test"

1.Big Money~If any site promises to make you a bunch of money in a short time, then it is probably a scam. Otherwise they would be doing it themselves instead of trying to sell you the info.
2.Who Are You~Be aware of any company that hides info on who they are & how to contact them.
3.Response Time~Before signing up, contact the site/company, and ask a question or two. Usually scammers don’t even bother to answer or respond to any email. Even if they do, it takes them a very long time to respond. Ask yourself if they take that long to respond to a question, how long is going take them to pay you (if they are even going to pay)?
4.Over Decorated~supposedly scam sites use more flash then non-scam sites.
5.Fake Testimonial~Most businesses use testimonial which is a good way to promote. But, if you pay close attention, you can easily spot the fake ones. For example, a testimonial about a product that helps you make more money with your site says “…with the help of the x program i have made that much money on my site. Regards, bill billy www.bill.com …”. If you check the mentioned site, 9 out of 10 times, either it doesn’t exist or if it does, no body by that name is responsible or have anything to do with the site
6.Too Easy~Now what kind of real job can you do with no hard work or experience and still make a few thousand dollars a week....NONE
7.Email offers~Don't you love getting emails from Nigera or where-ever addressed to "Dear Friend". Didn't realize I had friends in Nigera.
8.Pay A Fee And Keep It A Secret~What legitimate company that you have worked for before, required you to pay a fee in order for them to give you more detailed information on how to make money? And why would they be afraid if you told someone about this transaction?…
9.Free Email Address~I guess scammers like using gmail & yahoo for their emails. (I have both...hmmm)
10Gut~99% of the time, what your gut instinct tells you is the truth.




And I would like to add another one to that list: Check the company out at the "Better Business Bureau". Here is some info I found this week about Rob's site.

Business Contact and Profile for Bloggingtothebank.com
Name: Bloggingtothebank.com
Phone: (510) 595-2002
Address: PO Box 99800
Emeryville, CA 94662-9809

Principal: Mr Robert Benwell
Customer Contact: Mr Robert Benwell
File Open Date: February 2007
Type of Business: Investment Advisory Service
BBB Accreditation: Bloggingtothebank.com is not a BBB Accredited business.

*~*PO Box 99800 in Emeryville, California is the address of this company's internet service provider, Melbourne IT a company located in Australia. On November 17, 2009 BBB was notified that the PO Box is no longer in use.

#1 I knew there was a problem with Rob and his website, when I instantly got emails from him with links to "buy" more stuff. When I went to his main site and wrote him a messege telling him I couldn't afford to buy anything...he didn't understand and keeps sending me emails with the same links.
#2 It has now been or 6 days since I first paid for his "FREE" service and I still havent seen my new blog.
#3 For whatever reason you cant always just hit reply to one of his emails...because his emails don't always work...havent figured out why. So I usually either send messeges to all 4 of his emails or have to just contact him from his website.

It seems like I am not the only person having trouble with Rob and his site. I did a search on hubpages to see if anyone had written anything on online-scams and here is 1 such page.
http://hubpages.com/hub/Rob-Benwell

Don't trust everyone. Just as you wouldn't trust a stranger with your money in real life, there is no reason why you should do so on the internet.
I am in the process of checking these 5 places for info about "bloggingtothebank.com"
Internet Fraud Complaint Center - this is a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C), that strives to address fraud and scams committed over the Internet.

Better Business Bureau - file an online complaint against any company or charity that has treated you unfairly. The site also provides a national database of reliability reports. A positive report doesn't mean the company is definately a legitimate one, but on the other hand, companies with negative reports should be avoided.

Rip Off Report - file a report about any fraud or rip off scam you have come across. The report you file will be placed online for the world to see!

The National Fraud Information Center - this site is US based and is specialised in dealing with most kinds of internet and telemarketing frauds/scams.

Fraud Watch International - seeks to reduce the incidence of Internet fraud by educating consumers, shutting down fraudulent and scam sites and prosecuting frauders.

Federal Trade Commission - allows you to file a complaint about a particular company or organization, using a secure complaint form. Although the FTC does not resolve individual consumer problems, the complaint helps in fraud investigation, and can lead to law enforcement action.

Money Making Scams

Working for yourself at home sounds like a dream for alot of people...myself included. In the past, I had found different ways to make money at home. I ordered supplies from a company to make earrings, that supposedly if sent back to the company and the company approved of them then they would pay for them...course the company always found a reason not to approve of the earrings. I should of just sold all the earrings in a yardsale.

I knew an old retired guy, who wanted to supplement his retirement fund by stuff envelopes. I think he did get a list of names & addresses that he was supposed to mail stuff to but after he got the initial list of names, he never heard from the company again.

Years ago, I even joined some sites that would pay a person to read emails. I figured, great because I am always reading emails. Course they were not going to pay you to read your own emails. You had to go to special sites and click on a bunch of ads and read the advertisments (also known as emails). You would get paid about 1cent for each email and wasn't going to get a check for any of it until you got to $100 (or something like that). I never did get paid for that.

Even today, you can pick up a "National Enquirer" trash-paper and find ads toward the back of the paper for business opportunities...processing mail, data entry work, mystery shopping, and even one claiming to pay up to $3,000 dollars a week. Well you know the old saying "if it sounds to good to be true, then it is" and that last one of making $3,000 a week sure sounds to good to be true.

This week, it would seem that I fell for another money-making scam online. I've been reading quite a bit about how to get paid from writing blogs online. Sure I can type a blog, and I can be opinionated on alot of different subjects. My problem seems to be getting other people to follow my blogs and/or clicking on the ads that are on the same page as my blogs.
I found a site "bloggingtothebank.com" and Rob stated that he would set up a FREE blog for me and help me along to get followers and make money with it. I should have known that it was a scam when he sent me to sign-up with another site, which I had to pay $24.95 for. Supposedly Rob said he would have my new blog up & running in 24-48 hours. It has now been over 84 hours. I've already written to Rob to complain and all I get from him are more sites to join with more stuff to buy for a few hundred dollars.

Guess I will keep my day job for awhile longer.

Court bill

Yesterday while looking in a box, I found 1 of the old Kingman court bills that was finally sent to me in April. I don't have any idea on why they divided the bill in 2.
Anyways I paid $450 towards the bill. I had thought of saving up until I had the total amount and then pay it off with one-lump payment. But figured it was better to just get the money out of my reach so I don't waste it on silly nonsense stuff.

It wasn't on the budget I made up yesterday, because I wasn't even thinking of the money I already had in the bank. But actually the money in my savings account was supposed to be saved for this court bill anyways. So I did the "grown-up" thing and started paying it yesterday. Weird how doing the "grown-up" thing of paying bills can actually make me feel good. But I bet when the court opened up today, that someone must of had a heart-attack when they saw my payment. My court bill is about 7 years old.


Well today is a new day and looks like it might rain again. Good day to stay home and clean out more boxes. Maybe I'll find all the paperwork I need for the state of NH court.

I need a budget

Now alot of people will say that you need a budget. I have even heard Brenda make comments as she is ordering craft supplies that something isn't in her budget (I don't really think she makes a budget). She is probably like me and will just shop as long as money is in the bank account.

So I thought I would give it a try for this month. Now to figure out what I actually spend money on.
Groceries:$100
Eating out:$80
Qwest:$100
Birthday gifts:$30
Post office:$25
Comp/Cam:$30
Magazines:$20
Bathroom stuff:$15


See my rent & utilities are automatically taken out of my paycheck before I even get paid so I don't have to budget for those, and the rent amount is always different depending on how many hours I work.
I don't own a car so I'm not budgeting for gas or insurance. I don't have a phone or cable TV so there really isn't much for me to budget for this month.
Almost forgot to add in Qwest for my wi-fi service. I haven't gotten a bill from them yet...guess I should go to their site later and find out why.
I almost wasn't going to put bathroom stuff on this list as I'm pretty sure that I already have enough shampoo, but decided to add $15 as a "just in case I need it".

This budget only comes up to $400...so I guess the rest of my money should just go into savings...yeah right, lets see if that really happens.

Payday

I checked my bank account online early this morning to find out how much my paycheck was for today...$297.82
I worked 72.52 hours @ $7.73
Deductions total was $262.76...$162.88 was for NH.
$602.24 is my total in the bank right now. It would have been more, But I took $300 out a few weeks ago when I went to Jerome.

I had my review at work today...it was really good. I'm getting a .14 raise, that will go back to 6-21-2010 and that will be on my next check. I thought this years review was better then last years...but my raise was bigger last year. Oh Well.
I probably won't even try to guess how much it will actually be. No need to count your chickens before they hatch.

I have another 3-day weekend coming up Sunday (8/1)--Tuesday (8/3). Time for more cleaning.

I've been checking for jobs this week on coolworks.com, getting ready for that plan "B" I guess.

Lists/Process

My Process

Plan your project – make a list – evaluate present system, what is working, what isn’t working, – develop timeline

Remove items – start from a clean slate – empty the space completely – remove then sort & purge

Organize into piles – donate/toss/sell/keep/ – sort like with like – purge excess –

Containerize – find storage solutions/containers – establish limits – designate a space for items being kept

Evaluate plan – how is your system working for you – are you able to work your system? What needs to be modified? A good system should be easy to maintain

Solve/simplify anything that isn’t working for you – revise accordingly

Smile, relax and enjoy your hard work!


Sometimes this system might not work the first time I try to do something...but I must remember not to give up.
Course my oldest daughter would laugh if she could see all my lists now because she once told me that I make a list for EVERYTHING. She said I make lists more then anyone she has ever known and she is probably right.


This weekend, I have started with the space under my bed. Now the bed sits way up high...bottom of bedframe reaches my hips when I stand next to it. So there is lots of space underneath.
I totally took everything out from uder there yesterday, and then started with the 3 empty (15 QT)plastic tubs and 1 box. I also have another bigger plastic tub and will use that later.


The problem with storing stuff under the bed is that if I filled up that space with boxes then I would have trouble getting to boxes that would be pushed to the back corner without dragging out boxes sitting in front.
I'm putting books I want to keep for now into the box now. Whatever books don't fit in that 1 box will be going out to the free table downstairs. Hopefully someone else in this building will want to read them.

Well this process is going rather slowly, mainly because I'm still spending to much time online. But as long as I keep at it a little everyday...it will be done when Summer is over.

Procrastination

Seems that I have spent a lifetime procrastinating. My ex-husband said I lived in the "Land of Later" because I would always say I would do something...Later. Course sometimes later never came around.

“Tomorrow is often the busiest day of the week.”
Spanish Proverb

“How soon ‘not now’ becomes ‘never’.”
Martin Luther

“A year from now you may wish you had started today.”
Karen Lamb

“To think too long about doing a thing often becomes its undoing.”
Eva Young


I know what I should do, or what I want to do, but I still end up spending hours on the internet (just like I'm doing this morning).


I've read that if you have trouble getting started, to just choose 1 thing to change. Make sure it's a goal that you choose for yourself and not a goal that someone else chooses for you.
Well I already know what I NEED...I need to declutter my room.
Problem is I also WANT....to feed my addiction of being online all day.
And yes, there was a time years ago that I could spend a whole weekend sitting at a computer and ignoring everything else.

Supposedly there are 4 reasons why we procrastinate:
1. Fear of Failure.
2. Feeling Overwhelmed.
3. Human Nature.
4. Perspective./Difficulty

I think they forgot #5 Addiction to something else, or would that fall under 'human nature'?
Often I will use the excuse that I don't have enough time for what I need to do.
Another excuse is that I'm to tired from work to do anything else.

We all have the same 24 hours in a day. I usually sleep about 6 hours, which means I have 18 hours left for other things. On workdays I'm gone from 5am-3pm, so work takes care of 10 hours. Which means I still have 8 hours during every workday to jump into my goal of decluttering my room.
I'm an a 3-day weekend from work right now so I have even more time to devote to decluttering, but have I done anything to my room this morning....NO, obviously I'm online typing this and doing other internet stuff.

3-day weekend with my stuff

Ok, I was reading
http://manvsdebt.com/stuff
And I liked the way Adam had all his belongings listed out. I decided to make my own list...hoping that it will keep me on track when weeding out my room. I made my list by saying to myself "If you had to quit your job for any reason and move this week, what would you need to take with you"? I guess I'll pretend I already have the van I mentioned in yesterdays blog and only keep what would go into that. Guess I will need to schedule a yardsale soon too.

I’m on a 3-day weekend right now, so I’m getting serious about weeding out my room starting tonight.
Seeing as I’m single & live alone and don’t have any stuff left with family, I assume my list could be smaller then Adam's when I’m done. (or maybe not)
I hope to only have 9 boxes in my room when finished. 1 box for each category, if an item don’t fit in the box then it don’t fit in my life. Sorry, but for now I'm not going to list every item that will go into each #box.

#1 Bathroom stuff
#2 Kitchen stuff
#3 Misc Household
#4 Tech Stuff (this term came from Adam,usually I called it the camera/computer box)
#5 Important Stuff (got that idea/term from Adam)
#6 Clothes
#7 Books
#8 Pictures (until I can scan them onto my computer..taken before I got a digital camera)
#9 Jewelrymaking supplies


Oh I know myself well enough to know that this will be tough because I am what some people would call a "packrat" or "hoarder". If you do an online search for both terms you would find a description of me. Well enough is enough....I QUIT!! I'm starting over, starting now.

Makeover for Life

http://www.farbeyondthestars.com/how-to-imagine-your-ideal-reality/
Now I read that blog yesterday, and it got me thinking. In fact I thought of it alot while I was at work today, too.

Now 1 of my brothers will ask me about my goals & dreams a couple times a year. I used to joke to my brother that he was like a racehorse. If you have ever gone to a horse race, then you probably saw that horses had "blockers" on their head that prevented them from getting distracted by anything around them. All the horse could see was straight ahead which was toward the finish line (their goal). My brother has been in the military for 25 years and he has more college degrees then anyone I know, and he got them all by the time he was 40. I wish I could be more like him.
I had already come to the conclusion that goals were something that you actively work towards, and dreams are just that...DREAMS, a fantasy, some far-fetched idea that could be the next Monday night movie or best selling novel. In my wildest daydream I can be 4 inches taller, with different colored eyes & famous living in a mansion instead of this dorm room I'm sitting in. But of course I know that daydream will never be reality and I accept that.


Now according to some people, we all have to have a goal, but if a goal is something that you are working towards, then I must not really have any goal. I have a hard time sticking to just one thing at a time. I lose focus easily.
"Why is setting goals important? Because goals can help you do, be, and experience everything you want in life. Instead of just letting life happen to you, goals allow you to make your life happen." Part of my problem has always been to analyze the heck out of everything and to take forever to make a final decision on anything. Usually if I do decide to go for something, it will end up being to late.

Now in the blog mentioned above, Everett says to dream big and list what you want to accomplish in one years time.
I think I will do this slightly different then what he probably had planned.

PLAN A:
My goal for the rest of this Summer: weed out my room!! By the end of Summer it will become my "minimalist dreamworld".
By the end of Autumn: Pay off my old court fine of $1,500.
For the end of March: I hope to get my driver's license back & hike to Phantom Ranch for a birthday weekend.
By July 2011 (1 year from now): I want to buy a used van that is already converted into a living space.
And in about another year~Summer 2012, I want to travel, take & sell photos while living in that van.

I'm still debating whether I really want to take on the burden of owning a vehicle again. I can make a list of pros & cons about owning a vehicle, so I might just scrap that idea. If I decide not to get a van then I will just skip the court fine and continue saving money...for "plan B" which I will explain when the time comes.



http://manvsdebt.com/sell-your-crap-survey/
This is another interesting blog that I probably should read more often. Adam asked for pictures of clutter, and today I sent him quite a few pictures of different areas of my room...OMG, what was I thinking? Now if that don't motivate me to declutter this roomful of crap then nothing will. I have no idea what he will really do with the pictures, but I'll have to send him new pictures in September of the "new & improved" room.

Need a morning routine

There must be a reason that doctors tell new parents to put their babies on a schedule for everything.

As unprepared & flexible as I am with my everyday activities, I have noticed that I am better prepared for my day when I force myself to get off the computer to follow some sort of routine.

My alarm clock has not even been plugged in for over 2 years. I go to bed early enough so that I wake up on my own before work, but I never wake up at the same time every day. Usually it doesn't matter if I wake up 4 hours earlier then when I have to catch the bus or 30 minutes before. Either way, I will spend time online checking emails and facebook.

Today I got up before 1am and never got around to making coffee until 1:50am because I was to busy on the laptop. I haven't looked for my uniform for work yet, I have not jumped in the shower or brushed my hair. Lately my addiction to the internet has taken over my life again...over an hour later, and I am still online and drinking coffee.

I need to set some sort of routine every morning that will include a little excerise, cleaning up in my room, breakfast and maybe laundry (if I don't do laundry the night before). This morning I woke up in plenty of time for all those activities but have done none of them because I spent my morning online.
Would be less of a hassle if I remembered to do laundry in the evenings, and had everything I need for work set out, before I go to bed.

boxes, boxes, and more boxes

I have more boxes of stuff in my dorm room, then probably anyone else in this community. Way more boxes then I can even deal with.

Every january, the housing office comes around to spray for bugs and whatnot. Everyone had to drag stuff out from under the beds for the spraying. Well that
was 6 months ago, and boxes have never gotten back under my bed. In fact over
1/2 my room got taken over by all my boxes of stuff.

Well this week, I'm starting to declutter the boxes and weed them out. Actually this morning I'm going through stuff that isn't even in a box but got thrown (or pushed/kicked)under the bed.
Course it's hard to make piles of laundry, books, piles of what to keep, what to throw away because I literally have no space in my room to make piles of stuff.

I have read books and/or blogs that say you should start with 1 box at a time. Well the first box I picked up this morning had cords for phone & computer, a box of instant pudding mix, a bag of rice, jewelrymaking supplies, hairclips, Irish Spring soap, last years bank statements, last years paycheck stubs, loose change, magazines, paperwork from NH court, bills, reciepts, holiday decoration, glitter, keychain with keys I no longer use, batteries that might or might not work, variety of business cards & brochures to places I want to go to someday, few pictures, old watch that no longer works, my birth certificate, and the small box from Qwest when they sent my modem.


I have a hard time figuring out what I can actually throw away or what I want to throw away. Course if I put everything I wanted to keep in a "keep pile" I would put most of the box in a keep pile...which would really get me nowhere. It would be almost like putting the box of mis-matched stuff back where I got it. And probably ever box in my room is full of mismatched stuff just like this one.

Obviously whoever writes books/blogs about decluttering and organizing has never been in my room.
It will take me the rest of the Summer to go through all the boxes in my room...hopefully I don't just give up on this project before I am done. It's a good thing I have a 3-day weekend coming up to. Guess I know what I will be doing .

Blogging sites

I found a site called Technorati and was able to find tons of interesting new blogs to read from this site. I still have not figured out how to get my blog listed on their site though.

This was the messege I got from them:
Jun 28, 2010. We could not find the claim token ZHQ8QP4WK234 in any posts in your feed. Please make sure that you have entered it correctly in a post body and that the token appears in the feed whose URL you have given us. Once you are sure we should be able to find the claim token, use "Update Site Feed URL" so that we can check again.

Read more: http://technorati.com/account/claim/2591427/#ixzz0srNxwrG4

~I'll assume I'm supposed to post the claim token # somewhere, so hopefully this will be good enough.

I had tried "dreamhost" for about 2 hours...and ended up get charged $9.99 for it.
I have a few of Leo Babauta's books on minimalism and a book called "Blogging for Dummies", so maybe soon I will figure out how to get more people reading my stuff.

Payday

Payday was June 30th (3rd payday for June)
worked~68.73 hours
Take home pay~$255.53
$127.76 went into my savings account and as of today, I have about $325 saved in that account right now. Saving money sorta reminds me of the old tale "The Grasshopper & The Ant". The grasshopper would be someone who spends the whole paycheck on fun stuff or materialistic stuff and the ant would be the person trying to save as much as they can.

The state of NH is still taking money out for 3 kids, even though Kevin is now 18 and graduated from high school. It was supposed to be 40% for 3 kids before and now it should be 30% for 2 kids, but NH is not very good with math. Time to get my papers together to send to NH....well it seems that NH is just a bit slow. I got a letter in the mail (after payday, but dated before payday) that from now on NH will be taking out $162.

Seeing as I will have some extra money I contacted Qwest to have wi-fi hooked up in my room, and it finally got hooked up today. Now I have to pay $69 for the modem (a 1-time fee) and $25 a month for 6 months, then it will cost $45 a month...not counting all taxes/fees.

One thing at a time

I have a habit of making long to-do lists, and then getting to tired or bored to ever finish my lists.

So this week I'm shortening the list. This week I will take care of all my clothes.
yes, a whole week to deal with clothes!
I washed a small load of laundry and put 3 shirts out on the free table today. By the end of the week, I want all the clothing thats scattered around to be washed, taken care of neatly in dresser or put out onto the free table.

I started making a list of what clothes I had that I wanted to keep:
6 pair of shorts
7 pair of pants
3 hoodies
3 sweaters
4 dresses/skirts
about 20-30 shirts (this is the hard one)

Now I don't even know if 20-30 shirts will fit in my dresser; and I am only keeping clothes that fit in my dresser. That would be a different shirt for every day of the month.I'm sure I have plenty of shirts I hardly ever wear. The hoodies & sweaters I might just keep in my suitcase under the bed (otherwise they are so bulky that they could take up a whole drawer all by themselves)and well maybe my winter hat, scarves, and gloves can get packed away in the suitcase too. Figure if the suitcase is going to take up room anyways, I might as well use it for storage.

My closet doesn't have a door on it and my desk is inside my closet, so I don't need or want clothes hanging in there.

Luckily most of my shorts, pants and hoodies are all dark colors so even if they all get dirty I can wash them all together when I do laundry. (which is very important).
I have a couple bright colored t-shirts that I always seem to leave out of the laundry waiting forever for other bright colors to wash with them.

The main thing is with all my clothes:
I'm tired of trying to figure out what fits, whats clean, or where I put something.
I will need more socks to wear for work though...alot of my socks have holes in them.
I wear a uniform to work provided by the company and mostly the same 2 pair of pants on my days off.

Guess at the end of the week, I should post a picture of my dresser (if I actually finish what I hope to finish with all my clothes)

Books

Books and magazines seem to be 1 of the things I still am addicted to collecting. My subscribtion to "Popular Photography" magazine runs out this Summer and its my last magazine that I get in the mail. I don't plan on renewing it.

When I ride down to Flagstaff with Brenda, I will sometimes pick up a variety of Magazines at the store. Now I have a good size collection of different jewelrymaking magazines. I have not made much jewelry in about 7 months, so it really is silly to keep buying all the jewelrymaking magazines and beading supplies.

Lately I ordered some books from Amazon about "minimalist lifestyle" and "making money from blogging". The "Problogger" book has some really good info. Of course, collecting a bunch of books about minimalism/ minimalist lifestyle seems like an oxymoron. I'm still waiting to receive "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Creating a Web Page & Blog".
I should just get back in the habit of going to the little library here again.

Then today a friend gave me a bag of paperback novels to read.
I noticed a few in there that don't interest me at all and I will just leave on the free table in my dorm. Actually I should leave them all there, but a few of the books look like they might be good reading material and besides reading these silly novels helps put me to sleep at night.

Every now and then, my brother will try to convince me that I need to write a book on all my traveling, or a book about living at the Grand Canyon. I wonder if he would be happy with blog-writing instead.

About Me

Well I've been reading quite a few other blogs about minimalist lifestyle and different sites about making money by writing blogs, so I figured I would get serious about blogging to give it a go.
Most bloggers who "supposedly" earn big bucks from blogging say that you need an
about me page...so here goes.

One of my younger brothers used to call me the wandering gypsy because I traveled so much that he had a hard time of keeping track of where I was living. That is why the word, Gypsy is on this site.

During the 80's, I traveled cross-country twice a year: In June to go back home to NH to visit family for the Summer and then again in September to Utah so my ex-husband could go to school.
Then starting in 2003 or 2004, I started hopping on a greyhound bus alone to travel across the country for a few years. Believe me, you don't keep much stuff when you start packing up things to move around on a greyhound.

Since I came to the Grand Canyon to live & work in March 2007, I have started to collect alot of stuff. Now 3 years later, I am starting to give some of my stuff away. This Summer I will be drastically weeding things out of my dorm room. The company I work for has small dorm rooms with community bathrooms for employees.

I have not had a television for over 3 years, even though quite a few co-workers have offered to give me one for free. I have not had a car since April 2004 (which is why I traveled on Greyhound). So that means I don't have car payments, worry about getting a car repaired, gas bills, or have to buy insurance.
I don't have any phone but am thinking of getting some sort of cell phone soon. I'm still trying to figure out all the info on a few different companies.