Bethjoy.com

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…

Due to a little more spending than planned in January and February (after Christmas sales… And some gorgeous shoes) I decided to cut back my spending in March, by a lot. The phrase “cold turkey” comes to mind. I decided that I would go through march with only paying my Netflix subscription for my personal/entertainment spending. And guess what? I SUCCEEDED!!! It was incredible! And I had very enjoyable month playing with games I already had and looking forward to the DVD’s I had coming in the mail.

April however the ban on spending was to be lifted and naturally I have been looking forward to April for most of March.

On March 31st whilest browsing the used video games offered at Amazon.com thinking about what I planned to buy in April I noticed an incredible deal on a video game I had been wanting for some time now. However, it was still March, and there was only one of the video game… and I was determined not to break my resolve even though I would be sad that I missed the video game should someone else buy it before I did… Then I remembered that April started at midnight!!!

So at 12:07 A.M. April 1st 2008 I completed the purchase of my new video game. It was $8.98 including shipping. And despite being a bit sleepy today I am very glad I stayed up and got it and even more glad that I kept the goal I set for myself:)

This Valentines day I started a tradition that hopefully either I will remember to do it next year, or even more hopefully I won’t have to.

I wrote a valentine to “Someone”. I had just watched the Music Man in which movie is a song entitled “Goodnight my Someone.” so I was inspired to write “Happy Valentines Day my Someone.” I wrote the date on the valentine I carefully picked out so someday when I eventually meet/figure-out-who-is my “Someone” I can show it to him and he can know that on February 14th, 2008 on my nineteenth Valentines day, I was thinking about him. And I definitely wasn’t with someone else…

And since I am not expecting to get any valentines I thought that I would write one to myself from “Someone”. So I picked out one I knew I’d like and was appropriate to the occasion(and it matched the one I wrote him perfectly) and addressed it to “The most Charming, Gorgeous, Intelligent, Creative, and Talented young lady in this room.” I wanted it to be flattering but truthful and as long as we are alone when I show it to him I think it will be quite truthful. Hopefully when I actually have a valentine he will address my cards without the “in this room” and add even more pleasant adjectives:)

In the play “The Importance of Being Earnest” one of the heroines wrote letters to herself from her future husband. When she finally met him and said that she had saved all of his letters tied up in pink ribbon he said “I never wrote you any letters” and she said, “No, you didn’t. I had to write them all myself!”. I don’t think I’m going to go that far… But I did write a valentine:) And next year if I remember and if I don’t have someone else to do it for me, I’ll probably write another. My, next Valentines Day I’ll be TWENTY!!! That feels… Frighteningly Old. And by old I do not mean that Twenty is old but merely that when you are Twenty you are out of your teens and are probably going to be considered as an adult whether you feel like being one or not. One the bright side, my mother might consider me almost old enough to meet someone… In the meantime I am certainly waiting for the right “someone” and I trust that at the right time God will see fit for us to meet, fall in love, and get married. Nice thought

Primarily because it means you don’t have to go out and buy it and save so much money:)

On my last Library visit I picked up a book on fashion which had me wanting a nicely fitted suit that looked very elegant and like one could wear it with pearls. So low and behold as I was investigating clothes I had completely forgotten about I found a gorgeous pink jacket and skirt that look very elegant and probably could be worn with pearls. And it kind of looks like Jackie Kenedy might have worn the outfit and I mean that as a compliment to the outfit. And considering how much I like the outfit, I think it’s a compliment to Jackie Kenedy too. Apparently I had bought this epitome of loveliness and perfect fit at a Thrift Store long ago for it still had the price tag of $3.99 stapled to it’s tag. The fabric is a pink brocade(ish) and features pink pearl beading on the sleeves and large pink pearlish buttons on the front. It is very elegant. So I was very happy to find it as it probably saves me going back to the thrift store and buying another suit for $5.00 or so…

In other news I’m on the third day of having a cold. And I know I have been sick because I stayed home from work two days which not is a typical thing for me to do. It’s been very nice. I rediscovered my DVD collection and was very happy since I have a monitor on my dresser that points comfortably towards my bed so all I have to do is lay there holding the remotes(one for the monitor and the other for the DVD player) in my hands. I do have to get up to change DVD’s but I can’t complain about that. It’s been a very relaxing and fun several days. And I’m so relaxed I’m actually writing a post… How astounding! However, this post is now over.

Last night I got to go to the Library. I left with eleven lengthy books on the topic of finance. Lately my passion is financial matters. I’ve been reading everything I can about how to become wealthy the right way. There are indeed many paths to wealth. I’m already started on it, in a very small way right now but at least I don’t have any debt.

Back to the library… Anyway, my interest in financial matters pretty much replaced my interest in writing. My time lately has been spent in planning how much a month at what interest rate is going to turn into my goal amount of money, and working on getting that much money. But I digress.

This morning I spent in depthy readings of Dave Ramsey (The Dave Ramsey Show, Financial Peace, The Total Money Makeover) and Robert T. Kiyosaki (Rich Dad, Poor Dad series) and the afternoon… I found the most beautiful website which has the sweetest looking horses that you can feed apples and brush and have your own little cottage to decorate… and the clever marketing ploy is that you have to buy the trading cards packs to get more horses and pretty furniture. It has such pretty fairy tale castles and winged horses that… I bought a set of the trading cards. It was a very weird drive home with my parents. On minute I would be talking about deep financial matters and the next I would be talking about cute little Bella or chestnut maned Peter and about the cute pink graphics of BellaSara.com and then I’d be back discussing the investing strategies of Warren Buffet before exclaiming that if you got a winged horse you got a special stable that was different from the regular stables and you could feed your winged horse special berries instead of the ordinary apples the regular horses got!

As far as financial knowledge goes, I’m probably way ahead of most people ten years older than me. But when it comes to lovely winged horses I’m… Well, the website did say for girls five and up and I do fit in that age range. Nineteen is older than five you know. It’s probably good to stay young at heart. And I am glad I’m posting. I’d really like to start writing again. I think I’ve missed it. I really have done much writing lately, except to plan my finances. I haven’t forgotten my fantasy stories though, most of my goals are named after the many characters from my stories. The official registered name of my vending machine business is “Strylar Vending”, Strylar being the kingdom of one of my longest stories to date.

I just realized, in my subject title I used “Velocity” and if you are thinking velocity had to do with the speed of the winged horse as it swoops down to land in front of the pretty pink castle, you are only partially correct. Velocity actually is a financial term for how quickly a dollar changes hands. For example, and I’m using an example from another book though changed a bit so I’m not completely plagiarizing, if ten people sit in a circle and they each had a dollar in one hand and a pack of BellaSara trading cards in the other, and each person gave the person on their left one dollar and bought their pack of trading cards from them then the velocity of those dollars would be one. And by the way, a dollar for a pack of those trading cards would be a great buy!

Now, lets say instead of each person having a dollar only one person had a dollar. Now that person bought the trading cards from the person on their left, who in turn bought the persons to their left’s pack of trading cards on their left… and so on until the dollar went around the whole circle. The velocity would of that dollar would be ten… unless it would be nine… The thought of all of those trading cards is making me so excited it’s hard to think strait. Still, you see that the one dollar did the same amount of work as the ten dollars from the previous example. The speed at which money changes hand is called Velocity. So a little bit of money can actually do the work of a lot of money if it is fast enough.

There, I was able to put in some useful information into this otherwise rambly post. It will be interesting the next time I write a fantasy story… I have a feeling there will be some very financially literate people in it and it would be interesting if they were like me, one minute talking highly intelligently about finances and the next minute talking about something else, like cheese or toasted marshmallows or sweet little bunny rabbits or… Hmm… I’m now quite interested in the idea of finding out what my next attempt at writing is going to be like. Pretty much all I’ve read for the past several months is financial books. I could probably write a financial book of my own but I’m not sure the publishers would be impressed with frequent references to princesses and dragons and beautiful winged horses flying through the sunset to land on a glittering tower of the beautiful pink castle…

Anyway, it feels wonderful to actually be writing a post again. I think I’ve missed writing. I think I’ve said that already. We’ll see if this desire to write is enough to get me to post regularly again. Bethjoy.com has been rather neglected lately, but my mutual funds and my 401k certainly haven’t. Due to this being public website, for safety reasons, I do not want to appear wealthy. Indeed, I am certainly not wealthy… yet! But my day is coming and someday, when I am in my sixties and probably no longer as attractive as I am now at nineteen(Not that on a public website I want to sound attractive either, though I am), I will be able to cruise around on cruise ships as much as I like and that sounds like a nice goal to work for. I may not have my own car now, but someday, if I choose to get one, I could probably a really sweet looking sports car, and pay cash for it (Attention, if you are reading this and I am starting to sound like the girl of your dreams, I am currently single so just make sure you are a Christian, trustworthy, fairly financially literate yourself, patient, and a host of other things to lengthy to go in now and… Hopefully we’ll meet:)

Hmm, that reminds me. That’s one of the reason I haven’t been posting because I’m not supposed to be talking about financial matters (or my desire for romance…) and they are such a main part of my life right now (except for the romance) that its about all I want to talk about (except for the desire for romance). I used to talk about the stories I was writing, now I talk about either the investments I’ve made or the investments I hope to make. Though I did just go shopping for some absolute gorgeous boots that had a retail tag for $79.00 and I got for $25.00. I use my highly developed sense of bargain hunting for investments products too. My grandmother was extremely impressed when I found a Money Market Account that was yielding over 5%(and FIDC insured) and her CD was doing quite a bit less than that. Online Comparison shopping… only way to go:) Though I did get the boots off a sale rack in an actual store…

So now I think I’ll say goodnight to my gorgeous new winged horses and not winged horses(I like them too) and perhaps take one more peak at how my investments are doing because I have the same smiling warm feeling about them too and…

I just realized, I was embarrassed enough (afterward, when I remembered how people had politely left my vicinity) when I mentioned in public that I talked to my teddy bear and now I’m talking about winged horses… Oh well, I’m nineteen, I’m probably different from any one else you will ever meet and my teddy bear is probably going to go on more European cruises than yours. Maybe. Um… I suppose I should stop now.