Big work day :)

Large Vintage Boat Painting on Wood - One of Two

Occasionally, I don't get a lot done. Overall, I am incredibly productive, but this also includes time that is not always filled with activity. Today has already been an incredibly productive day, and it's not even two o'clock yet. I got through a ton of merchandise that has been waiting to be photographed and listed. I feel like a bad ass.

Vintage Hermes on the Lyre Needlepoint

My friend Van over at Thrift Core always talks about branding and doing what nobody else does. Every time she says something about this, I think about what I do differently from other eBay sellers. I have yet to figure it out. I want to be unique, but I also make money from selling things that aren't so unique, like Anthropologie and Lululemon clothing.

Maybe it's because I make so much of my purchases at thrift stores. My store reflects thrift culture in that it is a cheap(er) way to be unique, stand out, but also to wear designer clothing if you don't want to be different. I sell 7 For All Mankind jeans because I know there are teenage girls out there who want to be like everyone else.

Vintage Kitchen Decor - Kitschy Art

More than ever before, I want to make money at what I do, not gold shoes money, just gas and groceries money. I think I've finally come to a place where I think I can make more money doing what I absolutely love. Maybe I haven't figured out how to describe it per se, but I'm figuring out how to do it better every day.

Close friends of mine still don't really know what I do, and that's okay. I haven't talked a lot about it until recently. I think I was embarrassed to be someone with an eBay store. Even when I tried to be vulnerable, I felt like people shut me down with negative statements. I have had to learn to be okay with what I do and who I am regardless of what anyone else says. If I take this position, and actually talk about my life with people I'm close to, I have more positive interactions than negative interactions. I've learned who in my life likes to hear about my shop, and who doesn't really care. Now I have friends in real life who get excited with me when I have a big month.

So all y'all online friends, thank you for all of your support. Sometimes I need your kudos more than you know :)

Sometimes, I eat milk chocolate

 

This recent post by Katy over at "The Non-Consumer Advocate" got some heated responses, so much so that she shut down commentary on the post.

I myself have been the recipient of some pretty nasty online communication. It hurts when people are rude because they can be, instead of assuming the best and perhaps beginning some dialogue about their "negative" feelings. I think that people on Katy's blog were generally able to say how they felt, and the conversation was cordial and honest.

I talk about online manners a lot because I work online. Very, very rarely do I get to meet a customer face-to-face, or a reader for that matter, and I have learned time and again how important it is to be literal in one's communication, and kind above all else. Sometimes, it is even appropriate to anticipate problems and address them before they happen.

I admit that this week, I did not respond well to an online overreaction. I was curt and annoyed when someone took offense at something that was in-no-way meant to be offensive. But in the end, I am only reminded that I am also human, and often fail. Sometimes, I eat milk chocolate.

Bootstraps, anyone?

 

This story kills me.

People offer us love, and we deny it. People offer us help, aid, and we throw it away, saying we'd rather find it ourselves. I have an image of a toddler in my head, practicing the art of independence-"Do it myself!"

There's a TED talk on vulnerability I'd like to watch today and perhaps respond to tomorrow.

Sometimes I say "yes", when I want to say "no", not because "no" is the right answer, but because I know that I am resisting the love of another person, wanting to avoid attachment. Sometimes we need to accept the love that is offered to us, even if it comes in a form that is unpleasant (e.g. I give my neighbors meat even though I don't believe I should; I buy Hershey chocolate because the man that put up my shelves asked for it, even though I believe that they practice slavery). Sometimes I think we need to take more time to make decisions. Sometimes those decisions will end up bringing us closer together.

And we need eachother. Life is tough, remember?

Saving trash

 

There is a big shredder in [one of] my office[s]. Yesterday, I was trying to figure out how to get inside of it to get to the gold-filled middle, also known as "piles upon piles of raw material". There was no opening, no lock. I looked for a minute, then gave up. It wasn't something I was really wanting, but I thought it would be cool if I could take some home every once in a while.

One of my coworkers asked what I was doing (naturally). I said, "I love shredded paper". She replied, "You're kidding, right?"

"Nope", said I.

"Why?" she asked.

"Because it's awesome. You can put it in your compost pile. You can use it in packages. I just love it."

She stared at me for a good fifteen seconds without saying anything, and I stared right back. I was not ashamed, and I wasn't going to feel the shame that she was sending my way. But I couldn't waver in my own mind, not for her sake, but for mine. In order to truly love myself, I had to own what it is that I love, even something so small and seemingly insignificant.

Because seriously? When I get up in the morning, it isn't to make money (It's pretty obvious I'm never going to make much anyhow). It's to save trash.

I love trash, and I'm okay with it. Boo-yah.

Loving what you love

 

Do you ever wonder why you want what you want, what makes you interested in your interests, why you love who you love?

Sometimes our desires are born from our upbringing, and sometimes this can be good. You like Christmas music because it reminds you of the holidays with your family. You love strudel because you always ate it at Grandma's house. You like to bowl, because you went bowling every Saturday morning with Dad.

But sometimes our desires are born from suffering. You love running because it makes you feel strong, and you were made to feel weak and insignificant as a child. You love eating, sometimes too much, because it fills a void you can't quite name. You become an accountant because you were homeless as a child and want to avoid any feeling of helplessness.

These are things that trigger our deepest feelings, good and bad. Oftentimes, the things that are the most important to us are the most difficult to explain to other people. If your heart could speak, it would explain, and people would understand.

I'm beginning to think that I love what I love for good reasons, and bad reasons, and I'm wondering where to draw the line. How much bad is too much?

My life- a regular soap opera

So for some reason, I have received several insulting criticisms over the past few days via the internet. Some were veiled with false praise, while others were just blatantly unkind and unnecessary. Add to this some very passive-aggressive behavior by other people in my immediate life, and you've got yourself a regular soap opera, courtesy of Megan's world.

I was once very sensitive to critique of any kind. But now I hear criticism and I have to let it go, or else I would crumble. I have to suck up my defenses that immediately bristle. Instead of saying, "Hey bee-otch. Why do you find it necessary to be so rude to someone you've never met?" No. Instead, I say, "I am so terribly sorry that you are unhappy. Please let me know what I can do to make this right." There was no response to that particular email. Success! I was somehow able to diffuse a very hostile situation with total submission.

Finally, I take a deep breath, remind myself of the numerous people who appreciate me, and move on with my day.

Mental health day

I have so many things to do-important things to do-things that must be done. But I don't have it in me. I don't have anything in me. I don't know where it all went, but it's not here. So I'm going to sit in one place until it returns. See you when I see you.

Note: Today is Drug Disposal Day. Go here for a nearby location to drop off your unused and/or expired medications.

I love you...goodbye

There was a time in my life when I had to give up every vice. I think I tried to give things up for God, like God cared about my love for chocolate/peanut butter ice cream. For Lent one year, I gave up ten things. It was ridiculous. I think I tried to fast too (as in not eating for days). I was trying to purge my life of everything I thought God wanted me to get rid of. It was very monkish of me. I've joked for a long time about becoming a nun. It's probably because I've struggled for a long time thinking that I am a terrible person (I'm completely over that now).

Well, those attempts failed. My love for chocolate/peanut butter ice cream hasn't gone anywhere, and I'm not troubled by it. I have, however, gone to the grocery store three times this week looking for my SO Delicious and it's been all gone-every freakin time! But I digress...

The point is, sometimes the things we think are vices are really less important than the negative thoughts we think about ourselves and other people, and the negative influences we allow into our lives. Sometimes these influences are people. Sometimes, as painful as it is (and believe me, I've lived the unbelievable pain), it's the only way to move forward. Maybe someday you can return, but you have to grow and change on your own before you can return to those who you've worked with to become the broken person you are today.

I highly recommend Laura Davis's book I Thought We'd Never Speak Again. I have a wonderful ex-library copy by my bed that I read when I'm feeling particularly blue. It gives me hope that loss can be a good thing, and that I am currently becoming the person I want to be, and maybe, just maybe, someday things will be different.

I've been convicted

My Amazon jungle front yard.

So I freely use tape on my packaging. I often use recycled or reused packaging products (come on, I go through the trash at the post office for extra cushioning). But I've been buying shipping tape at the dollar store for quite a long time. Well eBay has convicted me with their "green" marketing campaign. It seems that regular tape is not biodegradable. Who knew? Well, I did, but I wasn't really paying attention.

I have now purchased water-activated tape, which is made of paper, and is biodegradable, and usually made from 100% recycled materials (awesome). But of course, it's more expensive, and not at the dollar store (at least, I don't think it is-I haven't checked). So I will now be making my packages that much more great by not adding to the landfills in any way with regular clear tape (I got mine through eBay).

Obviously this creates a real problem for all you parents out there. Those kiddies sure love the duct tape, don't they?

The depth of death

So, for probably the first time in my life, I went to an estate sale on a Friday morning, at 8am. Yup. I'm that awesome. There were already people leaving. Meh. Whatever.

The house smelled like urine. It was awful. I seriously thought, "How long was this person dead before they found her?" Then, to top it off, the people running the sale happened to be professionals and relatives, so I got to talking with one of the women about the deceased. She was 97, single all her life. Once, she traveled around the world in 69 days. She loved life. This I learned while going through her books on her living room floor, wonderful art, architecture, and bird books, and of course the full Left Behind series.

I started to think about how my life would look to those closest to me if they went through my belongings right now, like if I died today, and people had to figure out what to do with my stuff. I know I'm a really honest person, but I wouldn't want just anyone going through my things. It's so personal, even if there aren't necessarily things that I want hidden. I still want the deepest parts of myself to only be known by a couple people. I still want to have special intimate relationships where the other person knows me better than anyone else does. I think I sometimes come across as someone who will tell anyone anything, but that isn't true. I think it just looks like that because I'm a complex person. There's a lot to me, so there's a lot of surface material to work with. But there's a whole hell of a lot underneath that I don't bring out every day.

I hope you know that. Because I want people to see me as an open, honest person. But I also want people to see me as I am, as imperfect, flawed, and human.

And again, I fantasized today about having my own estate sale business. Ah, a beautiful thought.

I can't ask for help

So in my fierce stubbornness, I am occasionally unable to ask for help. Usually it's for parental things (i.e. things that I couldn't ask my parents), like money, or help with a project, or a ride somewhere. Well, this is really never a good thing. I still have piles of boxes in my front room because I've reached the end of my own competence and I can't ask for help. So I'm just stuck.

This isn't entirely childish of me. I used to do everything by myself and never needed anything from anyone. Now, I realize that it's unhealthy for me to live that way, but I'm also still stuck asking the wrong people over and over again, people who don't actually help, who just give lip service to it. I don't know why I keep doing the same wrong thing.

It's so shameful to ask for help. It means that I'm weak, that I can't do everything, that I need other people. But when I ask for help, it means that in order to actually be helped, I have to listen to advice oftentimes, advice that I don't want to hear. So until I'm able to get over my own pride, I'm going to be miserable, being vomited on by a sick crying child, on a bus far from home, because I wouldn't accept the ride I was offered (ah, great metaphor).