It Came From Outer Space…

It’s little things which make you remember and recommend a service professional. The little extras that they do that they really don’t have to. Take for example our real estate agent they gave us a box of Ghiardelli chocolates when we were given the keys to the house, and since then have contacted us several times to make sure that everything is okay and to see if there’s anything we need. Last week I got a message from them which included a copy of all the paperwork that we’ll need to file our tax return, which saves me a big headache now that we have my husband’s W2 and I have to tackle the taxes.

It’s that sort of service which I hope to offer here, to be able to go above and beyond and help my clients in any way that I can. In the mean time I have to go through the site and rework certain portions of it now that my license is fully reactivated.

We’ve been having some positive things happening with regards finances lately, which is a blessed relief given we just took a major expense in buying a house and we have our first mortgage payment looming on the horizon. Our insurance company is covering most of the cost of fixing my husband’s car as that’s what they’re there for, and I just found out that renewing my licenses is going to be less than I thought, as the price for the tarot license in our county seems to have gone down! According to what I was quoted from the occupational license office yesterday.

I’m quite surprised! Pleasantly so!

The tarot license is still more expensive (by quite a bit) than the hypnotherapy license, but it’s cheaper than it was, hopefully this is a positive sign for fellow clairvoyants in our area.

I’ve been managing to cut corners in lots of other places too which is helpful, we have a coupon for Home Depot for when we resupply their, 10% off. I just used a 10% off shopping spree coupon for Target to replace some things which have been broken in the move like the tea pot, and a candle holder, and I’ve found I can get my laptop fixed with spare parts from eBay and also by using a Bluefly coupon so that I will have a mobile computer when I do design consultations, which will be very, very helpful. If we tried to fix the laptop through Gateway (as the warranty expired a week before it broke) it would be at least $700 dollars, which is why originally we just replaced the computer with a desktop computer, which does still work fine, but I’ve found out with a bit of creative eBaying and less than $100 I can get the parts and fix the computer myself which is GREAT. Perhaps if I keep up the learning in that regard I can start fixing other people’s computers too and add that service to my design business? It’s very hard to find people willing to work on laptops in our area.

I keep meaning to mention that I love using FireFox as a browser. It’s got great popup blocker functioning which I love, but if you don’t have it you might want to download one seperately. I can’t extol enough the fact that not having to click “close, close, close” thirty thousand times while doing things is wonderful. I converted several years ago, although I still keep the unfortunate Internet Explorer because a lot of the clients for my web design business still use IE and I have to check for cross-browser compatibility.

But I just have to work on getting everyone I know to convert. I’m not going to do a kill-or-convert, but it would be nice to see everyone discovering the beauty which is FireFox as their browser.

Psychic or not I feel like we’ve made a good investment having term life insurance. It can really help you out with those unforeseen circumstances. I like to think that we’d be prepared for anything which might happen, but there are always going to be things which pop up that even I can’t predict.

When we brought our property recently our broker suggested we get mortgage insurance in case my husband who is the primary breadwinner is ever injured and therefore out of work and isn’t getting a paycheck. We’re still debating on it. My husband feels that it’s an unnecessary precaution, but I like to think that we’d be protected if something did happen. We keep going back and forth and round and round. Even so I would advise anyone else to take the precaution too.

As my child gets older I find myself thinking of his fate in the world and how many different things may pose a danger to him. I also get comments sometimes from friends and family about what sort of pagan baby gifts could be given to young children with regards protection charms to keep them safe, and we sometimes have discussions about differences between the faiths on prayers, such as the “Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep” prayer:

Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep;
And if I die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.

The nicest version of a protection that I’ve discovered in my searches for a small child is this one.

Light without, light within
Let this magic spell begin.
Keep me guarded well, safe to be
Knowing the light walks with me.

The idea with this spell is to have your child mix together a cup of baking soda, a teaspoon of chopped dried mint and powdered clove while saying these things, and then if there’s a day where things are worrying them, you sprinkle a little in their shoes to keep them guarded.

I’m working on improving my health all around this year. I’ve been pretty lax on taking care of myself properly in this past year. Skipping meals, skipping exercise. I started a plan when we were at the apartment complex still using their exercise room which had lots of weight accessories that I could use without paying extra. We do have some small weights at the house which my husband bought for me when we were first married, but I’m worried about weight lifting around the munchkin because he likes to get into everything and he’d hurt himself or both of us if he got in the way and caused me to trip up with the weights.

So, this morning we went on a nature walk, the munchkin and I. I haven’t really explored the neighborhood too much because we’ve been so busy getting everything straight inside the house or getting the cars fixed. Monday morning while I was at the mechanic my husband went walking with the munchkin and found a nature trail which runs along the side of our property and into the woods behind the house. So the munchkin and I were intrepid adventurers this morning, traversing sand traps and wood piles and finding out about rocks and birds. It was great fun and great exercise too because we were walking around for almost an hour. I feel at peace more too. It’s been so long since I’ve gone on walks like that because we’ve never really had any area. Where we’re living right now reminds me so much of where I grew up in England. There’s a bit more sand, but it’s the first time since I left college that I’ve had access to woodland paths, and been able to walk around hearing birds sing and seeing squirrels clambering through the trees.

I’m going to be trying to write a lot more in here in the next year. I’ve been censoring myself a bit, inadvertantly, wondering about writing about things and then talking myself out of it. When I should just write things out and let the chips fall where they may. I become wary because most of what I write will be in the realm of personal experience, rather than text book learning, and I need to stop that. Experience is a valid form of understanding.

This isn’t like choosing which type of golf products to buy: Mizuno golf or something telse. This is the sort of thing which benefits from anecdotal records.

I’ll cite people when I need to but the rest is just going to come from me.

I’m almost finished here. I’m just trying to wade through a bunch of code and find the ones which mean red and change them to purple. We’ve wound up waiting to take our cars in to the shop until after hubbie’s done with work for the weekend. Mine can at least limp along for the time being if we just top her up with oil. Plus after this weekend hubbie’s next pay check will have been deposited so that will give us a bit extra float cash.

So, I spent the morning curled up in front of the warm computer screen while the munchkin was napping working on code instead of outside freezing my tail off waiting for the car to be done. A nice compromise I think.

See everyone later on. I’m taking a break on the code for laundry.

I’m almost done with the new layout, but it’s going to have to wait until tomorrow for me to finish it the way things are going. We have some car problems, not the sort where you’re trying to decide which Dodge Charger accessories that you want to buy, but the sort where we have to work out if it’s going to be more feasible to fix my cars brakes and do the oil change or get hubbie’s power steering fixed.

It’s wonderful that both cars have decided they want to cause problems for the new year, isn’t it?

So, while we’re trying to finagle which car is going to the shop and which car is going to ferry people back and forth given we have to do laundry this week and we’re not going to have a washer and dryer until probably next week…you’ll have to suffer with this layout, but I’m going to have lots of time to work on it over the weekend given after 4:30 p.m. the munchkin and I won’t be going anywhere.