Bethjoy.com

Last month I went to South Park Mall, a place I normally don’t go to. My cousin Carolyn wanted to go and the two of us went and had a grand glorious time ultimately culminating in my purchasing a $40 pair of red high heels that look absolutely gorgeous. Pictures are on my face book page. They were original $80 so I got them for 1/2 original price. I became increasingly aware of the vast and beautiful world of shoes during that visit as we spent most of our several hours in the mall looking at shoes.

This later led me to Walmart where I bought three pairs of brightly colored ballet flats for about $7 each. Then, however, I went to T J Max and actually bought two more pairs of shoes. So in July I bought six pairs of shoes, a previously unheard of thing! The two pairs of shoes I bought at TJ Max were a sophisticated yet casual brown pump with a pretty bow on the front which cost $10 and was originally $35 and if I hadn’t forgotten my camera cable I could post pictures of. So those were about 1/3 of the origional price.

The other pair I bought were a pair of high heeled red leather strappy sandals that were $20 originally $65. However… the sale stickers happened to be placed in a visible place and when I ever so gently pulled it off it left a discoloration on the shoe. I was not happy. Then I realized I could return them! And I did. So last night I brought them back, got my money back, walked back to the clearance section of the store and found an absolutely gorgeous pair of elegant silver satin covered high heels that are absolute classics and could have been worn in the thirties/forties/fifties/whenever. They were the shoes I liked most amongst those on sale in the clearance section. They fit and best of all, they were on clearance for $5 dollars; original price $40 and I probably would have been willing to pay $20 for them:) So I was very happy.

I took back a pair of shoes I really wouldn’t have worn much and got a pair of shoes I like better and can wear more and I have $15 dollars to get something else with! So I went from 1/2 to 1/3 to 1/8 of the original price:) Which while that has nothing to do with anything it does sound nice:) My mother tells me I now enough shoes to last me a while but when my birthday comes around next month… I may go look at shoes again:) Apparently I have discovered that I really like shoes!

So, which of my vast array of shoes did I wear to work today? The tennis shoes I wear practically every day… I love to LOOK at stylish shoes and wear them to church and for special occasions but for every day, I like to be comfortable. However, I have my new shoes out on display in my room and I enjoy looking at them (especially the red $40 ones which are a work of art). And this is probably a long enough post about shoes.

About a year and a half ago I got my own office at work. The desk/computer was already in position for the previous person who used the office and I just moved in and added my stuff, never thinking about the set up of the computer monitor and keyboard.

Today though… I suddenly began to think how nice it would be if I could just move the monitor over a bit. You see, the monitor is on the left side of my desk with the keyboard on a slide out thing in the middle. As the desktop computer is underneath the desk around the middle, about where somebodies feet would be if they were sitting directly in front of the monitor. So… for quite some time I have either had my feet well back or have taken off my shoes and sat sort of cross legged on my chair(or just on my left leg since there is room comfortably for my right but not the left) or otherwise done strange contortions because the monitor is on the left and the keyboard is to the right.

Today though I thought, “Why don’t I move the monitor?” The obvious solution to the problem of back aches and legs falling asleep doubtless. However I soon learned why this hadn’t been done before, simply that the monitors power cord couldn’t reach! And I didn’t have an extension cord. But what I did have was another power strip. So by setting the power strip on my desk and running the cord down and plugging one power strip into another I was able to successfully move my monitor over about a foot so that it is now in front of me. And I can stretch my legs out in front of me as I set at my desk. And that is nice:)

I’m finally going through my pictures:)

I thought this stuffed bear at the hotel I stayed at in Anchorage was cute:)

Like me, Glaciers can be slow but they do move eventually.

Kodiak Alaska, I took several pictures here but I think this one looked special, better than the one of the McDonalds:)

I went through my pictures and pulled out the ones that looked really special, as in the ones that were in focus and didn’t have reflections in the window panes I was taking the pictures through.

They had the prettiest decorations at the buffet.

I like the color of the water in this pictures. Still in Kodiak here

On my twentieth birthday I got two vases of roses! One from my grandmother and one form my parents. The roses were gorgeous, and I took many pictures of them. This one just looked especially neat.

And for my birthday I got a Sugar Free Birthday cake, full sized. It was delicious…

Providing I don’t get too hunger(which thinking about my birthday dinner is rapidly making me) Post 3 should be coming up rapidly.

My driving skills in racing games are… well, pathetic. However with my recent advances in the art of jumping I hope that my ability to race will also improve. On the second lap of my third race I finally discovered which button was the brake and on the next lap I actually succeeded in going though a turn without crashing the gorgeous black Lamborghini I was driving into the barrier. It’s a very realistic looking game. With the superior graphics of the Xbox 360 you can even see the little people watching you race recoil in fear behind the barriers as I approach… Well, actually they typically don’t recoil until I collide with said barrier or do a burnout or… So far I haven’t flipped a car yet!!!

I’m really enjoying the racing the game. Even though I am getting lapped in any race longer than two laps. The race tracks are gorgeous and set in interesting places like London and St. Petersburg, the two tracks I’ve raced on so far. Incidentally, I’m racing Project Gotham Racing 4(Think that’s the name) Which could probably be rented at Gamefly where I have a beautiful new account(I’ve already rented $100.00 worth in games, and I haven’t finished my free trial yet!) and it has a referral network!!!

Try GameFly for FREE or start for only $6.95!

So I’ve been having fun:) I shall now go work on my racing so that in the future when I drive a Ferrari or Lamborghini I do not crash into the walls… often. And my driving skills in games has indeed had a small effect on why I’m now twenty and don’t have a driver’s license yet…

Having discovered “PSP Ebook Creator” a nice little program that creates readable Ebooks just perfectly sized for the PSP from text documents, I have been busy putting books on my PSP. From Project Gutenberg comes a host of Henty Books plus other favorites of mine like Pride and Prejudice, Hiawatha’s Photography(From a collections of Poems by Lewis Carroll), and many other fine works of literature that is now in the public domain.

This morning however the books I was putting on my PSP were not in the public domain… However I had every right to put them on my PSP because I had written them myself. From the depths of my computers hard drive I pulled out Elaine’s Pearls and my more recent(though still a long time ago) Dragon Trilogy and converted them into Ebooks for my PSP that way I can read them again. And hopefully, they will inspire me to write more.

While I don’t think I have what it takes to write professionally I remember having fun doing it. Also, it’s a very inexpensive thing to do. And saying “I just completed writing a book” sounds a lot more impressive than “I just won a video game!!!” or even “I’m getting much better at jumping!!!” The last statement I have been saying lately. Jumping has in the past been difficult for me(in video games that is). It go so bad that when I got to a point in a video game where I would get to a point in which a lot of jumping was required I would start referring to it as “my bane“. However I would doggedly keep on trying, and trying, and trying because I wanted to see what would happen next in the video game and what the ending was and eventually I would make it.

In Kingdom Hearts one of the scenarios involves you following tigger’s moves exactly as he jumps from tree stump to tree stump. These tree stumps were of varying sizes and heights and placed at varying distances from each other and if you landed on the ground instead of the tree stump you had to start over…

When I initially failed miserably I didn’t try again for a while. But when I did try again… I made it. Then, all of a sudden, it was as if I could JUMP!!! YAY!!! Future jumping challenges became somehow easier. And while realizing that it is a very unimportant thing in the grand scheme of things to be able to handle platform jumping in video games I am still quite proud of myself for persevering and becoming better at jumping.

My new PSP came in today!!! One of the reasons that I bought it was that I am about to depart on a long journey. I will be gone for a while(more than three weeks). And my Mom will not be going with me. SO I wanted to make sure I could email. As the PSP has the ability to access internet and as I just got a Gmail account I should be able to send emails to Mom. However, it doesn’t have a key board… So typing could get interesting. It’s a rather slow process to select the letter that you want in typing.

So that is why, before I leave, I am writing a code. so “a” might mean “Hi Mommy!” and “l” might mean, “I ate a really delicious desert”. That way I can quickly compose messages without sitting and pressing buttons for a long time. Admittingly, what I do could quite often be described as pushing buttons for a long time but some button pushing is definitely more interesting than others…

So I am very happy to have my new silver PSP!!!

In other, less pleasant news, I had my very first cavity/filling today. The cavity was discovered on Tuesday when I went for my regular dental cleaning/checkup and it was discovered that I had a small problem on one of my upper right molars.

I was really nervous this morning as I went to the dentist to get my very first filling. I mentioned to the dental hygeniest who prepared me for the process that I was nervous, having never done this before, and she was very nice and reassuring. So was the dentist when he came in. I had a local anesthetic in my mouth and the stuff they put in tasted weird and my mouth felt very funny for a while. The actual filling process didn’t take too long though. I just kept very still with my mouth wide open with the thoughts that if I moved suddenly it could possibly cause some drastic problem… I was really nervous through the whole proceeding however I felt quite certain the dentist and his assistant knew exactly what they were doing having done it many times before. It was my first time though. I am a little proud of myself for going almost twenty years without getting a cavity, albeit some of that time I didn’t have teeth! I am also sad that I no longer can say I’ve never had a cavity and I am now going to try to brush my teeth a lot more than I used to. Despite the fact that it wasn’t so bad getting the tooth filled, it’s not my favorite way to spend the day!!! Therefore I will try to keep those visits as infrequent as possible.

Yay!!! I just finished the sales leads!!! And as I write this a new game for my ipod is being downloaded from Itunes. The PSP helped get me over the biggest hump.Sadly, I seem to be a lot more motivated by toys and fun stuff than by the pride of a job well done or even a good work ethic… The sales leads completion cost me about $120.00 for the PSP, shipping, a song download or two, and finally a five dollar ipod game to give me the perseverance for the last little while… However I will enjoy my new toys:) Hopefully this won’t become a habit as my primary life’s goal right now is to become financially independent however my other big goal is to have a lot of fun in life and while the two do seem to be somewhat exclusive of the other, I want to become financially independent so I can spend lots of time doing fun things I enjoy. So along the way I am also doing fun things I enjoy.

So what did I learn from this experience? First of all, that it is possible for me not to enjoy doing things in Excel. Secondly, if it is a choice between entering sales leads and brushing my teeth I will actually brush my teeth. Thirdly, putting off certain fun stuff until a big seemingly endless task is done just causes me to do semi boring and unimportant stuff while I procrastinate doing the long boring job so that nothing I want to accomplish or need to accomplish gets done.

And lastly, breaking a job down into smaller quantities helps! A LOT! Just counting how many sales leads I had to go helped change what was a like a looming black cloud of doom into something quantifiable that could be changed into little puffs of unpleasantness. Or something like that. Having smaller quantities that can be measured is very nice. Also, having a deadline, real or imaginary, also helps. Like knowing that somebody else could hit the buy it now on that beautiful silver PSP!!! When something you aren’t excited about is “due whenever” it generally does get put to back of the list when there are other fun things to do.

And my new game has just finished downloading from Itunes so I am going to sync my Ipod then be quite busy for a while:)

This post is coming to you from my desktop computer at work! Which means… probably a lot more posts. I couldn’t remember my user name and password for my blog, or even the url although such information was known to my laptop at home. However as my gamecube, and now my playstation 2 are also at home the question after a long day of work was pretty much “What would I rather do than play my fun video games?”. Typically the answer was(and is), “Nothing!” Writing a post hardly even entered my head. Cleaning my room also was absent(I do have a path to the door and my closet is still accessable). Occasionally, more so recently, I would go “riding my bicycle!” but again, writing a post was not able to overcome all of the other things I want to do at home.

But here, at work there are no video game consoles(though my DS is a standard fixture in my purse but that is a “handheld” system as apposed to “console”). I also don’t have a bicycle here. And I am here for most of my waking hours because I come into work with Mom and Dad (I’m not driving yet) and thus am here until they go home around six (if we’re lucky, normally it’s later. Or so it feels like). And guess what? I work part time!!! So I’m not working the whole time and as I have plenty of fun time for the things I like to do, playing games, reading personal finance websites, walking out to check the mail even though I know it isn’t going to be there but I like to go outside and I like to have it at least look like I have a purpose for walking outside, and so forth. I think I lost my place.

Anyway, I have a lot more time here than I do at home. Thus, since I am now logged into my blog here I may post more!

The phone just rang. “Hi!” says the computer recorded voice, “You have just qualified for (insert telemarketer sales pitch here which I didn’t listen to since I have permission to hang up on telemarketers)”. Right now Mom and Dad are out so I am sort of “babysitting the phone”. I am very good with the phrase “He’s not at his desk right now, Would you like his voice mail?”. For some reason though when I say, “The Light Source, Elizabeth speaking” sometimes the person on the other end will say “Hello, Alyssa” so it’s possible my enunciation could use some work. That or I ought to change my name to Alyssa.

I’d nearly forgotten how much fun it is to post. Admittingly, I don’t think this would win out over my PS2 and the exciting Kingdom Hearts game I’m in the process of playing but it is definitely winning out over most of the things here, specifically entering sales leads… A while back, as in a few days or weeks, I’m not sure, I was given a task of taking a multitude of emails that had names and addresses in them and put them all into a nice neat excell spreadsheet.

I love Excell and making spreadsheets. For the fun of it, sometimes even over playing video games, I will make budget spreadsheets and spreadsheets about how much saved now will turn into enough money for me to live on when I’m a hundred if invested well (It’s only about $200.00 to grow into the equivalent of $40,000.00 in today’s dollars when I’m 100.) and I did all the way down to sixty which was several thousand dollars invested now to grow to 40,000 in today’s dollars. However, to get back to work, or at least writing about it. I discovered that when it comes to copying and pasting peoples names, addresses, zip codes, and email addresses and so forth into an excell spreadsheet… I really don’t like it! So for the past while I’ve been actively procrastinating doing it (I’m not done yet, but my blog is getting a post! Besides, I’m supposed to be answering the phone right now and at the moment it isn’t ringing(hopefully future employers don’t read my website!)). However progress has been made. The first list was so long… 647 different entries most of which had to have nine different copy and pastes each. Finally, some aid in motivation arrived when I saw a silver playstation portable(with accessories!) on Ebay with a buy it now of $100.00 and $13.60 shipping… I said to myself, “Self, you can’t buy it until the PLSN Sales Leads are entered… And somebody else could buy it before you do!” Before that day was over the PLSN sales leads were entered, the Playstation Portable was purchased(I really like video games) And without my realizing it, a large portion of my task was done as that was actually the longest list of the eight or so lists I had. All the rest have been much shorter. I only have two lists left and I’ve done three or more today. So… It’s getting down.

I have learned a few things while doing this. However, it is time for me to get back to work so perhaps I shall mention the moral to this story later. One thing, I’m going to be really glad when it’s all done. And I’m especially looking forward to having my PSP!!! I understand you can put RSS feeds of blogs on there so I can read personal finance blogs in the car!!!

After writing the previous brief post I looked at my website and saw that the last time I posted was back in APRIL!!! Much has happened since then.

One major thing is, I’ve discovered GAMESTOP!!! Walmart used to be my favorite store but that position has been usurped by Gamestop. Gamestop, that blissful store in which fun video games may be purchased for less than $10.00!!! Providing of course that they are used and several years old and for a video game system that has been replaced with the newest model. I had a Gamecube I purchased in August of last year as my birthday present and this year in August I got a Playstation 2!!! And a hoard of games:) So far I have spent $123.03 on my playstation 2 and games I have the new style “slim” system plus 10 games including Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2. I really like the combination of Gamestop and Ebay that got me all of that. And i did trade in a few old GBA games to get some of the PS2 games but for total cash spent so far, I think I’m doing really well.

I’ve really been enjoying Kingdom Hearts. I love actually “being in” the disney worlds. Walking around in Wonderland and riding the magic carpet in Agrabah was really fun. It’s a really neat game, and the best part is, I’m only part way through the first game and I still have a lot of that game and the whole sequel to look forward to!!! It will be a while before I get to the eight other games I own:) The nice thing is that my spending for the next couple of months is likely to be down while I play with what I just got.

Incidentally… My 20th birthday is on September 26th and a Gamestop Giftcard would be a present that would get plenty of smiles and elation from me.

I was just watching a movie where they prefaced the story by asking “Out of the wide range of English literature, who would you consider to be the most fabulous character?” Instantly I went “Whinnie the Pooh!” then after thinking about it I followed closely with “Elizabeth Bennett or Mr. Darcy” then, “a G. A. Henty book Hero”… However in their list of fabulous English literature characters none of the ones I chose showed up. Perhaps if I had gone on thinking long enough I might have picked Robin Hood(the first name they mentioned), but I certainly wouldn’t have picked some of the characters they picked. And since the movie was “The Wind in the Willows” they finally settled on Mr. Toad of Toad Hall as the most fabulous character. While Mr. Toad doesn’t appeal to me, I did like the Mole though…