Maintaining Again

I maintained at 240 lbs for nearly 2 years.  I finally decided to jump back on the wagon and try to lose some more and I got down to 225 over the last few weeks.  Naturally, after I start blogging again, I've maintained for the last 2 weeks.  That figures!  It's apparent that I'm eating too much to show a loss and I know it's due to the unbelievable stress of house hunting.  Dwayne and I have looked at 32 houses so far and still haven't found the right house.  Yes, 32 of them.  Our realtor told us at the beginning that the average person looks at 11 houses before they make their decision....obviously, we're not average.  So for now, I'm back in the maintenance phase...and now hoping this stretch doesn't last another 2 years!!  I do know that I need to lose a good bit more...225 lbs is not acceptable.  And as always, my first goal is to get anywhere below 200 lbs.  I'm 26 lbs. away from the first goal..and I'm hoping to reach it sooner rather than later.  Enjoy your weekend.  :)

Hanging In There

I swear I cannot remember to post!  Trying to get back into the blogging.  I'm still using Friday as weigh-in day.  No loss or gain this week....stayed the same.

And just real quick...here is why I love Ebay.  I went to some garage sales this morning looking for inventory.  I made it to an estate sale and paid $30 for some sterling silver flatware.  There were 12 pcs in the box...6 teaspoons and 6 dinner forks.  I got home and looked them up and according to completed sales, it looks like they're worth around $500.  I just got done polishing them and will be putting them up for bid this evening.  Enjoy your weekend.  :)

Getting Back Into It

I almost forgot to post tonight.  It's going to take some getting used to again, and I think I'll try to do a post every couple of days for now.  I might get into a Mon - Wed - Fri routine.

We had a good weekend.  It rained all weekend but I guess we need it.  Had a friend over for dinner Saturday night, did a lot of household chores, grocery shopping, etc.  Then today I did a Walmart run for some essentials.  I thought I might pick up a couple of cheap summer tops while I was there but that didn't happen.  I've never seen so many sequins and horizontal stripes in my life!  I just couldn't do it, lol.  Afterwards, Dwayne and I went to see the new Iron Man movie.  Eh.  It was ok.  I liked the first one better.

My change up for me on food for this week is a new breakfast.  My cholesterol is 50 pts too high due to too many eggs, so cutting way back on those and this week it's smoothies from the blender.  Eventually I might buy one of those Nutribullet thingies to grind up some veggie drinks, but the blender's not strong enough for that, so this week it's fruit.  I bought some strawberries, blackberries, blueberries, pineapple, bananas & Fuji apples.

Breakfast this morning was a blackberry smoothie...pretty tasty.  Here's what I put in it:

1 scoop whey protein powder - 130 cals
1 c. skim milk - 80 cals
1/2 c. Chobani plain yogurt - 70 cals
1/2 c. fresh blackberries - 37 cals
1 zero calorie Stevia packet

So total cals around 317 if I added that up right.  That's a decent amount for breakfast.  I can't say it was extremely filling, but it's fine to get me through til lunch time.  I made chicken stew for dinner tonight w/ just chicken breast, tomatoes and onions.  There's enough leftover for lunch for a couple of days.  I'll probably throw in a few garden salads too in order to make sure I'm getting my raw vegetables in.

The plan for tomorrow is to photo some glassware to put up in the Ebay store.  Lighting is always tricky with glass...sometimes it's hard to get good definition.  I've already photo'd these pieces once and didn't like how they turned out, so it's time to re-do them and get them listed.  Talk to you again soon.  :)

Hey Er'Body!

Wow it's been a while!  I've been reading my regular blogs all this time but for whatever reason decided to do a new post today.  Just a quick one to say how I'm doing. 

Still running my Ebay store and now have an Etsy shop as well for vintage items.  I love working from home...it is such a joy.  I spend my days surrounded by Scarlette and lots and lots of inventory. 
I'll post my links here in case you want to check them out.  :)

http://stores.ebay.com/TJs-Timeless-Treasures?_rdc=1

http://www.etsy.com/shop/FiddlestixandFancy

On the weight loss front, I hung around 240 lbs. for almost 2 years.  No more bingeing, but then there's no need to binge when you're eating whatever you want and restricting nothing, right?  While I'm glad that I never climbed back up over the 240 mark to the 340 I used to be, it still takes a whole lot of calories to maintain 240 lbs. 

After dropping the first 100 lbs, I got way too comfortable.  WAY.  No desire to drop anymore weight, until a few weeks ago.

Today I am 225, so I've lost 15 lbs. in the last 7-8 weeks or so.  I don't know exactly what happened...just woke up one day and said this is ridiculous...I need to try and drop some more weight.  So I started.  Nothing crazy or fanatical...just trying to eat less than I did before.  No timeline.  No major stress.  Changing things up every week or so as far as what types of things I eat.  For me, boredom is a diet killer.  But I have an overall low-carb thing going to get my diabetes under control.  Definitely addicted to carbs....definitely hard to restrict them.  But I'm trying again.  It feels good to be back at it.  It's still as hard as it ever was with Dwayne eating his usual stuff right beside me.  I guess I'll always be a work in progress, but I'm still here.  Still kickin'. 

Dwayne and I are looking for our first house to buy.  This was not the happy,  euphoric experience I thought it would be.  It is actually a living Hell.  Neither one of us are enjoying it.  We've had more fights in the last 30 days than we've had in our entire 9 year relationship.  Seriously.  I'm sure we'll be happy when we finally set up home in one....but getting there is real pain in the ass.  I think we're just about ready to give up until this Fall.  Hopefully by then the rush to get a house and get your kid in a new school will slow down.  Right now, everything is under contract.

So just stopping in with an update and to say hi.  I'll post again in couple of days.  Have a great weekend.  :)

I Gained It All Back

I'M TOTALLY KIDDING!!!!!!!!!!!!  LOL

How else was I going to get everyone's attention after being away for so long?? 

I'm actually the same weight as I was the last time I talked to you, or right around there.  I stepped on the scale this morning and I'm 238 lbs.  So I've been  hovering right around 240 for months on end.  I know that sounds horrible....but I'm actually a little relieved.  You see, I got laid off from the part-time insurance job a couple of months ago and I was sure I was going to balloon from stress, depression, etc.....but it hasn't happened.  Instead I've been concentrating on Ebay.  In fact, instead of just doing auctions, I bought a store.  And then I bought a SECOND store!! 

So now I'm running 2 stores and making twice as much as I was at the insurance place....Woo Hoo!!  On the downside, I have ONLY been concentrating on Ebay and haven't given weight loss a single thought, which is why I'm still 240. 

And speaking of depressing stuff....I'm turning 40 years old this week.  The horror!!  I've been stressed out about this for about 361 days, lol.  I've truly been dreading it my entire 39th year.  I have no idea why....it's probably no big deal.  I guess I just really loved my 30's and I'm gonna' miss them.  :)

Thanks to Biz for stopping by my blog a couple of weeks ago and saying hi!  That's when I realized how long it's been since I posted.  I didn't intentionally drop off the map...I've just had my nose to the grindstone with the Ebay thing.  I treat it like a full-time job as I definitely devote full-time hours to it.

More good news is coming.....Dwayne and I are looking to buy our first house this coming spring!  Soooo excited about that.  After years and years of renting and keeping my decor/treasures to a minimum, I'm really looking forward to settling into a place I can finally call "home" and buying some stuff to put on the walls!  And after all this Ebaying, I will most likely be buying my items from yard sales.  After seeing what people get rid of in these sales for dirt cheap, I can't see myself ever paying retail again.  :)

In case you want to see what I've been up to, here's the links to my 2 stores:

http://stores.ebay.com/Fiddlestix-and-Fancy

http://stores.ebay.com/TJs-Timeless-Treasures

Things are going well but I still have a long way to go to get the sales where I want them.  I belong to an Ebay Underground group and they post new stuff on the forum each day.  The info is invaluable....so much stuff to learn, ways to save in shipping, items to look out for that are hot right now, etc.  Yesterday someone did a post asking how everyone's sales were for July.  Most everyone considers the summer the SLOW months due to weddings, graduations, vacations, etc., but one of the ladies has done really well this month.  Her first week of July she made over $500 in sales, the 2nd week, over $800 and this past week she made over $900!!!!!  Now THAT'S where I want to be!!!  They say things really take off in September when the kids get back in school and the vacations end.  Supposedly it stays busy through January, so we shall see. 

Well I'm off to do some more work....just wanted to pop in say hey to everyone!!  I still get online and read blogs about once a week so I can keep up with everyone.  Drop me a note and let me know how you're doing.  :)  Talk again soon!

Getting Better

Did you know that when selling on ebay, your settings are defauled to letting the buyer change the invoice on an item before they pay???????  Someone on the ebay underground website told me that, so I went in and changed it.  I sold 8 items over the wknd, most on calculated shipping, and everything came out right.  Hallelujah!!! 

I got online and ordered shipping supplies (free) from USPS, and I also scheduled a  pick up for my front door.  I'm finally getting the process streamlined.

Someone asked me on my last post to give my ebay id so you guys can look at my stuff that's up for sell.  I don't know why I didn't think of that before!  It's tort8451.  I don't know if you can just enter that somewhere or not....I don't know anything about the buyer side.  But if you can figure it out then come visit me! :)

Have a FABULOUS Monday everybody.  :)

Death By Shipping

Where have I been??  Completely immersed in learning how to sell on ebay.  How's it going??  I still have a lot to learn.  Am I making decent money??  Not yet...but I'm working on it.  What have I learned so far??  Here's a list:

Well I finally found the form that allows you to do the calculated shipping, so that the buyer can enter their zip code on their end and pay exactly what it would cost to ship to them.  However that's not working out for some reason, and I have no idea why and no idea how to fix it.  Here are 2 examples...

I sold a kid's baseball glove and a Brighton handbag on a "Buy It Now" price this week.  I had entered the dimensions and weight for both in their listings on the calculated shipping form.  But when they paid, one paid $5 for shipping and the other paid $6.  Somehow I knew this wasn't right...it was way too little for a priority mail shipping cost (one lives in CA), so I didn't print the shipping label from home because I knew it would come out postage due.  Instead I drove to the post ofc and had them weigh each thing and tell me how much it would cost to ship.  Each item was $11 to ship.  Grrrrrrrr.

I was just about in tears over this.  I really thought I had it figured out with the calculated shipping form and was feeling a lot less stressed...until this.  Now I'm scared the shipping will be wrong on EVERYTHING and I'll just continue to lose money.  If each item were a high enough profit margin, it wouldn't be that big of  a deal....but most of my things aren't.  I'm still learning what to buy and not to buy at yard sales, based on what's selling for me.  I quite clearly have a lot of learning to do...and I'm feeling completely helpless and screwed on the shipping....I just don't know how to fix it.

I've also learned that I think things are worth a lot more than what people are willing to pay for them.  I had 12 items listed for auction last week and only 2 of them sold.  So I re-listed everything and dropped the price on it all for this week, and so far I've sold 2 items on a Buy It Now price....but don't have a single bid on anything else.  It's Thur and the auction ends Sat.

I'm not sure how long you should keep re-listing things before you say to heck with it and just throw the damn thing in the Goodwill pile.

I have about 50 things total listed this week due to some heavy duty garage saleling last Fri and Sat (including the 12 I re-listed).  Some of them are clothes.  I got an error msg saying I can't list anymore clothes because I've reached my limit in that category???  Something about being a new seller and having limits for 90 days.  WHATEVER.  I'm quickly growing weary of all of ebay's selling rules.  There's a ton of them. 

Someone who commented on one of my posts turned me onto a REALLY cool website called Ebay Underground.  They have a forum where people talk about all kinds of things, give tips, list what they bought at what price and what things are selling for.  I haven't been able to spend a lot of time reading it yet though.  And a lot of them are moms and talking about buying kid's stuff and listing off things that I have no idea what they're talking about, lol.  I need to learn the names of kid's toys/games to be looking for....apparently there's a decent market for that.  Someone mentioned the other day they picked up one of those little Golden Books from years ago, in mint condition, and sold it for $150.  Now that's the kind of deal I'd like to find!!!

I'm trying to get my picture-taking down.  I bought 2 small desk lamps $7.97 ea. at Walmart and a white foamboard for background and set  up a little table with a white cloth, and for whatever reason, some of my pics are still coming out dark.  Dwayne thinks I need a new camera.  The room is all lit up and the item is nice and bright, but when you take the pic, the backlighting comes out sort of cream-colored, not nice and bright.  I don't know what to do there either...if it's the camera or something else.

If anyone has any tips, I'm all ears.  And I stepped on the scale this morning for the first time in a week....237.8.  Have a great day friends.  :)