Now that my daughter is home all day -- and I'm officially working full time on the booming business -- I've had to juggle some things around and my routines are a bit off. I'm slowly getting the hang of this full-time mommy/full-time business owner gig, but things are definitely slipping through the cracks here (i.e. I still have luggage to unpack from our vacation....).

One thing I do want to try to get done this week, which seems to keep getting pushed to the bottom of my to-do list each day, is to post more items on eBay. I was on a roll there for a while, but took most of May off from selling because I was sick and too busy with end-of-school/end-of-job/pre-vacation stuff. However, I have a nice pile of stuff lined up in the basement all ready to go.

We're also cleaning our garage out this weekend, so who knows what treasures I'll find in there to unload....

I have been collecting stuff to post on eBay tomorrow and right now my dining room table looks like I'm holding a garage sale in my house. Here's what it looked like before I filled up the other side of the table:



My husband used to brew his own beer, but gave it up so he's given me all his brewing stuff to sell. I don't even know what half of it is. I don't want to push my luck with him, so I'm not going to point out to him that he could sell the stuff himself and put the money toward the new mattress he's been whining about.....

Woo Hoo! We're getting $2,700 back in tax money

Sold one of Mini Me's dresses on eBay and made $6.86 for the challenge. My new total is $3,528.26.

I'm also waiting for a rather large auction to close later today and with any luck the winning bidder will come through with the cabbage fast so I'll be adding that as well. That auction is for my glass grinder, which someone is going to get a really good deal on.

I still need to sell my light table and the sheets of glass I have stored in the basement. My guess is it's best to just sell it locally and have the person pick the glass up since it'll be a pain to ship. I know stained glass supply companies ship glass all the time, but I'm not a stained glass supply company. ...

I got a check from Pinecone today, plus some money from an eBay sale so I'm adding $5.97 to my challenge. My new total is $2,561.40.

The eBay money was NOT from the woman who said she was going to pay me yesterday (weeks after the auction closed). This was for something else. I still haven't received payment from that lady, so I relisted the item today. She apprently has a history of winning items and then not paying.

So last night someone who won some eBay stuff from me a few weeks ago -- but who still hasn't paid me -- emailed after I filed a dispute to get my fees reversed. Mind you, this was the first I had heard from the winning bidder, who assured me that she would be paying for the item today. She did point out that her Paypal account is closed, so I wonder how she's going to pull that off. Now that it's getting fairly late and I still haven't received payment from her, my guess is she's not going to come through.

This really irks me. I, of all people, know people buy stuff they can't afford. But I have yet to stoop to this level of "debting" in my compulsive ways.

Onto other things ... I avoided working at all today, which was kind of nice. Working mostly at home, I can easily fall into the trap of never taking time off, but today I gave myself permission to not even look at any work-related stuff on my computer.

I will have to get back to the booming side business tomorrow, but I'm not returning to the "office" job until next Tuesday so I'll have plenty of time to get caught up.

Things on eBay have died down. One auction closed yesterday and I'll be making some money there later, but I have 9 other items posted and nothing even has a bid on it -- although there are a few watchers. I also have a buyer who seems to have vanished on me, so I guess I'll be posting a dispute claim on that one.

Then there's the issue of one of my major business clients having not paid me in a looooong while. They are very regular on payments, but in January they too seemed to have disappear as far as the money goes. However,I'm still getting plenty of work from them. I did cut them some slack last month since I figured the accounting department was busy with tax stuff, but I have decided to start hounding them Monday if I don't see a big check in the mail over the weekend.

To top it all off, I gave in and made a doctor's appointment. I've had a red, burning rash on my eyelids for the last two weeks. I thought it was due to dry skin, but it's not getting better so I figured I would dish out $50 to see a dermatologist rather than risk my face peeling off.

Off to volunteer at the asylum now....

I sold one of Mini Me's dresses on eBay today. After shipping, I made $8.01 on the deal, which brings my challenge total up to $381.53.

My husband and I have re-thought our tropical getaway and have decided to push it back to late May since Spring Break is now out due to having to pay taxes on the booming side business.

The good thing about pushing it back is that we'll be saving $1,000 on the package since it will be in between high and low season where we're going. Also, we won't be pulling Mini Me out of school. The original plan was to have her miss 3 days of school so we could extend our trip a few days past the end of break.

Assuming a certain client forks over some dough soon to the booming side business, I should have all the cash in hand for this trip by the end of March.

A good thing that came out of this endeavor is that I've decided to start putting 25% of the booming side business' income into the tax savings account just to play it safe. If nothing else, I'll have more money next spring to pay down the debt and take another trip.

I'm a little nervous about having to pay taxes this year. My booming side business was booming more than I had planned for in 2007 and my income was much higher than I thought it would be. Now I'm worried that I didn't put enough toward taxes.

If that's the case, the trip to the tropics that I was planning may have to be called off, which promises to put me in a big funk.

I'll know for sure in three weeks when I see the rock 'n' roll accountant, but in the meantime my husband is going to do some calculating and see how it works out without all the deductions and such.

I'm really feeling the need for a frou frou drink delivered poolside while my big hunk husband rubs suntan lotion all over me, so the numbers better be in my favor...

Since I was

The problem with working at home most of the time is that people know you're at home and expect you to drop everything for them.

For example, the house phone has been ringing off the hook today. Because today is the one and only day that I have this week where I'm not running off here or there for whatever reason, I'm trying to plow through a bunch of work projects. But every 10 minutes my mother-in-law or my sister or some unknown person who keeps hanging up without leaving a message has called. I've only answered one of the calls. If I answered all the calls, I would never get work done. And without work, I don't get paid (thus the financial bent here....)

When I used to work in the corporate world, I had an assistant who would run interference for me. If someone came in unannounced, he'd go down to the lobby and deal with them. If my phone rang, he would answer it and either make the problem go away or say I was "in a meeting" until I had time to deal with the person.

The closest thing I have here to an assistant are the two dogs -- neither of whom can talk, but both of whom are really good at chasing away uninvited visitors....

While I was off writing about my

I decided to skip all the activities I mentioned previously, and instead went to return some library books and stopped by the post office to mail another eBay item. After postage, I added $3.59 to my challenge money, which brings the total up to $202.41.

The final eBay buyer came through with a payment this morning. You guys are good luck!

I posted some more items today and I have some auctions ending later today as well.

eBay's going to be deducting its share of the profits in the next day or two, so once that's done and I get stuff shipped I'll update the challenge money.

I had plans to go to a movie today since I have a free pass and my daughter will be gone this afternoon, but my husband now says he's got too much work to go with me. I still may go alone or stay home and work myself or go get a manicure since I have money set aside for that or go for a run or take a nice long nap. The possibilities are endless...

I spent the morning clipping coupons and fiddling around in my office. The groceries have yet to be delivered this morning so I'm not sure what my weekly savings will be there. However, I didn't need much this week since we're still eating from the freezer. Based on my meal planning, it looks like I might be able to eat from the freezer next week as well.

This week's menu includes:

* Mac and cheese
* Fettucine with brown butter sauce
* Stir fry with pork
* Barley and pinto beans with tortillas
* Pan-seared mahi mahi with creamed brussel sprouts
* Leftovers
* One dinner out (tonight) with the Big Kahuna Sister

Someone's ears must have been burning. One of my missing eBay buyers just paid me via PayPal. Now if the other person would just fork over his share....

Ummm... It's been 72 hours since my first eBay auctions ended. I emailed all the buyers invoices within an hour of the auctions ending. All but two have either paid or said they're sending money orders. But what about those other two?

Should I be worried? Should I send them gentle reminders? Or should I cut them some slack and give them a week to get in touch before I nag?

Any words of wisdom DisneySteve?

I made another $41.31 (after shipping and fees) on eBay. That brings the challenge total up to $61.08.

I'm still waiting to hear from two other buyers from my auctions that closed yesterday. A third buyer is sending me a money order.

I also have 10 more items up for sale that will close over the weekend, plus a basement full of stuff to post still.

I was thinking about how dangerous this would all be if I were tempted to bid on items myself, but I'm not in the least bit interested in even "window shopping" for stuff on eBay so my compulsive shopping tendencies aren't kicking in. Good thing....

Today my first eBay auctions closed. Although I sold everything I posted, only one bidder has paid up so far (it's only been a couple hours since they closed so I'll give everyone a while before I start panicking....)

However, the one person who did pay up, promptly deposited his money into my PayPal account and I promptly mailed the item. Minus the shipping cost, I made $12.36 to add to my challenge money, which now is up to $19.77.

Inspired by DisneySteve's return to eBay, I decided earlier this week to post some of my stained glass supplies to see if I could make a few bucks for the challenge.

I am now addicted to selling stuff on eBay. Forget about shopping. I just want to SELL, SELL, SELL!!!!

I originally posted 13 items at very low prices and was surprised to see most of them get bids. Their auctions end in three days, so today I decided to post seven more things. However, I decided to branch out and post things that we were going to just send to Goodwill or give away to Mini Me's school. They're perfectly good things, but we had no use for them anymore so I've now got 20 items posted on eBay.

I think my husband is worried that I might start selling all of his belongings -- weather he wants me to or not. So I'm going to wait a few days before posting any more -- and then I'll limit it to more stained glass stuff.

I think I also might do some reading up on eBay selling as well. Right now, I'm just fumbling my way through the whole process, but I'm sure there's a better strategy I should be taking in order to make the most on my items. Perhaps DisneySteve will share some insights there as well since he is to blame for my latest addiction. ...