Goodbye, Mytutorlist.com!

Oh my goodness, it's been forever since I last wrote on here!  So much has happened since then.  I got married, I moved to a new home, I started investing in real estate... I have so much to tell you!  But before I hop into any of that, I want to tell you the very sad news that I have decided to finally close shop on my tutoring classifieds website, Mytutorlist.com.

I've had that website since my university days and it has served many students and tutors (and apparently people selling stuff from overseas).  However, it is very old now and uses outdated software.  It really needed an overhaul.  I was stuck between paying a lot of money to revamp the website, or paying a lot of money to keep that old site running old software.  They charge you to run old software.  Did you know that?

Well, I had started listening to this new podcast called The Bigger Pockets Money podcast.  They talk about money, financial independence and early retirement.  Now, I dunno about you, but I LOVE the idea of retiring early.  I mean, I would retire now if I could.  My friend sent me this awesome video of a guy quitting his job.  I wish I had the guts to do this.

Wouldn't it be amazing if we could all do this one day and kiss our stressful jobs goodbye?  Well, anyways, I decided that I would like to work towards early retirement.  So following the sage advice of those podcasters, I took a closer look at my expenses to see if anything was unnecessary.  Sadly, Mytutorlist.com didn't make the cut.  It costs me hosting and domain costs every month and yet I hardly look at the site anymore.  It makes maybe a few dollars per month in advertising.  That definitely does not offset the cost of keeping it. 

So thank you to those of you that were along with me on the journey of creating and running an online classifieds tutoring website.  I had fun creating it with my clever programmer, M. Paniagua Lojero and my trusty pal, V. Nand in 2006.  It's been a good, long run and it will be a fond farewell.

xoxo,
Marie

Old Fashioned Christmas Ornaments Inspiration

We have a rather old fashioned Christmas tree this year that I have covered with little handmade wired bows so far.  I used old fashioned looking ribbons by Martha Stewart.  We bought the ribbon rolls last year from Sears after Christmas for maybe 75 cents each!  It was too good to pass up, and now they are useful this year.

Now I'm thinking of what other cute handmade ornaments I would like to add so here are some pictures I've collected to inspire me (and you!) in your Christmas ornament making.

This has bows, my tree has bows... we could continue the theme?

One of my ribbons looks like this.  It would match!

These would really challenge my embroidery skills...

More embroidered cuties. 

Somehow a picture of someone holding the ornament like this makes it look more precious...  I'll keep that in mind if I ever sell something  :)

Oooh, houses!  Gnome houses are a favourite of mine. 

Grey... it has a certain look to it.  Not sure if it would go with my more tradtional tree... 

A traditional Christmas coloured star and heart with little sewn on details. 

Aha!  Something that looks easy!

Whoa!  Cute overload!  But I love them!  In more muted colours they would be perfect!

Rustic birds... I like them!  They look like chickens a little bit...

Super cute!  I would probably make them into puffy hearts though for more dimension.

These are pretty cute!  I wonder if I could use cinnamon sticks on the bottom for some nice smell too?  Or would that be too fragile/messy?

I was telling my husband the other day about making ornaments out of walnut shell halves in elementary school.  These are like the grown up version!

Well, that's all the pictures I have collected so far!  I hope your Christmas planning is coming along well!

If you're looking for some cute crafting how-to books for adorable handmade ornaments, here are a few that caught my eye!

(Okay, Proggy Menagerie is not really an ornament book.  It does however have a photo of a hedgehog and Proggy sounds close to Poggy, so WIN!)

When You're Having A Really Bad Day At Work

As a nurse, I can't really talk about everything that goes on at work.  So I figured I would paint about it.  You can interpret whatever you like about this picture, but it's probably not what you're thinking since I'm not being literal.  It's just that sometimes everything goes wrong and there's not much you can do about it.  So you fall apart at the end of day and make a really big deal about it.  The bad part of your day seeps into everything and everyone around you.  It feels like everything is wrong and everything is falling apart. 

Except it's not worth it.  At the end of day, you did the best you could and will keep doing the best you could.  You will keep fighting for better things and better ways of doing things.  You will survive.  Your poor family probably will remember all the terrible ways you acted and the stupid things you said while you were angry and upset, but they love you and will keep supporting you.  They understand that you are just reacting very humanly to very inhuman things.

And so it goes on.