Yep, I was right about not posting for a while!
Things got very busy with work from 8-5, and then doing all sorts of stuff in the evening with Beijo and getting ready for Christmas. I drove up to NJ this past Friday after work so I had to have all my stuff ready by Thursday. The whole Christmas weekend was a whirlwind - driving 3 hours each way to my aunt and uncle and grandmother in upstate NY on Sunday, going to a cousin's house Monday afternoon, having a rushed Christmas morning and early dinner and leaving NJ at 2:30.
Now my husband will be going to Nags Head tomorrow and I'll be all alone until the new year. I need to figure out what I'm going to do for New Year's Eve. I know what I'll be doing the weekend before - getting new kitchen appliances! Yay for me!
Maybe this week since I'll have time to myself I'll be able to post a little and give more details about my December.
I had my second party on Friday, which was actually part 2 of a party I had a few weeks ago at my hostess' office. We put all the sales together after Friday's party, and I had over $1400 in sales! Yay! I also scheduled another party in January, and a woman wants to get together with her coworkers tomorrow and will hopefully schedule a party in December. I've got a party the first week of December as well. I really hope these parties will give me more leads for more parties, and I will soon reach my goal of 1 party a week.
I really hope to soon start making a profit, because it seems like every time I make a sale, I end up buying more inventory with the money I make. The hardest part is figuring out what to order - what styles, what colors. And it never fails - if a bag comes in 6 colors and I have it in 5 of them, someone wants that bag in the one color I don't have and I have to order it.
And I hope more people in my city go to these parties - my friend who has had these parties lives an hour away, and all her friends live around there. Fortunately, her sister in law lives where I live, and she is the one who wants to have a party in December - if I can get sales leads from her and be able to stay in town, I won't have to spend so much $$$ on gas to get to the parties!
Okay, I need to enter my sales into the Beijo extranet. And then start working on a Thanksgiving menu. Thanksgiving is coming so early this year!
You know why I changed the look of my blog to Christmas already? Because I'm a lazy ass and haven't posted in over 2 months and missed out on the cool Halloween designs, so who knows when I'll be back here!
Update on my business. I had my first party a few weeks ago. I know, I've been at this since April, what the hell took so long? Well, I made the beer and wine festival over Memorial Day weekend my "coming out party" so to speak, and didn't realize that the business goes dead in the summer. I got no sales leads from the festival, but I sold a few bags to individuals over the summer. Then in September I ordered some new styles of bags, and a couple we are friends with were over the house when the bags came in. The wife loved the bags, bought one, and then scheduled a party for her coworkers. The first party wasn't great, but it wasn't bad either - I sold 7 bags, and 10 people showed up for the party - I'm happy with that. My hostess then scheduled a second party at her house for close friends and family, and two women from the party are going together to host another party for their friends and family. And then my mom decided to host a party, which blew me away because I asked her to host a party over the summer and she would have nothing to do with that.
I'm hoping to get out of the red with these parties, but I feel like any time I make any money I'm immediately spending it on more inventory. It is a vicious cycle!
My office job has been crazy busy. My work literally doubled in September, so I've been running around town every day, with two permanent offices and a third location I show up in at least twice a week. I'm expecting a very nice Christmas bonus. I've earned it!
Okay, I need to refill my wine glass, and then eat some dinner. Have a great night, y'all!
Well, so far I've lost 10 pounds. Woot! I hope I don't get bored with the calorie and fat gram counting. I don't want to look HUGE anymore.
Anyway, I've decided to write about something that I've been obsessing over for the past few months. My friend (which I'll give the pseudoname Martha) blew me off this year, and since June I've been getting myself into a tizzy about it. Martha announced her pregnancy to me in December, just before Christmas. Between January and June, I emailed her a number of times, telling her about my life and asking how she was and how the pregnancy was. If I got a reply, it was something quick, telling me that everything is great and that she'll try to give me a call. A few times I tried calling her and just got her voicemail, and she never calls me back if I leave a message so I didn't leave any. At the end of May I mailed her a package of baby stuff and stuff for her and her husband, and I emailed her work address (because she never gave me her personal address!) to let her know. I got an automated reply saying that she was on maternity leave until October. A week or two later I was part of a mass email from Martha's husband letting me know that their baby was born. A few days after that my mother (who is best friends with Martha's mother) told me that Martha was having problems with the pregnancy and had to be induced early.
A week after the baby was born I got a call from Martha. She said that she had been too weak to call people until that day, and I was the first person she called. She thanked me for the gifts, and when I tried to ask her why she didn't tell me about the complication with her pregnancy she got short with me and immediately changed the topic. The only thing she wanted to talk about was the baby, and I wanted to talk to her about her health and the state of our friendship. It was a really awkward conversation, because it was clear that she only called so that I could fawn over her baby with her, and I was so hurt over her lack of communication that I didn't care to fawn over anyone in her family at the moment. After a few minutes she said she had a number of calls to make and as soon as she was feeling better she would call me and have a long talk with me. After we hung up I knew I wasn't going to hear from her until my birthday, in August.
And I was right! Didn't hear a thing from Martha the rest of June or all of July. I asked my friends what I should do about her birthday (hers is 2 days before mine) and all of my friends said, "Fuck Martha. She obviously doesn't care about you anymore." but when I asked my husband, he suggested I take the high road and send her a card. So I did. I sent her a pretty generic birthday card, nothing personal about it at all. I decided that was going to be my "going away" card to her - this was going to be the last time I send her anything unless I hear from her and get to talk things out with her.
So her birthday came and went, and while I usually call her I decided not to this year, and I had the great excuse of having to go to a wedding that day so it wasn't like I was sitting around not calling her. Two days later it was my birthday, and I had a nice day full of cake, ice cream, and people singing to me, and at the end of the night I took a shower, and while I was in the shower Martha called me on my cell phone. I didn't get the message until the next morning, and it was Martha telling me that she and her husband and her parents who were at her house all wished me a happy birthday. Nothing about not getting in touch with me, nothing about hoping to talk to me soon, no birthday song (we used to always sing the birthday song to each other). And no card in the mail. Now, I know she has been spending most of the summer at her beach house with her mother, and her mother managed to send me a package w/a card and have it delivered on my birthday. But I never got a card from Martha. And for some reason, this has really pissed me off.
Why should I be surprised that I got a icy-cold message on a late-night voicemail (yes, I consider 10pm on a work night late) and nothing else? She has treated me this way all year, is she supposed to change all of a sudden? Why am I still obsessing over this? Why do I still care, and why am I still pissed about not getting a card a week after my birthday? I think I may be pissed about the card because I was going to be all bad-ass and not send her a card, but then I broke down and sent her one anyway, and then she was the one who blew me off. AGAIN.
I'm becoming a glutton for punishment, and I'm mad at myself for letting myself become that way. I need a spine!
I'm not feeling so disgustingly fat lately. I don't know if it is all in my head, or if I'm actually losing weight. I'm going to weigh myself on Monday and then check in on the Alli website.
I have a wedding in NJ to go to this weekend. I know I will be eating a lot, but I will definitely be watching what I'm eating. Mom got me a birthday cake and I know I have to have a piece of that tonight, and I'm more bothered by the fact that I'll be eating after 9pm than the fact that I'll be eating cake. I have this strong aversion to eating after 8pm, unless I know I'll be up until the wee hours of the morning. It is like I can eat from the moment I wake up until 8pm, and after that I refuse to eat.
I haven't been taking the pills for every meal - there are times when I know I'm eating more than 15g of fat, and then there are times when I don't want to deal with the possibility of side effects the next day. Like, I had a nail appointment yesterday after work, so I didn't take a pill Wednesday at lunch because I didn't want to have to maybe deal with the poops the next day while at the nail salon. I won't take one today at lunch because I don't want to have to maybe deal with an oily ass tomorrow at the 11:30 am wedding.
Can this blog get any more boring?
Well, I guess the pills are finally making it through my body. Yesterday I saw 2 drops of oil in the toilet. This morning, a bit more. But at least it isn't just randomly leaking out of my ass, it happens when I go to the bathroom. At first I was disgusted, but then I realized that what is in the toilet was fat that my body didn't absorb - and any fat that isn't in my body is good fat! If it doesn't get any worse than what I saw this morning, I can definitely deal with it.
Well, so far no nasty poops!
Actually, I had no BMs on Saturday, which was surprising.
I haven't told my husband that I'm taking the pills. Actually, I haven't even told him I'm watching what I'm eating because if I ever not eat well at a meal he'll be all, "I thought you wanted to lose weight?" and make me feel bad. So if he puts two and two together when he sees me eating more fruit and fresh vegetables that is fine but I'm not making an announcement to him.
Last night he asked me if I wanted to go out for an ice cream after we ate dinner. If I said no, he would have known something was up, so I went, hoping that there would be some low/no-fat something-or-other. The place had frozen hot chocolate, which is like hot chocolate mix, some milk, and ice, all blended up. I thought that was the lowest-fat item there, so I got it. I was so afraid I was going to wake up with oily shit, but nothing happened! Maybe it really is somewhat low-fat, or that the dinner I ate was so low fat that I didn't go overboard.
I registered with the Alli website last night. It gave me a menu for all my meals for the week, and recipes. I am going to use them as a guide, not eat exactly what the menu tells me, especially since a lot of the meals include seafood, which I'm allergic to. I was surprised at how many meals included low-fat mayo - I hate mayo so I'm going to try to find something I can use as a substitute.
So a few weeks ago I went to the doctor to get a mole looked at. I got weighed there, and was disgusted with my weight, so I decided I was going to watch what I'm eating and try to get down to a tolerable weight.
While I was at Target getting a prescription filled I saw the starter kits for Alli, the FDA-approved OTC weight loss drug. I decided to try it out. From what I've read about Alli, the worst side effect is oily discharge from your ass. The pills block the fat in the food you eat from being absorbed, and it you eat too much fat it has nowhere to go but drip out your ass. The pills help you keep track of what you are eating - you obviously need to look at everything you eat before deciding to take a pill (you can skip pills for meals you know will be over 15 grams of fat) so you have to analyze everything that goes into your stomach. While I don't want oil dripping out of my ass, the thought of having to make a decision about everything I put in my mouth was interesting and something I wanted to try. At least for one month. These pills aren't cheap, and if I don't see improvements by Labor Day, I won't buy any more.
I just hope that instead of just opting to not take a pill, I will make more of an effort to have less than 15 grams of fat with each meal. I started the pills last night with dinner. So far I haven't had any effects, but I did read that it would take 24 hours for the oily effects to show (ie, if I ate too much fat last night, I wouldn't observe the effects of it until this evening). Wish me (and my ass) luck!
I've been so busy!
My new office job has been going really well. I'm getting along with everyone, actually being given formal training, and just having fun with everyone I'm working with. I've gotten a few crazy people in the office, and of course the ignorant rednecks, but at least I have coworkers that joke about them. My coworkers are a riot with sick senses of humor just like mine.
The new business is chugging along. I'm selling bags without even tyring! Last weekend I even sold the bag off my shoulder. Over Memorial Day weekend I'll be selling my bags at a local beer and wine festival. Everyone who has seen my bags has told me that I should do very well, including the sponsors of the event! I hope I make some money off of this and make a lot of business contacts. I'm considering this my coming out party for my business!
I still need to get my butt in gear and get set up to accept credit cards, and I need to get some folding tables for the booth rental, and table cloths, and who knows what else that I can't think of at the moment. I also need to clean out my pig pen of an office to get everything reorganized and find a place to put all my bags!
One day I'll come up with a system to keep track of everything. One day.
Well, this past Friday I sold my first bag! I sold it to a stylist in the hair salon where I get my hair done. The girls in the salon really liked the bags and want to have a party in the salon - I'm excited about that! I tried to sell some more bags this morning at the bank where I opened my business checking account, but the 2 women I originally spoke with were not in this morning - I'll try again tomorrow afternoon.
I know if I ever make enough selling bags to make a living off it, it will take a long time, so I have still been looking for office work. I'm starting a job on Wednesday - I'll be working for another employment agency doing on-site recruiting for a big customer of theirs. I have always liked this agency more than the other agency I worked for, and they had been trying to get me in to work for them for a while but things never worked out. Now the stars have aligned, and I'm in! This customer is very picky and the only reason why I got this job is because they don't like the agency person that is in there now. I hope they will like me! Keep fingers crossed!
