Friday, October 24, 2008

odds and ends

I have been trying to stay positive and relatively calm but when I watch the news and read the paper I am starting to panic somewhat. Stock market still falling, banks still in trouble, and more closures. Another car dealership closed just 15 miles from us that was also a long standing business. This one was Honda. In the paper today I read where Chrysler is closing another plant in Newark, Delaware. A loss of about 1,800 jobs. This location is about 24 miles from us. There are no job openings in the tri-state area for Lisa. Her company has notified everyone that at the end of this month they will no longer have health insurance, life insurance, or disability insurance.
I have decided the best thing to do is for me to put in some applications for a full time chef's position. I have not figured this out yet, but for some reason there seems to be jobs in this area. So I better take it now while it is there. I have gotten a reply to one already so I am keeping my fingers crossed for a potential interview. I am hoping that between Lisa working part time and on my days off we can keep the business running until things calm down. With all of these layoff's I cannot predict how business will be in the next 4 months especially with lawn care season over. It is getting really bad and I don't want to be sitting between a rock and a hard place. Everyday the news gets worse.
I have also read wear Korea is having a food shortage. Now that is really bad. A month ago I had touched on this subject about the United States and the dwindling farm land used to build houses on. Where will we get our food in the years to come? Korea could be an example of what we will have to face.
So much for all of this doom and gloom on the bright side I fixed a toilet today and it only cost us $6.89 yeah! Maybe I was a plumber in my past life, it just seems to come natural. I made a pot of beef vegetable soup for dinner to go along with some grilled cheese sandwiches. What is really good is cream cheese and jalapeno peppers on rye bread grilled-yum! Now it is off to try to change my own oil-awweeehhhh!
You know 5 years ago I never would have done this, but I am learning to save money and stop being so wasteful. We have always bought what we wanted and have had nice holidays, but I am realizing that I have a basement and attic full of stuff that we don't use. That is really a waste. So now for the first time we are trying to organize a yard sale-that's gonna be a trip! Of course we have no ideal of what we are doing or how much to price things at. I for one hate to haggle over pricing, that is gonna be Lisa's job. If we ever move it will take forever to sort through this stuff. We have a electric guitar (of course I wanted it) that I never learned to play, an old piano that we don't play. Tennis rackets (bum knees can't play), roller blades (don't use since Lisa broke her wrist), sleds, vases, stuffed animals, comic books from our childhood, jewelry boxes, and the list goes on.
I have a new thing that I do now. Once a month I go online to eBay and buy either a gold coin, or bouillon bars. It is an investment, it is easy to store, and hopefully will increase its value as we age. I have noticed on eBay that people overbid on things just like at some auctions. I attended a closing of a sports goods store and people were bidding like crazy at the beginning. I just haven't figured this out.
Gas prices have came down dramatically here. Yesterday it was $2.49 a gallon. What a relief that is to everyone. We think we have figured out the neighborhood break in. Inside job! Due to excessive talk in the neighborhood and the absence of our neighbor due to the lack of funds for his rent it seems quite clear what transpired. People say time will tell in this case it has. I have lots running through my head today so just a post of odds and ends.


Holy Cow! I finally got it!

3 comments:

Janie said...

Hey! See you got the songlist up! Maybe I gave directions better than I thought. lol Yes things are really bad. Just hope they don't get too much worse! Hope you get the chef job. Have a better week. Janie

Lucy said...

You got the song lists up. When Joe and Spunky wakes up. Everyone is so talented. I can't even fiure out photobucket

betty said...

great job on getting the song list up, Kelly!!! proud of you:)

I think it is a good idea to have a garage sale; here's what I've done and I've had pretty successful garage sales; my plan is to get rid of the stuff so I put down low prices; the thing is if you aren't using it, even though it cost $100 or more, you might as well get something for it rather than it just taking up space. I don't mark items but I have in my mind what I want for something. If people ask the price then I tell them my price, if they seem to hesitate I ask them what they think is a good price; they tell me; if it is close to what I wanted and if I think it will be a hard item to move, I give it to them. If not, I go up a dollar or two and usually they'll end up taking the item. My most successful yard sale was when I had most of my small stuff at 25 cents and my bigger items at 50 cents (these were like books, kitchen gadgets, things like that) My other items like furniture, appliances etc were more expensive. But because things were so cheap, I sold 90% of what I had out including my big items without having to haggle over prices too much and I made a good profit on it (and because of my faith, I did pray for success and did tithe on what I made)

you'll do good and if will feel good to get rid of unused items

good luck with finding a chef's job; I know its not the direction you want to go now, but like I tell my son, you don't have to do it for the rest of your life, just right now until times get better

betty