Private Blog?

So I decided to make a weight loss blog but I wanted to make it a video blog.  Posting the videos will help motivate me to keep going and show progress.  Only problem is I want to make it private and only allow my normal followers reading...  Blogger isn't being very cooperative though. =(  It has an option to only allow specific users to see the blog but when I logged out of blogger and tested it - it still showed the posts.  That makes me uncomfortable.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Photography Practice

I've been trying to learn how to shoot my Digital SLR in manual mode.  Not the most impressive pictures but I guess practice makes perfect.

(Gotta love the doggy snot marks on the window!)

Winter Blues

Winter in Florida is never much to brag about.  It's only cold for about a month and our cold is nothing compared to most others.  Winter also tends to bring a lull in business for my company and money is tight as people recover from christmas and try and get their finances in order.  Income taxes are due and yearly equipment maintenance always seems to fall about this time no matter how hard we plan ahead.  

There's an old farmers saying, "if we can just make it through winter," that applies around here.  It may not be cold for long but the stress of winter is felt by all.

I'm paid by commission and I purchased my sales territory for around 100k a little over a year ago.  The purchase price is based on the previous year's commission and as a result it was a fair price at the time.  The problem is that over the last year sales have dropped as the economy struggles and the products I distribute are considered a luxury.  It could change for the better just as quickly as it fell but you never know.  It's a gamble that could pay off big ... or not.  Because of the decrease in sales I am struggling to make the monthly payments required by the purchase price loans.  I am barely making it and have had many opportunities in the recent past to get back into a normal 40 hour a week job full of the stresses of traffic, politics, etc.  I've passed on them all mainly because of how wonderful this job is despite the money woes.  But recently something has come up that may force me out and leave me having to declare bankruptcy to survive.

I make the majority of my commission on 3 stores.  Store A, B, and C.  I have 11 total but the rest make so little money they could, in reality, be completely dropped and would hardly be noticed.  Store A is a club store - One of those big warehouse stores where you buy things in doubles or by the pound.   They offer only a few types of our products but the ones they do have I sell by the hundreds.  I gross about $1500 in that store weekly which leaves me with about a $300 dollar commission.   The next closest, Store B, only nets about $100 profit.

I found out about two weeks ago that most of the other sales associates in the state of Florida (other people like me who have bought the territory and are therefore servicing stores like A) have been neglecting the store allowing their shelves to run out and only servicing them twice a week or so.  As a result A's upper management has decided to end it's contract with my parent company.  That means I will not longer be able to put the product in the store and I'll lose out on $300 a week.  Since my paycheck normally only comes to about $500 or so, I have no idea how I am going to survive without it.  I won't be able to cover even the minimum business expenses.  I'm stuck owing 100k and not making enough to cover the $1500 a month payments.

Upper management of both companies are struggling to come together with some kind of agreement but I fear nothing can be done.  The tone set by A in their email to our company indicates that they are fed up and ready to move on.   It's sad really but I guess it's part of the gamble of owning a business.

(p.s. I changed my blog layout again! Who knows what it will be next week... Oooo Aaaaah)

Mac's Boot Camp

I got one of the new imacs for Christmas and am happy to say that because it has an intel processor, I can now dual boot into both Windows and OS X. This makes me extremely happy since I've already spent way too much money on programs like Photoshop and Lightroom. I can now use both operating systems when needed but I can honestly say that my heart belongs to OS X.

What surprised me most was how easy it was to dual boot. Mac has a utility called Boot Camp. When you start it up it asks you how large you want to make the Windows/Unix/Etc partition. You slide a bar to increase or decrease the size and then click accept. Within a minute it partitioned the drive and was ready to go. You do the same process to remove the partition..

After that you just pop in the windows CD and boot camp recognizes it. It restarts, runs the install, and boots into windows. To boot back into OS X there is a systray icon for boot camp. Click it and choose OS X and reboot. Easy as that.

There are some quirks to using the mac supplied mouse in Windows and so I had to attach a normal corded mouse to make it easier to navigate. That was no huge deal since the mac version of The Sims 3 is overly sensitive to the 'magic mouse' anyways. I just keep it plugged in and push it to the back behind the monitor when it's not in use.

Just wanted to share my experience. For anyone interested in a mac but not comfortable enough to abandon windows - it's easy to utilize the features of both operating systems now. 

Sarah's Thoughts

Sarah (who I adore but have never commented on her blog out of fear of rejection) recently posted this:

“I liked looking on at other people in crucial situations. If there was a road accident or a street fight or a baby pickled in a laboratory jar for me to look at, I’d stop and look so hard I never forgot it.

I certainly learned a lot of things I never would have learned otherwise this way, and even when they surprised me or made me sick I never let on, but pretended that’s the way I knew things were all the time.”

-The Bell Jar

This trip has made me comfortable with the fact that I’m okay with knowing people intimately for short periods of time. I don’t mind the quick, fast, drive-by, whirlwind conversation with a stranger. I like to be alone. A wanderer of sorts. I don’t need attachments. Friendship really is a luxury, something I love, but don’t need to survive. As long as I have people-to-people contact to keep me sane, to keep me grounded, to challenge my perspectives, to enlighten my ideals…I’ll be just fine.

Strangely enough this is sort of how I feel.  Makes me like Sarah even more.

Yay! Cupcakes!

So I made cupcakes using Stella's recipe!  They turned out great! I haven't frosted them yet but I did try one without the frosting and it was wonderful.

Here's a few photos of the process.

The ingredients.  I wasn't sure if Apple Cider vinegar was the same thing as cider vinegar and I wasnt sure if I needed self rising flour so I went for just unbleached flour... lol

All of the dry ingredients mixed together.

Adding in the liquid ingredients.  Added the vinegar last and only folded it in enough times to combine everything.

Let's get to baking!

All done!

That was so much fun! =D

Cupcakes!

I'm trying to make cupcakes! I'll post pictures when I'm done. =)  Wish me luck!